 Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the ninth meeting of the criminal justice committee. We've no apologies received this morning, and the first agenda item is to agree whether to take item 3 in private, which is consideration of today's evidence. Are we all agreed? The next agenda item is consideration of the spending priorities in the justice sector for 2022 to 2023, focusing today on the Crown Office and then the prison service, and I refer members to papers 1 to 3. I welcome this morning our first panel of witnesses, who I'm delighted to see in person. Welcome Dorothy Bain QC, a Lord Advocate, and Mr David Harvey, Crown Agent of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. We very much appreciate you taking time to join us this morning. I thank all the witnesses for their written submissions, and they are available online. I intend to allow around about an hour and 15 minutes for questions and discussion. Please can I ask members to indicate which witness you are directing your remarks to, and I would like to invite the Lord Advocate to make a short opening statement, and I'll ask the Crown Agent after that, if he has anything that he wishes to add. Thank you for inviting me to give evidence and for permitting me to give some opening remarks, conscious as I am, that this is my first appearance before the committee as Lord Advocate. I very much look forward to working with all of you during this session of the Parliament and my period in office. I'm here with the Crown Agent, who is the chief executive and accountable officer of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. I should say at the outset that day in and day out, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service staff fulfil their responsibilities to prosecute crime and investigate sudden, unexpected and suspicious deaths, and they do so rigorously, fairly and effectively. I take a realistic view of the pressures on public sector funding. The substantial increase in this year's budget was most welcome and is sufficient for the normal level, the normal level of casework, based on pre-pandemic levels. It also enables the pay of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service staff to reach parity with colleagues in other Government departments. The biggest challenge to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is faced in the current financial year has been to recruit and fill the planned increases to the staffing complement, but we expect to reach full complement by the end of 2021-22. The challenges that the pandemic has presented and continues to present to the criminal justice system are unprecedented. I am grateful that the criminal justice system was collectively provided with additional funding to begin to tackle the backlogging trials without affecting our operational activity. It is important that that recovery funding is sustained. The Crown Agent and I will be happy to elaborate on the services plans during this evidence session. Thank you very much, Lord Advocate. On the back of your statement, Lord Advocate, I would like to open up some questioning. First, I would like to look at the issue that you raised in relation to recruitment. In your statement and your previous submissions, the issue of casework complexity has been raised. For example, we know that the High Court is now dealing with around about 70 per cent serious sexual offences cases, serious and organised crime cases and the number of petitions in terms of homicide cases has increased by around 31 per cent in the past financial year. You have helped to set out your plans around recruitment and increasing your overall staff numbers both this morning and in your previous submissions. I would like to ask for a wee bit more detail around that, particularly given the growing specialist nature of casework and the high tariff nature of cases that are being dealt with. Looking at the challenges from a budgetary context that you might face in that wider context of recruitment, particularly in the short to medium term. The main challenge that the Crown Office has faced in the current financial year has been to recruit sufficiently, suitably skilled and qualified staff, particularly at entry-level legal staff and IT staff grade. It is a challenge to increase the staffing complement so significantly in a very short period of time, but the news is that we are making good progress. As I pointed out in spite of the challenges, we expect to reach a full complement by the end of 2021-22 financial year. In so far as I am able to contribute further on that point and further in relation to the complexity and challenges of the casework, I think that it is of assistance for the committee to understand that I personally was privileged to serve as an advocate deputy, a senior advocate deputy, the assistant principal advocate deputy and the principal advocate deputy in the period of 2002-2011 under Lord Advocate's Boyd and Angelini. During that time, I shared probably the most rewarding time of my professional career working with the many talented lawyers and staff within the Crown Office and Procurator of Political Service, prosecuting many highly profiled and complex cases in the High Court and Court of the Peel. In that time, I grew to recognise the enormous contribution made by all those in the service to the prosecution of crime at that level, not just from those working in administration and business management and human resources, but the very talented lawyers who are the custodians of the public interest and who work and have always worked in the highly specialised fields of specialist in serious casework, homicide and major crime in the High Court and local courts. That personal experience of mine at the level that I prosecuted at demonstrated to me at that time that all of those within the service were committed to reaching the high levels of standard that were required for those very difficult and complex cases. When I returned to Crown Office after 11 years of being in private practice at the bar, I found that all the work that I had experienced through working with the staff and the lawyers in the Crown Office and Procurator of Political Service just simply had not changed. They demonstrated the same commitment, the same dedication, the same desire to strive to improve. There are profound challenges, yes, the recruitment is difficult, but I see that the way that we are progressing is in the right direction and we will achieve what is necessary in the way in which we prosecute those cases outlined by the convener to the committee. Thank you very much for that, that is very helpful. Sticking with the issue of recruitment and prosecution being a career choice for many, I am interested in some of the comments that Fiona Eadie from the FDA union made in her submission, just in relation to the way in which more experienced staff have an important role in mentoring, supervising younger, less experienced solicitors or PFs that are coming through the system. That is not solely an issue for the court system. Nonetheless, I am interested in what impact and what you see as being priorities within the context of mentoring and supervision so that younger, less experienced staff are able to learn on the job and build up their own experience, but at the same time allowing more experienced and senior staff to manage their own case work while fulfilling an important mentoring and supervision role. I am trying to look at that from a budgetary context, and I am interested in what you see as options within the court system in making that balance fit as well as possible. I can comment from my position as Lord Advocate, but perhaps the fine detail convener that you are looking for can be contributed to by the Crown Agent. At a high level, what I would say is that, as a prosecutor, I am determined to drive excellence in all Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal case work, and I see as critical to that the appropriate level of training provided to the lawyers that come to the service. It is in the public interest that we have well trained lawyers that cases are well prepared and are well presented in court. There is no doubt that the recruitment drive brings an enormous pressure in that regard. It has to be through the dedication of those who have committed their professional life to the service that we bring through young people to inspire them and to promote them, to view the work in the same way that all those dedicated servants within this Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service currently do. At a high level, I see training and education as critical to the improvement of the service. How we develop that in terms of the level that you are looking at, convener, perhaps the Crown Agent could give you a little bit more detail, but I recognise absolutely the strength and what Fiona Eadie has said from the FDA. To pick up on that point, I too recognise the point that Fiona Eadie is making, that staff have shown extraordinary resilience over this period and will continue to do so as we transition into a larger organisation with new recruits. That presents a challenge, but it is a welcome challenge to have the opportunity to bring on new enthusiastic skilled people. I know that colleagues welcome appreciating that that presents a short-term challenge. We recognised that as part of the exercise in terms of the recruitment. We had a new learning and development strategy published earlier this year precisely to accommodate this very challenge. Our training, generally, is quite highly regarded across the profession, whether at a trainee level or at more experienced levels, with bespoke courses. Given the nature of the challenge and the volume of the training that is required, that requires a particular approach, and not least because there is a variety of experience that is joining it. Some people, like myself, when I joined the service had already gained some experience in prosecuting in front of jury courts. Others are coming from different parts of the profession and may not have appeared in court at all. There is no one-size-fits-all. One of the things that we have consciously done is to have an induction policy that, insofar as possible, seeks to tailor to the individual. There is quite a lot I could say about this, but perhaps for the benefit of time I would be very happy to share the strategy document with you if that was of interest to the committee. I would be happy to pick up any detailed questions as required. That would be helpful. We would be grateful to receive that. Thank you for those responses. I will hand over. I know that there are some other members interested in just looking at some staffing issues, so I will hand over to Jamie Greene first and then Collette Stevenson. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Lord Advocate. Good morning. Thank you for attending this morning. It is also worth putting on record our thanks to the staff in the current office and the Procurator of Fiscal who have worked under tremendously difficult circumstances to keep our judicial system operating fairly and justly, so it is worth putting on record. I just want to drill down a little bit into some of the comments that were made in your written submission looking ahead and your asks of the Government as we scrutinise the forthcoming budget. The third bullet point in your looking ahead section says that additional funding for court recovery must be sustained. It will take many years to remove the trial backlog. Could you give the committee an indication of the scale of the backlog, the potential time period that it may take to clear it? More importantly, what analysis has been done by the current office for the potential cost of clearing the backlog? Clearly, it will require an uplift at the very least of budget year on year, 17 per cent last year. What percentage do you need this year to ensure that you are able to clear that backlog quickly, efficiently and fairly? Thank you, Mr Greene, for your question. I will deal firstly with the backlog and what troubles me deeply about that. With the assistance of the Crown Agent, I will look at if we can provide you with a figure that you are looking for. We have given some figures about cases and backlogs in the submission, but for me to say now that the backlog of cases and the timescale for recovery troubles me deeply. It impacts adversely on accused persons who are awaiting trial, victims and witnesses who are unable to obtain resolution and also on the lawyers and staff working within the Crown Office and Procater Fiscal Service. It delays justice for all and, consequently, individuals and communities do not obtain the protection of the law, which can be obtained from sentences of imprisonment, protective orders, court and post disqualifications. For me, out of all the difficulties and challenges presented, my acute concern relates to those highly vulnerable victims of serious gender-based violence that is predominantly women and girls whose cases are backed up in the system of prosecution and in the High Court where those very serious cases are tried. Out of 1,934 cases, post indictment, currently 1,290 of those are cases of serious sexual violence and currently, as at the end of September, 837 of those cases. That is a 57 per cent increase, since lockdown has our awaiting trial. Into this equation, I would add that there will be a significant increase in cases being indicted in the next two years. These cases of serious sexual violence make up 70 per cent of the High Court work and 80 to 85 per cent of cases that proceed to trial. The delays arising out of backlog, therefore, predominantly and disproportionately affect women and children. My acute concern arises out of the fact that the crimes of sexual violence do require a distinct approach because of the nature of the crime and the impact on the victims, causing enormous harm and often resulting in life-enduring consequences for the victims. The work done by Lady Smith and the Childhood Sexual Inquiry demonstrates that to be so, and that is why it is recognised as a violation of women's human rights and a form of discrimination. That is why the World Health Organization states that violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence, is a major public and clinical health problem and a violation of women's human rights. It is rooted in and perpetuates gender inequalities. Essentially, then, I consider that sexual crime is different to other forms of crime and requires a distinct response. Yet the solution to this remains a political one. It is for the Scottish Parliament to recognise this issue and to determine whether there is an alternative to what is currently being done that does not impact on accused rights to fair trial, but also recognises the scale of the impact on the rights of victims of gender-based sexual violence and to determine whether there is another measure to recover and renew in these cases, whether there is an alternative way to proceeding as an interim measure. Mr Greene, the backlog is an enormous problem and the figures are within the submission that we have given you. For my purposes today, I wish to highlight the extraordinary numbers of sexual violence cases waiting for trial and the impact that it has on the most vulnerable members of our community and the most vulnerable members of society that require the protection of our courts. Insofar, as the particular identifiable figure that we need to deal with the backlog, as I say, the Crown agent might help, it is also important to know and just to recognise that we have to work constructively with other people in the backlog. The Crown Office and Procure to Fiscal Service has to work with the Scottish court service, the law society, sheriff principles and senior judiciary to operate the court programme in a way that tackles a backlog, but what we know, whether or not we have a precise number of years at this stage is that it is going to be multiple years to clear the backlog in the high court, but more profoundly in terms of numbers in the sheriff and jury and local courts. That is the highlight of the response. I hope that you appreciate the reasons for that, and perhaps the Crown agent could explain a little further. First of all, Mr Greene may I thank you for the words that you said in relation to colleagues in the service, which I wholeheartedly endorse. Picking up on the Lord Advocate's point, I would extend that personally to everyone else who is involved across the system. In some ways, it has been a privilege over the last while during the pandemic because people have risen to the challenge across all of the organisations and the levels of collaboration and testing new ideas, etc. are at an unprecedented level and include law society and faculty. I would like to go on record for thanking them today, given the first opportunity. Insofar as a local court is concerned, just to give you a sense of the impact of the pandemic, in terms of sheriff court trials, before the pandemic, there were 13,400 or thereby trials outstanding. The number at the moment is over 32,400. In the JP court, it was just over 3,200, and it is now sitting at 7,890 or thereby. In the sheriff and jury court, which Lord Advocate referred to as a particular pinch point, and I agree with that, there were around 1,330 pre-pandemic, and currently there are in excess of 3,500. If I can be clear about one other point about this before I touch on the recovery plan, that caseload was not plateauing going into the pandemic. It was already rising quite significantly, particularly in the solemn courts, not so much in the summary courts, but in the solemn courts it was rising very significantly in the years leading up to the pandemic. There are two challenges, as if the pandemic challenge was not enough. There is the impact in terms of the backlog that has been created by the pandemic, but there was an underlying issue beforehand that is still there in relation to a serious offending that the merits petition. That is both at sheriff and jury and at high court. You have heard the Lord Advocate in terms of the disproportionate impact that it has on women and girls, where it really is eye-watering in terms of the percentages involved in the high court. That is the nature of the challenge. I am very conscious that you asked a finance question. In terms of nuts and bolts in terms of the recovery programme, the recovery programme, as it is currently agreed, enables four additional high trial courts, two additional sheriff and jury courts and ten additional summary trials courts. A pot of money was made available across the system to support that. We secured £7 million of that pot, but to be clear, that was part-year funding, because there was an assumption, as has been proven to be the case, that we would have to recruit, train and then be able to populate those courts. The full-year cost of that, not accounting for inflation and the issues of pay parity, which we can come on to as well. The full-year equivalent of that £7 million is 12, before you add any issues of inflation or pay parity to it. If that is a helpful figure just now for current purposes. I will forgive the lengthy answers, because I think that it was a high-level question in a sense. You have touched on the important issue of that. We are talking about budget and numbers and finance, but behind that lies people. You make those points eloquently today. Those are areas that the committee will discuss in more detail as we go on. The numbers are important, too, because it sounds like that is an extremely worrying situation in terms of the backlog. It sounds a little bit like a perfect storm that is facing you, because you had a rising number of cases before Covid. The pandemic clearly has added to those challenges and rising levels of vacancies and struggling to recruit to fulfil posts given the time lag that is required to take new entrants into the profession and train them to levels to manage those very complex, increasingly complex cases. I wanted to ask about that. The biggest cost, perhaps to you at the moment, will be people and places. In on that, your vacancy rate is currently 12.8 per cent. You stated that that will be down to 0.2 per cent by March 22. That is only five months away. How realistic do you think that that will be? Again, coming back to numbers, what will it take to get that 12.8 per cent down to practically nothing, which is what you are forecasting? I am just conscious that this is a really important discussion, but we have quite a lot of themes that we would like to work through, so we can keep answers and questions as succinct as possible. I would be grateful, thank you. I think that Mr Greene indicated that this is a very important issue. I have made my point about the backlog and I think that in terms of the fine details, in terms of numbers, figures, the Crown agent can come back on them. I appreciate the point that you make. I will try to be as brief as possible. We have a fairly high degree of confidence in those predictions. We have offers out with individuals that we are confident the numbers dropped down quite significantly before Christmas. One of the issues is just the time that it takes to do security checks and so on. We have a fairly high degree of confidence that we are about to have another step change and then, over the course of the start of the next financial year, there is still a challenge, but it is a significantly smaller challenge. I am perhaps happy to give time to follow up in writing with a bit more detail if that would help. That would be very helpful. I guess that this is your opportunity to make your ask of the Government, because the committee will present back to the Government the findings of our pre-budget scrutiny. If we know what we are asking for, then it makes life easier. You are welcome to follow up in writing. I guess that one area that would jump out at me of slight concern is that, if you are making a large number of offers to junior solicitors or people to come and join the Crown Office of Procurate Fiscal, that may be ringing alarm bells in other sectors of the legal sector. I wanted to ask you about what average salaries were in the Crown Office and the PF in comparison to, for example, the independent sector that you worked in previously. There is a general feeling that the public sector and governmental bodies are recruiting proactively and aggressively from other sectors where there are now shortages and they are really struggling to stay afloat. It is great news that you are reducing your headcount vacancy, but is that coming at the expense of other areas of the legal sector? Perhaps I can give a contribution from the position of someone who practised at the bar and then the Crown Agent can give the detail in relation to those who are being recruited to serve as permanent legal staff within the service. As an independent practitioner at the Scottish Bar as a QC in practice, I was very fortunate in my later years of practice to earn significant sums of money, which came from having committed myself to my job for a long, long time, and I have to say many hours and many unsociable hours of hard work. For me, talking personally, probably my rate of pay coming into Crown Office as an advocate deput and then committing again to public service is probably a quarter of what I earned as an advocate in private practice. That is the case for many of the people who are recruiting from the bar to come in and serve as an advocate deput serving in the public interest and committing to public service, which I have to say is the most rewarding part of any lawyer's work. It does involve an enormous financial drop in terms of salary and a huge commitment in terms of time and emotional engagement. So the notion that those who are coming from the bar to serve as advocate deputes are earning far more is just quite wrong. Noted. Like committee members to take away, and this might sound trite, is that this is going to be a marathon and that it's going to test the resilience of everybody across the system for years to come. That in essence is the professional challenge of their lifetimes. I'm hesitant about particular moments in time in comparisons because, from my perspective, it is absolutely essential to succeed in that marathon that we have a healthy and successful defence bar for the duration of that challenge. I don't regard the two things as mutually exclusive. On pay for COPFS staff, I think I mentioned the pay parity arrangements that are in place and they are contained in the letter. That put us for the first time since I joined COPFS in the late 1990s on parity with Government lawyers. That's all it did. That's something that we're seeking to implement over the course of three years, so we haven't achieved that yet. We are in a position where we are able to offer a better package than we were historically. Historically, there have been times where it would have been possible for me to leave the prosecution service and learn considerably more on the defence side. There's a particular moment in time here. I commend to the committee that it's important that all parts of the system are in a healthy state. As far as recruitment is concerned, we have done a little bit of work on it. The vast majority of the recruits that we have are not coming from defence practice directly, so about 40 per cent are homegrown, our own trainees. We're the largest recruiter of trainees across Scotland and have been for some years, so that creates benefits at times such as this. In terms of the applications that we've had, I'm told that over the course of the last year our HR colleagues have looked back and about a quarter of those who have been successful have identified themselves as coming from specifically a defence firm. About a third have come from other firms where it's perhaps mixed work, and the best part of 10 per cent have been unemployed at the time, and some of them were former defence colleagues. We have sought to and continue to recruit across a range of experience levels, which I think refers back to the first answer that I gave to the convener about why we need bespoke responses. I want to leave the committee with the thought that it really is something that we need a healthy profession across the board in order to be able to achieve the outcomes that I think everybody in the room wants to achieve when faced with a challenge such as this. I'll hand over to Collette Stevenson, bearing in mind that we've covered this off quite to quite an extent, and then I'll hand over to Pauline McNeill. Yeah, I'll try and be succinct as possible, convener, and good morning to both of you. Given the full-time equivalent staff, numbers have increased over the years, and I believe that it's now 2,000 from your submissions, what, if any, significant difference has this made so far to your service? Given what we've spoke about in the pinch points and the challenges that you face with the caseload as well, will the Crown Office need further real-time increase in funding for staff costs in next year's budget? What I would say in relation to the wonderful fact that we have had an increase in staff is that we are being given the opportunity to prepare cases and to prosecute them in a way that we would like. It is in the public interest that cases are well prepared and prosecuted, and if you have more staff and you have more people working on the case work, then the outcome will be just that. For me, it is wonderful to hear about and to experience the fact that there is a greater level of staffing within the fiscal service, but, in addition to that, there has been an enormous recruitment drive in relation to the advocate-depute cohort, which has resulted in the ability again to provide greater preparation time for cases and, hopefully, then a greater standard of preparation and presentation at trial. In addition to that, it has allowed me, as a Lord Advocate, for the first time to appoint a director of training specifically to the advocate-depute team, who are challenged day and daily in court to perform very difficult work in very pressing circumstances. Those opportunities allow us to serve the public interest better. Crown agent can give you a little bit more specifics on the staffing within the service. I will try to be brief, but referring back to what I said earlier, we were against a rising challenge in serious case work. When we talk about baseline and core funding in the submission to you, that is about the step change that was required in order to deal with that underlying trend, and, in our view, meet what we regarded as reasonable levels of public expectation in relation to that underlying trend. We then face the challenge of the backlogs over and above that, and I have given you some indication of the scale of those challenges. The funding that is available to us to deal with that backlog element is the recovery funding. What we have at the moment is an enormous number of cases live in the system, part of which would have been there anyway, regardless of the pandemic. We are midst recruiting in order to get ourselves to the staffing level that we believed would have been necessary to meet that underlying challenge and go beyond to then be able to deal with the recovery, and we are still in that process. Going back to the FDA submission, I entirely understand how that feels just now, because there are those two layers of challenge, and we are in the midst of recruiting in order to be able to deal with both of those challenges. The reasonable levels of public expectation, the levels of contact that we would want to have with victims and witnesses, the levels of support, etc. are things that we will continue to strive for, but against the reality of what I said three times as many sheriff summary cases, twice as many high court cases and the best part of three times as many sheriff and jury cases. There is a huge challenge to not only service those cases but to improve the service in those cases is significant. The fact that there is going to be, essentially, a 50 per cent increase in indictments in the next two years also from the current level, so that the cases to be indicted will increase from about 56 a month to about 100 a month. It is perhaps helpful to pick up on that with the 10 sheriff summary courts. The latest SCTS prediction is probably 2025-2026, similarly for high court. For sheriff and jury, it is longer than that, and that is operating at this capacity. We will be inditing 100 cases a month into the high court from the start of the next financial year as our prediction. I will quickly come in on that. In the pandemic, there have been online juries. How has that been financially, more of a challenge, more of a cost? You touched upon your submission about digital technology. How is that developing? Where do you stand financially there? Is there an initial outlay with potential savings going forward? As far as the use of technology is concerned, the service is wholly committed to continuing to play its part in modernising the justice system to provide a more efficient effect of response. The use of technology is seen as an important part in that. There are some digital solutions, such as custody processing or virtual trials. Currently, those may seem more resource intensive, but they look to be a way in which to improve matters, to improve the timescales for cases going through. They would include the opportunity to make savings from, for example, reduce travel time, court downtime and the challenges that often witnesses face in terms of attending court for cases. Certainly, the digital work that is being done by the service is very important to progress in the current situation of the pandemic. What the financing is over remote juries is concerned? I understand that that was probably a question that you would be better directing to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. I think that I'm right about that, Crown Agent. Of the funding that was made available for the recovery during the current financial year, over half of it went to the funding of the remote jury centres. It's really important. I think that the fundamental point that I would make is that we've got to embrace the notion of virtual courts and addressing meaningfully the backlogs of cases. To not do that would be a real failing. I think that we're being challenged probably earlier on that we might have expected because of what the pandemic has brought, but it is a very important part of the new recovery transition programme. I'll try to be very brief. Much of digital transformation is funded by capital. We had ten years of flat on capital. We've just recently had a welcome increase this year, but we have identified significant opportunities that could be made in terms of improvements across the system with investment. We're in the process of developing, along with justice partners, the digital evidence sharing capability across the system, a witness gateway and a defence agent system. Separately, as part of the emergency legislation that was helped by this Parliament, we've had electronic service of court documentation, etc. There are several things in the emergency legislation that I would suggest that we don't ever want to return back to the previous model, and electronic service is one of those, just by way of example. Then, in terms of, for example, other innovations and virtual custodates, there have been more than 1,000 of those so far. One of the challenges that we have at the moment is that it is operated as a hybrid system, which is almost more, in some ways, inefficient. There are some questions there about piloting, etc., and further exploration to make sure that the processes are absolutely, inscrutably fair, whether once we have an evaluation that that might be something that could be further expanded. I hand over to Pauline McNeill, and then I would like to move on to some questioning around violence against women and girls, and I'll bring Rona Mackay in. Pauline McNeill. Thank you very much. Good morning, Lord Advocate and Crown Agent. It's a follow-up from Jamie Greene's question on pee and staffing, but I wanted to begin by saying that I fully acknowledge that it was long overdue for Cunofa staff to have parity with Government lawyers ago a wee bit back in this one, so I'm fully aware of the years that it's taken, so I'm really delighted about that. My question relates to that, because, as Crown Agent, you have said, the challenges of outstanding trials are a huge challenge. However, if all the parts of the system are not functioning as they should, then we've got a bigger problem, and you'll be aware of the boycott of court due to the dispute on legal aid fees. In fact, I spoke to both the presidents of the Glasgow Bar Association and the Edinburgh Bar Association yesterday, and those lawyers are working 26 days consecutively over COP26. They are working over the three weekends. As you rightly said, Lord Advocate, if you work at the early rate for lawyers and those circumstances is pretty low and not to mention, as the committee has already heard, evidence that it's not exactly family friendly, so there's one part of the system that's clearly not working. My question is, do you think, Lord Advocate and Crown Agent, that there is a danger in the short form of availability of suitably experienced defence lawyers, because we are losing good lawyers because of this dispute, because of this long overdue issue of legal aids, might undermine efforts to improve criminal justice and, obviously, the challenge that you have before you, as you've outlined to the committee? Thank you, Ms McNeill, for the question. My response would have to be understood from my position as head of the prosecution service, and the points that you've outlined would raise concern in any quarter. From my perspective, what I would say is that it's important to the Crown Office and Procate of Fiscal Service that there is a well-functioning, well-served criminal defence bar in Scotland, because the rule of law requires it. It's essential that any system of prosecution of crime, that the rights of an accused person are properly protected and that the accused person is properly represented at trial. So it's in all of our interests, the Crown's interests and the public interest, that there's a strong defence bar and if there are issues in and around what they're paid and whether or not they can attract people to doing this important work, then that really isn't a matter for someone other than me. Perhaps your question would be better directed to those responsible for the legal aid fund, to the bar associations and the faculty of advocates and the Solicitor Advocates profession. For me, I see that it's essential that we have a strong defence bar. It's essential in any well-functioning system. If I may, I agree entirely in relation to what the Lord Advocate has just said and said of how imperative it is that there is a healthy defence bar, not just a functioning defence bar, a healthy defence bar. I think I touched on that earlier in terms of the challenge that we all face. I'm a Solicitor Advocate, I'm a member of the Solicitor profession. I have been on the other side of the table defending clients before I became a prosecutor and I am fully behind that it's absolutely essential for the proper administration of justice and effective rule of law in Scotland that there is a healthy defence bar. I think that there is perhaps an opportunity through all of this and we feel some way away from it just now, but going back to that point, I was making about the challenge of professional career. I'm sure you'll be familiar having had similar conversations. It's incredibly rewarding work, regardless of which side of the bar you're on in terms of the contribution that you feel you are making to society. I have spoken to senior leaders in the faculty and the law society about that. Given that this is a marathon and regrettably we're at the start of that marathon to build towards encouraging young lawyers to join us in that challenge of a lifetime across the different parts of the profession and appreciating that there are discussions to be had that are not for me in relation to how we ensure that everybody is brought along together with that, I would say for this committee and the role that you perform, there is something there about us all recognising that strategic challenge and, as you've said, making sure that all parts are in a position to move together and encouraging others to join us. We've just got less than half an hour left, so I'm going to move on to some questioning around violence against women and girls, and I'll ask Rona Mackay to come in and I'll hand back to Pauline McNeill. Thank you, convener, and I will try to keep this brief. I did want to ask some questions around that and also to thank you for speaking so passionately earlier about the subject and the unique nature of it. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. You also said in your opening statement that you felt that funding was adequate for the normal level of cases based on pre-pandemic levels. Given that solemn cases of domestic abuse have gone up by 20 per cent since 2019 and the huge backlogs that you have spoken about, do you think that this is a time for something radical? Do you favour a specialist court and do you think that you're going to have enough funding to cope with the extreme figures that you mentioned earlier? The first question is, is it time for a radical solution? I said at the beginning that the solution remains a political one and it's whether or not the Parliament is prepared to recognise the profound problems that we face in the prosecution of these very difficult cases because of the backlog and the fact that it is a violation of a woman's human rights to be the subject of gender-based violence. I think that the words of the World Health Organization say in that they say that it's a major public and clinical health problem and it's rooted in and perpetuates gender inequality. I do consider we need to take a radical step. The Crown Agent was on the work of the review that was carried out by the Lord Justice Clarke. The Lord Justice Clarke's review group made certain recommendations, one of them was for a pilot in relation to judge-ledged trials and I support that recommendation. However, in so far as what we're faced with now, what this committee understands now is that the question must be asked, is there another way to recover and renew in these cases? Is there an alternative way of proceeding that is an interim measure given to the pandemic? Is there another way? If there is, we are morally obliged, I consider to look at it. Thank you very much. This is the continuation of Rona Mackay's question and, as she did, I want to commend very strong words given to the committee. I agree that there is a moral imperative for all of the Government and the Parliament to consider very carefully the disproportion in nature of gender-based violence on women. As you and the Crown Agent have described, the delays that are unavoidable are going to impact very seriously. You are also right to say that it is a political matter, so a matter for us to consider. I am interested in your opinion as to the period of an interim judge-ledged trial, let's say, if that was legislated for. Are you thinking that one year or two years do you have any sort of time in mind? I know that it is probably quite hard to judge how long the backdrop will take to clear, but it would be helpful just to tell the committee how long you think would need those arrangements and then we could reassess the situation. Thank you, Ms McNeill. I know that you have committed a lot of the work that you have done as a politician to promoting those issues in relation to gender-based violence, and as a number of members of the committee, I haven't analysed out the sort of timescales that you are talking about. I think that what is important to say is that it does require detailed consideration. Within that, I think that there is a very interesting section of the Lord Justice Clarke's paper that relates to question of jury or non-dury trials and different models that are in existence across the Commonwealth and the European Union. Those are issues that should be looked at before anybody could say that it is likely to take X years or Y years in terms of recovery. What is important to recognise is that there would be a shortening in the length of the trials if there were non-dury trials. The period that the trial would take would be shorter. The opportunity to tackle the backlog would be there. What is also very important for me to underline is that, in saying what I do, I do not in any way wish to impact on an accused person's right to fair trial. Nobody more than me in all the years that I have practised as a lawyer recognises the importance of that, but we have a different constitutional arrangement in that of the English. The article 6 right to fair trial is not constitutionally informed. The English have the Magna Carta. We do not. What we know is that from jurisprudence, from case law from the European Court of Human Rights, a non-dury, a judge-led trial does not impact on an article 6 right to fair trial, where an accused person has the right to representation and would be receiving the decision of the fact finder in terms of a written decision. He or she would be given reasons for the conviction. It is important that, if there is to be a debate around this, there has to be a well-informed debate that recognises the competing legal rights of all those within the system. Fundamental to that is an accused article 6 right, of course, but there are other rights that need to be considered, and those are the rights of the victims of crime. In that respect, the solution remains political and timing in terms of how that would address the backlog is probably something for further inquiry and further examination if indeed the parliamentarians were prepared to take that forward. I think, Jamie Greene, you would like to come in with something on this. Thank you. We are steering away slightly from budget, but it is a deep philosophical conversation about how we manage these types of rising levels of crimes of this nature. I do not think that there is any disagreement that we all want to move to a more trauma-led approach to supporting the victims of these types of crimes. Are you saying that the political solution to this is one that needs to change simply because of the scale of the backlog and the lack of resource available to process it? Would that come therefore at the expense that we are making changes to the way that we prosecute and try people simply as a result of the situation that we find ourselves in, due to years of increasing levels of activity in cases? That would not surely be the right way to have to make changes, nor the reason why we should be making changes to how we try people, given the effect that it has on the rights of the accused and so on. I think that my point that I make arises out of the backlog because of what the backlog has created. That is where my point arises, that it has a disproportionate impact on women and children. As far as the political solution is concerned, that is for parliamentarians, but, Mr Greene, you suggest that what has been suggested is impactful on article 6 rights. It is not. That is the point that I make. We have to recognise all rights. We are not asking for anybody's rights to be curtailed or impacted upon or defeated in any way. We are just looking for a solution that needs to be provided for for those particular types of cases that require a distinct approach. That is something that is recognised across a number of areas of the world and, indeed, in the jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights. Crown agent, I think that it might be important for you to come back on a little bit more of what Mr Greene said about it being financially driven. It is not a question of finance. I suppose that I would just take a step back and refer to the comments made earlier about what was going on beforehand. I think that we have provided some statistics in relation to the increase in serious sexual offending that was happening before we went into the pandemic. I would actually put out two challenges that the Lord Advocate has put out, but there is also something fundamental here. Why is 80 per cent of our trials in the High Court are serious sexual offending? Part of that is that the sharp end in relation to those trials, but there is something far more profound about that as a society. I cannot imagine that there is any dispute about that in this room and I cannot imagine anything that would be easier to get behind in terms of anything that seeks to address that, whether that is from an educational point of view, because I am talking about a marathon not a sprint. I am also interested in the cases that are coming in five years time. I do not want 17 and 18-year-olds in five years time to find themselves in the High Court. Can we start to cut that off? There is a big debate. I am conscious that we are here about money, but there is a whole other issue here. I was not implying that the changes were financially led merely asking and raising the question. Katie Clark, I think that you would like to come in and then I would like to move on if I may too looking at issues around organised crime and I will stay with you. Katie, I know that you are interested in asking some questions on that. It was on drugs policy that I was going to ask in the budgetary implications. You made a statement to the chamber recently in relation to class A drugs consumption room. Last week, we heard representations from a range of campaigners in relation to issues such as drug consumption rooms. The first question that I have to ask is whether you agree with the repeated representations that have been given to us that there are no legal problems with drug consumption rooms in the current legislative framework. If you could perhaps outline the policy in relation to that but also are there any budgetary implications in terms of some of the shifts in policy that we are seeing in relation to drugs policy and then I perhaps can go on to the wider issues in relation to organised crime? I think that what is important to remember is the history behind drug consumption rooms. In June 2017, I think that it was, the Lord Advocate was asked by Glasgow City Health and Social Care partnership to confirm by way of guidelines or letters of comfort or protocols or formal policy that the health board, the council, the staff and partner organisations who were considering providing drug consumption facilities wouldn't be prosecuted for a range of potential offences and the then Lord Advocate did consider that proposal very carefully and reached the conclusion that the public interest objective in a consumption facility was a health rather than a justice one. However, in relation to what was asked of him in terms of prosecution, he concluded that it wasn't possible to grant the request. The potential offences which may be committed in any particular consumption facility will depend on the individual scheme envisaged, the policies and processes within the individual scheme and the actual behaviours of both the operators and the users. The Lord Advocate couldn't actually, as a matter of law, whether through policy or otherwise decriminalised conduct which was by law criminal nor could immunity from prosecution be granted in advance. The question of prosecution in the public interest is something different. If indeed there is a proposal that is made for a drug consumption facility that is precise, detailed, specific and underpinned by evidence and supported by those that would be responsible for policing such a facility and Police Scotland, and there is careful consideration in and around how those consumption rooms would impact on communities, then, if that sort of planned use of drug consumption rooms is brought to the Lord Advocate as a very well set-out proposal, then, in terms of the undoubted crisis that we face in relation to the number of drugs deaths in Scotland, if it is in the public interest that there should be no prosecutions for those using drug consumption facilities with all the safeguards that are required to be in place, then that would require a fresh consideration by me as Lord Advocate. I think that it is important to see the distinction between what James Wolf was asked and what could be asked. Those are different things. The question of what is in the public interest would be something that could be looked at again, but it would have to be looked at again in very careful circumstances where a very detailed set of proposals are brought and we are confident that they are based on sound evidence. That is very helpful. In terms of the budgetary issues, we know that organised crime is heavily involved both in drug supply and prostitution. In terms of priorities, in terms of the Crown Office, could you outline how we better focus resource on tackling organised crime specifically in relation to those spheres, but more generally? Insofar as the high-level approach that I, as Lord Advocate, would wish to take in relation to serious and organised crime, that is a very serious issue that concerns me greatly and the focus would be on robust prosecution. That is because of the damage that serious and organised crime does across the Scottish community. The enormous impact that serious and organised crime has on all the different types of offending from environmental offending through to drug supply, through to more serious levels of violence and homicide impacts across the board. What is important to me is that that work is properly funded and that it is properly prosecuted and that it is done so in the right way, in the public interest. In terms of the budgetary commitment to that, I can come back to you with more precise detail on that, but perhaps Crown Agent, who is more familiar with this particular issue, would come in on the financing for that. Very briefly, I am conscious of time, but we have the most serious then in the High Court cases a bespoke serious organised crime unit. That is all the deal with organised crime and counter-terrorism cases, and you will have seen again that there have been some of those of late as well that are worthy of mention. That is something that we have seen again in terms of an increase that forms a part of the High Court backlog that we were talking about. Often, those are multiple accused cases. Multiple accused cases have been difficult to deal with during the pandemic, and it is only now that we are in a position where those can start to be put through the courts. It is one of those classic areas where improvement in technology improves investigative opportunity and then increases the case load and the complexity of that case load. You will probably all read, for example, about the encro-chat cases, which was an international investigation in relation to a secure server that was based in France, used by a number of organised crime groups across the world. We have 50 of those cases, 50 organised crime all from that one investigation. Those are people who were using that advanced technology in order to communicate with each other. It is again an indication of the nature of the challenge and it is all part of that complexity and the need for resilience that we highlighted earlier. Thank you very much. I would like to move on now, if I may, to the issue around Covid deaths, and I will bring in Russell Finlay to pick up on that. Good morning to you both and welcome. I just want to begin by echoing my colleague Jamie Greene's comments. The level of backlog in terms of criminal cases is startling and the figures that you have provided today really bring that home. There is perhaps a public perception that criminal cases are what you do entirely or primarily, whereas you are also responsible for investigating a large number of deaths that are not homicide. The submission here refers to a year-on-year rise of just under 11,000 to just over 15,000, almost 16,000, and many of those will be Covid deaths. Now, I have read about a Covid investigation unit. I do not know if it is called that. I do not know if it is a standalone thing. Forgive me for my question. It has been a bit ruley, perhaps. It is more to see if you could expand on the nature of that unit, the challenges that are financial, primarily, I guess, of the huge rising numbers. Does every Covid death merit the same type of investigation, or does it just depend on individual circumstances? I know that that is erring away from finance, but I suppose that it is all part of the financial cost of what Covid is bringing to the crown. You are quite correct, Mr Finlay, that Covid deaths are dealt with by a specialist part of the Scottish Fatalities Investigation Unit. From the time of my appointment, I have been engaged closely with members of the Crown Office and Procate Fiscal Service, discussing the way in which we can appropriately deal with Covid deaths, because they arise in all sorts of different circumstances. They arise in the work environment, within the prison estate, within care homes and within hospitals. It is a very important area of our work, and we need to get it right. There is a dedicated unit looking at Covid deaths and working out protocols and policies that underpin how we deal with those cases, so that we can apply the same sort of decision making across a board when it comes to considering whether or not those cases will merit or not merit fatal accident inquiries, merit or not merit prosecutions and the like. You are right to say that there is a specialist unit that is specifically looking at Covid deaths and looking at all the issues that those raise within the responsibility that I have as Lord Advocate for the investigation of deaths, including the responsibility that I have to make sure that steps are taken if deaths can be prevented and that those are taken as quickly as possible. It is a very serious issue for us. It is something that we are taking great interest in. The numbers are significant. The Crown Agent might want to focus a little bit more on the other aspect of your question and the funding that we have for that, but there is definitely within the work that we have been doing to modernise the process in and around investigation of deaths, a specific focus on Covid deaths. Not much I can really add to that in terms of detail. The reality is, as Lord Advocate has said, that each investigation has to be assessed in its own merits and concluded accordingly. A proportion of those, as we have touched on in other deaths investigations, will result in a fatal accident inquiry and or a prosecution. The team's assessment in relation to the capacity that is required is part of the core funding that we talked about earlier. It is something that needs to be regularly monitored, because, obviously, when putting in bids this time last year, you were looking at an assessment of what the death numbers might be, but they are, as you can see from the figures, very high in terms of the numbers that have been reported to us. It is a 50 per cent increase in terms of death reported to us. It is fair to say that that is something that we have had to review. Perhaps it is also fair to say that the budget for dealing with this subunit or unit is based on the entire budget and what it requires to do at its job. There is not really stand-alone figures on that. They have assessments about what their staffing requirements are. I think that the point that I am trying to make is that, because of the cycle of finance, there was a particular moment in time when we were asking about that. We are now better informed as to what that scale is, which is perhaps the best way to put it. Very quickly, as you are a little bit more specific and mindful of the fact that there are still ongoing matters in relation to the Rangers cases. There has been a lot of speculation in the media about overall figures, and I am not asking you to predict outcomes, but can you tell us just where we are right now in terms of payouts that have left and are no longer live? What I can say is that some cases have resolved, with some paid to the pursuers as of September 2021, totaling £35.3 million. Other cases remain before the court, which, of course, you rightly say, Mr Finlay, limits to what can be said today. There has been no impact on the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service budget as a result of the civil actions. Those were underwritten by the Scottish Government with in-year transfers to directly cover the costs of damages and expenses and settlements. In the wider context, the Crown is committed to further public accountability and the process of inquiry once all the litigation is concluded. However, the cases that remain before the court and the amount of money associated with what those cases involve, I cannot really go into at this stage. I think that you will also appreciate the extent to which I have personal laws of those cases is restricted because of my own personal recusal from the ranges litigation because of my previous involvement as Senior Counsel for Duff and Phelps. Perhaps the Crown agent can say a little bit more. Do you want to say anything? I am not sure, since the figures have been given. It is a very specific question. The money that has gone out at the £35.3 million in both cases is an undertaking of a commitment that the Crown would pay tax if it resulted in there being a tax liability for those litigants. Do you know if indeed that has happened and if so has that been paid yet or have they yet to know whether they are going to have a tax liability? I am not sure whether I can talk about an individual's tax affairs, but all I can say is that we have not been asked for any additional funding at this stage, perhaps, as the need to address. Do you want to carry on and just move on to fatal accident inquiries? The fatal accident inquiry backlog is obviously as significant as the criminal backlog and the other deaths backlog. In terms of deaths in custody, there have been significant reports of what appears to be a rise in such cases. Have you seen any discernible rise in deaths in custody and what are the budgetary implications for that? Insoffar, as a rise in deaths in custody are concerned, I am not informed about whether or not there has been an actual increase. I am not sure whether that is within our submission. I will give it by reference to financial years. We had 36 reports, 19, 20, 30 and 20, 21, 46. I suppose that if you were to look at it between the financial year ending 2020 and the financial year ending 2021, the increase is over 50 per cent. I do not have the current number in terms of the funds. In addition to the modernisation that the Crown Office undertook for FEIs starting in 2019, that has had a very significant impact on the age of the case that is going forward to a determination before an FEI. Within that work, there has been created a specialist unit that deals with deaths in custody and deaths in custody are considered by a case management panel that is suitably expertise in understanding all the significant issues that relate to deaths in custody from the nature of the vulnerability of the prisoners within the prison estate through to the suicide prevention strategies that are available and the mental health provision that is available within the prison estate. There has been, because of the concern that has been raised publicly about these and the natural concern within the organisation that there is a real focus on these particular cases and a drive to ensure that we look properly at what underpins the difficulties associated with these figures for deaths in custody. Thank you very much. Good morning to the panel. Welcome to your position, Lord Advocate. I wanted to ask about post mortems. I know that that has been a topical issue for you, and I know that previously there were issues with the toxicology departments, which was causing significant delays, but there has been a more recent surge as well because of an increase in deaths. In terms of the budget aspect of that, if the toxicology issues have been resolved and if any further delays if you feel that the budget is currently sufficient to ensure that post mortems can continue to be carried out as fast as possible. It is correct that there were the difficulties with toxicology analysis that you describe, but I did answer in a parliamentary question recently and, indeed, in a written answer to Jackie Baillie that there was a very successful improvement plan applied to the backlog of toxicology reports. Those are now completed within acceptable timescales. There are issues over the contracts that are related to Glasgow University and the consequent impact of the delay in providing toxicology reports in terms of the ability to conclude post mortem reports. The toxicology issue has been resolved. The impact on post mortem reports has yet to be absolutely resolved because, just as those who are dealing with these reports are dealing with new post mortem reports, they are also dealing with the reports that have come as a result of the delayed toxicology, so there is a bit of a backlog with some of the post mortem reports. What is important to me is that this issue has been identified, it has been worked on, and it is being resolved. What is important to me is that families of victims of homicide their needs are understood and the import of this issue is being addressed. Nobody more than me understands the impact of delay in respect of these issues, so my focus is on what has been done to improve the matter and how we can take matters forward now in terms of the budgetary provision. Crown agent might be able to assist with that, but I do not think that there is any significant issue over that Crown agent. What I would comment on is that there is a live procurement exercise at the moment in relation to pathology. It might be a common misunderstanding that we actually have to, in essence, contract for that work to suppliers, whether they are health services, university, et cetera. At the moment, we have contracts with seven suppliers across the country, and that is being reviewed in two toxicology providers. The other point that is worth making from a strategic level for interest for this committee is that there is an issue in and around the availability of pathologists, and that is not just Scotland and the UK. It is further afield in that. There are some underlying issues here that impact on capacity beyond simply finance. I think that it was helpful to put that on the record. We are just about coming to the end of our session this morning. Collette Stevenson, were you interested in asking about outturn figures? It was highlighted upon within the audit that came out from Audit Scotland on what your long-term strategic plans are. If there is a report in place outlining what that is, when will it be available? A strategic plan. We have a strategic plan, but I am not entirely clear in terms of outturns. It is more to do with your long-term strategic plan report. It is fair to say that we have one, but it needs to be revisited in light of the challenge that we now face and how we appreciate the scale of that. It is perhaps the best way of putting it. Part of that will be informed by the outcome of this exercise. Our budget informs our strategy. If there are no more questions at all, I thank you both very much indeed for your time. If there is additional information that you would be keen to share with the committee, we would be very keen to see that. Welcome back, everyone. Thank you for rejoining the meeting. The next witnesses before us are Mr Theresa Methurst, the interim chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service and Mr Jerry O'Donnell, interim director of finance for the Scottish Prison Service. I thank you both very much for attending and also for your written submissions. Those are available online. I intend to allow an hour and 15 minutes for questions and discussion. I invite Theresa Methurst to make a short opening statement. Thank you. Good morning, convener and members of the committee. I welcome the opportunity to meet with you today, alongside my colleague Jerry, regarding the budget for the Scottish Prison Service for 2022-23. First of all, I would like to record my appreciation for the increase in the budget for the financial year that we received. That was an increase of around 4.1 per cent on both resource and capital. However, the Scottish Prison Service is a large and complex organisation, and our primary purpose is to manage those individuals whom the courts place on remand or sentence we do and must continue to do more than just hold people, something that becomes increasingly more challenging. Our understanding of risk and needs becomes ever more complex and the demands placed on our staff group also become more complex. Those demands shift due to the changing make-up of our population as well as the increased complexity of the differing population types. All of that is set against our physical constraints. Our estate is large and a mixture of newer builds, being between 10 and 20 years old, through to our older Victorian-built prisons. As I am sure that the committee is aware that there is significant commitment of capital investment into our estate, which we welcome. I would also like to draw the committee's attention to the contracts that the SPS managed. There are three large contracts, two of them private prisons, Addiwell and Kilmarnock, and of course the prisoner escort contract with Du Amy, which we manage not only on our behalf but on behalf of our partners. I am sure that the committee is in no doubt about the impact of Covid-19 across the justice sector. We have just heard evidence from the Crown Agent and the Lord Advocate, and we have certainly experienced the complexities and added pressures brought about by that impact. Although it has brought challenges, it has also brought learning and new ways of working. We have had to operate through a public health lens in a way that we would never have experienced previously. That has created a context that has raised awareness of and the need to ensure that we continue to seize the opportunities and benefits from ensuring a greater balance in our approach between managing risk and improving health outcomes. The pandemic and other societal factors has and will continue to impact on and shape our financial spend, requiring readjustments to our profiling and financial planning going forward, not least of which is the need to continue to invest in our staff, the estate and the expansion of our digital capabilities. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to record my thanks to all of my colleagues in the SPS, all of our partners, particularly our NHS colleagues and other partners across the organisation for both their hard work and dedication throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Thank you, convener, for the opportunity to provide an opening statement and I look forward to taking your questions. Thank you very much, Ms Medhurst. I wonder if I can start off just looking at a little bit around staffing and recruitment. I note in your opening statement that you spoke about the demands on staff in particular arising from Covid, but also generally from your increased population within prisons and the different population types that you are caring for. In terms of staffing and the challenges that you face arising from the likes of Covid, shortages of staff, issues around morale and increased incidences of violence that we are aware of. We had a very, very helpful visit to HMP Edinburgh earlier on this year that really helped to focus some thinking around staffing challenges. In terms of recruitment and retention of staff, bearing in mind that that might not just apply to prison staff but also to, for example, healthcare workers. I am interested in just a little bit more commentary on the short to medium term budgetary considerations that you will have to make in order to hopefully get to a point where working within the prison sector is ultimately a career of choice for many. Thank you very much, convener. I will try to answer all parts of it. At the height of the pandemic when we went into the first lockdown, we experienced extreme pressures on our staff, and the reason for that was multifaceted. We had been in a position where we had not achieved our—we normally operate within a 1 per cent tolerance level in terms of vacancy assumptions, and we had not been in a position to achieve that due to attrition rates the previous year, as well as some challenges around recruitment. However, and as I say at the start of the pandemic, when we first went into lockdown, clearly people were very concerned for their health, and we experienced high levels of absence. I think that there was a degree of confusion as well over who was in the shielding category, what that meant, et cetera, et cetera. Our absence levels at that point increased, and what that meant was that we needed to move into an operating model of a core day. We normally operate a two-shift system, so we moved into a core day, and that core day took on slightly different start and finishing times, depending on which establishment requirements needed to be made. That move into the core day obviously placed different pressures on the staff group, because what it meant was that we had to condense all of our legal requirements into a much shorter time frame. What happened at that time was that, due to the reduction and the cessation of court business, it meant that our population did drop, so we experienced a drop in population pressure at that time. Over the past year and a half, we have managed to make some changes that have allowed us to continue to recruit through an online platform, through creating new digital capacity and capability. We were able to continue our recruitment activity, so we are now sitting around about our 1 per cent tolerance level, which has greatly improved from where we were last year. We have also experienced a slowdown in the attrition rates. It is difficult to see why that is, possibly because of reduced opportunities during the pandemic, but people have chosen not to leave the organisation. In addition to that, our staff absence levels have fluctuated, which is probably the best way to reflect the position. It definitely improved considerably, and it certainly has not reached the rates of absence that we experienced in 2019, for example, when there were real pressures on our population with increases over 2018 and 2019. The absence levels are monitored very carefully. We have also introduced a new staff absence policy at the beginning of April, which is much more focused on a person-centred approach, and providing the right support and appropriate aids to individual members of staff to ensure that they can come back to work. The organisation has felt almost as if it has been in two parts, because we have some parts of our organisation that are headquarters, our stores at Fault House and our college, where we have been able to do much more to enable remote working. That has allowed a degree of flexibility that previously was not available, certainly to the extent and range that it is at the moment. That flexibility has clearly ensured that staff feel that they have much more agency over their working arrangements. On the counter side, we have had a year and a half in which our operational staff have been working a day shift rather than a two shift system. When you are used to working a back shift and an early shift, the monotony of a day shift we know has had an impact on staff, so that is where I would say there has been an issue. Those individuals, in particular, who had lifestyle arrangements around that, have obviously had a detrimental effect on them. We have worked in partnership with the trade union side, our trade union partners, all through the pandemic. We brokered an agreement with them that we would try and move back to a two shift system by the end of September, around the beginning of October. All but one establishment, possibly two, I think have managed to do so, but it has added additional pressures because we are still experiencing outbreaks, we are still in the middle of a pandemic, and therefore there are still some tensions around the staffing models that we have applied. However, where and this has happened throughout the pandemic, where establishments have had significant increases in absence, particularly related to Covid and due to outbreaks, we have been able to redeploy staff from other establishments in order to support them and ensure that we have had a safe operating model in place. Thank you very much. I don't know if there's anything, Mr O'Donnell, you would like to add to that. Just bearing in mind, I'm quite keen to keep the session on track around budgets, scrutiny. Just one thing was you mentioned all staff. We do have probably some recruitment issues in IT staff, so there are specialist areas where it is challenging, but obviously that may have a budgetary impact. I'll stick with the issue around staffing, because I know that some other members would like to come in on that. I'll hand over to Katie Clark and then I'll bring in Mr Finlay. Yes, obviously drugs is a massive problem in the prison system. Can you maybe outline what you are doing in the current situation to tackle that problem? Obviously there were a number of measures that were brought in during Covid around mail that have been referred to. Was that something that you think had a positive impact in terms of the drug situation or is there anything else you would point to in terms of initiatives that you are currently taking that are helping to address what is a massive challenge? The Crown agent referred earlier to the impact of serious organised crime, not just in relation to drugs, but certainly that success that has been achieved across other parts of the justice sector has meant that, certainly for us, there has been a rise in serious organised crime and, therefore, the issues around drugs and drugs in prison become ever more dynamic and complex. There are steps that we have taken and continue to take, so we look at the use of technology and how we can better deploy technology. For example, rapid scan machines were rolled out across all establishments last year after a period of piloting and testing in two or three establishments. At the forefront of the work that we are doing around the rapid scan machines, we are linked in with Dundee University, which is taking forward what is being described to me by the academic world. We are taking forward world-leading work around the issue of psychoactive substances in particular. The work that they are leading is about anticipating the changes in the make-up of the substances that are coming into prisons, as well as helping us to understand the profile and where the drugs market is likely to go. I am not just looking at what is happening in prisons in Scotland, but also looking across other jurisdictions. That is work that we are sharing with other jurisdictions, because it is not being done elsewhere, certainly in the UK. In addition to that, there are clearly more sophisticated methods that are developing. That is why I said that it is a very dynamic set of circumstances that we have to deal with. In addition to that, we work very closely with Police Scotland. It is clearly at the forefront of the tactical and response options around how they deal with it. Serious organised crime and drugs, in particular illicit drugs. We work closely with them to develop not just our profiling but our tactical options to ensure that we are keeping up-to-date with changes in the scene. The other side of that is obviously about helping people's recovery. If you do not mind, I will pull the session back to looking at issues around staffing. We will come back to drugs. Obviously, that is an important issue, but it allows us to keep the session on track. If I may, I will bring in Russell Finlay. The issue of absences that you have already touched on, such as sickness levels, is that they are fluctuated and have not reached 2019 levels. I would also like to begin by expressing appreciation and respect for the officers in your service who have done an incredible job. I have heard from a number of them in the past few weeks, as you will be aware. Some of them have effectively become whistleblowers and they talk about some significant levels of absences. It may well be that, across the board, we are not at levels that you have previously seen, but is it perhaps the case that there are hotspots, in particular, establishments, where there are high levels of absences? I alluded earlier to the fact that, as we have moved back to the two-shift system, it has put pressures on our staffing profile within establishments, and we are acutely aware of that. Where there are particular pressure points, where there are establishments who are identifying that they are not coping, for example, there are quite unique pressures in somewhere such as Grampian, because of the buoyant job market up there. We have problems recruiting, so they have not moved back to the two-shift system because their staffing model would not allow it. Where we can flex and change, we will do so, but, as I also alluded earlier, where establishments indicate that they are not able to meet the demands, we will look to deploy from other establishments, and we have done that a number of times over the past year and a half. Some establishments are back to the two-shift system. The majority, I think, are only two at the moment that are not, and, yes. On a similar theme, the role of senior management has been suggested to me that many people in senior positions, including yourself, are either in interim posts, or temporary, or words to that effect. That has further been suggested as causing perhaps some uncertainty with the staff and some cynical suggestions that the reason for so many of those, if indeed there are so many, is perhaps to save money by not making people in permanent positions. Is that something that you recognise? I recognise the fact that, as you have pointed out quite rightly, Mr Finlay, I am in an interim position and Jerry is as well. We do have a number of vacancies in senior leadership, not the numbers. Something round about 19 per cent to F-band and its smaller numbers as you move up the ranks. However, we have continued to run campaigns throughout the period of the pandemic so, certainly from my perspective, where we are running campaigns but we are not achieving resolution to those vacancies, then it is not the position that we are not trying to fill the vacancies. We clearly are trying to fill the vacancies. However, I think that what the pandemic has done is allowed us to refocus where we want to be with regards to our leadership development. We are about to relaunch our leadership development strategy because that requires to be refreshed. We are moving to an approach that is focused around development and development centres that will be launched next year. In the meantime, what is commencing this week is another series of recruitment campaigns, but we have amended and adjusted them to ensure that, particularly because of the pressures that people have been working under over the past year and a half, we need to take cognisance of that and make sure that those assessment procedures, although they are still fair and open, allow people to really bring through their experience in a way that is much more meaningful. We have made some adjustments and I am hopeful that between now and the end of this financial year that we will have all of those vacancies filled. It is well to be filled with the nature of the large number of temporary acting posts. Negate then, sorry. Yes, okay, thank you. All right, there was one more thing I was going to touch up on unless we want to come back to it. There has been much said about the introduction of the mobile phones and the cost to that. I do not have it off the top of my head but there are £3 million, I think, or they are abouts. I understand that the private prisons chose a different model whereby they had phones that were attached to a wall and could be used communally and have not therefore had the same security issues that we have seen with the model adopted elsewhere. Given that this money has been spent and these phones are in circulation, is there any discussion about perhaps phasing that out and moving towards the other apparently more secure model? Thank you very much, Mr Finlay. I appreciate again your question because there has been much said about mobile phones in prisons. We introduced the mobile phones last year. We were moving into unchartered waters where we put down family visits for two days at Christmas a new year. Apart from that, other than things like the beast from the east, we tend not to stop visits for any period of time, not certainly in my experience. We were entering unchartered territory and we understood and knew that communication was going to be incredibly important, not just for those in prison but particularly for families and children. At the start of the pandemic, when we were experiencing staffing difficulties, I knew and I understand that it was difficult for families to make contact with those in custody. In normal times, we would not take what was about four months to introduce mobile phones into the prison service, but we were facing unprecedented challenges. Certainly, from my perspective, to do so and to do so as successful as we did was quite unprecedented for an organisation. With that came very clear guidance from Government around the security protocols. We tied down those that we were aware of. There were others that have arisen subsequently that we have alluded to, which we are now working to fix because we have a fix for that. The model that has been applied in Addiewell and Kilmarnock has been able to do so because of the infrastructure built into the establishments. That has allowed them to come up with a hardwired solution that would not have been possible for us in the timescales that we had available. To move to something like that would take considerable time and investment. However, we are looking at what should come next. One, to alleviate some of the difficulties that do exist with mobile phones, and two, to ensure that we have something that is more enduring going forward. However, I would like to add that, with our mobile phones, there have been a considerable number of calls that have been made. I would like to look at my notes, but it is eye-watering the number of calls that have been made to families and the contact that has been sustained during the period of time that the mobile phones have been in place. Certainly, for me, in terms of reassuring those in custody that the measures that we were applying were proportionate and in line with communities, families were able to confirm that for them. I would like to move on to looking at issues around the prison estate. I will bring in Jamie Greene on that, and then I will ask a couple of questions around that. I had two strands of questions, one on pure budget and the other on the prison estate. I will maybe do the budget one first, perhaps stressed at Mr O'Donnell. Just looking at the last three financial years, I just wanted to question why the planned budgets and the outturn figures are so starkly different. There seems to be an underspend of around £51 billion across three years. Is it the case that less has been spent than forecast or less than it is available to you as a budget? If so, what is the reason for any underspend and what happens to it? Is it simply just not drawn down or do you have to return it to the Government? In answer to your first point, yes, less has been spent. The primary reason for underspend is our capital programme. At the moment, we have a number of construction contracts across the estate, which is probably unusual compared to five or six years ago. There is quite a large investment in the estate at the moment. Because of the delays, etc., the pandemic, we have significant delays in the construction projects. That is certainly the primary reason for the delay last year and the previous year. It was also delays, maybe not specifically to the pandemic, but construction contracts. For the committee, I have just recently joined the SPS. I am coming from the construction industry. It can be very difficult to go from the initial conception of a project to handing over the keys to the building, etc. There are inevitably delays. That is what has happened primarily within SPS. The information is that we start off with a baseline budget each year. During the year, we will then have an opportunity to discuss with the Scottish Government a revised budget. At that point, we will then say that we are unable to spend X amount of capital. That would be available across the Government for other areas. Presumably, capital underspend is on new build projects that are going beyond their expected timescales. We also know that those projects are also going over a budget, if we look at the example of Inverness. That does not tally up. Surely, that only relates to the capital budget on new build. If we go back to the issue of prison estates, or as we come on to the issue of prison estates, we know that there is quite heavy underinvestment in that area. I will come on to some specifics on that. Why, effectively, are you saying to the Government that we will be spending less than we forecast this year when we know that there are so many projects that still require spending? It is not something that you can go out very quickly and get a product off the shelf, etc. Those projects could be planning permission, but planning the workload is a tendering process to get the contractor in place. As I said in the previous years, traditional maintenance-type work has slipped, but that is because those organisations were not able to work on the estate because of the pandemic. The estate is not just about capital, but about IT equipment. We are investing in that area. We are knowing that we will have slippage in projects. We are looking to bring under projects in line. We are looking to minimise the shortfalls on capital spending. It has happened in a couple of years where there have been significant reductions in the capital spend. However, we are looking to address something that has come forward. Thank you for that explanation. Perhaps I was going to ask Mr Smyr my next question. On budget scrutiny, we have had a number of written submissions about the SPS budget. The Howard League state specifically does not believe that the Scottish Government is providing enough budget for the work that is expected of the SPS. There is obviously a third sector organisation, but Her Majesty's Inspectorate for Prisons for Scotland specifically stated that it has seen no evidence to suggest that the SPS is sufficiently resourced to make adequate process with capital budgets, strategic investments and important but routine maintenance. To what extent do you agree or disagree with those submissions? I will answer that first, and then I will come back to the points that you were making earlier. I think that both the Howard League and the Chief Inspector of Prisons partially make in reference to the increase in the population and the increased complexity of that population and the demands that are placed on us. We have been spending time looking at both our capacity and capability for programme delivery, for prisoner programmes as well as the profile of those programmes because of the change in nature of the risk of those individuals coming into our care. There is work that we have been preparing to do, and we have started to reshape our psychology service as well as to consider what the wider implications are going to be over our workforce. There will be increased demands. There was mentioned earlier about being trauma informed, and certainly in terms of the women's estate, I know that that is going to come in at a significant cost in relation to having a spoke trauma informed service for women. We are reconfigured estate, but that applies to men, so there will be a greater cost implication going forward, but a lot of that work is in its infancy. Secondly, in relation to the estate that the Chief Inspector makes reference to, I think that concentration has been around the capital investment that is required to upgrade Victorian buildings, and clearly the replacement for Inverness, the women's estate replacement for Inverness, and the replacement for Berlin, in particular, is a single point of failure for us as an organisation, so we need to ensure that we have replacement for that. It is an old building, it is old structures and infrastructure, and it carries the responsibility for the population flex across the whole of the estate when the population rises. That is a critical point for us, which is why it was important that that was included in the infrastructure investment plan. I think that where the Chief Inspector is coming from is the other older estate, so we have carried out condition surveys on Greenock and Dumfries prison, and we have already commenced upgrading work. The remainder of the further two years investment required to upgrade there will then go into our budgetary submissions to Scottish Government. The remainder of the estate, we are also going to undertake condition surveys on them, and that will then inform not just the maintenance programme that would require going forward, but any major capital investment that is required for the rest of the estate. I am glad that you mentioned HMIP, Greenock, because that and Dumfries are probably the most criticised pieces of estate in the country. HMIP said that it is an establishment that is breaching the human rights guidelines on cell size, is expensive to maintain and has limited surge capacity. Are you therefore disappointed that the programme for government does not announce any new capital budget for the replacement of either HMPs, Greenock or Dumfries, and what would your asks be of the Government on that front? In relation to, Greenock is not in the five-year infrastructure investment plan, but there has been discussion around Greenock. Obviously, we have the site for Greenock, so that is something clearly that we will work towards. Dumfries clearly needs to also come into our options in terms of what we do with HMP and Dumfries in terms of replacement going forward. Clearly, that is going to be dependent on capital resource coming to SPS from other parts of the public sector, so we will make our case, as others will do, around further investment for the remainder of the estate. How long does it take to build a new prison, roughly? It depends on size, on the design concepts and the strategic intent. It also depends on the nature of the labour market and the other market factors. The point that I was going to come on to in the question that you asked Jerry about the capital spend and some of the money that we have handed back has not just been capital but maintenance. Some of our contracts, when we set them out for letting, are not taken up. They are not attractive enough. When you bundle up contracts, that sometimes seems to be more attractive, but other times it is not. The construction market in particular has been fluctuating over the past few years and it has made it difficult at times to plan and prepare for some of the work that we need to have undertaken. Certainly, the most significant underspend on capital was in 1920-21 and that was due to the pandemic, but we are also experiencing a number of other pressures that will have consequences for this financial year and into future financial years. Those factors are things like societal factors that you will be aware of, but supply chain issues are material shortages or long lead time in for materials that are required for construction. There are also labour shortages and, in some of our key projects, key personnel are now shifting across different organisations. I think that there are a number of pressures and tensions around capital spend that will not just apply to SPS. I can also come in the other way. How long does it take to build a prison? You would start off the process of developing the initial design. You would then go out to tender with a contractor and then you would have a period that can be up to a year developing that design with a contractor because it is a unique building. Depending on the complexity of the prison, you are looking at two years plus. For instance, I would say that a large prison is looking at four years at a minimum. It is a problem, though. If it is not in the current five-year capital investment plan and it takes at least four years and these things tend to roll over and go over budget and take longer than people expect for all the reasons that you have just mentioned, then you are talking for a decade away from having new facilities in Greenock or Dumfries realistically given that they are not fit for purpose now. Surely that is why people at the Heart League have such concern. The chief inspector said that she does not think that they are fit for purpose. Those areas that are of concern are not currently in use and that is why the condition surveys have been undertaken. There is investment that will be required both for Greenock and Dumfries over the next three years and we have already scoped out what that investment needs to be. We will include those proposals in our funding bid for years next year and the year after. Those remedial works should satisfy the chief inspector. We will save other questions for later if we have time. Thank you very much for that. I wonder if I can just come in while we are looking at the issue around prison estates and in particular modernisation, which we have spoken a fair bit about in terms of the capital commitment to that. What I am quite interested in is looking more at conditions within prisons. The practical measures and actions that can be put in place to adapt and improve the conditions within prisons for certain parts of the population. I am thinking in particular older people, individuals with disability and so on. Whether that is widening cell doors, whether it is widening or improving access to showers, that type of thing. I know that it is difficult in safaras. Ultimately, we are looking to get to a point where down the line the prison population will be those who pose the greatest risk of harm to society, but we know that with that there can come challenges in terms of that mix of population. From a budgetary perspective, I am interested in what short to medium-term actions can be taken to improve general conditions within prisons, in particular in those that we have highlighted, such as Jamie Greene highlighted, Dumfries and Greenock, for example. I am not sure that I am understanding your question, convener. I am sorry. You talked about whether there are two parts to the question. One is about accessibility and some of the social care challenges that people experience and the other is about general condition of buildings. What I am interested in is probably the first part of that, looking at what adaptations can be made in the short term to alleviate some of the issues that we know prison staff, healthcare staff face when they are trying to care for people that perhaps have some additional needs in terms of their health, their physical capacity and their general wellbeing. Thank you very much, convener, sorry. I think that if I can start probably with something which probably prison does help to an extent with, and so we obviously have got an increasing elderly population, and the numbers of those over 50 has increased quite considerably. I think that Chief Inspector Prisons quoted figures yesterday of around 46 per cent in our annual report, but, certainly from our perspective, we know and understand that people with social care needs do not necessarily sit all within that age group that cuts across all age ranges. However, there are parts of what we do, which support, for example, people who have dementia, and we have people who unfortunately suffer from dementia. The routine of prison actually helps that, because the routine gives them a degree of stability that gives them a sense of knowing where they are and who is with them and who is around them. However, with other social care needs, we have definitely seen a rise, a significant rise. For example, the numbers in September at the end of September of those who were requiring social care support were in the region of 50. Although that might seem like small numbers in a population of 7,500, nevertheless, it is quite significant to us as an organisation when we are built prisons for prisons rather than for people with requiring additional supports. Across the prison estate, there are accessible cells in the newer and more recently developed prisons. The problem has been that the numbers that require those accessible cells are exceeding the facilities that we have. What we have undertaken is an assessment of the additional needs, because it can be anything from the beds that require a greater space around them for pulleys, etc., just as you say, to accessibility for showers. We have cells with accessibility to showers. We have that across the estate, but what we understand and know from our experience over recent years is that we require to ensure that we have more flexibility and greater capacity. We have undertaken an assessment. That has obviously been multidisciplinary, because we are a prison service, we are not a care service and we are not a health service. We have done that in conjunction with other colleagues to ensure that we better understand what we require to have. At the moment, what we are doing is scoping out exactly where that should be cited and where we can provide more flexibility in terms of accommodation needs. We will then determine what costs are attached to that and how we can best implement that over the next year or so. One of the things that I should say is that that has been factored into, I think, and obviously both for Highland, as well as for the new Glasgow. Thank you very much. That is very helpful. Maybe hand over to Pauline McNeill. I know that you were interested in looking at the issue around cell occupancy. Before I do that, my clerks helped to update me on the time scales for the construction of prisons. HMP-Berlinny, I understand, is due to be completed and ready for operation in 2025. That was first looked at and presented to ministers back in 2011, so that is quite a significant time scale. To mention that, I thought that that would be of interest given that we were looking at that as a very important issue. Pauline McNeill, I hand on to you. Thank you for that. It would be helpful to get an answer to the convener's question. I did racist when we were doing the virtual session just because I represent Glasgow and it is obviously a really important prison for the west of Scotland, and it just seems so far away. First, I will acknowledge, as other members have done, the very serious challenge for the prison service and your staff through the pandemic and what amazing job you have done under very difficult circumstances. I think that that is really important to acknowledge that. That is a theme that you will know that I am interested in, which is making progress on the amount of fresh air that prisoners can get out of their cells. Obviously, that has been very much restricted through the crisis. My question is, and I do not need to remind you of the convention on human rights for every prisoner who is not employed in outdoor work. It is entitled under that convention to at least one hour of suitable exercise in the open air. I want to make sure that we have heard from questions and answers, and you cannot certainly be accountable for all of it, but we need to make very serious progress in Scotland to match up to our obligations under the convention. My specific question is, what kind of shift in the budget do you think would be required to double the minimum time period that prisoners could get out for more than an hour, so, say, two hours, or to make a significant difference going forward? Ms McNeill, that is a question that I had not anticipated. One of the things that I would like to reassure you about, first of all, is that in the changes that were made to the prison rules last year to allow us to respond to the pandemic when we were curtailing the amount of time outside in the fresh air, those regulations were set aside at the end of September, so that we now ensure that everybody does get their hours of exercise, and we were able to do that through the learning that we experienced. Obviously, our public health colleagues were very clear about people isolating, but even where we have to isolate people now, we do that in cohorts so that they can still get access to fresh air. We would not want to be in a position to breach human rights. That is absolutely not where we would want to be, and it felt really uncomfortable, not least of which is because when people are not able to spend lots of time out with cellular confinement, not having access to that one hour is really important, in particular coming into the winter months to assure your concerns. Going forward, to allow people to have double access, people can opt into gymnasium sessions, so everyone is offered access to gymnasium on a regular basis depending on where they work and where they are located. That can be just as important to have activity that allows people to come together and share in forms of sport and or exercise. However, again, there are challenges for older people and for people with social care needs. Those things are not necessarily as accessible. We have been looking at ways to flex and change what we offer in relation to gymnasium and activities such as that. During the summer months, we try to extend our offer of outside opportunities to evening arrangements so that people can have a second opportunity during the day. I am not going to pin you down for anything specific, but this is a general response. What would be your sense of additional staffing or extra additional space to try and as you see, gymnasium is suitable for everyone, some of us during the pandemic preferred walking or had to walk. Maybe more people do that now, but getting out in the fresh air just to be out in the fresh air or to have exercise is important and more so for prisoners. What would be your sense of what is required? Is it a staffing issue, a shift issue or a state issue? Is it just a general sense of where you think we could make changes? To make those kinds of changes would require staffing and estate in terms of having spaces. Traditionally, our prisons have been built with what we call exercise yards. While people walk around them, they are not particularly pleasant places to walk, if I can say that. They are large areas. One of the lessons that we have learned from the pandemic has been that prisoners and staff have felt much safer with the smaller cohorts that we have had to establish in order to manage the spread of the virus. That kind of arrangement would probably be best supported by more staff and more facilities. I would like to move on to issues around purposeful activity. I think that Collette Stevenson would like to come in on that. After that, I will move back to looking at issues around drugs and bringing in Pauline McNeill. It is really to touch upon again the call from the inspectorate over the review of the provision for purposeful activity. It is including its expectation that additional resources. You have touched upon the challenges that you have faced in terms of absenteeism. It is really just to see what your thoughts are and where you are with that going forward. Pete is delivering a more modern approach in terms of having the prison estate with job opportunities for when they go through their progression. That is the offending behaviour programmes. I know that the inspectorate is working to look at that and review that as well. From a human rights perspective, under OPCAT, purposeful activity is key. I would like to see what is happening there and if you can give me more detail on that. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that question because you have alluded to a modern prison system and that is certainly where I would like to see the SPS to achieve more in relation to modernisation. Purposeful activity is at the core of that. I have alluded to, in my opening statement, the fact that we have had to look at how we deliver services through the public health lens. We are acutely aware of the multifaceted health issues that our population has and suffer from. We know and understand that, in order to support people whilst they are in custody, there needs to be a broader range of offer to them in relation to health interventions and support, as well as better preparing them for release. That also comes with the context of the current arrangements. It would be really helpful if somebody could tell me when the pandemic will be over, but the current arrangements are such that we need to maintain smaller groups of people and keep distancing in place. We are designated as complex settings, but the way to open up opportunities, certainly from my perspective, would be to increase our digital offer and, for me, to alleviate some of the pressures that people face while they are in custody and to allow them to access services and supports at a time and place when they are ready to do so, and for it to be more self-directed in terms of the individual's choice. I think that that is definitely a more meaningful way to deliver services to those in custody and to allow them a greater range and access to supports and services that others experience in communities, but we cannot currently consider in prisons because of the restrictive nature of what we can deliver. I am delighted to hear that you want to move towards a more modern approach. The costs and the budget going forward on that in terms of resources, can you tell me a bit more about that? Part of the issue, and Crown Agent alluded to it earlier, I think that we are all revising our financial plans and our, certainly for SPS, we did not have a finalised digital plan and our financial plan also needed to be finalised as well. We need to revisit that in light of the experience that we have had in the last year and a half and of those additional pressures that we are now facing in order to ensure that all those pressures that we have experienced and the opportunities that we need to take forward can be properly scoped and accounted for in the budget as we move into future years. The digital strategy, as it was, focused around much more modest changes. We need to be much more ambitious now and that is certainly where I would anticipate taking our digital strategy in years to come. We will move for just about 15 minutes left. I am aware that Rona Mackay has to leave slightly early. I will move back to Pauline McNeill in relation to issues around drugs and then I will come on to Rona Mackay. I will not rehearse all the issues that you have already discussed with other members about the issue of drugs and prisons. My specific question was that some police officers in Police Scotland have been trained to administer naloxone. Has there been any provision made within your staffing and do you think that it is a useful thing for your staff to be trained in? We have trained our staff in how to assume naloxone, and naloxone is available in prisons. We also have prisoners who are trained as peer supporters and people who leave custody are provided with naloxone kicks. I have certainly heard stories from people who, unfortunately, have come back into prison that they have prevented deaths while they have been released due to the naloxone training and equipment that they have been provided with. That is really helpful. I did note that in virtually all the cases that naloxone has been administered have saved lives, so I welcome that answer. I will hand over to Rona Mackay to look at issues around secure care and then over to Collette Stevenson. My question is about funding for secure care facilities for young people. You will be aware that there is a policy move from the Scottish Government that all children under 18 will be held in secure care rather than go to a young vendor's institution, Pullman or whatever, and I thoroughly endorse that. The funding model has been causing problems for some time, and the submission from the HM inspectorate of prisons for Scotland refers to the importance of secure care being adequately resourced to receive children under the age of 18. It says that it will require a different funding model, and at the moment it requires the facilities to maintain full capacity and spaces are routinely taken by children from England to meet the financial imperative. I know that to be true because I have a secure care facility in my constituency. I wonder what your view was on that. I do not know if you feel you are in a position to comment, but is that something that you are aware of? I should say that I have actually only been with the SPS five weeks, so my knowledge is very limited. It might be better if Trees answers this question. Thank you very much, Ms Mackay. I am aware of the work that is going on just now. Obviously, 16 and 17-year-old children being in prison is of concern. Unfortunately, secure care is not my area of expertise, so I would not be able to provide any comment on that. I am sorry. No, that is fine. I just wanted to put it on record that there is a sea change happening there, and possibly funding could change. I believe that there was a review done from the Children's Commission as well, as they inspected it, for the secure care for children. They are looking at the long-term strategic review. I do not know and I well understand that you are saying that you have only been in the post for a short time. That is not new. That is something that has been raised before within the SPS. Has there been any reserves or adjustments put in place in the budget because of that? Is there a potential change in policy? The point is that we are in the process of determining the budget for next year, so we are working with SG on that and identifying a number of initiatives. Obviously, if there is a change in the model, it will be something that we would consider. The financial model for secure care does not sit with the SPS. Unless I am not understanding your question, I am really sorry if I do not miss Stevenson. We hold a small number, but nevertheless a small number, of 16 and 17-year-olds in the prison estate. They are held at Pullment. The funding model for Pullment, which holds young people and women, is far more generous than for the other parts of the prison estate. We only have responsibility for the prison estate, not for secure care facilities or for the funding of those facilities. Do you know roughly how many are in that age group? How many are being held there in Pullment at the moment? I can give you the figures as of last Friday. I will have them here, because I looked at them recently. The numbers, certainly over the last year, have been no more than 20. The numbers on Tuesday, because I had to provide them, were 17 young people under 16 and 17-year-olds. My colleague Stevenson has probably covered it, because it is in the same sort of area. If you have 20 young people in that age group who would move into secure care, it strikes me that there would be a budget implication for you in a positive sense, if you like, from the prison service. Obviously, a positive sense, as well, that young people would be in secure care, which I think would be better. Is that something that you would be thinking about, in terms of how that budget could be reutilised, or would it stay with Pullment, particularly, because it is currently a Pullment budget? I apologise, but when I indicated to speak, it is very similar to where Collette was. The funding, although we can provide costs per prisoner place, is a really complex figure to achieve, because you are talking about staffing resources that cost and overheads for buildings. It is very difficult to extrapolate what it would create for 16 and 17-year-olds and take that out of the budget. It is not something that we have considered or been asked to do in relation to that. It is really just ensuring that we have the right services and supports in place to ensure that we provide appropriate care. Jamie Greene, do you want to come in with a final question and then we will bring the session to a close? Thank you, convener. You may need a pen and paper for this one, because I want to ask about a question that we maybe should have covered at the beginning. That is prison population. I am quite keen to hear how you forecast the model for that and what those forecasts look like. I appreciate your demand-led service, but the reason I say that you might need a pen and paper is because the statistics are quite stark. We have got over 50,000 cases in the courts that are currently backlogged. We have just heard evidence this morning that adds to that of a 50 per cent increase in indictments over the next two years. We know that 70 per cent of high court cases relate to quite serious sexual crimes, of which it is natural to assume that non-constodial sentences may not be the outcome for those. Against that backdrop, is it your expectation that the prison population in Scotland is likely to massively increase over the next five years? What is your view on that and by how much do you think it will? Thank you, Mr Greene. The figures that the Crown Agent provided this morning clearly are quite stark and are absolutely of concern to SPS. There are a number of areas where we have seen and the Crown Agent again made reference to them in relation to serious sexual crimes and serious organised crime. Although you have alluded to the fact that not all those cases will pull through to prisons, clearly a significant proportion of them will. We know that we have had a significant increase in our remand population and that the profile of those on remand suggests that those are the most serious cases. It is highly likely that those will pull through into our convicted population. The modelling that I have not taken note of is that I am not an analyst, so I think that I would find it difficult. However, the modelling that the Scottish Government has been trying to undertake has been really challenging because of the number of different moving parts of the system and the different ways that it can play out. However, I would certainly anticipate that we could be heading towards population levels that we saw in 2018 and 2019. I am not sure when and how long the population will take to rise, but that is certainly where I would anticipate us being in the next few years. I am sorry to push on that, but it is really important from a budget point of view that, surely, as a service, you must have numbers. I appreciate that there are lots of moving parts, lots of known and unknowns, but there are also the knowns, which some of which I have expressed today. We also know the refining statistics. We know how many people, for example, end up back in custody within one, two, three, four years of leaving custody, so there are trends and statistics that you can pull up on. You have a limited capacity, you have a limited amount of space and a limited amount of people in the system that you can hold, so surely there must be some modelling done to know whether you are at some point going to reach that capacity and then when you do what happens then. That is why that is so important, because we know that we are 10 or 15 years away from new prisons in some parts of Scotland. That is why I am pushing for the forecasting. Are we going to hit record highs of prison population and is there physically enough space to accommodate all the people that you are asked to keep under your care? How would I answer that, Mr Greene? The question that you initially asked me about the population projections and predictions is something for analysts. What they have indicated—this is the Scottish Government's area, not mine—is that the normal trends that we have seen and we normally rely on are no longer relevant in the pandemic world. The world has completely changed, which is why they have found it so difficult to tie down the predictions around likely rise and how long that is likely to take. Sorry that I cannot answer your question, but, as I say, I am told by Scottish Government analysts, that is why it is really difficult. The other question that I can answer is about modelling. In 2019, there was modelling that was undertaken at that time because of the population pressures, which gives ramp-up figures for where we can increase capacity across the estate. That is quite a complex set of scenarios, but we do have that. However, we have been revisiting that in light of the pandemic because clearly there are pressures that are placed on us around the continuation of outbreaks and where we have a reduction in single-cell occupancy, then clearly there are higher risks associated with that. We are currently looking across the estate to identify ways in which we can increase capacity and identify how we could safely increase the population levels. However, I caveat that with the fact that, in the past, we will have increased capacity to accommodate additional population pressures because of where we are in the pandemic and because of the pressures on re-offending supports and services that have been made available to us. We would require additional investment to ensure that we could support people on the rehabilitative journeys, and that is not something that we would necessarily have asked for previously, but we would certainly require investment on going forward. That sort of does not answer the question, but I appreciate the reasons why you cannot. I think what may I suggest that, in relation to the question around projected population numbers, that that might be something that you could follow up in writing for us? Thank you very much indeed. I am going to draw this session to a close. May I thank you both for coming along today? Obviously, if there are additional bits of information that you would care to share with the committee, please do so in writing. I would like to endorse the comments of members today in relation to acknowledging the work that all prison staff have been involved in, particularly during Covid, and hopefully coming out of it. We very much appreciate it. Thank you very much for attending today. That concludes the public part of the meeting. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, 10 November, when we will complete our pre-budget scrutiny and hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans. Thank you very much.