 I welcome everyone to the Justice Committee's 30th meeting in 2014, and I ask everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices as they interfere with broadcasting even when switched to silent. No apologies have been received. Item 1. The committee is invited to agree to consider our approach to an LCM on the UK modern slavery bill under item 5 and private. Are we agreed? Thank you very much. Next item in business is our final evidence session on the Scottish Government's draft budget, 2015-16, involving two panels of witnesses. Please Scotland, followed by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, designate. I welcome to the first panel meeting from Police Scotland Chief Constable Sir Stephen House, Deputy Chief Constable Leo Richardson and Janet Murray, director of financial services. Thank you very much for attending. I go straight to questions from members. Margaret Mitchell, John Pentland, Alison, John Finnie, Roddy Campbell, Elaine Murray, Roddy, what about Putin? Is that a sign that you're coming in? The figures that we have show that since 2009 some 2,000 support staff have been cut. When we heard evidence from Steve Diamond of Unison, he stated that not only have the police staff numbers been decreasing, the roles are diminishing. He mentioned in particular licensing and citation serving. Can the chief constable comment on the impact on Police Scotland's restructuring of the police support staff and the workforce balance? Thank you. Yes, I'm good morning. I'm happy to comment on that. I think the numbers are around about right. Those are two examples. In terms of citation servers, of course, this was something which was brought in, with civilian staff serving citations, was brought in in recent years, previous to that. I'm sure when Neil was an officer, I know when I was, police officers served citations. We've simply gone back to that model. Police officers are now tasked with serving citations. On the licensing situation, the same applies, really. I remember a bit of a public concern when police officers stopped doing firearms licensing, for example, and we civilianised that because the view was, well, actually you want police officers doing this. We're moving back towards that again. Quite clearly, what we're doing is working to balance a budget, and one of the ways we've been doing that is, I wouldn't use the word cutting. We've been obviously re-reduced a number of civilian staff. We've done it through voluntary redundancy and early retirement schemes because obviously we haven't got compulsory redundancy available to us as a tool to use. We are reprofiling the organisation, and I believe we're reprofiling it in a cost-effective, efficient way. I believe there are operational benefits in some areas as well, and I would suggest that certainly the licensing and the citations will lead to police officers who better understand the nature of the community they're working in and are able to link things together a lot more. I think that the difficulty with when you have specialist civilians doing it, and they did it extremely well, there's no criticism of that, but when they did it, that was the job that they did all day long. Whereas police officers doing it means that they can actually realise that I'm going to do a fire arms licensing check on this address, but actually I know that I was called to a domestic abuse incident here a month ago, and that's a bit concerning, and they can link things together, which it wasn't always so easy for civilian staff to do when it comes to things like licensing and indeed citations. So there are some operational advantages to it. I suppose in particular in licensing there's a certain expertise that was built up with the support staff. It can be quite complex in nature, and given that so many crimes are often alcohol related in Scotland, then I think there was some concern that there was a downgrading of the staff, and therefore they were still expected to do some things but not be recognised for it. So perhaps you could address that particularly, chief constable, and also I think it was the SPA were advocating perhaps the review of the workforce balance. Would you be supportive of that? In relation to the first question, I mean my experience has been police officers doing much of the licensing, particularly the active licensing checks, and I would with respect to civilian colleagues say that actually a police officer in uniform going into a licence premises is far more effective than someone in civilian dress who's having to identify themselves. So I think there's always room for specialists within the organisation, but I do think uniform police officers do a good job at licensing, and I think that has been borne out with the reduction in violence across the country. The crime stats out today show a 10% reduction in violent crime across the country, and as you've said yourself, much of that is alcohol related. In relation to the balance of the workforce, I think this is a much bigger issue which we are addressing now, but I think I'm sure that when the SPA gave evidence they would have talked about the lead that they're taking in developing the picture of policing going forward in Scotland, what that will look like, what the balance of the workforce will be and that, and we're certainly playing a full part in that discussion with them. There are some things we know already, we know for example we're reducing the number of control rooms down, so we know that picture will look different, but we're also looking at other areas now such as custody, where our custody provisions are, we're looking at criminal justice, which is a very mixed picture across Scotland, as with so many things bringing the eight forces together. Forces did criminal justice very differently when it came to a mix of police officers and police staff. Some were very heavily civilianised, some were not civilianised at all, so that's really still settling down, and rather than have any specific target and we don't have it for the number of civilian staff we would expect to have, what we're doing is asking our heads of units to design the best unit that they can possibly imagine, and we then see what's the mix of that with police officers and staff in it, so rather than saying it's a target that we are artificially aiming for, instead what we're saying is we're trying to design the best organisation we can, the most cost effective as well, and see what that looks like at the end of the day, so there is no specific target that we have in mind around civilian staff or indeed a balance. So would you favour more devolved budgets to various parts of the police workforce? Personally, I would, yes. I've worked in a number of police organisations where either the budgets were devolved whilst I was there, or were already devolved, and when we say that, sort of shorthand for divisional commanders having quite a large proportion of the budget, the constraints that we have though are that, as I think you know from our submission, our staff costs are about 93%, something like that, 91% of our total budget. The biggest proportion of that is 73%, which is police officers. There would be little point in me devolving the budget to divisional commanders when the biggest chunk of it by far is police officer numbers, and they can't do anything with police, they can't reduce the number of police officers because if they started doing that, we wouldn't maintain 17, 2, 3, 4. So I think in future it's quite possible that the first we would take steps to devolving more and more of the budget, but if you ask divisional commanders, the big chunk that they really want to get their hands on is police officers pay and conditions, and they would then start dealing with that. That's where all the money is, and there's no point in devolving that. And there is also a question, and just shouldn't be brief, there's also a question around if you devolve the budget to them, then they need a finance manager, and they need more admin staff to manage their budget locally, and the same is true with a number of functions, and actually most police forces have been going in the opposite direction recently. If we could find a way to give divisional commanders the decision making ability around budget and the shape of their workforce locally without the administrative and bureaucratic burden of managing the budget, then that would be my first choice to do it that way. One other aspect, if you don't mind, convener. I think that it's a big list, and you can come back in. John Pentland, followed by John Finnie, please. So Stephen Nie, morale within Police Scotland is probably at its all-time most, and I think that this is reflected in the sickness absence, which is currently running at 4.2 per cent. Of working time for police officers and 4.5 per cent for police staff. Now, as I said, this seems rather high considering that the Labour force survey of the Office of National Statistics reports at average rates to 1.6 per man and 2.6 per woman. How can you explain the high rates? There's very little, I agree with any question to be honest, Mr Pentland. For the OR, where are these figures from, so they are to put them in the reference? The Labour force survey from the Office of National Statistics. Yeah, as I said, there's very little, I agree with in your question. I don't believe that it's possible to measure morale in any particularly scientific way. There's been a huge degree of change in policing in the last two years, the biggest level of change there's ever been, and there's certainly been a degree of uncertainty for officers in what the future held for them. That pales into insignificance, of course, with the uncertainty that civilian staff have had, because police officers know that they have a job and that they will be deployed. Civilian staff were in a much more uncertain position. Actually, our measurements show that our sickness absence levels for police officers have at worst held steady and in some parts of the country improved in recent years. I think there's, I'm not entirely certain what the statistic of 1% that you actually raised was, but it's certainly not a police, a national UK police figure because we are very close to average on that, and in some areas beat it. If it's a national working force figure, then, well, police officers work shifts and they get assaulted by the public all too regularly, and nobody ever tries to compare police officer absence figures with the normal private sector figure. If it's the public sector, it's a bit of a closer estimate, but again, the vast majority of the public sector don't work shifts, they're not subject to the assault levels or indeed many of the stress levels which police officers are. So we keep a very close eye, as does the police authority on our absence figures, and we don't find them outstep. So do you then say that you don't think 4.2% sickness absences is high? What I'm saying is that it's not any higher than it's been under the legacy forces. I think in absolute terms you can say we would want it to be lower, but we keep a very close eye on our absence for police officers, and I would pay tribute to the men and the women in Police Scotland in terms of their determination to come into work. We have a number of people who are off long term, sometimes through unavoidable illness who we support, and we have officers who are off long term sick through assaults, and we have a number of people who are off short term, but we have processes in place to try to get them back to work as fast as humanly possible. I think that the organisation pays a great deal of focus to that, and I'm sure that you're aware that the police authorities spend a good deal of time looking at it both at the HR sub-committee but also at their full authority meetings where it's a standing agenda item. Again, Mr Steven, I take it that you're quite happy with the 4.2% because it's never increased over the past couple of years previous that you're quite happy with that level of absence. You know the question again is what are you doing about it to reduce the absence level or sickness level? Well, it appears from what I've heard that perhaps the rates are higher even for local policing, so you know if morale as you say is perhaps not the case then what is the reasons for people being off and why have you not been able to manage that level of sickness level? Well, I'm sorry but I just don't accept the premise of the question. What I've been trying to say is that these figures are not exceptional figures, they are figures that go back into the legacy forces, they haven't changed dramatically. Yes, we want them to improve, but we are looking at our occupational therapy, we are looking at improving that wherever we can do, but we have a very robust system to make sure that officers are supported and they're off sick, they have to phone in to let their supervisors know that they're not coming in to work, there is a follow-up, there is a return to work interview, they have access to occupational health of a good standard although we're seeking to improve that even more. We have regular visits for our long-term sick officers and make sure we try and support them to the best of our ability. We have gyms on many of our localities where officers can try and keep themselves fit, we stress to officers the need for that, I think we're doing quite a lot around it, I would never say I was happy, those are your words, not mine, I wouldn't say I'm happy with 4.2%, but what we want to do is get officers back at work as soon as possible, but we also don't want to put undue pressure on officers who are genuinely ill to feel they have to come back to work, so which is why we offer a return to work service, which means they can come back under protected duties and get better and recuperate and do some useful work, maybe away from the public, until they are fully fit, so I believe we offer quite a wide range of services to our officers, I'm always keen to learn about more. I think what John is getting at, can I ask it, what the percentage was with the legacy forces? It's much the same if you've got it now. I haven't, I'm afraid, but I can happily write to you and give you those broken down figures. I think that's the point you're making, even if it's just the same. That's perhaps one of the points, but the point I'm trying to get to is, what have you done to improve sickness absence for the past two years? What have you done, but it's 4.2 last year and 4.2 the year before, if you say it was average, what have you done this year to try and improve that? Forgive me, John, I think we've had as much from the chief council as we would get from that. I mean, we've had a long explanation whether or not you agree with it, but I don't think we're, and there's something fresh you're going to say, there isn't. I'm not too sure whether I agree with your intervention there. I'm trying to get the basis off, because when you've got sickness absence, if you convener, sickness absence then means that somebody else has got to cover. That then comes from a wedding issue. John, it's not my point. I mean, you can ask the question again. I'm just asking, we're going to get anything else. In addition, you've said no, so if you want to move on. Yeah, I move on to another question Sir Stephen. I know that six months into the current year, over 4 million pounds of cuts were still to be found and over 1.5 million pounds of identified savings is regarded as a major challenge. Given that this year is still such a struggle, would you agree that this highlights extreme difficulties you will face next year? Thank you for the question. I think we've said that we're anticipating some real challenges next year in the budget to balance it. We've identified what we've saved last year, what we're on course to save this year and what we expect the gap to be next year, and it's all around the mid 60s basically. So yes, we expect it to be challenging. We are, as we sit here getting closer to the end of this financial year, increasingly confident that we will balance the books in this year, and that will give us a bit of a head start for year three as far as we're concerned, but it will be challenging. I think I'm quite sure that Mr Swinney would say, well, it's meant to be challenging and I'm happy to tell him it is challenging. We have plans to identify where we can find some of the money, but we are still working on balancing or producing a balanced budget for the coming year. Will you say that you're still working on it? Are you able to tell the committee whether any of those reductions will come from reducing the civilian staffing? Will there be further closures registered for prestations, closure of control rooms, other savings? What are they? Well, I think it's a matter of public record, Mr Pentland, because we took it to the police authority that we have a plan around the control rooms. So inevitably, there will be more voluntary redundancies early retirements in that area, because the staff know what our plans are going forward with control rooms. I mentioned in an earlier answer that we are looking to we are reviewing our custody centres to see if we can be more efficient in the way we deal with our prisoner handling. That may result in the reduction of some civilian staff and we will continually look at all the other functions we carry out, such as finance and HR and ICT, to see whether or not we can be more efficient with our budget, and that might mean offering redundancies to more civilian staff. So, yes, I anticipate there will be more reductions in civilian staff, but we're also looking, in a number of other areas, we're looking to save revenue through reduction of our property portfolio. We're looking to save money through investment into our property portfolio to make them more efficient in terms of carbon, so that we can save millions each year on that. We're looking at our vehicle fleet on the same grounds. We're looking at our use of ICT. We're looking at our procurement for contracts. We're still in the process of rationalising many, many hundreds of contracts that we have across the country so that we can get maximum benefit from big purchase, because obviously we're a big volume purchaser now. So there's quite a lot of different areas we're looking. We're looking at overtime to see whether or not we can be more efficient with our use of police overtime, because it's an expensive resource. It's a necessary resource, but it's an expensive resource, and can we reduce that down? We're looking again at our senior officer ranks to see whether or not we can rationalise those down and try and reduce some of our more expensive senior officer ranks. By senior, I don't mean length of service, I mean senior in rank to see whether we can manage with less of those. So there's no area that we won't consider looking at to balance the budget. Just one final question in the meantime, convener. Could you tell Mr Steven how much money has been saved from the elimination of duplication since the creation of a single police force? Yes, Ms Manage. It will come on automatically. Yes, certainly. If we look at the last year, the £64 million that was saved within Police Scotland, looking at between the reform of the service and the creation of the single force, almost two-thirds of that sum came from those two areas. In continuing with that in this financial year, in the next financial year, in particular with this financial year, there will be a similar sum with the creation of the new force that has taken out the duplication. Certainly by the end of this financial year, almost 50 per cent of the savings will have came from the creation of the single force and the removal of duplication. I'll take a moment and supplementary, but we've raised the issue of that chargeable to the single police force, which wasn't chargeable when we had all the divisions. Excuse me, it seemed to fly my throat. How much are you paying out in that that's not recoverable? At the moment, it's not coming out of our budget. It's being covered by about £23 million. £23 million in which financial year? Well, it's pretty much, yes, it would be this year and going forwards as well, it'll be about £23 million. Is it going to increase over time? We're looking at £23 million at the moment of getting support through a Government fund, I think, but it's a big bill. It's a huge bill. I guess logically it would only increase if our purchasing increased as our purchasing is reducing, because that's one of the way we're saving money. I wouldn't expect the VAT bill to increase, but it won't reduce by an awful lot. I'm very happy to go on record and say that £23 million is a huge amount of money. It's probably about £680 police officers' worth, if that's of value. My colleague calculated it in the back of an envelope. I think the figure was £400 million, but I think that's quite conservative. I think accurately it's about £680 million, which is a lot, I'm not necessarily saying that if we had £23 million we would spend it on that, but it would be good to have that money. I have to say I'm not a tax expert by any shape or the imagination, but I do find it bewildering that we seem to be the only police service in the United Kingdom that is charged VAT. None of the 43 forces in England and Wales pay it, and the answer seems to come back from the Treasury. That's because you're a central government organisation. You've got the police service of Northern Ireland, they don't pay VAT, and you've got the national crime agency, and they don't pay VAT, but we pay VAT. I just don't understand the logic of it. I frankly don't think that the Scottish public would understand it either, really. It hasn't been explained to me in a way that I can understand. Perhaps we'll pursue that with the cabinet secretary designate about what the government is doing about this. I think that it's a matter. It is, I take it, a matter for government rather than Police Scotland. I think that the police authority, if I may say, has a view of it, but I'm sure they would be delighted if the Scottish Government was to talk to them about it and take it up, because it does seem a bit anomalous. You've sucked my question. Oh, I'm so sucked. That was my supplementary in regard to the VAT, and so Stephen has answered exactly the questions that I was going to ask you. Oh, I'll keep my hand in for a question in that sort of question. Absolutely. I'm sorry. I apologize. I didn't look, read, and somebody wanted to come into the supplementary. No, it's John Finnie next, followed by Alison, followed by Liam, followed by Christian. It's not my handwriting. I'm accused of everything in this chair, from duplicity to trickery of all sorts. John Finnie, followed by Alison. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Chief Constable. Chief Constable, you touched it briefly in an earlier answer to Mr Pentland. I've got some questions, and I appreciate that you may not have the fine detail of it, but around the Climate Change Act and the obligation that's placed in public authorities, and the term used, indeed, in relation to the police as they are a major player in relation to the challenges that we face with regard to climate, be able to give any general outline as to the extent to which spending decisions are influenced by the requirements placed? What conflict there is between savings and emissions, for instance? I don't recognise much of a conflict, Mr Finnie, at all there, really. It's about efficiency across the board, as far as we're concerned. A number of issues, we're taking a sum of money in our capital spend. I'm sure Janet will know how much, but we're taking a sum of money in our capital spend to put into improvements in existing buildings, usually around things like the windows, which tend to be old design, the doors, some stuff around how we generate power in some places to become much more efficient and use less electric and gas in relation to those. In relation to vehicle fleet, we constantly review our vehicle fleet to try to make sure that we're following all the best guidance. We are starting to use very marginally electric vehicles. We're still, again, these meetings seem to be areas that I'm increasingly not an expert in, but I'm not an expert in electric vehicles, but we still have a bit of an issue with range in relation to them. We have used some on the fleet, and we are very happy to, as they become more and more sustainable as a vehicle, be very happy to take them on board as well. You'll be well aware that we've moved to a heavily diesel fleet, but, as I understand it, advice and environmental advice has perhaps started to move against diesel fleets, and we will take that on board as well. I notice that petrol engines have become much more efficient in their terms of miles per gallon, and we may have to think about going back to that, but this is where you may get a slight conflict. One of the things that we do with our purchasing of vehicles is that we're looking at the whole life cost of the vehicle, so one of the important things for us is maintenance costs. Diesel tends to have a lower maintenance cost than petrol, simply because it's got a longer maintenance schedule, and they can sometime where they'll go longer mileage and they'll be a bit more robust so we get more money on resale, which all feeds into our choices for vehicles, but we are looking more and more at mixing vehicles, and I saw recently over the weekend that hydrogen powered vehicles are starting to make much more of an impact, admittedly in California where it always seems to start, but they look very attractive because they don't have the range limitations that pure electric does, so a hydrogen powered vehicle is something that we would be interested in trying as soon as it comes in, and bearing in mind, Police Scotland is now the second biggest police vehicle fleet in the UK, so we would get fairly early access to such specialised vehicles, and we'd be keen to try that out. The final thing that I was going to mention, I suppose, is new builds. I mean, I know Neil can talk far more about Dalmanach than I can, but I'm well aware that it's a very, very high Bream rating. It's a very high Bream rating at Dalmanach, and it was designed as that from the start. If you want more detail, I'm sure Neil can talk about that. No, that word meant what, but higher? What was that word, sorry? It's an industry standard for low-carbon usage in the running of a building. It stands for something. You could say Bream. Bream is B-R-E-A double M, I think, and it's an industry standard, and you actually see it when buildings are up for rent, usually. It's got the high rating. It tells you that it's got a very high rating. We built Dalmanach, or had it built, specified that it would be like that, so that the running costs are particularly low. I see a Christmas question in that, and some general knowledge board about Bream ratings, if we're going to get it right, because we want to google and find out what it is. In very basic parlance, it's the equivalent in building terms to going into curries and buying a fridge where you will have a look and there's A rating and A plus rating. It's a similar kind of scale, but it is representative of how efficient the building is. We won't talk about the Bream rating of this building then. Yeah, I'm not very technically minded, but clearly things improved, you've cost about, as you get rid of less efficient older vehicles and similarly with buildings. Is there any projection done about that at the timeframe and how that will impact on your... We do have, and Janet's found it for me. We have set targets around reducing emissions, so compared to where we are now, we're looking at a 25% reduction by 2020, and we're looking at a 50% reduction by 2050. The aim, the aspiration, is to become a carbon neutral organisation. Not an easy thing to do, but then again, you have to aspire to these things. We reckon that the total cost of our carbon footprint last year was in excess of 26 million, but that's everything. That's the cost of the fuel, the cost of the gas electric etc. Anything we can do to reduce that will be taxpayers' money saved and be better for the environment as well. Clearly we're scrutinising the budget. Is that something that's a regular budgetary consideration? Yes, I think I'm right in saying that all of our papers to the police authority have got carbon emission implications on it as well, so it's something that the authority keep under scrutiny and so do we. Okay, thank you, that's very reassuring. Thank you. Thanks, John. Alison, followed by Liam, followed by Rod, followed by Christian. He's smiling now, yes. Alison. Thank you. Returning to the pressures on the service of the budgetary pressures, not only you yourself this morning have acknowledged that next year is going to be challenging, but I think that all of our witnesses so far have also expressed concern about that. Calum Steele, chief superintendent Rennie, Derek Penman and Vic Emery have all said that this coming year is going to be much harder. When I pressed Derek Penman on what the risks round about that were, he said that the obvious risks are about the extent to which, in order to make the savings, the police might have to lose more staff. Alternatively, they might start to cut inappropriately into the other part of the budget, and that might be shown through falling service and public satisfaction levels. What, in your mind, Sir Stephen, are the risks ahead for the service in the next year? Well, I mean, I would not take issue with anything that Mr Penman has said. I mean, he's a very experienced police officer. He's worked as one of my senior officers for about 18 months before he became HMI, so he's well aware of situations inside the organisation. But I'm sure he's also well aware of the fact that when we look to balance the budget, we don't just say right, well, how can we save money? We're also looking at, well, what are the operational implications of that cut? And there are operational implications, and if they are disproportionate, or we don't think that we can balance them in some way, then that would not be a cut that we would have in our top line. So we will do exactly as councils have done, and you've seen it in the newspapers recently. It's a well-tried strategy. They list all the things that they could possibly do to balance the budget. It's published, so the public can take a view on it. And when the public reacts violently against some things, i.e. school closures or something else that's quite emotive, then the council gets their, that's them testing the water and they will pull back. Well, we do something similar, which is we look at a wide range of issues, some that are politically acceptable, some that are not, and some that are operationally too damaging for us. So, for example, we could look at cutting back massively on our overtime budget. I mean, I think our overtime budget's about 18 million, 1.8 million. We could say, well, we'll save all of that money, there'll be no overtime. That would not be a realistic decision to take, because overtime, whilst it's expensive, is absolutely essential in terms of flexibility and response, and allowing officers to respond as they would want to do to incidents. And so that would be something that we might have on the list, but we would pretty quickly say, no, we won't do that. But we might say, well, can we reduce overtime by 10% and how can we manage that? Could we manage that through better supervision of overtime to make sure that officers really did need to stay on duty as long as they say they do, or could we say, actually, you can sort that out either tomorrow, or you can hand that work on to somebody else. And we have to take those steps, because it's public money we're dealing with. So, it's not a case of us simply making, you know, the bottom line is not, right, we're going to balance this budget come what may. The bottom line is, we have to deliver an efficient and effective police service, and we have to meet what the government wants from us and what the police authority wants from us. But we have to do so within a balanced budget, so it's a matter of balancing the two. And I know Derek would have put that across in his own, so I hope I have. Thank you for that. I mean, what we're trying to establish is the budget actually realistically appropriate for the kind of service that you're trying to provide. I mean, given that the projected savings were built on, let's face it, quite shaky foundations, you know, quite a sketchy outline business case, would you support a review of the timetable to meet the savings? Would you say that we need to just take a pause and have a look at the scale of the savings we're expected to make? I think I probably have to speak up for Neil a little bit. I mean, our view and ACPOS's view when it existed at the time was that the outline business case itself was solid, where we took issue was around the savings that were attributed to it. ACPOS never signed up for the exact amount of savings. However, the first time I think I appeared in front of this group, I'm sure that Vic Henry was with me at the time, we said that we accepted the budget for year one and that we thought it was doable. We did the same for year two. I feel that I have to just stick with what it's going to be challenging for year three, but I don't think that I don't feel I'm in a position in any shape or form to say it's not doable. I just think it's challenging. What I would say, though, if it helped you was to say, I think that as members will be well aware, we have a sort of an overall strategic financial target of saving 1.1 billion by 2026. We are internally very confident, and I think I'm right in saying audit Scotland are confident that we will meet that strategic target of 1.1 billion pounds worth of savings by 2026, but what I've been saying to my people internally is it's not a smooth path from here till 2026. It's quite bumpy, and anything that could be done to smooth the path would be easier for us to sustain. For instance, next year is pretty difficult. There are years beyond that, which at the moment don't seem as difficult. Having said that, they could become more difficult as we get nearer, so I'm not an expert in financial projections, and to be honest with you, I think that's a role for government and government departments to do that. The budget will be challenging for next year. We are up for the challenge, but it's going to be more difficult next year than it's been in the first two years. You're up for the challenge. Are you also up for being open about when you think the challenge can't be met if that case happens? Yes, and I'm happy to repeat externally what I've said internally for a number of years to my organisation, which is there will come a point where we will have to at some point say to politicians, we can't do any more. If that point comes, then I will say that. I've always tried to be open and honest with the public in Scotland and the politicians, and that's the situation. I don't know where we go from there when it does happen, but I see that as my role. Despite what people in the room may think of me as a leadership stylist, the one thing I do take very seriously is looking after my organisation so it can look after the public. Decisions that you make, you don't get every single decision right, but I can promise you that if the time comes where I think the organisation, the service is being degraded to a level, then I will say so. I do not see that yet. I'm very proud of what we've achieved so far. As I say, we sit here today with the crime figures released for the last year, for our first full year. Total crime is down, violent crime is down 10%. There are some areas we'd like to improve on, but I think it's a pretty good report card. I think particularly when you combine it with Derek Penman's recent review of our statistics, which has found that actually our recording of crime is good and we record 94% accuracy, which compares and contrasts with other parts of the United Kingdom extremely well, so that the public can have confidence in our crime figures. We have confidence in them, but the HMI does, and the Scottish Government does. No question, if I may convene. You've got confidence. It's not my job to have any questions the other way around. Any questions all this way around? Picking up on what you said there, which was interesting about meeting the overall target in 2026, but perhaps taking a different path to that, that ties in a little bit with what Vic Emery said. He said that we're moving from a consolidation phase to a transformational and reforming phase, and I'm concerned that that transformation happens alongside, with public confidence, and they take the public with you. In order to do that, you need to have the time to do that, and I just wonder whether you feel that the budget pressures will force you to make this transformational change too quickly and that you'll lose the public along the way. I think we've taken some appropriate decisions so far, and I keep going back to the control room one, because it's a very iconic one, and it's a huge structure and infrastructure for us, but we've taken other decisions, other bold decisions, on our ICT development, which Neil is leading under the I6 umbrella. I do have to stick to the issue of, I genuinely believe a single service can be delivered to the public, provide a better service than the very good service that the eight constituent forces were doing. It's not a case of fixing things they got wrong, it's building on strength, but I also believe we can do it more efficiently and more cost effectively, and we've already heard from Janet about the amount of money we save through a reduction of the duplications. I believe there's more of that to come. I'll go back to the contracts issue. I think we've identified something like over 500 contracts across Scotland. We already had a degree of consolidation amongst the eight forces. There were some frameworks that we bought from, but we've still got 500 contracts, which we can squeeze down ethically and appropriately. We can squeeze down the providers. For example, when we went live on day one, we had eight different contracts with BT. They were all at different rates. That can't be right, so we're fixing things like that. We do have a strength of dealing with some quite big outfits now because we are a big purchaser on behalf of the Scottish public. There are benefits. The model is a model that is capable of much, much more, and we can make more savings. Come back to your question, are we going too fast? We're going fast and it is causing stress and strain in the organisation. I acknowledge that, but I think that we're going at the right speed because we want to improve as fast as we possibly can and offer us increasingly a better service each year. There are a number of areas where I can evidence that we've done that already. In the support of that, with the passage of time, the issue of pace is that there are some inevitable realities that are slowing down the ability to move forward as rapidly as we did at the earlier stages. The closer you get into true transformation activity, the more relevant that is. To give you an example of that, Dalmarnock has already been mentioned. I've been the SRO for that. It's taken us six years to go from the notion through to delivery. Again, the technology project that I'm leading on, that's six years and we've not yet, although we're very close to it, got to the point of delivery there. Those are genuinely transformational activities that have huge amounts of benefit. I believe that there's lots more in the organisation, but the chief's point with regard to smoothing out the way, I think inevitably the delivery of those kinds of transformational changes will, by their nature, take time. You have to go through due process, you have to prove the case, you have to ensure consultation and that people are brought along with you and all of that is going to take time. It may very well be that there is plenty of dividend but there are cash flow of like phasing issues that will present. At the moment, what we're doing is looking very closely and very rapidly at the opportunities that we think are credible. I know John Watt, but I want to take out who's not been in first, but Elaine, followed by Rod, Christian, Sandra and Margaret Warton, should sit at the end of that, then John. Elaine, please. Sir Stephen, last year you told us that there was no policy for backfilling of vacant civilian posts by police officers. However, Tina Yule of HMIC, when talking of the custody report, stated that part of the resourcing model is to backfill from local policing with police officers, although she did go on to say that it wasn't necessarily for civilian staff, it could be for other policing staff. Stephen Diamond said that, when there were vacancies, police officers would be put in that. That was their experience and Chief Superintendent Rennie also said that the job still has to be done. However, logic dictates that more police officers will perform those functions. There may be no policy for backfilling, but it sounds like backfilling is actually happening. So what are you doing to monitor and address the situation where police officers appear to be carrying out work, which would be more appropriately carried out by civilian support staff? I think I've said at this meeting before that you've quoted me quite accurately, there is no policy or strategy on backfilling, but I think I also said that of course backfilling goes on on a daily basis because people go sick, they have to be filled with short notice that that's inevitable. An organisation of 23,000 people across the country, there is no policy to do it. I think you're referring to the comment that Ms Ewell made in relation to the inspection in Fife. I think therefore it's also fair to say that Derek Penman said in his report that they didn't find evidence of backfilling as a strategy, so that's the other side of the coin. There is inevitably backfilling across custody all across the country, but as you pointed out, I think you said in your question that's more around police officers backfilling other police officers' roles, it's not backfilling civilian custodians. The reason for that is simply that, and this is one reason why we're reviewing custody as a whole, that our custody provisions are very, very uneven, requirements are very uneven, so they start ramping up in terms of prisoners being taken into custody on a Thursday, keep going up in terms of volume, hit a peak on a Sunday night because we don't have Saturday or Sunday courts, therefore the cells are filling up, and then on Monday morning there's this mass exodus to the courts, so if you go in there on a Monday afternoon you need a fraction of the staff that you need on a Saturday and a Sunday night, so to employ people at an even level would be vastly expensive, far more expensive than we need, so we provide a surge capacity from police officers, so there's not so much backfilling as reinforcement of the existing staff who are in there on a permanent rotor. We also have examples where, for example, in Aberdeen, in our contact centre in Aberdeen, we have police officers doing jobs that were previously done by staff colleagues, the reason for that is simple, it's well publicised that we will be closing down the control room contact centre in Aberdeen, staff are taking advantage of the very buoyant labour market in the area and are going to other jobs early on, we've therefore agreed with the unions, it would be pointless us to bring in more civilian staff to backfill for a short period of time, it would be unfair to do it with agency staff, I think would be risking some danger because you need experienced people, so we deploy police officers in that instance because we know that it's only a matter of time before the control room shuts down, so we do backfilling in certain cases where we think it's a logical thing to do and we try to get union acceptance of that but there is still, at this moment in time, no policy around backfilling. Did you say that Ms Yew did say that it was backfill for any custody of officer, whether civilian or police? You wouldn't say it was just for police officers, you said it was for civilian officers as well, and Stevie Diamond particularly was talking about where there were unfilled vacancies rather than where they were, if you like, the closures were imminent, but my question actually was, are you monitoring where backfilling is happening and would you take a step to address it if it's inappropriate? Yes, I'm sorry, I should have been more direct, yes we do monitor it and where we think it's inappropriate we will take steps but as I say, I wouldn't expect in the organisation for it to happen because there's no strategy or policy to support it so people will be acting outside of the strategy if they did it. Can I go on to other evidence that we had the same day from Superintendent Rennie and from Steve Diamond as well about stress on staff members, police officers at superintendent level, for example, who he said were working long hours, were not able to take their rest days or their annual leave and often when they felt sick would rather use annual leave than reporting sick. Stevie Diamond also told us that he was surprised that sickness-absence rates had not increased more for civilian staff because of the stresses that they were under. What's your view of that, are you concerned about that? Are you taking steps to address some of these issues? I'm always concerned if I hear that staff are under undue stress, but we have reviewed regularly the superintending ranks and the roles that they carry out, so one of the things that we've looked at is the on-call rotor for superintendents and we've added the number of superintendents into that on-call rotor, so I think the average figure is round about superintendents are on-call one week in nine, which I don't think is particularly onerous. We've done a fair degree of engineering to make sure that nobody is overburdened in that. There is a higher proportion of on-call amongst specialist crime directorate superintendents because they're smaller in number, but as for divisional superintendents across the territorial divisions, I don't think that the on-call burden on them is particularly onerous. I met with two divisional commanders in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire yesterday at a long service medal ceremony. I can tell you that they are now seen particularly high. I meet superintendents on a virtual daily basis and, yes, they work hard, but the superintendents association has done a good job in making sure their remuneration is not a bad remuneration. Frankly, they're senior managers in the organisation and I expect them to work hard. I don't want them to be unduly stressed, but they've got difficult jobs to do, making difficult decisions sometimes without over dramatising at life and death decisions in relation to firearms incidents or any other incidents. They manage a great range of incidents, search and rescue in the Highlands, et cetera, and we put a great deal of faith into our superintending ranks. I'm sure they find their jobs tough. I'd be disappointed if they felt that they couldn't take their annual leave. It's not something that I've noticed as an issue, if I'm honest. I certainly see them taking annual leave, so I don't think they're not, I don't think the situation, they're not leaving work at all. We meet regularly with the superintendents association, and I do meet regularly, and they raise a number of issues with me, and I'll be honest. Yes, they've raised concerns about the on-call rotor in the past, they've raised concerns about allowances for cars, and we talk on these matters on a regular basis. I think that it's a perfectly appropriate way of dealing with the problem. The impression that we got from that evidence was that some of the savings that had been made by decluttering or whatever you might call it, or the efficiency savings at that sort of rank, instead of going into the police service that actually got into the SBA and the PIRC, rather than actually into front-line policing. Would you agree with that concern? It's not something that I don't see as a pattern. We have reduced the number of superintending ranks quite markedly in the organisation. There's a bit more to go. We have probably about 20 more superintendents in existence at the moment in the organisation, and we have posts that we need them to do. We still have some extra superintendents, and we will reduce down to that when people retire. We've converted superintending ranks posts in the main into police comfortable posts, and yes, I guess there's some saving between the cost of a police council and the cost of a superintendent or chief superintendent, but we've generated £20 million worth of savings from police salaries to contribute towards the budget targets. Some of that has come from a reduction in senior ranks. I would remind you that we've more than halved the bill for chief officer ranks across Scotland as well. Good morning, Sustin. Can I start by referring to a question that I put to Vic Emery about the funding of police officers formally funded by local authorities, and what the up-to-date position is in relation to that? You suggested that I address that to you. How kind? I certainly can. I do have some information on that somewhere. We have about, I think it's about 329 officers who are currently funded by various councils across the country. The two biggest chunks of those are, I guess, as one would expect in Edinburgh and in Glasgow, which contribute probably two-thirds of that number. The rest are from a number of other councils who provide essential but smaller numbers of funding. I think we're seeing some pressure, as one would expect from councils on that, and a couple of the smaller contributing councils have said that they might find that more difficult next year. I have to say, in my experience, that we get that every year, but often the money is forthcoming because they value the extra policing that they get. Obviously, that's entirely a matter for the councils. We'd be disappointed if that happens, but we understand that everybody has budgets to balance. It's still largely intact. It's very much still there at the moment. Could I move on to a separate issue, property? Last year, I think you said there were about 800 buildings, only about half of which were operational, in terms of trying to to maximise resources. A year later, could you summarise the position in relation to property? I just forgive me just to sort of pin down that. It is 800 buildings. If I said that half are operational, what I would have meant by operational is we have operational officers working from them, not that they're empty. Was that what you meant? They've never been empty, as such. It's that they are administrative centres or even old headquarters buildings. I wouldn't classify, for example, the Pitt Street building, which we still run. I wouldn't say that it has a control room in it, but operational units don't work from Pitt Street. It's an administrative centre, and there's quite a few of those around the country. In general, we are in the midst of developing, with the police authority and a number of other agencies, a very comprehensive property strategy. We are looking to reduce our property, but with the huge emphasis on the non-operational buildings, which is probably where I used the phrase, I guess. You just grant only half of those what the public would recognise as operational buildings. So we're still focusing on reducing down. The number one target we had was to get out of any expensive leases that we had. We've done a lot of work on that, and we're out of most of our expensive leases. Then we were looking to say, look, can we rationalise? Can we put more people into buildings? Can we sell off some buildings? We get some capital return on that, but actually we also get a revenue uplift on that as well. We save money doing it that way. We're still in the midst of doing that, and if you combine that with the point I made to Mr Finnie about, we are making sure that when we put new buildings up, they're more efficient in terms of our utilities, then that's where we're headed. For 14-15, we are expecting to get about £5 million in receipts from buildings that we have sold in this financial year, and that ranges all the way from police houses that we no longer need up to much larger buildings. Just in relation to overtime, last year you said that you'd shaved about 10 million from the previous year, and you talked about an overtime budget of 22 million. This morning, you were talking about 18 million. In the light of pressures, for example, on investigating domestic abuse, for example, is that overtime budget sufficient? I think that Mr Penman also indicated that, to some degree, that was devolved to divisional commanders, so a bit more flesh on the overtime would be helpful. Okay, thank you. Janet reminds me, in a hastily written note, that some of the savings around overtime have been that we have, and I have to give credit to the Federation and Callum Steele in particular here, he came forward with a proposal to us, which was to convert a number of public holidays into annual leave days, which doesn't sound like anything particularly dramatic, but it means that what we were able to do was avoid paying public holiday rates to police officers and simply say, right, instead of x number of public holidays, we'll give you x plus of annual leave instead. The benefit for the police officers was actually, it's far more flexible. You can only take a public holiday off on the day it's a public holiday, but if you work that as an ordinary day, but you get an annual leave day in return, you can actually nominate to take that at a time of your own choosing within reason. So that saved us probably about four million, that saved us from our overtime bill, so there's been savings there without cutting actual cops on the street. But I do go back to, we need to be as efficient as we possibly can, overtime is expensive, and we have to make sure that supervisors are authorising it, that there's a third eye on this to say, yes, we need that spending, that person has to be interviewed now by that officer. We can't have some other officer interview them because they've got a rapport going and it has to be done before the end of the shift or it has to be done today. So long as we're happy with that, we'll pay the overtime. A big element of overtime comes from unexpected incidents, usually tragic ones, homicide investigations, et cetera, where we simply have to get feet on the street early for public reassurance and a lot of homicides are solved very, very early on with door to door, et cetera. We have to put people out to do that. So we still spend where we need to spend. It is devolved. Rose Fitzpatrick, the deputy for local policing, keeps some at the centre, but she also devolves to divisional commanders a proportion of the overtime budget for them to spend. It's not something that we control from the centre. It's controlled local units. What extent to policing major events and trying to recover the costs of policing major events factor into that? I think I'm sure members are aware. I'm sure that Vic mentioned it was when he was here that the authority has, we've worked on it together, but we've brought in a policy around consistency of charging at events, which means that we are able across the country to be a lot more consistent around how we do it. I mean, I have got some figures, but I'm going to have to try and find them. I'm struggling at the moment. Apologies. I think the figures are quite interesting. Since the first of April 2013 till today, we've had recorded in our log of events, 12,195 events. We have recovered full costs at 272. Further 81 has been recovery of some costs. That doesn't include football matches. So that's just every other event. It ranges from a local gala or fate up to, dare I say, Hogman A in Edinburgh. We look at a number of issues, but the authority's policy is very clear on this, which is where it's a profit making enterprise, it's full cost recovery. I have to be very clear on this. We would rather not have any officers at it at all, but if it's an event that requires a level of policing, that's for the local commander to decide what the level of policing is, once that has been decided and it's done on public safety, crime prevention grounds, then that's a number of police officers, that's what we will tell the organisers and the people who will make a profit out of this, and then there's a full cost recovery. Some are abated and they're abated for a number of different reasons where, for example, it's got some element of public interest in it and an abatement will be applied to that. Some are full cost recovery, and that's in line with the police authority's policy on this, and we take the bigger decisions on this to the finance and investment committee of the police authority for them to agree the level of abatement or whether it should be a full cost recovery event. Presumably there's a contract between yourself, Police Scotland or the SP, and the event organisers, whatever, there's a stitched up contract. That sounds wicked, but you know what I mean? A firm contract, so everybody knows where they are at the end of the day. We would be more inclined to call it a memorandum of understanding that we will provide these officers under the command of this rank to do the following jobs, but we would also expect them to provide, for example, a number of stewards because that would reduce the costs. We were not out to put loads of cops at these events. We would like that reduced as much as possible. Football's a good example. We now run quite a number of non-policed football matches across Scotland where there is no police presence because history and intelligence says there's no trouble at these matches, so we don't need police officers. There are others, unfortunately, where we need to deploy quite a few officers. And there's a memorandum of understanding, as I said, contract. Thank you. Just to clarify that it's not just sprung upon people, they know exactly what they're going to have to pay for at the end of the day, if you're sending police officers. Christian, followed by Sandra. Good morning, and that was my main question, but if I want to go back into the football clubs and particularly the numbers you just gave us, how much money are we talking about since April 2013 to today, and how much has still to be recovered, and how much is due not to be recovered at all? I can give a general introduction. Obviously, as I say, we do a number of matches now that are police free, so there's no charge for those. Where we are providing police officers to a football club, we would expect full-cost recovery because they're a profit-making enterprise, so when we have to distinguish amateur clubs where they might be in a cup final or something, that actually does happen, I'm thinking of one in particular in Ayrshire, where they're not profit-making clubs, but we still have to put a police presence, because tensions run quite high, but where they're a profit-making enterprise, we'll provide police officers where we think intelligence and history provides we should do, we'll agree it with the club, but that would be expected to be a full-cost, full-cost recovery situation. I don't have specific figures for that. I do know how much, well, Janet knows how much money is owed to us by football clubs, I think. Yes, certainly in terms of the chief constable outlined, we do have a number of officers which, when they do attend football clubs, and we have a recovery process, like any other organisation would do, so really when we take to at the moment anything which is over 90 days, it's a very, very small amount actually, it's only £85,000. When you look at it at the moment, I haven't had the exact figure with me, but recoveries from football clubs in general in total are much higher than that, we have a very good active programme of following up and recovering with a student invoice, and we do that in line with working with the clubs and working with the commanders to ensure that any monies do come back to us. That's a good point of public perception because, of course, in the north-east in Aberdeen, for example, there have been some football club, some football matches that were not policed at all, so if the future could be there, that would be great savings at the end of the day. The last sum of, you touched upon it and I think we heard from evidence that the last sum of private entities, which you provide as well, do we have any numbers for us? What kind of money are we talking about, money which has not been recovered? What's your policy? Are you changing your policy on how to recover the specific money, or is it the same policy that you had in the past? In terms of legacy practices, a number of the various legacy forces did have different practices and, yes, we are looking to amalgamate those and look for the best recovery process possible, but in the main, whilst they did have differences, they tended to follow a similar route of either following up by letter or in verbal contact with them or arranging meetings with each and every individual and, if necessary, taking appropriate legal action. Have you got any legal action on this now? Not at this point. Have you got a national role? We heard from Derek Bedmond that you had a national policy of recharging. Is that in place? Yes, we have an approved policy in Wharton. We have worked along with the SPA in bringing out the full cost recovery policy and that has been in place since August of 2013. Thank you very much for this. Another question if I may. We heard from Vic Henry that he told us about a meeting of academics, Scottish Government and yourself to see what policing will look like in five, ten and fifteen years at a time. We approached about what the expectation of the public and of politicians are for the service. How are we on this discussion and have we progressed and have we got a timetable already? We are progressing on it, yes, but I think it's something we don't want to rush too much. The issue here is it's fine asking the police service what it thinks it should look like in five, ten, twenty-five years' time. I'm sure the police authority has a valid view as well, but I think it's as important to ask a variety of other stakeholders and particularly the public in terms of what would they like to see in terms of positive change. I anticipate that this will take some while, but there have been several meetings already between groups within Police Scotland and the Police Authority to start discussing some of the concepts that we'll be looking at going forward over the next five and ten and twenty years. We also want to make sure that we pay attention to what's going on internationally because there's a lot of thinking around this sort of thing, a lot of ICT developments going on around the world that we need to make sure we take advantage of. So the work is ongoing. I wouldn't promise that it's going to be finished in three or six months' time. I think we need to take our time with it and we want to make sure that we talk sufficiently to public, to local councils, to a variety of stakeholders, the crown for example as to what it is. So for example we had a meeting of the Justice Board recently that Lord Carlaway came along to and he was talking about the Scottish Government's digital strategy and the digitalisation in relation to courts and the legal processes which takes us into areas like body-worn video cameras, which you'll be aware of from the north. It's certainly been in place in Aberdeen in Aberdeenshire for a few years now and it's something I know that Police Authority is keen to talk to stakeholders, including the public, about moving forward with because it's a fairly sensible and practical approach to evidence gathering and transparency in the criminal justice system. Are you considering in the future maybe a sharing of budget before the services of social care or the NHS or sharing buildings? We already have I guess more than a toe, a foot in the water around sharing buildings. So for example the Fort William Police Office that was funded to give them credit by the Northern Constabulary Police Board is a shared facility with Scottish Ambulance Service. We're in discussion with Scottish Fire and Rescue around whether or not they want to use parts of our West Bell Street facility in Dundee and that would potentially be a control room facility so it wouldn't be a fully integrated control room yet but it would be a step towards that and I'm sure Vic has said and I share his aspiration that the next generation of control rooms not probably in three or five years but 10, 15 years out I would expect, I'd be surprised if they're not shared across the emergency services. I'm conscious of time so I've got two members who want to ask some. I'm going to ask you to give your questions to Margaret and John and then we'll get joined the questions together. So Margaret, what's your question? Yes, very briefly Chief Constable. In previous sessions I'd asked about budgets for campaigns such as the 101 numbers, doorstep sellers, keeping safe online and just general PR budgets but it wasn't clear how much is spent on this or where you would find a breakdown of this information. That's quite important in terms of preventative spend to see how effective it is. Thank you, John. I've got three questions. The first one is really quite important for my benefit. Sir Stephen, in an earlier response to Arsum and Kinnis you mentioned that you were quite confident that the £1.1 billion would be achievable come 2021-20 and whilst I find it's perhaps a case that that will be ham... How do you then measure that up with what Vic Emory said last week that you're unaware of what the price will cost and you're unaware of what the future holds for priests and so on, perhaps in terms of the future of Police Scotland will depend on the budget that you have available. My second question is along the lines of you mentioned earlier that you spend £18 million on overtime and perhaps if you don't have the answer just now you may be able to write to the committee how much of that is actually spent on covering for Arsum and Kinnis. My third question is one that was your convener who asked me to ask Police Scotland with regard to Victim Support Scotland. Victim Support Scotland are dependent on funding to cover areas of domestic violence, sexual crimes and human trafficking. Will that funding still be available this year for them? I don't know where that one came from, but anyway just what you can Chief Constable. Thank you chair. In terms of Ms Mitchell's question, I've actually got a breakdown here of what we've spent on different campaigns. I'm happy to write because it's sort of two pages worth. I'm happy to write to you and include that as an appendix. I would say though we are spending a significant proportion and a greater proportion on the social media side and electronic media. Not so much television adverts but YouTube and the internet and a lot on Twitter. I mean I'm sure a number of you will be aware we've got something like 178 Twitter feeds across Police Scotland and they are extremely active. I think we've got something like 600,000 contacts now around Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc. So we're using that a lot more and that often is more considered to be more cost-effective than more traditional TV and newspaper coverage. Is it common during the budget? I don't know, I've got it broken down here by actual campaigns so it's quite detailed what I've got and the cost of each of the campaigns which... Okay, that'd be great. I can leave the video if you want to. Sorry, I can leave this video if you want. Yes, well that would be even better if we get a copy to members. I'm just conscious that we've got more John's questions now. At one point, how can I be confident? I can be confident because we've reduced savings already by such an amount that is recurring each year that we know that that will add up to a saving of £1.1 billion by 2026. It's a simple multiplication exercise. Do I know what my budget will be in 2026? No, I've no idea what my budget will be in 2026. I hope it's sufficient to run a first-class police service but in terms of the amount of money that we are not spending each year going forward that will add up to £1.1 billion by 2026 which is what we were asked to do. I can't give you an indication of how much of the £18 million that we spend on overtime is spent covering sickness absence but the reality is overtime is usually spent as I've already said actually in the meeting to cover unforeseen events, homicides, other emergencies that take place, searches for missing persons in open country, public order situations, a variety. That's where the overtime gets spent. It doesn't get spent so much on covering absence for sickness because I mean take the obvious point. If at seven o'clock in the morning at the start of a shift someone calls in sick then we're down one then I would expect the sergeant or the inspector to make sure that that person, if we need to cover it, that person's vacancy is covered in some other way, there wouldn't be the ability that there's no one to really just to pay the overtime too. It's not really something that is done. I'm going to, I know, I'm sorry, no John. We've had answers. And you've not, and the chief counsellor says please don't interrupt me, no please don't interrupt me. We've had an answer which says you can't give us the actual detail you've put on the record that is, as I understand, to paraphrase you. It's highly unlikely that you're using overtime to cover for sickness. You've given incidents that the chief counsellor has put on the record. If there's anything additional that could be added by any breakdown that, which you may or may not have, if it's about overtime covering sickness then you'll provide it to us, I take it. So would that satisfy you? Well, the reason I'm asking the question because, you know, the level of sickness absence within the police force is 4.2 per cent. What I really need to find out, how much of that overtime bulk of £18 million has been spent to cover that, that's the only question I'm asking. It's on the record and I've dealt with it and I've said because we don't have the details just now, it can provide it if at that level you have it. I can't do better than that and the chief counsellor and neither can his panel answer it on the spot. Thank you very much for your evidence. We will now take a break for five minutes before the next panel comes in. Can I, we're back again and can I welcome to meeting Michael Matheson. Here we go as a mouthful cabinet secretary for justice designate and can I congratulate you Michael on your appointment. This brings you back full cycle I think to the era when we first came into Parliament. It does, the old justice and home affairs committees. Indeed, indeed. I can't remember if I was a convener then or not, but I don't seem to have moved on anywhere. I don't know why. Rosanna was a convener of the justice and home affairs committee and you became the convener of the justice one committee. That's what happened. Our history is exposed, but as I say, you've had a trajectory very different from my own. However, if you don't rise, you don't fall. I've settled for that. Can I also welcome Neil Renwick, acting director of justice, Gillian Russell, deputy director of police division, Hilary Pearce police division and Richard Dennis, deputy director of fire and rescue division, and can I invite your cabinet secretary, designate, to make an opening statement. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. People across Scotland rely on our justice system to live in safety and security, to ensure that their rights are protected and to resolve disputes fairly and swiftly. The draft budget for 2015-16 is focused on maintaining access to and equality of vital justice services within the context of continuing restraint on our overall budgets. Over recent years, we've managed to achieve this by reforming and transforming how justice services are structured and delivered. By doing so, we have protected vital front-line services, made more efficient use of resources and strengthened delivery at both national and local levels. For police, the single service has strengthened local policing, while ensuring all parts of Scotland have access to specialist expertise and equipment wherever and whenever it is required. Officer numbers are high. The latest figures show that there are 17,267 officers in Scotland, an increase of 1,033 from 2007. Public confidence in our police is also high and is rising. It's been another remarkable year for policing in Scotland. Policing at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games was exemplary and played a crucial role in it being the most successful games ever, safely enjoyed by tens of thousands of spectators from across the globe. The Raider Cup 2 was another example of first-class policing of one of the world's greatest sporting spectacles. There were many successes, all taking place against the backdrop of the shocking and tragic events at the Cluther bar almost exactly a year ago. With characteristic commitment police and other emergency services, it responded with professionalism even when the new three of their own were lost in the wreckage, a typical response from our police in the most testing of circumstances. The fear of crime is also reducing. Figures published earlier this morning confirm that crime has fallen again and is now at a 40-year low. Non-sexual crimes of violence have fallen by 10 per cent. As a result of proactive policing and an increase in historic reporting and willingness of more victims to come forward, sexual crimes have increased by 12 per cent. Crimes of handling and offensive weapon have dropped by 5 per cent, a fall of 62 per cent, since 2006-07. The clear-up rate for all crime has increased and is now at the highest level since 1976, the first year for which comparable figures are available. Our police make an amends contribution to that success and we value that contribution and we will not attack the terms and conditions of our officers. Compared to England and Wales, with the hated Windsor package that was imposed on officers, their police numbers are falling and predicted to decrease by some 15,400. Police Scotland and the SPA are making excellent progress in delivering savings. The vast majority of the savings are sustainable and recurring, which is why great progress has already been made towards delivering the projected £1.1 billion by 2026. I also commend the strong progress that has been made by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Police and fire reform are part of the wider reforms of our justice system. The Victims and Witnesses Scotland Act 2014 places the interests of victims at the heart of the reform agenda. When implemented in full, it will strengthen the rights of victims to support and standards of services and require offenders to contribute towards the cost of providing immediate support to victims. The Court Reform Scotland Act 2014, which received royal assent earlier this month, will also result in significant modernisation of Scotland's courts and civil justice system in at least a generation. From April next year, the courts and tribunal service will merge into the Scottish courts and tribunal service under the leadership of the Lord President and Eric McQueen, the chief executive of the Scottish courts service. The Scottish courts service has also confirmed that major investment in new state-of-the-art ICT to transform how people access our court services. That forms part of our ambitious justice digital strategy, which was launched over the summer. The court service has confirmed that it has the necessary physical capacity to accommodate the current and anticipated volume of criminal and civil cases within the court estate. Despite budgetary cuts, the Scottish court service and the Crown Office and Procurator fiscal service have increased their legal staff numbers since 2008, with the fiscal service seeing an increase of some 70 additional legal staff. An effective and efficient justice system is vital to meet the challenges of a modern, fair and equal Scotland. We will continue to encourage and support our law enforcement agencies to tackle crime robustly, including sexual offences, domestic abuse and serious and organised crime. We will also continue to support preventative measures that can encourage people away from crime or help people to resolve civil disputes more quickly. I and my officials are, of course, more than happy to take questions from the committee. Well, I have been a bit indulgent because it was your first maiden voyage, Cabinet Secretary, to designate it, but we will now move on to, I am afraid, the meat of the day, which is the questions relating to policing courts and the Crown Service and the Access to Justice at large. I will go a well. I have got Roderick Christian, Sandra, Elaine, Margaret, John Finnie and Alison. That is it so far. Right. Roderick. Morning. If you do not mind, I will just call you Mr Matheson rather than the longer time to... Could I just begin with something that has been in several of our evidence sessions in which I wrote to your predecessor about, which is a question of recoverability of fat in relation to Police Scotland in particular. I raised the issue really in terms of how negotiations were going with HM Treasury on this matter. I do not know if there is anything that you can add. I do not want to be too difficult on your first doubting, but is there anything you can add to that debate? Well, you will be aware that my predecessor had pursued this issue on several occasions over several years now with Her Majesty's Treasury, with a variety of different ministers responsible for this policy area. To date, the Treasury ministers have refused to change their policy position on this matter, which we think is unacceptable. We are in a situation where this is costing the Scottish Police Service some £24 million per year. If we were in a position where we could secure the exemption in the same way that other forces in the UK have been able to do, so that is money that could clearly be invested into. It equates to... We were told 680 police officers. I think that that just exemplifies the impact that this can have. We are very clear that this is a policy matter that could be changed very readily by... Excuse me a minute. I am getting negotiations from the left from Sandra. You are next on my list. Sorry, cabinet secretary, Jessica Knight. Off you go. We are very clear that this is a policy matter that Treasury ministers would be free to make a decision on and could do so, in my view, at the stroke of a pen if they chose to do so. I certainly intend to pursue this issue with vigor. Any suggestions that the committee may have around how they may be able to assist in pursuing this matter with the UK Government would certainly be welcome. However, I am very clear that the present situation is completely unacceptable. I will certainly be pursuing the matter further with the UK Treasury to try to get a change of policy in this area. I am grateful for that assurance. Is the correspondence with the Treasury in the public domain? Yes, it is in the public domain. Could I just move on more generally to the question of number of cases coming to trial in court? I do not want to be too bogged down in figure work, but there certainly seems to be an increase in the number of cases in both the sheriff court and the High Court and, in particular, an increase in the number of trials that has necessitated extra funding being called for from the justice board this year. Mr McQueen in evidence last week said that there have been positive signs of reduction in business volumes. However, if they got it wrong and in the middle of next year they found that there was still this pressure of cases, they would discuss that with the justice board and the Government. How far can you cover the eventuality that more money will be required to cover that activity? Will you appreciate that our court service is a demand-led service, that it is difficult to predict what the full demand will be in the year ahead? You can work on the basis of historical experience and plan your resources based on that, but there will of course be issues where there will be an increase in demand that you may not have anticipated. For example, there has been an increasing number of sexual offences cases being taken to trial, road traffic offences, domestic violence matters that are being taken to trial. That has clearly created a level of pressure on the Scottish court service and the way in which they carry out their responsibilities. That is why my predecessor made arrangements for some additional resources to be made available. In this financial year, some £1.47 million to assist the court service and also our prosecutors to have the additional resources that they require in order to meet that increasing demand. It underscores the important value of the justice board in being able to have the different elements of the justice system in dialogue and exploring issues that may emerge in the course of the year. Of course, we are part of that to be able to then respond to any changes that may be necessary in the year. It is a demand-led service. You can plan as best as you are able to based upon historical experience, but we recognise that there will times be in-year pressures, and we have responded this year to the increasing demand because more cases are going to court as a result. Next year, if the same demand is there, we will be able to respond to it. We have certainly worked with the justice board and seen how we can achieve that. There is certainly a desire on our part to make sure that we respond to demand when it occurs and to try and provide it with the support and assistance that it requires to meet that increasing demand. That is really for me to decide. I am feeling peaked today about things. Christian Fallon by Sandra, Fallon by Elaine, Margaret, John, Finlayne and then Alison. Good morning, cabinet secretary. My first question was a question. I would like to say that, as a 12% increase of sexual crimes in which you talked about earlier, it is one of the reasons why a lot of people who came in front of that committee said that it is not really the changes of the court services, but more the changes on it is not even the increase of numbers of cases, but the complexity of the cases. I do agree with my colleague Rod. It is possible that in the year to come that complexity will still be there. Anything could help. If you have got any plans in advance to help on that particular point, you would be very welcome. It is to be welcomed that there are more sexual offence cases going to trial, domestic violence cases and road traffic offences. Some of those issues reflect policing priorities, change of culture, the way in which the prosecutors are operating in terms of prioritising issues as well, all of which have been areas of importance, both for the Government and for the police under prosecutors. It is important that we respond to in-year demands when they arise. We will certainly remain engaged with the justice board to make sure that, if there are issues that require to be addressed in year, we try to do so as quickly and as helpful as we can. Thank you for that answer. Something else Rod Campbell talked about, the bill, the VAT bill, but a lot of the bills as well, which seems to this one, are really unpaid bills that goes to the some event of policing. I would like to know more about it. I would like to know if you could help Police Scotland to maybe redefine that policy of recharging for particular events and how I would like you to understand the concern that Police Scotland has on the stress and the budget on those policing events. I think that that is probably more a matter for the SPA than for the Government, because that, to me, would be Government interfering in policing matters at a level that perhaps should not be, but, Cabinet Secretary, it is largely an operational matter. My understanding is that the Scottish Police Authority approach is to recover costs that are associated with the policing of events. How they pursue that does not take that forward based on how their policy is around that issue, but my understanding is that their objective is to achieve cost recovery when they engage with organisations that are arranging events. My understanding is that they are not able to gain a profit from those types of issues that have to be on a cost-neutral basis, so it would be about recovering costs that are associated with the policing of that event. I am sorry, Cabinet Secretary, but what we were told, perhaps you could confirm this, is that where the event is profit making, there is full cost recovery, but there are abatements, as we understand it, to be made if it is an amateur club against some confessional body. If it is not profit making, there are no charges, but perhaps you would clarify that for us. Yes, certainly. The principle of full cost recovery is set out in section 86 of the Police and Fire Reform Act. Police Scotland is required to apply full cost recovery, and that is also set out in the Scottish Public Finance Manual. That section also precludes any profit making from charges for those services. However, Police Scotland has a process that includes the consideration of abatements of certain percentages of the full cost recovery, depending on the commerciality of the event, and that takes into account a range of considerations, given that each event is unique. It is very important that I thank you for that, because it is a question of public confidence and particularly public expectation of what the policing is for. That leads me to my last question. We heard that your predecessor had some meetings regarding the future of policing in five, fifteen years and twenty years time, and I would like to know if you are aware of these meetings and what do you think Police Scotland will look like in five, ten and fifteen years time. Exactly if we are going to talk about sharing budgets with sharing budgets, sharing buildings with NHS, for example, of social services. I suppose that this is a dangerous question. I have been in the job for less than five days, trying to predict what the police service may look like in ten or fifteen years. What is extremely important is that, with moving to a single force, there has been a considerable level of consolidation taking place around going from eight forces down to one force. There is also the transition that will be necessary and how the service has to move forward as it develops its own ethos and culture as an organisation. Within that, you also have to do the horizon scanning, thinking about what should the shape of policing be in ten or fifteen years time. For example, a serious and organised crime in the past probably did not have things like cyber crime as being a high priority. I would imagine now that it is a high priority. I know that it is a high priority for them. It is important that they do that. Of course, it is a matter for the SPA to look at taking forward that type of work, which I understand that they are doing about what the police service would look like in 2026. I have asked my officials to keep me informed about the work that they are undertaking, but it is a clear matter for the SPA to be looking at in terms of future proofing how they take the force forward in the next 10 to 15 years. It is very important that that dialogue is seen as transparent, so that people can see the progress and the vision. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary. It seems like a presidential election, doesn't it? Just one small comment regarding the VAT situation. I am pleased to see that you said that there are letters corresponding. I hope that the committee will be able to get access to them. I was just going to ask the cabinet secretary to designate if the committee agreed to perhaps asking a treasury minister to come before the committee to give evidence of why they will not give the VAT to Scotland and the Scottish Parliament. Would that be one step forward from the correspondence that has been sent? I am certainly, convener, if it would be helpful to be able to ask for officials to make available what correspondence we have from the Scottish Government's perspective if that helps to... Just stop right there, because it is really a matter for the committee to decide. So that would be very helpful, but I... Throwing that out, basically. You have done it, of course. Yes, I know that. It would be helpful, as the cabinet secretary said, about the correspondence. Then, hopefully, that would lead up to... If the committee decides that, you are not a treasury minister. That would include it. I just want to clarify. Are all the communications with... I mean, some of it will be, I imagine, not in the public domain. There may be issues about whether we have access to that by asking if we were to look at this, the cabinet secretary, to consider what else might be available that maybe has been confidential, perhaps if it's confidential on both sides, you can't disclose it without the agreement of the treasury. I just put that to you. Is everything that has gone on in the public domain? What I will do is I will look at this with an open mind and what information we are able to provide to the committee on this matter, including correspondence, I am more than happy for officials to look at making that available to you. Where it's not possible, then clearly we'll advise you of that, but I'm more than happy to have an open mind in this issue to look at what information we can provide you with regarding our correspondence with the treasury on this issue. I mean, I appreciate that there may be some that's been agreed that it would be confidential. It may or may not. Do you have something else to ask? To do it. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I was going to ask about the purpose built justice centres, and obviously evidence from the Scottish Court Service is basically desirable to move into those purpose built justice centres. I just wondered what the cabinet secretary's thoughts are on the advantages of the purpose built centres and also the Scottish Court centres mentioned the fact that obviously we need finance for that, and how is the Scottish Government going to finance those justice centres? It's the 60 million. I may be wrong. I think there was evidence of the 60 million set aside in my... So obviously it's a matter for the Scottish Court Service and taking forward the area around configuration of their court services. They are looking at the idea of three justice hubs or centres across the country, which would deal with more serious criminal matters and civil issues that could be referred to them. It is now for the Scottish Court Service to take the modelling that would be required for that type of work forward, to look at how that would fit within their overall court structure, within the present court estate, and we then have to bring forward a business case to the Scottish Government in order to make justification for that. What we have assigned is 60 million pounds within the overall investment from the NPD programme, which would facilitate the provision of those three centres. However, it said that it's work that the Scottish Court Service would need to take forward over the next couple of years, and then to look at taking forward within the capital programme. However, there has been an allocation to decide to assist us with that. Thank you, chair. I just wanted to clarify that point. The NPD is a non-profit making. We know what it is. I would just clarify that point as well. Thank you very much, Elaine, followed by Margaret. Thank you and congratulations, Mr Matheson, on your designation. I think it's maybe not an appointment until it's gone through Parliament, but congratulations anyhow. Can I push you just a little bit more on the pressures on the court service through the complexity of work? We were told that there had been an overall 12 per cent reduction in permanent staffing by the FDA, and that there are reports of serious cases, sheriff and jury, and high court level cases being dated on the last date of service before the time bar, and that the summary courts are being staffed by newer and less experienced staff who are not having adequate time for preparation of cases. I want to know that we are hearing that there is a possibility for application to the justice board for additional funding, but that does not really address the retention of permanent more experienced staff to deal with some of those complex cases. Is there not a case to be made for a permanent alteration being made to the court service budget to actually try and retain the sorts of staff that are needed for complex cases? It would be for the Scottish Court Service to bring forward a proposal and justification for any additional resource that it requires to meet on-going demand within the system. The additional resource that has been provided is £1.47 million, which has been provided in-year. A million pounds of that is going to the Scottish Court Service. The other point is going to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for use of staff there. A large part from the discussion that I have had with Eric McQueen, the chief executive of the Scottish Court Service, is a large part of that resource for staffing purposes in order to have the right staff available to undertake the additional work that is necessary. If there is an issue about on-going demand within the Scottish Court Service, that means that the existing budget allocation or the use of the existing budget allocation is not sufficient to meet demand within the Court Service, I would expect either the Scottish Court Service to look at adapting their budget to reflect that, or to have the discussion with their colleagues within the justice board about how we wish to manage that going forward. We, of course, are stakeholders within that. If there is an emerging long-term issue, we will have to consider that, as in when the Scottish Court Service feels that it is an issue that has to be brought to government. I advise that there will be a 10 per cent increase in cases that will go into petition. The previous year, another 8 per cent this year, so it looks to be a rising trend in more serious cases that will obviously require more experienced staff in terms of taking them forward. In my initial take on the justice portfolio in the last couple of days, I think that what is extremely important is that we look at the whole justice pathway from the police right through to our prison system. Historically, there have been ailments where it has operated in a disjointed fashion. My predecessor has taken a tremendous amount of work forward in order to make it a much more cohesive and interlinked, interoperational type of system. We can see the benefits of that. Part of that is that there are cases that some now reach trial that, historically, may never have got to trial through some of the initiatives and work that I have taken forward. I am keen to make sure that we look at the whole justice pathway from policing right through to the court system and through to our prison system to make sure that we are reflecting the resource in a way that is meeting the demand that comes on the system at different points within it. The justice board has clearly got a very important part to play in helping to shape that going forward. I also ask about the capital budget, because we heard last week from organisations representing victims that the courts are still inadequate. In some cases, they are dealing with the needs of victims. Victims are still coming into contact with offenders when they are going into court. There are problems with some of the IT and video conferencing links and so on. Are you confident that there are sufficient funds allocated to the capital budget of the court service to be able to iron out some of those problems and make the journey that victim, in particular, experiences going through the court system more appropriate? I know that, over a number of years, there has been a lot of work undertaken by the court service in order to provide different waiting areas for witnesses and accused. There has been a lot of work undertaken over a number of years in order to achieve that. I would expect the Scottish court service to continue that work and to continue to look at its estate and how it can make sure that it is much more sensitive to the needs of different groups of individuals who are using our courts, and also about the agencies that it has to help to support victims of crime within the court environment. For example, some of the things that they are looking at around the idea of the justice centres are about how they can bring together a suite of services. There is the court, but there is also the support services, whether that be from benefit advice through to victim support, and how they can deliver a much more holistic approach to justice in that type of environment. I would expect the Scottish court service to continue that process. I understand that a key part of the capital expenditure that they have within the forthcoming budget is around ICT, where they have been making investment and they continue to make investment. That will be around issues around video conferencing. For example, my understanding is that, for those courts that have already closed as part of their programme, video conferencing suites have been provided. Although utilisation of them has been somewhat limited as yet, as we go forward with the Victims and Witnesses Act 2020 being much more fully implemented, then their use will grow. They have already started making that type of infrastructure investment and they are going to continue that type of infrastructure investment going. The other part is the ICT system that they are using for case management and for electronic documentation that can be transferred between the courts, the feds, the prosecutors and the sharing of information. That is a big part of what they are taking forward around their ICT. It is a budget that reflects their priorities in the coming year and how they wish to take that forward. Margaret Full by John Finnie, Full by Alison Full. Congratulations again on your new post. Last week, we took evidence from the Procurator Fiscal Society and from the Crown and Procurator Fiscal Service. It is fair to say that there was a bit of a disconnect between the two sources of evidence. I therefore very much welcome your initial approach to say that you will look at the whole journey and whether there may be some weaknesses. However, if I could flag up too that I think may be important while it was acknowledged, I think that it is difficult for people who are in the public service sometimes to be as forthright as they could be. There is not maybe such a restraint on the society, but one of the disconnects came under the issue of lack of preparation time. It was suggested that there is always lack of preparation time, but we get on with it. From the society, the worrying thing was that, yes, there always has been, but now this is becoming the norm. From that, there are problems with evidence, procedure, witness availability, and it is causing a delay in courts on this churn. Is this an area that you would be prepared to look at, given that there seems to be a 1.1 million reduction in the staffing budget for the Crown and Procurator Fiscal Service? The overall Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal budget increases in real terms in the next budget, in terms of how they apply that in their own department, in their services. It is clearly a matter for the Crown Office and the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General to determine how best to make use of those resources. We have recognised, for example, that this year alone there has been additional demand placed on prosecutors, which is why they have received part of the money in order to help to meet the increasing demand of cases going to trial. They have been provided with the point for £47 million this financial year. However, it is down to the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General to determine how they utilise the budget for their own staff. As a point out of my opening statement, since 2008, there has been a 15 per cent increase in the number of legal staff that are employed by our Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. I also have to say those comments in that we are under tremendous pressure as the Crown Office and the justice system are no different from the rest of our public services. The UK Government is curing the Scottish Government budget and we have to recognise that in how we manage our services. That is why reform is so important. Some of the work that I understand the Crown Office is taking forward along with the Scottish Court service is to ensure that we have much more effective systems around witness management. We are making sure that we have the right police officers and that we have the right witnesses at the same time. We have taken forward the witness notification process, which has given them a reminder that they are due to give evidence to try to reduce the possibility of no shows. There is a range of things that we can do in terms of IT, policy and practice to try to make sure that, when cases are due to go to trial, we try to get everyone there that is meant to be there. There are elements of work that have been taken forward in that. That will continue to be important. How that is determined and implemented is a matter for the Crown Office and the Court service. We have to be realistic that, when the UK Government is curing our budget, we have to make sure that we try to protect our services as best we can, but at the same time make sure that they are as efficient as they can in order to help to protect front-line services. There are certainly very good things going forward. We heard about the domestic use task force, more complex cases, making sure that every witness is seen sometimes that, involving travelling for procreative viscals throughout the country, that is all good and all welcome. However, there is a gap back in the Bulwark service, and that is what is being highlighted. I only ask that the new cabinet secretary does keep an open mind on those things, given the importance of the Crown procreative viscals. If I could just press you particularly on the figures from June 2004, which showed that 63 per cent of sheriff and JP cases, only 63 per cent were resolved from caution to verdict. In the 26-week target, that compares with 74 per cent in September 2013. When I fully acknowledged that the court reform bill is being introduced to try to increase access to justice and to deal with some of those delays, court closures are having a negative impact. Will the cabinet secretary, with the programme closure coming to its end, comment on court capacity and have a look at some of the court due to close by January 2015, to see whether that is a realistic prospect? It is worth keeping in mind that the court closure programme was a programme that was brought forward by the Scottish Courts Service, and it reflects how they feel they can best manage their estate. I also had a look at the evidence that Eric McQueen gave to the committee, and it was quite robust in that, in my view, around the issue of whether the closure of the courts is having an impact on delays in some business in other areas within the court system. From the discussion that I have had with them, that is not the case. It is worth also keeping in mind that the court closure programme, of which there have been two phases so far and the third phase will be in in January, represents only 5 per cent of court work. The Scottish Courts Service is very clear that the physical estate that they have is sufficient to meet the demands that are required within the court service in Scotland. Some of the in-year additional finance that we have given them is to assist them with some of the cases that are now reaching trial, which is more complex, to have the additional staff that are required in order to meet the increasing demand that they face. However, the Scottish Courts Service is very clear from the discussion that I have had with them that any delays that might have been experienced anywhere in the system have not come about as a result of any court closures. They are very confident that the existing quota state that they have is sufficient to meet the demand and the predicted demand that is going forward within the court service in Scotland. I think that there may be further analysis on why there are less cases meeting the 26-week target would be welcome. I think that it is a combination of staffing in the ground fiscal service and the court closure. I would like to say that it was proved correct that the court closures went having an impact, but I rather fear that they are, cabinet secretary. That was not a question, but it was a comment. John Finnie followed by Alison McInnes. Thank you, convener, and congratulations, Mr Matheson. I would like to ask about the budgetary implications of two manifesto commitments. There are 1,000 additional officers in the environmental court. If we take the officers first, please. The magic figure is 17234, as you know. The figure that I noted was 17267. Clearly, the additional officers will have contributed to the excellent figures that you reported and the growing confidence that the public has in the way that the police are going about their business. Do you have any plans to review the 1,000 additional officers? There is a view that, given the overall cost that relates to staff costs and the percentage that is tied up in that, the fact that police officers cannot be made redundant. Although I do not share the common view about what is the phrase, the balanced workforce, you need to have the right people to do the right job. Clearly, if I was a member of support staff listening to radio adverts encouraging people to apply to join the police, which are already in excess of that number, I would feel devalued. Do you have any plans to try and reassure support staff to meet with them? It is around any plans to review the 1,000 additional officers. I appreciate that there is a general election coming, but of course there is a 2016 election after that. Do you have any plans to review that at all? In short, no. We remain committed to the 1,000 extra officers from our 2007 commitment. I would expect Police Scotland and the SPA to operate within that commitment. It remains a commitment that I intend to take forward as the new cabinet secretary. In relation to staff sight and engagement with stakeholders, I intend to be as open as I can with stakeholders, staff sight and professional sight. I will certainly engage with staff sight organisations and professional organisations in an open way. I will very much have an open door policy for them to engage with me, but there are no plans for us to change our position with regard to the 1,000 extra officers. How will you answer the suggestion that that is actually overt political interference in policing? No-one is going to refuse the additional resources, but clearly there are no consequences of the requirement to maintain 17234. My view is that it is not interfering in operational issues, it is about the overall number of officers. How they are deployed and how they are utilised by the police service is a matter for the police service. How they choose to configure the service is obviously a matter for the Scottish Police Authority. In my view, we have a very clear policy commitment around the 1,000 extra officers and I would expect that commitment to be maintained. To push on the point that the cabinet secretary designated, we did hear from the chief constable earlier that there could be further support staff redundancies. There must come a point when the equation does not match up. It is a matter for Police Scotland to determine how they configure their staffing levels. There was always an anticipated level of overlap with the merger of eight forces in terms of backroom functions that might have been undertaken by staff side. There was always going to be a level of duplication. Clearly that has to be addressed. We also have a policy of no compulsory redundancy where staff are able to get redeployed or to go on to work in a different field as well or to take a voluntary severance package if they choose to. However, the ultimate configuration of what is the best way in which to use the staff resource that Police Scotland has is clearly a matter for Police Scotland and for the Scottish Police Authority. I am always prepared to discuss with staff side some of the challenges that they face among their staff. I recognise some of the challenges that they face. However, as a Government, we also have a clear commitment that we remain committed to in terms of numbers of policing and we will continue to pursue that policy. On the question of the environmental court, in a previous report, the committee has commended an environmental tribunal format. The issue of access to justice and the issue of compliance with the arhous convention has come up here repeatedly. Will you undertake to look at the issue of an environmental court tribunal in the very near future? I am always very open to looking at how we can improve access to our justice system and in an appropriate way. As you may recall, there was a number of years ago a resistance to having an over-specialisation of courts because of the potential delusion that that could have on those who actually operate within them. Clearly, mindsets have changed in that. We now have much more in the way of specialist courts than we had historically. I think that the first specialist court that I experienced was a drug court in Glasgow, which was a very innovative approach. When you witnessed it first hand, you could not help but recognise the real value that it had. I recognise the importance that different types of specialist courts can have. I am open to looking at how that can be taken in the future and what the shape of those specialist courts should be in the future, including the issue of an environmental tribunal. That is not to say that it is something that I would automatically say would happen, but I am open minded to considering it and whether it would be appropriate and how it would be fit within the Scottish justice system. We have heard a number of days of evidence from a range of people involved in policing about the challenges ahead in next year's budget. We have heard from the SPF, the ESPS, the Inspector of Constabulary, the chair of the SPA and, indeed, this morning from the chief constable, all warning that the next year's budget will be very challenging. Indeed, when I pressed the inspector of constabulary on the risks ahead, he said that it could impact on operational effectiveness if they were not able to achieve the savings. We were also reminded this morning that ACPOS, although they were involved in drawing up the outline business case, never agreed that £1.1 billion worth of savings could be made. In light of that, will you commit to review the timetable for the reform to ensure that policing is not compromised by unrealistic budget savings? From my perspective, I fully recognise the pressures that different parts of the justice system in Scotland face because of the financial constraints in which we operate, because of the UK Government incurring the Scottish Government's budget. We have to operate in that framework. What we have to do is to make sure that our services are as efficient and effective as possible. A big part of the work that my predecessors undertakens about trying to make the system much more efficient and effective is one of the driving forces behind moving to a single force in Scotland. It should be acknowledged that Police Scotland undertakens a tremendous amount of work in achieving significant efficiencies. The last financial year achieved an efficiency saving of around £64 million. It is projecting to achieve that again this year. It is well on track to achieving the £1.1 billion of savings that we anticipate between now and 2026. A key part of that is to be able to make sure that they are as efficient and effective as possible. All aspects of our public services are under pressure. Justice is no different to health, to education and to other areas of public service. What we need to do is to make sure that the way in which our police service is operating is as efficiently and as effective as possible. I recognise that there are challenges in being able to achieve those targets. I would expect the chief constable and the SPA to continue to look at how they can make the service more effective. When we have an organisation that employs some 23,000 people, merging eight forces, there are clearly still areas where I suspect that there are efficiencies that can be gained around how the service operates. I have no doubt that they will continue to do that. At the end of the day, chief constables have to make decisions about operational matters and how they can best utilise their service. I would fully expect that if Police Scotland is looking to change how to deliver services, it would also anticipate what the outcome of that was before it even implemented any change as well. There is a cause and effect approach that it will clearly have in its mind when it is looking at any changes to the service. It is important that they are efficient and effective and that they are able to operate within what is a constraining budget that our public finances face. That is why reform is absolutely essential to ensure that we can protect those front-line services. I absolutely acknowledge the savings that they have made in the first couple of years. Those were in removing duplication and in dealing with some of the efficiencies. Vic Emery has said that we are moving from that consolidating period to a more reforming period. The concern that is within communities is that reform is being driven by the budget pressure rather than taking communities with them in discussing it. We have seen that some of the early decisions taken by Police Scotland did not have the support of the communities around Scotland. Moving forward to what might be more radical reforms, is it not important that sufficient time is given for those discussions and decisions to be made without being driven purely by the budget process? Efficiency is part of it, but it should be within the wider context of engagement with other stakeholders. From my personal experience as a constituency MSP, it would be fair to say that I have found my experience with my local commander, one that has been about a considerable amount of engagement. That was before I was even just a secretary, so there has been a significant level of engagement. I have experienced that directly. That is not to say that there is no scope to improve it and to look at how it can be added to going forward. I think that when you go through a change process and communities are concerned about their local police station or the local officers and how the service will be configured and their control centre or the call centre changes, it is extremely important that our police service remain engaged with local communities. That is why, if there are ways in which that can be strengthened, I am open to looking at that and considering those matters. I will ask some of the things that they are doing just now. For example, there are local policing plans for each of our 32 local authorities. We then have much more granular policing plans that go right down to ward level. There are, what, 353 of them across the country? Those are all right down to a granular level. If there are ways in which we can make that work better, I would be keen for the SPA and Police Scotland to explore how that can be achieved. I think that, as we transform and change services, we must remain engaged with the community and feel their participants in that dialogue. In other ways, we can build on what is happening at the present moment to make that better. I am very open to that. Members like yourself have suggestions on how that can be achieved. I am more than happy to have that discussion. That concludes your first evidence session of many to the magnificent justice committee. I am moving on to the next item, where the cabinet secretary designate remains. I am going to suspend for two minutes while we allow officials to change. If you could just bear with me, members, stay in your seats. Item 3 is consideration of an affirmative instrument, the criminal legal aid fixed payments and assistance by way of representation Scotland miscellaneous amendments regulations 2014 draft. Stay with us for this item. I welcome Government officials Denise Swanson, head of access to justice unit and Alasdor Smith's list of director for legal services. You will be giving evidence, cabinet secretary, in advance of the debate on the census. This is an evidence session, so officials can also be questioned. I understand that you also wish that cabinet secretary designate to make an opening statement on the instrument. Those regulations, the criminal legal aid fixed payments and advice by way of representation Scotland miscellaneous amendments regulations 2014, are the latest in a number of proposals to reduce the costs of the legal aid fund without affecting access to justice. We think that it is reasonable that, when solicitors dispose of cases prior to trial, their fees should reflect that the level of work required for clients is less than for cases taken to its conclusion through the courts. That is what those regulations will deliver in line with other fee regulations. For example, the criminal legal aid fixed payments Scotland amendments regulations 2011 take a similar approach to ensuring that, when cases are disposed of, prior to trial, that fees reflect the lower level of work required. It is important to note that those regulations are not just about saving to the fund, the changes support consistency and simplicity and will be of benefit to solicitors, clients and the Crown. For example, in respect of preparation work for cases continued without play, those regulations ensure that the preparatory work done by the solicitor is captured in the fee. That means that, should the case not be called, the solicitor will still be paid for the preparatory work undertaken. Those regulations ensure that exceptional case status applies to all schedules of the criminal legal aid fixed payments Scotland regulations 1999. That will allow a solicitor to be paid detailed rather than fixed fees in certain circumstances where the work involved is well beyond that which was expected. The regulations would also encourage early resolution of cases through greater use of early pleas and negotiations, which would be welcomed by the Crown. The Law Society of Scotland has been engaged in the development of the regulations and is fully aware of its content. I am, as ever, happy to answer any questions. You may be aware of a late submission from the Law Society, which is expressing some concern over the provision on its juicy solicitors being paid a half fee if it is a not guilty verdict. I think that the nub of the whole thing is that, as well as looking at the full fee, we would not want to revert to a situation where a not guilty plea was tendered just to make sure a fee was covered and then went on a later date. There has been a suggestion by the Law Society therefore that we may be delayed this to take some soundings on it maybe to allow you to speak with them. We do not have to agree to the 12th of December, and I think that you are coming back next week. That may give you some time if you are not aware of this to comment more fully on it. I am aware of it. It is somewhat surprised, though, given that the Law Society has been fully engaged in the process of drafting this particular regulation. It seems a bit of a last-minute call on its part. The issue that has been highlighted is something that we have had dialogue on within Government, notwithstanding what it has had to say, I am satisfied that the regulation and the consultation and the dialogue that we have had with stakeholders has been sufficient to continue to press ahead with the regulation. You do not have any concerns that, if that goes through, the guilty plea would be delayed and not tender to a later date? I am not overly concerned about that matter because those are issues that were considered during the course of the drafting of the regulation. The reason that I am somewhat surprised is because the Law Society has been engaged in that particular process and previously it did not comment on this matter. I must confess that I am a little surprised that we received a note from the Law Society just before 5 o'clock last night. It has apparently had a sudden change of heart. I was not aware until I came in this morning that it was sitting on my desk. I have certainly committed to that before. The convener has also said that it is most annoyed at certain aspects of late submissions coming in. I am reading the papers and I get them at the weekend. I have read through them. It says that the Law Society regulates a representative body and that they are all quite happy with the proposal. You come into committee and it sits here in front and you have no chance to look at it. If they wanted to raise concerns, they could have raised concerns at the time. It has also gone before the other committee, which says that it has gone before the delicate powers and law reform committee and said that there is nothing there to raise any concerns with this committee. We come in today and it is sitting on our desk and we want to delay it. I, for one, do not think that we should. We have not accepted late submissions before, convener, from witnesses. We are really more debating with each other here rather than asking the cabinet secretary, which makes your life nice and easy, but it is not. I will take Alison and Roderick then Elaine. I am not sure whether it is a change of heart or whether it is just a further scrutiny that suggests that there is a little bit of the regulation that does not do what they thought it would do. We are told that the auditor has found in favour of the Glasgow Bar Association, and I would like to learn a little bit more about that. Do you know if SLAB is going to lodge an objection to that decision? Yes, they are, and that will then go to a sheriff, because the ruling is on the basis that it is a matter of law that is to be determined, and the only way that can be determined is for it to then be referred to a sheriff, and that is why it has been granted on that basis. It is worth keeping in mind that that does not change anything. It clarifies existing arrangements. It is not a major alteration of such in any shape or fashion, and it will not have any significant impact on practice in general. It is purely clarifying what were previous regulations around what were some uncertainty around them. Do you not think that there is any benefit in waiting until that appeal has been heard? No, not from the advice that I have been provided with, no. To be honest, Mr Matheson, I was going to raise the issue with SLAB's position as well, so it has rather been taken over by events. I will just leave it there for the moment. I was expecting some help here to understand that. I think that Elaine McLean has come in. My point was very similar to Alison's. I am just not quite sure where it is. It seems to be a taxation decision rather than a legal decision. I was wondering if anybody could clarify exactly what that had been. Diane McLean, to clarify that. I have to say that your predecessor was very good at calling me Deirdre, so one of those phases. I think that where we are with those regulations is that we want to clarify what is current practice and clarify the policy. Where early pleas are tendered, this is for all cases, not just cases where there is a single charge. The issue of taxation is that it has gone to the auditor of court because of that lack of clarity. The auditor said in his decision that he does not feel qualified to take a view on a matter of law and that needs to go to the sheriff. We know that there have been three previous circumstances in which that has gone to a sheriff. On one of those, the sheriff has held for the solicitor and on two for the legal aid board. We are really around clarification and simplification. In the majority of cases, solicitors accept that a half fee is the appropriate fee in those circumstances, and that is what they put in their accounts. I want to ask, because it says in the submission from the Law Society on the interpretation of the regulations, is this the current regulations? Right. What changes in those regulations that would make—let's say that this was moved in the past today and there was a decision—the objections went to the sheriff and the sheriff took a view on interpretation. Would it be of those regulations and would that decision therefore—I am trying to understand whether it would be a mistake to do this while something is being decided? It is my understanding that the sheriff will take a decision based on the 2011 regulations that stand. The decision will not be taken on the basis of revised regulations that we are putting forward today. What is the impact of the decision on the 2011 regulations on those draft regulations? Would there be any impact, either way? The impact would be that we would see no further need for future cases to go to taxation on the basis of clarification. As I said, the majority of cases do not go to taxation, so that is to accept that. A point of clarification to understand is that what you are proposing will clarify the situation so that in future there will not be this sort of dispute as to whether or not there should be taxation points. What you would be arguing is that there would no longer be cases such as that. The system clarifies the system. There is no change in fee level that should be received for the different stages, but that is principally what it clarifies—existing regulations. That is a matter of comment. Perhaps I should refer to my register of interests as a member of the Faculty of Advocates. From the Government's point of view, if we were not to take a decision on that today to give us time to reflect on it, would that cause difficulties? It would continue on certainty where we are trying to create clarification on certainty around the matter. For one week, I think that the difficulty—there is a wee bit—of the difficulty of giving it an understanding clearly what this has. Mr Smith, are you coming to our rescue? I am coming to your rescue perhaps to a very limited extent, which is in relation to the effect of the approval of the regulations on existing cases. That is just to draw the attention of the Committee to Regulation 2, which says that regulations apply only in respect of proceedings commenced on or after the day in which they come into force. The effect of those regulations would be prospective and the effect in terms of uncertainty would be to remove the type of uncertainty to which the Law Society presently refers, so we think that there would have been improvement in that sense. If an appeal pending, if the appeal is lost and the taxation decision of the Glasgow Sheriff Court is upheld, does the Law Society's point still stand then, if we pass these regulations? I think that that is what she does. I respectfully suggest that we do not want to get things wrong, either for the Parliament or for the Government, but it does seem that we do not fully—I am speaking fully—let me just say this. You can correct me, but there is some confusion about what the impact is. Notwithstanding that it is late, but there is some confusion about the impact of what it is, does anybody apart—would there be any harm in continuing this to next week so that we can fully consider what the impact is? Would there be any difficulty to the Government? I am asking the Cabinet Secretary—it does not mean that you have to adjust. Would there be any difficulties then that the Committee can discuss whether it wants to do that? I do not understand what I am being told, frankly. We have these proposals for new regulations. What happens with the tax? It does not have any implication for separate matter. Right. I am not—I should not be confused then. John, the question— I am just to point saying that, if it is only clarification, it does not change anything. I cannot see any objection why we could not pass it today. Why is the Law Society to say that we believe that the implementation of these regulations should be delayed until the regulations have been assessed in the light of this taxation decision? They are wrong, are they? On our view, they have been consulted and engaged in the process as well in drafting these. The issue about the tax case that we have made is that we would be dealt with separately from those regulations, convener. Yes. I think that in the extent that I can see why clusters might not particularly want to get the half fee and that they may be making that argument, but, quite honestly, I do not see what the problem is. I feel that it has been clarified. Okay. Then I will—have you any further questions on this? Nope. I then move to item 4, the formal debate and the motion to prove the instrument considered under the previous item. I invite the cabinet secretary, Desi, to move motion S4M11524. The Justice Committee recommends that the criminal legal aid fix payments and assistance by way of representation Scotland, the Salinas amendments regulations 2014 draft, be approved. Moved. Do any member wish to speak in the debate in the motion? The question is that motion S4M11524 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. I thank the cabinet secretary for attending and we are required to report on affirmative instruments. Are members content to delegate responsibility for me to sign off this report? Thank you. We now move into private session.