 Fawr, wrth gwrs, ac rwy'n fawr i'w ddechrau'r Cymru. Fawr 14, 2018. Fawr 1, agenda item number one, is management of offenders. Fawr 2, agenda item number two, is our second evidence session on the management of offenders. Scotland will be able to refer members to paper one, which is a note by the clerk, and paper two, which is a private paper. We have two panels today, and I welcome our first panel, Karen McCluskey, chief executive, and James Blair, policy lead with Community Justice Scotland. James may be principal officer, criminal justice services with Highland Council representing Social Work Scotland. I thank the panelist for your written evidence, which is always so helpful to the committee in advance of our meeting. I understand Community Justice Scotland. We would like to make some very brief opening remarks. Karen, is that you or is it James? I was part of the electronic monitoring review over the last two years. We are very committed to reducing the amount of demand population, providing alternatives for people serving sentences out in community on electronic monitoring. I am not quite sure how deeply to go. We will have lots of questions, but I understood that you would want to say something in particular, so it would just be a one-minute, two-minute. If there isn't anything in particular that you want to flag up, we've got lots of questions. Most of it was contained in the evidence that we put in. We are very supportive of electronic monitoring, both GPS and transdermal alcohol monitoring, and we are very supportive of the review of disclosure of convictions. I am happy to take any questions. That's fine. Just to afford the same courtesy to Social Work Scotland and Mr Mayby, was there anything that you wanted to say before we go move to our formal questioning? I want to echo what Karen McCluskey has said. Social Work Scotland is very committed to the electronic monitoring agenda and respect to disclosure issues and the pro-board matters that have been brought before the committee. I want to echo that. We will move straight to questions starting with John Finnie. Good morning, panel, and thank you for your evidence. It's been very helpful. Mr McCluskey, you talked about the 2016 report on the electronic monitoring working group. It argued that the use of electronic monitoring as a standalone measure remains legitimate, but that it should be available in conjunction with other interventions. Do you agree with that? In what circumstances would you see one or other being appropriate, please? There is obviously some use. Although the bill doesn't really go far enough in my opinion, I think that the opportunity to use electronic monitoring for bail and remand is a missed opportunity in the bill. I would have liked to have seen it extended. There are opportunities for using electronic monitoring on its own where it doesn't need support, but for a great number of the people that we are supporting out in the community, they will need the support. It's a bit like wearing a fitbit on your wrist. You need support to try and go out and do some other exercise. For many of the people that we are trying to support, they need to be supported to remain compliant. They need to be brief, motivational interviews. They need a huge package of support around them. It's not just technology. The technology works as 100 per cent accuracy, both transdermal alcohol monitoring and, indeed, GPS is incredibly effective. On its own, it's only technology. It requires the skills of criminal justice social work and indeed the third sector, who I think are sometimes neglected in this area, to support people to remain compliant and get them to the end of the sentence. Thank you. Would you care to comment on that, Mr Mayby? Thank you. I would echo that. I think the research evidence that the electronic monitoring working group considered during the course that it sat clearly shows that where support is available alongside electronic monitoring, that is when it is most successful. I think that that's a really key point to make to the committee that support is crucial, whether that's through criminal justice social work or through the third sector. That has to be an integral part of electronic monitoring in the future, if we are to maximise its potential success. Indeed, that's the word that jumps out from both your submissions there about the value that's placed in that. The Scottish Government says it's committed to making electronic monitoring more person-centred and more fully integrated with other community justice interventions. You mentioned bail and remand. Do you believe that those proposals go far enough? I would like to see them go on further. I gave evidence a couple of weeks back in terms of remand. Our remand population is too high. There is definitely a percentage of those who are on remand just now who may be suitable for electronic monitoring, which would enable them to be compliant and protect victims, which is an incredibly important part of that as well. It would enable people to stay in their accommodation, to keep them within their family network and to stop some of the harm that we are seeing through the inappropriate use of remand. Social Work Scotland would certainly support electronic monitoring being available for remand. We know that the remand population in Scotland is very high. We know that bail supervision, as it currently stands, is incredibly underutilised across Scotland. I believe that there are pockets where courts are using it, but, certainly, and I can speak from my own experience in Highland, bail supervision is currently woefully underused, despite continually promoting it within courts, with sheriffs, with defence agents and with the Crown Office. I think that there is certainly the possibility that if electronic monitoring was available as part of remand as a bail condition that we might see an increase in the use of bail. Again, I think that it's important to recognise that, probably in the majority of cases, it needs to sit alongside support. But if you've got a bail supervision service being provided through common justice social work in the third sector with a tagging element, I think that it's reasonable to assume that courts might have more confidence in using it. Indeed, that confidence would then spread out in a sort of ripple effect throughout the public and with victims again, which, obviously, is a crucial consideration to take into account. Finally, just at one point in your submission, you say in a quote here, in most cases, in order to support resistance from offending, additional supervision and support would be required, which must be adequately resourced. For the avoidance of doubt, are we talking personnel, money, both? Probably both. Certainly, in terms of the financial memorandum, there's been an attempt to try to quantify the cost element of the impact of the proposed legislation. But I think that until we get to the actuality of it, it's very difficult to know. Certainly, in terms of community payback orders, for example, as the committee will know currently at the point of conviction of sentence, a restriction of liberty order can be made alongside a community payback order. I think that it's a really good thing that the proposal is that electronic monitoring can become part of a community payback order at the point of sentence as a requirement, because I think that that brings together, conflates the tagging element along with the support element. And I think that it's a reasonable assumption to make that the number of stand-alone RLOs might drop as a consequence of that. But I think that there's a lot of dubiety around the actual cost of a community payback order two years ago. A lot of work went into trying to establish the unit costs of a community payback order. The outcome of that was incredibly inconclusive. I think that we do have to be mindful of the impact. I think that it's right to try and quantify and put forward proposals around cost. But I think that we do need to track the actuality of it when the legislation is enacted and we're actually dealing with that in actuality to see what the impact is, because it would be a failed opportunity if we ended up with increased workloads, increased pressures on social workers, and the legislation and the intent of that kind of falls through the cracks because there is insufficient resourcing to deal with it. Keith, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. As a supplementary to the answers both of you have given so far, I mean, I think that if the purpose of this is to avoid people being in prison, I think that your points around bail and remander are well made. I mean, what considerations might there be if you were to include that? Can you see reasons why perhaps it hasn't been included or how straightforward would it be to expand the scope of the legislation that we're looking at to include remand? I'm not really sure. I think you would probably have to ask the policy colleagues about why it wasn't included. There probably would be a cost element to it. There's a little doubt. We have a lot of people on remand. It costs a bit of money. It costs less than incarceration. We would need some justice reinvestment to be able to support some of the third sector, et cetera. So I'm unsure about why it's not been included at this stage. Okay, but in terms of practical provisions, I mean, from your perspective, is there anything that you would want to see in the bill if it was to expand the lease categories? Well, that's really just that area. And just a comment further on that, I think, in respect of bail and electronic monitoring, I think would certainly be a really good thing to do. I think it wouldn't take... I understand that the way the bill's been drafted is to enable future things to be incorporated without having to go through too much jumping through hoops and hurdles to do that. And it would seem to be a missed opportunity. I mean, there was some bail pilots electronic monitoring in the mid-2000s. And I think it's fair to say the evidence of those who are a little mixed in terms of uptake. Given the focus around reducing the remand population, I think it really would be a missed opportunity not to consider it as part of the bill and the final act. So similarly, and following on from John Finnie's questions, I think there's comments both in the submissions that Community Justice Scotland have made, but also the Howard League and others about a concern about ensuring that this is used to get people out of prison rather than increasing the tariff of people that would be at liberty, albeit with restrictions anyway. I was just wondering if you might be able to expand on those thoughts and concerns and what sorts of safeguards you'd like to see to try and prevent that from being how this is used. There is always a concern with electronic monitoring that becomes a panopticon in the community. Everybody is under surveillance. And GPS indeed does gather a huge amount of data and that will be something that we will really need to consider as we go forward. However, I think that there are enough safeguards in place. I mean, my colleagues in criminal justice social work use LSCMI in frame to assess the risk around people going on electronic monitoring as opposed to incarceration. I think that it's a useful way forward for us. I think that from the social work Scotland perspective, I think that we're very clear that electronic monitoring is not a panacea. It's not for everybody. We have to take a nice sense of the net widening potential effects of electronic monitoring as and when it becomes available in more forms. But I think that the key is around the risk and needs assessment that goes along with electronic monitoring, whether that's as part of bail, whether that's as part of a community payback order or part of a prison licence or in need of a SOPO or a Rosso. That is absolutely critical that there is a professional risk and needs assessment as to the suitability of that particular individual for electronic monitoring as part of their sentence. On that very point, I know that criminal justice Scotland's submission in answer to question 3 in your written submission, you go into some detail about your concerns, about risk assessments and the need for greater clarification in the bill. I was just wondering if you could expand on those points given that Mr Mayby raised that. Apologies if I'm making you check your own work. I think that what it comes down to is the court being afforded with all the relevant information to base an appropriate decision on. And our concern is is there enough resource being attached to that so criminal justice social work is able to afford the court with all the information so that the right outcome for the individual and obviously the court is taken forward. And so it's simply around resourcing in time and I think our colleagues have stated that as well. It's around the section 27 funding to make sure that the local authorities are resourced accordingly so that an individual has an appropriate outcome for them. So it's about the money that sits behind this rather than what's drafted in the bill, is that correct? There are sections of the bill which are confusing. So there is must in some places should and the policy memorandum makes reference to different rules but it's not quite clear these sections. So we have made applications to the Scottish Government just to clarify those sections just to make it clearer because our concern is that the funding might not be there so criminal justice social work can't make the full and frank assessments that they need to make for the court. That's very helpful. Thank you. Okay. Morris. Good morning panel. We've talked about the bill and we've talked about the new forms of monitoring such as GPS monitoring of a person's movements but also now looking towards alcohol and drug use. What opportunities and risks do these represent to you? Maybe Ms Classie might like to respond to that. Okay. So I've got quite a big interest in transdermal alcohol monitoring. I brought somebody over about six years ago and I've been discussing it ever since. Wrote some papers on it. I think in my previous role in violent reduction 80% of what we dealt with was alcohol related. Alcohol we are saturated. Not everybody is addicted. This is not suitable for those who are addicted but those who are going out on Thursday, Friday night and when they get drunk, their behaviour is toxic and we know that helping them to assist from drinking is a suitable support. The transdermal alcohol bracelet tests the ethanol in your sweat every 30 minutes and electronically transmits it. When we put it on before we used to say to people you need to find your sober friends in your sober places and I would help you not to drink. It needs to be about support. Alcohol is everywhere in our society. Trying to get people to desist from not drinking is quite difficult. It's a challenge but we know that when people do have alcohol monitoring on they use the bracelet to save face. You know that they have a drink, have a drink, have a drink. Don't ask me to have a drink, I'm wearing this. It's probably one of the biggest psychological effects of wearing the alcohol bracelet. It's a real ability to try and take yourself away from the crowd and change. There's been over a million uses of it in the States in terms of the tests. Over 17,000 people in Dakota on the 24-7 sobriety experiment that they did there. We have not used it in the UK widely although in London when they used it they had a 94 per cent compliance. They did a study in London. I think that when I have spoken to colleagues of mine who have been your sheriffs every court is an alcohol court in Scotland. Every court is an alcohol court. We have lots to do with drugs. We need other tools to be able to address people's drinking. Can I ask someone to mention this? Do you really feel that this will be effective obviously from the success in London and the States? They have a lot of it. We have not used it widely. We have not used it at all up here just now. Have you trialled it? I have trialled it. We have written a few papers on it. We actually had to have it in legislation before we could trial it. It is a Hobson's choice. You cannot force anybody to wear alcohol monitoring. They have to consent to it. There is a bit that is a teachable moment to try and address people's behaviour. I have always seen alcohol monitoring in particular something that helps us to address some quite aberrant toxic behaviour and contributes to a great deal of our crime. Can I ask Mr Maybe to respond as well? If the convener would allow could I just add a comment to the previous speaker's question? It is not just about the money. The money is great and we would always want more to do more with that. But in terms of the information and the evidence that criminal justice social work receive in respect of informing our risk and needs assessment the level of service in case management and ventry tool one of the things that is sorely lacking on the whole is the summaries of evidence that get narrated in court. Often, more often than not social work is entirely reliant on the information that the offender is providing as part of the criminal justice social report. This has been a bone of contention for a long time and has been raised on numerous occasions in every conceivable forum because it is a critical part of enabling the social worker to provide a much more evidence-based and objective report around risk and need. Without that, we are entirely reliant on the offender's version of events. There may be really important information that is missing from that, particularly in relation to victims. In respect to sex offenders, we do get provided with information and that is incredibly helpful and informative. I would make a plea that that is something that does need to be considered. I appreciate that there are practical issues in relation to how the summaries are often narrated in court. They are not written down, so that creates a problem, but I am sure that there is a way to get over that particular hurdle. It would significantly improve the strength and quality of risk and needs assessments if we were to have that information routinely on every occasion. To come on to the issues around alcohol, three things I would want to say. Social Work Scotland makes reference to this and our submission about how people change their behaviour. It is not a linear process. There is a cycle of change there. People go through that cycle several times and relapses are not always the case, but more often than not, that is part of that cycle. I am sure that we can all think of dieting or trying to stop smoking. How often do you go back to that behaviour and go around that cycle? There is a potential risk with alcohol monitoring that it is seen too much in terms of black and white. If we are going to have legislation around this and I would support that, we have to make sure that the right guidance and it is used in the right way to recognise that if you put somebody on to a requirement, not using alcohol, there is quite a high likelihood that they will breach that at some point. That has to be part of that sentence and on-going management of that particular individual. I think that is an absolutely critical point to make. Often, as parole licence conditions, we might get a condition that says somebody must not drink. That creates a problem where there is a dependency because that individual is asking something that is just not possible. We have to be mindful of that in how we create the legislation and the landscape around remote alcohol monitoring. The other point to make is that we must also not forget the post-sentence issue here. That applies to all electronic monitoring, indeed potentially all sentencing options. Once somebody gets to the end of their period of statutory supervision, often the research would back this up that how do you sustain that level? If somebody has made good progress through their CPO or their prison licence, how do you sustain that beyond that period of statutory supervision? I think that we have to give considerable thought to that. That might involve the third sector and it might involve resources. Again, if we are looking at this as a medium-long-term issue, we need to build that in. People are only going to be on CPOs for a maximum of three years. Most people on licences will not be on those licences forever. What happens after that social work will obviously try to link people into community-based resources, but those resources need to be there to make that work and to make that happen. Can I just ask something, if I may? Have you talked to DrinkAware campaign? DrinkAware campaign, the alcohol body, the drinks industry? I work quite a lot with Alcohol Focus Scotland. I'm quite engaged in lots of the alcohol groups, but not drinkAware. This is a way of getting the message out about responsible drinking. I'm just wondering if it's been discussed. Sorry, I just have a follow-up point on the alcohol. When we initially looked at this six years ago, there were lots of sheriffs who were sent and sang, and saying in their sentence, you're not allowed to drink. Obviously, the only thing we had was breathalyzer at the moment. You can drink around breathalyzer. You lose a bit of a unit of alcohol per hour. Those who were using breathalyzers, we could drink around it. We used the course of conduct, so two or more offences where alcohol has been a factor in your offending, not a unique correlating course, but a factor. We used that as the criteria for using the alcohol when it drinks. You weren't just the first time you got caught with a drink related crime. You didn't go on this. There is a gathering body of evidence about supporting people, and Mr Mayby is absolutely right. You need to be very thoughtful around that. Even when we were doing some of the studies, we did not... When someone started to drink or they had one drink, we'd phone up and say, are you finding this difficult? We do brief motivational interviews around alcohol, because at the end of the day, we wanted to keep people compliant, but we recognised how difficult it is. Obviously, there is a motivational thing around this, and failure absolutely is part of it, and proshechur and decrementi, which is a motivation to change model, would say that we expect people to fail, but that is also a teachable time. As a teachable time when you can actually intervene again. I think it's about being smarter with our justice. It is going on an evidence base, so that an individual is supported with the addictions that they have. If we look at alternative forms of sentencing, a custodial sentence, those issues will still be there when the individual is released. This is about the society supporting an individual and the process to have better outcomes and to be smarter in the way that we look at that as well. We are convinced that there is an evidence base to take this forward. Thank you, convener. Rona. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I'm interested to know how electronic monitoring affects the families of people being monitored, and does more need to be done to mitigate any difficulties with that? I certainly think that home detention curfew is a big ask for lots of families. Having someone in a house from seven to seven might be really quite difficult for families. We know that families can support people to comply with their order, but it also takes a great toll on them. I think that the extension of this to GPS allows us to be more flexible, a lot smarter about how we induce compliance from people around staying away from certain areas, certain places that could be victims of witnesses' houses. That is probably slightly less onerous than some of the HDC and RLOs. How often is that used? GPS is not just now. It is incredibly interesting. If you look at some of the work that is being done in Germany, they have some quite complex exclusion zones, and it obviously buzzes if you get too close to it, so it tells you to move away. You can use it very cleverly. It is individualised, so it is not just a blanket ban. You can individualise it to each person. I think that it is certainly an issue in respect of the impact on families, for obvious reasons, where there might be underlying tension between the partners in the household. Clearly, if somebody is confined, that can be exacerbated, and there may be unintended consequences as a part of that. The research is fairly limited in respect of this, and I think that this is something that would benefit from a further study. The GPS is interesting because there is a default conclusion drawn that that is more intrusive, but there is some evidence that suggests that it can be less intrusive because somebody is not confined to a particular place, so they can go around their lawful business, and they are obviously not going into the exclusion zone that has been set up, because they are not confined to one place. It comes back to the assessment, having a really thorough, strong assessment that takes into account the situation within the household, ensuring that the individuals within that household are spoken to, and that full assessment is carried out. What feedback do you have from families? Do you find them generally supportive of EM? I would have to say that that's difficult to comment on, because I'm not sure I've got an evidence base to do that from. I suspect it's mixed, that it will work successfully in some places, but in other circumstances, there may be some difficulties that arise from that. That has to come back again to the ongoing supervisory element in terms of the ongoing contact, not just with the offender, but with the family to make sure that if there are issues, that they are picked off on immediately, and considered an action taken if necessary to head off any potential difficulties. Do the children in the household get any kind of counselling or explanation about what's going on if one of the adults in the house is under a curfew? Do children understand that generally? I think it's important that every member of the household is aware of what's happening, because children are very observant, and they will see that a box is being put in, that their father or mother is wearing an ankle bracelet, and that will provoke the obvious questions. I think that there has to be an integral part of planning for electronic monitoring, so that there aren't any surprises and shocks, and, depending on the age and stage of the individual children, that they have sufficient answers and information. Who would that come from? It would be done by the electronic monitoring provider, G4S, they're the people who go into the household and fit the box, but also where there's a supervisory element, I would expect the criminal justice social worker to be part of that discussion as well. Minister Blear, you wanted him. Yeah, it's just to reiterate, we are supportive of families outside and their submission, and I'm sure they'll have more to say later on today. In terms of the GPS technology, we have come on a long way, but we do live in Scotland, and the geography and topography means that it's not always accurate, so the technology, and I'm just reiterating from our point of view, the technology is moving on, but there are parts of Scotland where there is no GPS coverage, and also that does come down to inner cities as well, so at the point of assessment of what is available, we need to look at is GPS appropriate, and for now or in the future. So there are some concerns about that. Okay, thank you, that's wonderful. Jenny, supplementary? Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. I have a brief supplementary to Rona Mackay's point on GPS. There are obviously limitations to that system, and as Scottish Women's Aid have pointed out to us, it doesn't detect contact via phone, social media, text or chance encounters, so it won't catch certain types of behaviours, and there are also points of research from America that said that using GPS monitoring pre-trial made victims feel anxious because they could see their abuser moving about freely. Are there limitations then for the use of GPS monitoring with regard to certain types of crimes, for example domestic abuse? I think that will come down to a social work assessment, and James would probably be better to comment on that. The anxiety of victims should never be ignored, because I think that any victim, if it's a violence, a man or a woman, it can be incredibly difficult. I think that it's up to the risk assessment to try to pick out when it's proportionate to be used, both in terms of victims and whether it's suitable for the person that you're putting it on. So there are considerations, as there are in RALOs and HDC right now? I think that the voice of the victim and the issues surrounding protecting vulnerable people and victims is key. It's paramount. It has to be part of any thorough risk assessment. I don't think that any order, licence is a magic bullet, nothing is ever going to work perfectly. There will always be instances where things don't work for a whole multitude of reasons, but it does come back to the risk assessment and to pick up the earlier point about having as much information in which to be able to formulate that assessment. The issue around the geography and the limits of the technology is well made by my colleague from Community Justice Scotland, and that currently is a fact of life, but I don't see that that should be a reason not to move forward. It's not unique that certain programmes, for example, are not available throughout Scotland. For example, a Caledonian system is not currently available to all criminal justice social work services, but it's a start and money has been made available to further roll that out. I think that a further point I'd like to make is that the current contract for the delivery of electronic monitoring is up for renewal. I think that in 2020 the contract expires. I think that another really key point to make is that the links between the provider of the electronic monitoring service, whoever that is, currently G4S, and criminal justice social work has to be absolutely excellent, because there has to be that synergy, there has to be that working together to achieve a shared goal and a shared aim with a real understanding of what the different partners bring to the table in terms of the support, the technology and the crossover there, so that criminal justice social work understand the limitations of the technology, what is going to work, what isn't going to work in terms of the landscape, the island authorities or remote rural communities, such as in Highland, for example, but this is going to be problematic. There has to be that really good consistency and joining together. Currently, I think from my own experience, G4S provides an excellent service and I think I would confidently say that that's a reflection of social work at Scotland's view. I hope beyond the life of this contract, whatever comes next, that's continued. We have to get that right in the future. If we don't, again, we risk undermining what we're trying to achieve with electronic monitoring. I would just like to reiterate sections from our response where we would like to see that the guidance is co-produced because of those who have offended but also the rights of victims are respected. This is a very polemic contentious issue. It's one of those that I think we need to get round the table so that we get the right balance and that everybody feels that they have a part going forward. I think that that can only be done in a co-productive environment so we have our Scottish Government to do that. A very brief supplementary, Liam McArthur. It's just on the point that Mr Moody is making about GPS coverage in some of the communities where that might be impractical. Those also happen to be the communities where incarceration is likely, therefore, to take place much further away from the family and home network. Would it be your expectation that the future contract, actually, as a priority, looks to address any gaps in the coverage so that we can see something that is applicable where appropriate across the country rather than in a piecemeal fashion? Would you also expect the mapping exercise that is done to be a good deal more reliable than the mapping exercise either for mobile phone coverage or for broadband coverage, which the operators will give you some degree of comfort but the lived experience on the ground is a far cry from that mapping exercise? How would that work? I think that that has to be an integral part of the future and I think we have to create a culture of honesty in terms of what works, what doesn't work, where the gaps are and the plans to try and plug those gaps. I know myself from driving down this morning you go through pockets where you would almost least expect it where suddenly the DAB cuts out and the radio for example and you go into a black hole for example so I think that has to be part of the future consideration and we have to have some very clear honest statements about that so that we are making decisions based on that clear evidence. I would just say RF will still be available so we will still be able to use RF and so whilst GPS we are going to have to wait probably and I would expect in five years time that this will look entirely different because we certainly don't want to disadvantage people from rural communities who would like to keep them in their communities in their houses or with their families in their supportive environment where criminal justice social work in third sector can support them so we shouldn't have a two tier system. Liam Kerr Thank you convener I'd like to come at this from a slightly different angle some people some communities might look on any increase in electronic monitoring with some degree of concern someone behind bars is not able to commit a crime within the community and Karen McCluskey said there we want to keep people in their community the community may not want the people in the community so it begs the question do the proposals offer any additional or indeed sufficient protection for the victims we looked at and also the community more generally? There is an evidence base of compliance with GPS and indeed transdermal alcohol monitoring but you're right I think we need to educate the community around what GPS and electronic monitoring can do in its widest sense alongside support we already have people who are in community senses just now and we have more to do you're absolutely right that needs to improve I would hope that the use of EM could induce compliance and we know that the evidence base is if you put someone on electronic monitoring and provide them with the right support they are increasingly compliant and indeed in some of the voluntary programmes that have been done people actually wanted to keep it on when it finished so they found it helped them desist from crime but we have a difficult situation just now with the level of demand with people on short term sentences sometimes just for very short terms we know that 98 per cent of women have a sentence of less than 12 months surely it's better for us to look at different ways to keep people compliant in the community and support them to remain to not re-offend I won't necessarily dispute that particularly in relation to Rhamann which we looked at in some depth my concern is that the community may not when you were answering me there Karen McCluskey you were talking about inducing compliance helping them desist from crime the community may well be saying that we've been terrorised by a particular individual we don't want that person back we want the criminal justice system to keep them away from us not put them back in our community how do you respond to that? well this isn't binary not everybody in a sentence of under 12 months is automatically going to go into the community there will be those who it has decided that for the protection of the public and indeed in a short term sentence but there is a percentage of people who are in our custodial environment just now who would be much better suited to a community sentence and would be much better supported by use of electronic monitoring and in particular women because they are not going to be served well by two months in a prison where we then come out to homelessness and a whole range of other challenges there must be a better way to do this and we will absolutely have to support them differently and do you think that there are sufficient protections within the proposals to to commit it from the community's point of view? I think that we need a complete paradigm shift I absolutely think that we need much more support in the community we need to invest more in our third sector because third sector I think can support people in a very different way from either myself or indeed criminal justice social work so it will need some justice reinvestment there are little doubt about that I think the word here is supportive so the technology can be used in a smarter way to be supportive for communities so if it's an exclusion zone that would support the communities involved and I think that would give confidence as well to victims that there is an exclusion zone so that if the person with the conviction went into the area then the remedial the police or whoever would come and take that forward at that point non-compliance needs to be robustly dealt with absolutely because otherwise it's just ever increasing and that's obviously one of the recommendations when we looked at the electronic monitoring report that we needed to look at how we robustly addressed compliance about 30% of the sheriffs at the moment will put a very robust programme around the last criminal justice social work for every small breach others it's less so and I think as we go forward to give the public confidence that we're dealing with people appropriately and to protect them that we set up a very robust programme to manage people in the community Mary I believe you've got questions on that It was really just a few questions that were based around the submission that you put in and I noticed there was quite similar thread between what you'd submitted and a few other submissions that we'd had to the committee too and the language that you talk about in the bill and the use of the term offender and how that's used so really just to hear a bit more about that from yourselves and how you think that should be changed within the bill We actually said in our response that we thought the language, the terminology and perhaps the title of the bill should change this Parliament had quite a discussion in the run-up to the 2016 Scotland Act and it was around how we talk about convictions how we talk about those who have offended those who have convictions and it's important because there is an anxiety around convictions so it's about getting the right language so that an individual, when they have been reintegrated back into society they feel part of society so that's important but there are whole parts of the bill and the policy memorandum where the language and the terminology it doesn't meet the standard that this Parliament set in 2016 and that is of concern of us we are the guardians of the national community justice Scotland strategy so therefore that's the language that we take forward that all services use including the police when we refer to those who have convictions or those who have behaviours in a particular way so it's disappointing that the language that the terminology is in a particular way we have had discussions with Scottish Government about why that language was used and there's a bit of a hesitation because they're referring back to the 1974 Rehabilitation Offenders Act which is an act of Westminster and the terminology there is from 1974 it's not appropriate and this Parliament said it wasn't appropriate so we have asked the Scottish Government to reconsider the use of the language specifically and when in the policy memorandum it's talking about does the support individuals to move on and that's the terminology that the Scottish Government uses I would say language terminology and the type of the bill are not sufficient examples of what isn't appropriate and what your regard is so the use of the term offender or ex-offender it's not helpful so it's those who've had convictions those with offending behaviour and that means an individual is empowered and isn't demeaned and that's quite an important thing so if you have been through a system you've been through rehabilitation but the act still calls somebody who has a spent conviction an ex-offender and that's not supportive in our view and I don't think it was in the view of the Parliament in 2016 certainly in the discussions that were had particularly in committee and in the chamber that it was supportive of the direction that Scotland wanted to take so the 1974 act I think is the corporate here and the question is how appropriate is the use of replicating that language either in the bill or the policy memorandum going forward because it will create confusion for those who are sentencing those in the police those in statutory services what do we call individuals so in 2016 we had one idea but now we seem to be going back so that confusion it's something that we're not quite happy with and we've been as firm as we can in the bill but the title of the bill is confusing because this is about electronic monitoring it's about changing of disclosure periods and the reform of the parole board we don't think it's about the management of offenders because somebody who has had convictions or has spent convictions is no longer an offender at that point so that's where we feel it's misleading and it's unhelpful and possibly some of the language is projorative as well what you would prefer then is all the language that's been you prefer to those who've had convictions and those who've had offending behaviour I think that's an important one it's about getting the terminology right and not going back to the 1974 act which is just not appropriate and it's not what we do in Scotland just to follow up on that then I suppose that this is a question that would probably be more appropriate for those who drafted the bill in the first place but when you put those concerns forward is there something that says that it has to relate back to that act and we therefore have to use that language or is that you get an impression that's still something that's open to change I think that you would have to ask the bill team for that and we did ask the question it is a reserved act of parliament from 1974 so there are certain sections that they can't change and they have to approach Westminster to do that okay thank you very much there was also another element in the evidence from Community Justice Scotland where you say there's inconsistencies and ambiguities between the stated intent of the bill regarding written reports by criminal justice social work and where it states that written reports must be placed before the court whereas that's not explicitly referenced in the bill it was just to hear a bit more about those concerns too it's when you have should in a bill or a policy memorandum but the actual explanation of that is not as well defined and it was to make sure that that section and the intent is clearly defined by Scottish Government because there seems to be different forms of drafting and the word should or must needs to be replicated or defined and that didn't we didn't feel it was replicated from the policy memorandum itself okay and I just have one final question and this was mainly from the evidence that we received from Women's Aid where they talk about the 2015 evaluation into the presumption against short sentences and they had a concern that offences that were committed by offenders didn't constitute a breach of the CPO and that the response to breaches of CPO's were fairly inconsistent and quite poor as well and just wondering what your experience of that would be or if that was something that you agreed with You're correct that if somebody commits an offence during the period or on a community payback order that does not constitute a breach of the order you can agree or disagree with that that's the current legislation in terms of how breach is dealt with it's been referenced earlier I think breach of any order any licence has to be dealt with very clearly, very strongly there has to be consequences but it's the job of the criminal justice social worker to look at the evidence somebody may be well into their order or licence and generally making good progress and there's good evidence base for that and somebody then goes through a difficult period you need to assess that to look at the reasons for that, why has that happened does that raise that individual's risk, does it raise the risk to potential victims and then you make your decision and take the action accordingly if somebody has quite clearly breached in a significant way and there's a real increase in risk then the social worker can go immediately to breach and take that back to court that's not instant because it doesn't come with the power of arrest certainly in my own authority and I'm sure this happens in other local authorities where you have concerns about an individual you will have that discussion with the court and say Mr or Misex or whoever there are real issues here, we're going to be submitting a breach can you make sure that this has dealt with very quickly and that can mean that that case is called the next day or as quickly as the court can manage in terms of its timetable so there is a way to shorten the period otherwise if it's a normal breach that can take some weeks to get before the court and clearly that would not necessarily be very helpful and protective of communities and victims okay thank you did the questions answer the points you had yes absolutely I think Mr maybe was going to say something in response though I was I was just going to say in terms of language I think Mr Blair has been very clear and I would support much of what he said I think one thing I would like to add around language is that it has to be it has to be understandable to the public and I think there's a real issue in Scotland in people's understanding of community payback orders of the variety of prison licences extended sentence supervised release orders in terms of what they mean and I think that lack of clarity lack of understanding because sometimes these are not couched in plain language creates this sense of unknowing and that I think leads to some of the issues that communities don't have faith or almost get to a default position we're saying well if somebody's in prison we understand that they can't do any harm to anybody because they're in prison so I do think it's really important that all agencies do what we can to explain to the public better what we do be that Scottish Prison Service be that my own service so I think if we improve the common understanding of how we manage people who have offended or whatever the choice of term is then I think we have a greater prospect of increasing people's confidence in what we're trying to do because they'll understand better why we think it's better to manage somebody in the community who would otherwise have got a short term prison sentence where let's be honest nothing is going to happen with that individual if they're in prison for two, three, four months Scottish Prison Service do not have the resource to do much with that person they will then come out they will not necessarily be subject to any supervision and there's an opportunity lost but if we're not clear about what we're doing, how we're trying to do it and there is that common understanding then I think there's a risk that we don't do as well as we could do some of the things that we wish to try to achieve Thank you Jenny James, maybe I'm sure I heard you say earlier on it's not just about the money so I'd like to go back to that point on resources because in your submission you talk about CPOs being one of the most commonly used community services sentences rather in Scotland with over 19,000 in 2016-17 issued and you say an increase in the use of electronic monitoring would involve justice social workers carrying out more suitability assessments and supervising more monitored people with regards to resources then you go on to say that in this event adequate funding would have to be provided can you be quite specific in terms of what resources you think are additionally required as it currently stands Well currently in the current legislation if the court make a standalone RLO they're not required for example to get a criminal justice social report now I think probably most courts will ask for a report because they'll want that wider assessment so we may see an increase in requests for reports because if somebody is going to get a CPO and EM is being considered as a requirement then there would need to be a criminal justice social report for that in terms of the evidence that's been put forward is based on the average length of a CPO being 15 and a half months I think it is again that's an assumption it may prove to be correct it may not we may see longer orders for CPOs where there's an electronic monitoring requirement in respect of GPS that's a bit of a step into the unknown because you can have active GPS you can have passive GPS if you have active GPS where somebody is being monitored in real time and that information has been constantly fed back to electronic monitoring provider you would expect there to be much greater need for liaison and communication between EM provider and criminal justice social work that potentially could be quite resource intensive and I think that needs to be considered and not forgotten about with passive GPS that perhaps is less risky because obviously the data is aggregated over a particular period of time and then considered so I think there are a number of unknowns and I think the word possibly is used in our submission so whilst we think it's a reasonable first go at coming to some sort of quantifying to some extent what the cost might be I think we do have to remain cautious that we get this right and that whatever legislation is at the end point that we do monitor the impacts of that there may be the opportunity to do that through demonstration projects before we get to doing it across the country but I would just I think it would be regrettable if criminal justice social work is not sufficiently resource to deliver electronic monitoring in the way that we're discussing because it is such a huge opportunity thank you Ben Good morning panel I'd like to move on to the disclosure of convictions aspect of the bill Karen McCluskey in your previous role with the balance reduction unit with John Carnahan you spoke very powerfully and passionately about people being able to move on once their convictions have been spent and I wondered what impact do you think convictions have on people seeking to move away from previous offending and the bill seeks to make changes to the rules on when convictions become spent reducing the length of time in some cases and extending the length of custodial sentences covered by the provisions do the provisions achieve an appropriate balance in your view or is there more consideration that needs to be given It is the most confusing act I think for people who have convictions I think understanding when they should disclose and when they shouldn't I think my experience is that people just end up disclosing everything at the moment it is keeping them in structural inequality the majority of the people who I work with and indeed James will work with have children, have families they also need the opportunity to become part of the wealth creation of Scotland to get into employment I know that if I get anybody male or female into employment they will re-offend less they will be able to square money for their families and at the moment that is not happening there is often a blanket policy by lots of companies and I can understand why they have lots and lots of applications and they are just sifting people out so it does need to be changed I think it is much clearer I welcome it it absolutely reduces the terms and for lots of the people with convictions that I have spoken to just now they are at least excited that it is clearer about when and when they should not have to disclose their convictions but there is little doubt we cannot disaggregate some of those who are in structural inequality and how people disclose their convictions and it may have been 10 years ago they may be a long away from their offending behaviour and they are still having to disclose every single time they go into university they go into anything that seems particularly unfair I agree the bill at present is a step forward or are there other points about it it is definitely a step forward I think it will be interesting to see how we then communicate it to those who are trying to navigate their way through this because it took me a number of reads and indeed the policy memorandum to try and understand lots of it it will be how we communicate it to those out there who have perhaps convictions from a long time ago and how they understand what they have to disclose when they have to disclose and who has got the right to ask I think that the changes and the disclosure periods are the start of a process what the bill does not cover is how we do that now there are processes out there via disclosure Scotland on the summary application from a sheriff but there are resources attached to that that those who have had convictions could not afford and we are talking in order to get the legal support to do that thousands of pounds so why would you go through a process where at the end of it you have to find the resource for it but also a sheriff could turn down the application so it as Karen has said we are supportive of the time frames that are being spoken about but it is more about informing the public it is more about informing employers and those in education what does it mean to have this on your disclosure how can a person have that removed so that the anxiety around convictions for everyone in society we can work on that and as far as I can see that anxiety is still there and there is a confusion which I don't believe that this act supports it doesn't support making it clearer for those who are involved in looking at the convictions forward I think it is incredibly confusing I would suggest incredibly confusing as things are sorry to interrupt the current situation and I think the bill does take us in the right direction and I think it would be important we have talked about language at points this morning to run this past people who have convictions who are going to be applying for jobs to actually see if they understand what is being proposed and the same with employers because if we don't we run the risk of perhaps improving things for ourselves but the people are actually going to be dealing with this on the cold face applying for jobs do I disclose, do I not, what do I say how do I say it and the same for employers so there is perhaps a litmus test that we can apply to trying to get the language right so that to maximise the potential for people to understand what it is we are trying to achieve thanks very much all thank you Camilla moving on to Liam McArthur just following up on that I think you've talked about a step in the right direction and removing some of the lack of clarity there is at the moment is there anything that you think we could be doing in the context of scrutinising and amending this bill that would take us further along that that process would provide additional clarity not just to those who are caught by it but as you rightly say employers who may need to have as much of a common understanding as possible about the way the act is likely to impact it is my understanding that some of these areas are reserved so if it is an employment matter it might not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to take forward now I understand with other acts of Parliament bills that have come through the Scottish Parliament where there are reserved matters but it supports the individual at the end of the process then in the guidance things have been worked on to highlight issues so that you can see a clear process through to the end I don't think as it stands it is supportive and there are colleagues who will give evidence later on this issue the problem is the 1974 act and let's be frank about it it's been changed quite a few times and I'm not sure how supportive this is for individuals to understand what we would call upon Scottish Government is to co-produce the guidance around this so that in the implementation stages whether you're an individual whether you're an employer or you're in education or you're providing services as well so it's about volunteering that there is a clear understanding of what the process is involved and what does it mean to have that conviction listed on your disclosure statement and it also says that you can work with anybody what does that mean and how you might see that with the anxiety as too much so I think we need to work in co-production but I'm not sure this bill is the right area to do that unfortunately I think it's the 1974 act although Karen McCluskey aileron you were saying it took you some time waiting through the documentation around this bill to understand precisely what the implications were being so that in and of itself as somebody who's who's reasonably familiar with dealing with documents of this type that's a concern is the way in which it's phrased within the bill and supporting documentation as clear as it might be when I speak to both my English colleagues and up here we're recruited with conviction and the positive prison who I'm sure will speak later on I think it's a question we get asked most when do I have to disclose to me I think it will be the documents that we put out afterwards which will try and make sense of what is something that is really very complex and particularly if you have more than one conviction or mixed convictions I think that's where the confusion you know the confusion will lie and certainly for employers as well employers don't know how to work the way through this so we have to make it much simpler for employers as well as we risk excluding lots and lots of our you know sometimes quite vulnerable populations from a work environment and that doesn't seem to be incredibly progressive I don't know if there's anything that maybe you want to add to that just to really echo I think that the sentiments have been well made in Highland we have a contract with Apex Scotland and they run a course specifically on the rehabilitation of offenders act because it is complicated and that covers not just the technical aspects of what you need to disclose and when but obviously how you deal with that with a potential employer how you might answer questions if that's raised I guess if we were really successful we wouldn't need to run a rehabilitation of offenders act course because people would pick it up and understand it so Social Work Scotland think we've made a giant leap forward in terms of what's laid out in the bill but I'm sure there is further room to improve things in the future and just turn very briefly to the issue of the length of time for disclosure obviously is determined by whether or not the conviction happened before or after the age of 18 and I'm not going to ask you whether you think that's right but probably more a question is whether you think that's the right threshold to set in terms of making the distinction That's a really difficult one I actually think they've taken a very pragmatic approach to this right now but I don't think that doesn't mean that we don't revisit it in the future absolutely for some of our young people we should not be holding them back for circumstances that happened when they were under 18 and I do with a lot of young people whose lives are pretty much blighted so I think it's a good place to start I think we should consider it later on offending and victimisation are often fleeting and not a consistent state we have some prolific offenders and absolutely that's why we need custodial environments and we need to deal with them in a different way but we should allow people to move on particularly those who are who are young and who have decades and decades left to contribute to society on that basis do you think the bill as it currently stands and allows that sort of change to be made in due course if that was felt to be appropriate or I'm sure they can make amendments to it later on but I think it's a pragmatic approach I mean certainly under 18s I think they've consulted on it at the moment and I've not seen all the responses yet If it was predator behaviour and sexual offences that someone under 18 once would you be recommending a change of policy I think that will be dealt with differently I'm not sure I think that will be dealt with differently in any case in any case so I'm not so I'm not prevaricating but I'm just not clear I can feel that would be dealt with differently clarification on that because that's behaviour that is likely to continue I understand that there are two schedules those of higher nature and those of lesser nature and so this is not about that type of offence so this is about the lesser so it wouldn't be covered that wouldn't be a problem not that I see at the moment no very briefly if I may you were asked by Liam McArthur about the length of time for disclosure it seems to me you can't set an appropriate time period unless we're absolutely clear on what we're trying to achieve through the disclosure so if we can just ask a very kind of base question there must be a purpose to disclosure there's a reason that we have a disclosure period at all what do you understand that purpose to be well I mean there are certain jobs where you will always need to disclose your previous convictions working with children working with vulnerable groups base level disclosure is it a warning to employers that this person has been had a conviction in the past and therefore has a propensity to re-offend for example I'm not sure that that's clear just because you've offended in the past you've got a propensity to re-offend particularly if you're further away from it I mean we know that I mean there's a huge evidence base Bethweaver has just done a big survey of all the literature that's out there if you've not offended for 10 years of re-offending is no greater than mine so I think that there's a good deal of evidence base to say that if you've got it's a long time ago that the likelihood of people re-offending is much less that's a really good question around what the actual purpose of disclosure is I mean we've set some times in there but it will be individual I'm not answering your question very well I know I'm not there's no time to think about it I'm going to as well I think it's a fascinating thing it's a really good question about why we think that we're telling of something that has been a very long time ago if we go back find information after you've been to the panel it was and I think the basis of 1974 was because people weren't actively disclosing and there was confusion so it's I think part of it is public protection originally but from this bill I can't see if there's an answer for that and this is just about the time periods it's not about the reasons for disclosure could we muse on that and come back it's a great question I'm genuinely really interested in that Mr Mayby did you want to add something I'm not sure I can provide any greater clarity than my colleagues other than to say I suppose from a the obvious comment is that it's about the nature and the seriousness of the offence and whether that makes that individual less or greater a risk to a potential employer hence the sort of graduated scale of periods of disclosure but it is a right then has there been any analysis done on which specific crimes have a greater or lesser propensity to re-offend I don't know the answer because that would directly dictate the appropriate period for disclosure one would have thought is that a question for Scottish Government as they decided on the periods involved and I presume it was evidence based I know there was a co-productive process with the working group and they based their periods on that evidence so I would ask the Scottish Government that question I think that that's more appropriate for them okay but Rona yeah just to continue the theme of difficult questions do you have any views on what might be done about the potential availability of information relating to previous convictions including spent convictions appearing on the internet oh grief the right to be forgotten the right to be forgotten I think we'll go back to 1974 we didn't have the internet and what applied in 1974 you know it was newspapers disclosing so I think we need an examination of this what's appropriate what's not appropriate I can't see from any of the bill documents that it actually addresses this issue so I think that's a good discussion for that to happen so there's been two cases just recently in England of a businessman who has just I think it's Google who have just asked for the removal of documents and the right to be forgotten now his was upheld somebody else was rejected so I think we're in new territory now I mean it's difficult you know you've got this and then you've got the touch of your fingers and you'll have court documents you'll have reports of the newspapers and that also people will then think should I just disclose because it's on the internet anyway it's how appropriate is it to disclose is it relevant to the employment that you're applying for and is it a spent conviction have you asked for it to be removed can you get it removed how relevant there is a confusion about the appropriateness of it and it is creating an anxiety around convictions so how appropriate would be now I suppose there's nothing to stop an employer actually googling the applicant for applications to disclose Scotland I think a good number of them are on the answer is it's just disclosed so it's a very difficult one I think it needs more thought by Scottish Government okay thank you can I just ask you another question just for clarification the bill doesn't seek to make any changes to the arrangements under which spent convictions may be revealed under higher level disclosure checks although the possibility of reform could be revisited later are you content with that the fact that that level of check isn't going to be altered I don't think we've previously commented on this we're content with the high level we'll see the reason and the value and the purpose of that okay that's great thank you and Maurice, I don't know if your question has been more it has been asked partly can I just add one bit to that I pick up the bit in the bill which talks about the armed forces if I may refer to that and the alternatives of prosecution obviously it is a reserved matter on the Ministry of Defence and therefore it could be seen as discriminating in Scotland because we're having more servicemen and women coming to live in Scotland we already have them now into the new tax system what's your views on that is this going to create a problem have they really addressed that we have not responded to that issue it's not really within our remit I'm afraid so we haven't commented on that do you see it as an issue coming down line I'm not able to give an answer to that one can I just say that I work a great deal with the Army in Scotland I now deal with a lot of servicemen who are now in the criminal justice system I would like to see it changed I think we've got a two-tier system here it seems inherently unfair but that is a personal view that you've got a two-tier system that is a personal view that you've got a two-tier system Mr Mayby you're coming on that I don't think social work in Scotland is in our response but I would echo with that I think we should always be trying to seek a level playing field and wherever there is a two-tier system we should seek to try to address that thank you convener can I just ask the panel electronic monitoring can be used for disposals from children's hearing systems are you familiar with that and should that have been included in the bill are you aware that it is used just now yes I have a response from the children's hearing reporter we don't have a comment on that no view one way or another I think there are better people more suited to responding to that and Mr Mayby do you have any I would respond similarly I would rather not try to formulate a response on that yes point in time and just funny in the policy memorandum it's possible for Scottish ministers to add to the list by way of regulation do you have any concerns about that you stated in our response that any changes in power should be brought before the Parliament for discussion and approval so that Scotland can debate this yes and Mr Mayby I concur with that comment and Ms McLean there will definitely be developments in technology as we go forward we now have alcohol monitoring we will have further monitoring so that technology gets much more sophisticated and I think that was in there really just for new developments in technology and could I ask you just finally to comment on the parole board the changes to the composition and the new term of office we chose not to respond to the parole board because it's another agency so we were not able to respond to that so you don't have a view at all on no we don't interesting information contained in the bill okay thank you very much that concludes our questioning can I thank all the witnesses for your evidence which has been extremely helpful I suspend now briefly to allow for a witness change over and a five minute comfort break I now welcome our second panel on the management of offenders bill Professor Nancy Laux chief executive family outside Pete White Prisons positive futures Dr. Marsher Scotch chief executive Scotland's women's aid Nicola Fraser local operations manager with victim support Scotland you're all very welcome and can I thank you for your written submissions I say to every set of panellists it really is incredibly helpful to have that in advance of our formal panel session now we've got our questions divided into two main areas we're going to start with disclosure of convictions and then you've got the first questions thank you convener good morning panel around the section on disclosure of convictions I just wanted to ask similarly to the previous panel what impact do you think convictions have on people seeking to move away from previous offending and also the bill seeks to make changes to the rules on when convictions become spent reducing the length of time in some cases and extending the length of custodial sentences covered by the provisions do the proposals as detailed in the bill as currently drafted achieve an appropriate balance in your view perhaps Mr White pardon me sorry it's a step in the right direction and I think that the idea of people being able to work out what their disclosure period might be or will be is a lot clearer than it used to be and I think it's going to help people realise that they are on a journey back to being a contributing member of society much more so than the current arrangements which are highly complex and very difficult to negotiate especially if you're somebody who has maybe not had the best education or the best chances in life this is a better a big step forward I think there is scope for people being supported to work out how to disclose properly and that is going to be a very important part of this in the earlier session we've mentioned about employers being supported to recognise how to handle people in the recruitment process with convictions and there's an employer support network being set up by a collaboration across all sectors of employers who currently do take on people with convictions to support others to follow their good example just briefly thank you I just wanted to touch on the first point on what impact convictions have on those people seeking to move away because I know that's something that your organisation is heavily involved in and also I note your point at 2.06 in your evidence submission about the need for publicity and perhaps you'd like to elaborate on why you think that's important right well first of all apologies if I didn't answer the question correctly in the first time round I think helping people to move away from their offending behaviour whether it be through making sure that they've got good accommodation good access to medication and good access to welfare support and once you get those three things in place and the prospect of being able to have a job is something that people can then build on this proposal in the bill here I think is going to help that enormously the good thing about that is that if people are able to negotiate and map out a way forward to move them away from offending then it's going to be better for everybody involved it's going to be less harm right across the board and I think that this is definitely a step in the right direction and the publicity point the publicity side of things I fear that that's way beyond my understanding as to how we can pull back what's already out there I wish it was the case that we could just at the end of a disclosure period that these things would automatically be removed and I don't believe that we currently have the technology available to do that even though I for one would be very appreciative if that could be the case it's all too easy to google somebody's name and you may not get the right person or you may have the up-to-date information I don't know and a comprehensive campaign to inform employers about the new disclosure arrangements is so important in your view it is and that's part of the process that's led to the setting up of the employer support network working with the likes of Virgin Trains Greg Bakerys and Timsons who all have good practices in place for how to consider people with convictions in the recruitment process in a safe and well-managed way we want to spread the word right across the board not simply with the national employers but small, medium all sorts of employers it'll start in 22nd of May so there's no exception here to promote this whole thing thank you very much can respond just in relation to the impact of convictions as I'm sure you're aware that the impact of convictions extends well beyond the person who's been convicted themselves certainly in terms of the stigma surrounding convictions and the publicity surrounding convictions can affect the entire family it can affect for example their housing status if it's for example if someone has been selling drugs from a particular premises even if they had nothing to do with the actual offence obviously it has implications as to where someone can return to after imprisonment as well and again that's something that affects the wider family even though the family themselves have not been convicted of anything so that is a frustration but it's something that's to flag up the need to involve families in discussions surrounding what happens next absolutely thank you Camille, thank you Rona, thank you convener can we just ask the rest of the panel on your views on the problems with the internet and disclosure any thoughts on how that could be tackled something that we raised within our written submission that is something that will need to be addressed and as the previous panel said it's something that has come about after subsequent to the previous legislation on this issue so it is something that does follow people around have concerns as well about common practices such as publishing addresses of people with convictions again that's something that impacts on the whole family as well so I don't have an answer for it but it is something that we definitely need to find some sort of response anyone else or you in agreement with that we commented on but it also does affect victims when court cases are heard and a lot of stuff can be put on the internet so it is something that's very much new but needs to be addressed seriously needs to be addressed okay thanks and just my other question is just about the fact that the bill hasn't made changes to the arrangements for higher level disclosure are you content with that or would you like to see that revisited at any time Marshall surprisingly I was quiet earlier because in fact we have fewer concerns that we might have because most of the convictions for domestic abuse would probably not be affected by these changes around disclosure I do think we have some concerns which we laid out in our response but I'll say now and I'm afraid I'll probably repeat this a number of times over the rest of the panel session is that it is really important that we are clear that both violent crimes and in particular domestic abuse is a relatively anomalous crime in terms of re-victimisation rates and re-offending rates and we need to be really careful that we take an evidence based and an equality's impact assessed approach to this so the you know as I said we're very pleased that it doesn't address the higher level disclosure but we think there are some concerns certainly around some of the other possible extensions of the changes to the time of disclosure that just need to be risk assessed carefully in the context of domestic abuse Thank you Anyone else? Very well with the changes for the new course and I think that that'll maybe in due course give us the opportunity to consider what would be appropriate for the longer sentences that are not covered by this bill at the moment Okay, thank you If I could just tease out the employment issue a little bit and maybe ask Nicola Fraser for victims support we've covered unspent credentials doesn't mean that the disclosure isn't supposed to make it and they've talked about changes to terminology and anything else that could be done Is there a view from victim support on this balance that has to be struck? Again, it's not something we actually commented on but it is something that being in a volunteer sector you're very aware of and I do think that there's a lot of misunderstanding in relation to when people should disclose and what they should be disclosing There are a lot of organisations that are still out there that just have a blanket no, we try but we're dealing with very vulnerable people as you understand so again it's vital but as they discussed earlier it's very much based on what crime and what level of impact that might have if you're dealing with PVG or with vulnerable people You already mentioned that more awareness raising some good examples from Virgin and from Timson Is there anything else that could be done to help this problem? The employers are only part of the deal to be honest, I think that people who are going through some punishment whether it be in the community or in custody I think that they should be given some information and support to learn how to disclose appropriately and effectively I think that there's more to it than simply the employers I also think that in general terms the public the wider public could benefit from understanding more about the direction of travel of disclosure and the way things are changing there and I think that the stigma that's attached to employers who employ people with convictions doesn't seem to have reached Virgin or Timstons or Greggs and I think that we need to spread that feeling much more widely Masha or Nancy, any views on that at all? I'm sorry, I can't hear you very well I have views on that I absolutely think that one of the issues for us and I agree is that the people involved in the system the victims, the children need to be much better informed and I heard the reference before about people who maybe haven't been lucky enough to have great education backgrounds and understand the rules and I've had quite a good education background so I think you know at some point we have to look at the outcomes of this so we need to take a look at how are people informed and more importantly what do we do with the information that they then give us in response and in particular in the context of domestic abuse it's important to talk to victims not just because it's the right thing to do but theoretically they're the best predictor of further harm from the perpetrator and so if we're not taking advantage of that data from them when we do inform them about arrangements around disclosure and other arrangements around convicted offenders then we're missing a trick in terms of good data Okay, thank you and Nancy I would just underline that that it is something that we need to know what to do with that information once it is well it's not just I would say that we do have a lot more work to be done with employers not just in relation to the ban the box movement and not having the tick box saying do you have a conviction or not but also if someone does disclose a conviction really having a proper assessment as to whether that's relevant to the type of work they're applying for Supplementary Liam Kerr I understand the point being made that if there's a tick box exercise it can prejudice one's employment future I have sympathy for that but also I think some people might look at it and say well look you have an employer who's trying to select from potentially a very large number of candidates and I think some people would feel that it's appropriate to say well these candidates don't have any convictions whether spent or unspent this candidate does I need to somehow filter these people have played the game let's move them forward can you see that side of the take the fact that according to government figures 38% of the adult male population has at least one conviction and 9% of women are you going to exclude all of them from potentially being recruited for a job I don't think so and I think that we need to be very careful how we respond to a conviction without understanding of when it happened what happened and what has happened since then by way of the individual moving on in the submissions that have been given it has been suggested by families outside and positive prison that we need to address the practice of employers asking about unspent convictions at the initial stages of recruitment but Mr White isn't that you've just suggested that actually there needs to be a conversation and actually far from addressing a practice of asking about it and stopping that there needs to be a more open conversation where it's done up front I think that the way in which the recruitment process could be set up to enable somebody to be seen as the person they are now first of all and whether or not they're suitable for the job and if they're going to be into the situation where they're going to be offered a job at that point self disclosure by the individual would be a good thing to do because they'll have seen the person not the conviction when it comes down to the recruitment process Thank you Liam McArthur I was just going to take us on to disclosure convictions you touched earlier on about the additional clarity that you thought that the bill brings in relation to when disclosure should and shouldn't happen we are in the previous from the previous panel that this is going to be a tricky process but hopefully through the guidance that further progress could be made so there was any thoughts that any of you had about improvements that might be made through the bill in terms of giving a greater degree of clarity if not to employers as we were suggested before that this may be covered more by reserved legislation but certainly for those being expected to disclose and by extension those advising them I suppose I hesitate to go first again apologies I think it would be possible to come up with some means by which employers, potential employers friends, family and individuals involved could put all the information about themselves relating to their date of birth their convictions when they were and all that sort of thing into a machine and it would come up with an answer as to whether or not you should disclose or not disclose we worked with a software engineering student from Napier and we got very close to this just in time for this new bill to come out to suggest that our figures might have to be changed but I think to make it something that is not left to chance would be really really good and that's something everybody could use have it online and they could check out for themselves I think it would be a really good thing to do as long as it wasn't left online as long as it wasn't left online I'm sure we could plot that one thank you yes any other views on that in which case turning to the issue of the distinction made in terms of the time frames for disclosure depending on whether the conviction happened pre or post an individual's 18th birthday again I presume that's something that you would support but whether or not you feel that that is a suitable threshold and again I think taking into consideration the point made by the previous panel about a differentiation made between the the higher tariff convictions and the lower tariff convictions not our particular area of expertise we didn't comment on that specifically but it seems as reasonable a threshold as it can there will be a distinction between the more serious offences and the less serious offences as we go through this discussion I was wondering if I could give an example of it's not a family's outside example unfortunately but I was a child protection officer for our local gymnastics club and one of the training examples that Scottish gymnastics gives is a man who's a qualified coach who has a conviction on his record which stays on his record for life because it's a sexual offence it was for sex with an underage girl but in looking at the detail of the offence he was 16 years old when that conviction went on to his record his girlfriend at the time was 15 the mum of the girl was the one who brought the case to the police because she objected the fact that they were sleeping together the police had imposed a £50 fine but unfortunately that is something that stays on his record forever he and his girlfriend are now married and have four kids and they're both excellent gymnastics coaches but it's the type of thing about looking behind the label and taking the time to look at the detail and the circumstance of the offence that most people just don't get that opportunity but it's something that stuck with me over time is something that can be scarring for life and can carry on someone's record without it necessarily being a risk to the public okay okay thank you we're now moving to the electronic monitoring set of questions before I bring John Finnie in can I ask there's a number of submissions where people have argued that electronic monitoring should be available as condition of bail the government seems open to this could I have the panel's views Nicola, would you like to start for Jane? it's an interesting aspect because a lot of victims really struggle with the issue of bail and bail conditions anyway I think the level of risk assessment necessary prior to releasing somebody on a tag for bail instead of remanding them is quite intense a lot of conditions would have to be taken into consideration and I think the things that I'm sort of thinking about is when it's that kind of crime where there might be a threshold between custody or using tagging is we need to take things into consideration especially in Scotland in sort of smaller towns, rural towns those individuals are going to come into contact on a regular basis you go to somewhere like Breishan, there's one co-op so everybody does their shopping there and that's the kind of things that we need to take on board you're talking about a victim that's just been traumatised that person could appear in custody be released on bail and they're back so there would need to be a lot of risk assessment done there would also need to be huge ramifications if that person breached the bail or breached the tag because community will never accept that unless they see that something happens when that person does it, breaks it is some clear from my understanding just what the ramifications would be for Breach is very vague any other comments from the panellists just to echo what Nicola has just said we really think that technology in this context like pretty much every other context can be a great boon and a great challenge and it's about understanding the context so we would very much welcome we have concerns about accused being released prematurely before risk assessment that's been done appropriately and so I'm going to bang on that all along because there's a lot quite a thin evidence base around police risk assessment of in domestic abuse context and while I think we need to use the tools that we have we really really need to understand the role of professional judgment in these decisions and professional judgment that's not competent around the dynamics of domestic abuse is very dangerous so I guess what we want to underscore is there's not a yes or a no answer from our perspective in terms of use of electronic monitoring and bail although we think it absolutely needs to be a possibility but the decision making around it is what's critical and so not only do we need to pay attention there's a piece of research going on right now down south in the College of Policing and there's risk assessments and I think we need to take some of that on board in terms of how we look at rolling this out and a number of other things around domestic the new law but also the breach issues are really going to be important I think first of all I agree completely that risk assessments need to be carried out very thoroughly and professionally and that's an important part of the process I also think when it comes down to breach there will be a zero-tolerance approach in that case because individuals who are under some kind of electronic monitoring need to know what the limits are and I find myself surprised that I'm saying that but I also think it's really important that people with a court case pending realise that it's a very serious matter and their conduct if they are released on some kind of monitoring it's going to be part of their trial process effectively it's really got to be taken seriously if you breach this you get this done then that's interesting Nancy I think I would actually connect our response to response that we gave recently on relation to the use of remand generally is that I wouldn't necessarily say that electronic tagging is appropriate for everyone who's remanded into custody but I was looking at reasons why we remand whether it's for people who don't turn up to court for example whether we could be making better use of things like supervised bail which is used very inconsistently around the country so I would connect it to that conversation Kate and supplementary Dan before I bring in John In fact Professor Nancy Luke has just touched on what my supplementary is going to be but I think public safety is one dimension as to why remand is used you know flight and indeed just frankly reliability of the accused turning up at court or others I was just wondering if the panel would agree that there are a number of considerations and why electronic tagging might be a good alternative to remand I think remand can be or the tagging can be quite useful to where people have particularly chaotic lives I was at an event in Lanarkshire just last week where a young man was saying that he wished he could actually remain tagged I thought that was a rather extreme response but he was saying that it was very helpful for him to create some sort of stability and predictability and accountability which he actually found very helpful especially in terms of his trying to return to the community in his case but for remand as well it's being able to provide that structure as long as it's ideally supported you want to see that support attached to it rather than just purely surveillance to make it most effective I think that there's great potential in people being able to not go to remand halls the conditions under which people are kept are quite different from convicted prisoners and I think that the lack of structure and the lack of access to services for remand does nothing but damage to a large proportion of the people who are in there and I think that they would have a better chance of recovering their sense of being a member of society on a tag much more so than if they're held in this limbo land that's remand but I agree that risk assessments are vital I'm just trying to link back the comment that Professor Look's made there around the chaotic lifestyles that are involved very often it's a message that we've heard through our inquiry from most witnesses in fact but try to square that with Mr White's comment around almost a one-strike-in-your-out for breach I think as we heard with the previous panel in a sense this could be a management process over a prolonged period of different separate incidents so I'm not quite sure how we, as I say, square the approach Mr White, you were talking about breach and actually the characteristics that crop up very often with the type of people that we're trying to keep out of remand and support into better behaviour For me it just underlines the need that surveillance on its own is not enough it's having the support that goes with that and that's the support that can actually prevent breach in the first place I don't know if you want to add to that The zero tolerance approach is one that I was encouraged to take on board by Karen McCluskey and I wouldn't argue with her Can I just add that one of our big concerns around community disposals generally is a failure to act appropriately in response to breaches of the orders and I think this leads back to that question about who's managing the orders and how much resource they have for doing that, how much training they have around particular areas and also there are huge gender issues around who gets sent on remand and the impact of being held on remand and I think I would urge the committee to be mindful which I suspect you already are about the fact that the impact on women offenders around much of these issues is hugely more harmful and that we need a justice system that responds to the equality characteristics of both the victims and the offenders and when we try to create responses that are not nuanced in the appropriate ways around equalities, we do great harm to both, I think Okay, thank you and John Finne Thank you, convener, panel we've touched on a couple issues there, Bail and where you see a potential for electronic monitoring the position of it as a standalone measure was endorsed by a report from 2016 then they commended its use in conjunction with other interventions can you comment on when you think it would be appropriate to see electronic monitoring being used please I think this again connects to the discussion about the presumption against short sentences using it when it is something that can benefit from support within the community whether there are addiction programs mental health services, things that can access in the community without breaking the connections with the supports that they might already have, family connections housing employment potentially these are all things that if someone is on a tag rather than sent into custody they can at least maintain those structures that are more likely to keep them from offending in future I think those are probably the main things I would point out again electronic monitoring we think has potential for improving the safety of victims and their children and so we really support the use of it in that context we are mindful that many of the accused more accused than we would like are released into the community and in the context prior to trial but also offenders out in the community with CPOs or whatever disposals have been made that do not include custody and I'll just remind you that at the moment only 1% of convicted offenders of domestic abuse are sentenced to custody over a year so we are talking about a lot of convicted offenders here so if and when electronic monitoring can be used to better manage their presence in the community and their you know their danger to the women and children we really like it what we're concerned about is again the failure to understand a number of key things one is that when victims and abusers live apart there is not additional safety there is often additional risk in that context and so the combination we find at the moment of the fact that people still suffer under this myth that separation equals safety and when you combine that with some technical fixes like potentially like electronic monitoring then you have a system that's far more confident about the safety of victims than it should be so this again is about electronic monitoring is an opportunity but it is absolutely critical that it be done with appropriate understandings of the dynamics of domestic abuse in the context of it we're competing with some grass cutting outside we're trying to get the window closed it's done automatically downstairs it may make a bit of a noise so if we hear that I may suspend briefly so that you're not blocked out by the noise of the window closing so if we continue and that's it I think now if we just continue then if it's interfering with hearing people then we can stop again right where were we another phrase that's come up in an earlier session repeated again is the issue of support that would be required to underpin electronic monitoring and indeed the Scottish Government refers to it as a more person-centred and more fully integrated with other community justice interventions do you view that legislation has gone far enough in that direction with reference to support the current situation that we've got is that somebody's released on an RLO with absolutely zero supervision absolutely nothing they've got no support, they've got no help and they're out in the community so any form of supervision or support in respect of a tag is going to be beneficial it's definitely going to be beneficial whether it goes far enough is difficult to say because we have to take the victims into consideration because I think where we are currently and it's probably quite harsh is communities do not have faith in community sentencing and that's because we've discussed it before it takes too long to breach somebody we're looking at zero tolerance if you're on an RLO you can have eight, nine breaches of 10, 15 minutes each how long do we wait until it's breached how many times do you stand outside that victim's house before you actually commit a breach so it's the supervision aspect is to try and help them reintegrate into society and become more or less likely to re-offend but it also has to be to support the victim to know that they're safe so if that's the issue has that had sufficient regard if not directly in reference in the legislation in the supporting documents the level of support because it seems to be a recurring theme no point in having the technology without the backup from humans the reference to supervised bail there's some really good evidence from the US in looking at really serious supervised bail interventions around the context of domestic abuse and they have really good outcomes in terms of reducing re-offending my sense is that this would be a great opportunity to consider support also being the expanded use of supervised bail and also that feeds information into your system much faster and earlier about the likelihood of a breach Dr Scott, has that covered the supporting documents this legislation or is it just this passing reference to more people centered I'm sorry I couldn't hear you John I'm trying to understand if you believe that the resources that would support that approach and we've heard in the previous panel is that an acknowledgement do you feel from the Scottish Government in relation to that we felt that the bill focused very much on the surveillance and security side of things without enough reference to the need for structured support to be available needed much more emphasis on that as a requirement, as a condition and not just the surveillance in itself but it also requires a recognition that this support will not be universally available throughout Scotland and will be more concentrated in urban areas for example but without that support you are going to face difficulties in compliance can give an example as well it's not just about things like addiction and housing and so on which are the standard ones but also things like we had a call from a family that had taken their daughter back home with them after her release on a tag and the house was surrounded by drug dealers because they knew she was there they were there to try to get her to to resume her habit and there was no support for them to be able to deal with that let alone the support that she needed to address her addiction in the first place let's try to make sure that it's universally available if this is actually going to succeed as a measure Mr Mac I think that one of the benefits of support it's not just the technical monitoring of somebody in discussion with them I think that the personal contact is quite vital because there's somebody out there for somebody who's on their journey back who knows the full story so there's no need to conceal or hide what's going on and to develop a relationship which is maybe the first positive relationship that person's had in a long time and I think that's where the support thing is particularly beneficial I think that the fact that it's not clearly specified in this bill is good because there's room for innovation and there's a few things to come along which we can introduce without it being set down in a bill at the moment Can I just add that I know that there are a number of pilots going on at the moment they've just started not too long ago we have a commitment from Justice to do a domestic abuse pilot around electronic monitoring because we were convinced that we needed to ask some very specific questions about electronic monitoring we are convinced that there might be different outcomes of that kind of a pilot depending on whether it was done in a very rural and remote area versus an urban area and I think that the question of resources is a really good one and that I agree that the bill sort of leans towards a let's have a tech fix rather than let's figure out what the resources would be to make the technology work the way we want it to but I don't think that that's not possible still but I think that it's really important that we be careful not to make decisions about the implementation of electronic monitoring until we have some of this information and also short sentences I have to say until we have the information from these pilots Will you be able to furnish the committee with information about these pilots The justice department is doing the pilots so they are the ones that should be providing that information and we will be meeting with them in a couple of weeks to talk about the domestic abuse one. On the back of the discussion there are resources and additional resources that may be required to support the wider use of electronic monitoring Do you think that there has been enough an assessment of the resource shift if we're trying to keep people out of remand then presumably one would need a resource to shift from what's going into remand at the moment to more community based measures at a local level Is it your impression that that debate has been had that the Government has a clear view as to how they might manage this budget shift I don't think that there's been an active debate of sufficient depth and extent as yet to do with this but I think that the general feeling for the people I represent is that if people can be helped to not be in prison then further down the line that's going to save a lot of money and I think that the budgeting side of things is seen in too short a time frame at the moment and I think that if there's some investment in helping people to start their journey back to being a constructive citizen without going to prison then that's going to save a lot of money further on That's the distinction you wouldn't necessarily foresee a short term shift in budget it's more likely to be a medium term calculation that's made that would allow that resource to be freed up and moved into other measures I'd like to think so, yes I haven't possibly slightly contrary opinion which is I think we need to be really careful if we're shifting into the community folks who ordinarily would be in remand and have strong concerns about the use of remand so I want you to hear that in this context but we need to be really careful that we are not shifting the task for supporting victims and their children to the organizations like our domestic abuse organizations Women's Aids are advocating for safety in the context of new technologies when they don't have any more training than anybody else around the use of the technologies and also are stressed by local budget cuts so I think there needs to be a careful analysis of where support is going to come for victims in the face of system change and making sure that we support that, not just with mine but with other victims' organizations Nothing else to add? That's fine Daniel now, followed by Morris then Rona So I think the discussion over the last few questions has been very interesting because I think it hits upon I think that the central tension within this which is fundamentally what increased use of electronic monitoring could and should be about is about taking people who would otherwise be in prison and providing them with the opportunity of being outside however that comes with risks I think is the broad summary So can I just look at that in a little bit more detail Risk assessment has been discussed by Marsha Scott earlier and indeed in our previous evidence session we heard that the view that there needs to be improvement certainly in terms of clarity of risk assessment and indeed the call that perhaps courts should provide an evidence summary and I think that hits upon the support point that if you want to provide the right support to individuals that risk assessment is clearly critical I'm just wondering if the panel would agree with that call for that summary to be provided and indeed what other requirements would you like to see in terms of risk assessment to strengthen this sort of central tension Maybe Pete White first of all I think it's very dangerous territory for me to start thinking about what happens in a courtroom and I think that the I would like it to be standard that the sheriff or judge is required to read social work reports before they sentence I think that's an important part of this my idea of a risk assessment being carried out before somebody is found guilty is quite a difficult one if it's going to be a choice between custody and community at that point if that's within the frame of the offence that's being committed but I think that the risk side of things needs to be balanced very carefully I'm well aware of the needs to look after the rights of victims of crime and other people in the community but I think also we need to be really sure that we're putting somebody into the community knowing that the chances are very very strong that with the right support they will not offend again but I think that the summary of evidence I think is a crucial part of that I'm just wondering about the panellist that would agree with that we're talking about assessing as well because there's a tendency and a risk assessment to focus on the public the risk of reoffending which is perfectly understandable but I think there are wider questions that need to be asked in terms of what the impact of tagging for example means on the rest of the family on the context so if you're talking about someone who's being tagged to their home the research that we have seen we do know that it tends to mean that the rest of the family tends to become isolated themselves because they are left with the almost policing rule of making sure that the person complies with the conditions of their tag it can mean that if the person who's on the tag can't go out and the rest of the family won't go out either but we also see things like for example if the offence is unrelated to a domestic abuse offence but there is an abusive relationship that's not part of the risk assessment but that needs to be asked we need to be asking about the wider context and the impact on the family when these types of orders are made just to sort of give an example we come across individuals on quite a regular basis it's usually for HDC but it can be for tagging as well when that person goes through the court system and they give a bail address it's usually checked by the police as being au fae once they're going to be tagged then it's supposed to be that that address is checked that that's going to be compatible and that the individuals are happy with that what we then get is that family member on the phone going I couldn't say no I'm terrified of them how can I say no that's where the risk assessment needs to be because an awful lot of these people you find are grandparents or extended family do you know what you're not coming home I've been through that so it's very important that the level of risk is taken for that family the other thing just as you said is you've got 7pm to 7am curfew so you can't go out so everybody comes to you and that's the biggest issue that families have they've then got all these people at their house and there's no escape thank you very much that really brings to life kind of the broad spectrum that risk assessment needs to take can I just also just look at another point I think that Marsha Scott raised something I think it's quite interesting because I think it is one of the controversies in this you discussed the possibility of electronic tagging improving the sort of CPOs and in terms of providing assurances to people given those sort of sentences that's interesting because I think that's actually potentially quite controversial I mean I think there's been a number of submissions where people have highlighted in particular the Howard League that what they're concerned about is that this isn't used to essentially add on or increase sentences for people that would otherwise be at liberty and not in prison they want this to be focused on people who otherwise would be in prison I was just wondering how you would reflect on that and maybe how other members of the panel would reflect on that point I'm going to bang the same drum which is domestic abuse is different and a failure to flag that up to highlight that considering that it's 25% of our police business or 20% and 20% of our Crown Office business would be a hugely risky move I do think it's really important to think of electronic monitoring both the pre and the post conviction settings but I also think it also needs to not not be an easy answer so I have sympathy with the Howard League's position but I also again you know crime is not a homogenous thing and we can't and offending is not homogenous and offenders are very different in the context of domestic abuse so it has to be appropriate for the context and if we can't find a way if you can't find a way to create a bill that is sufficiently flexible so that we protect victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault at the same time that we are creating a society that allows people to move on from other kinds of crimes then it's not right and it has to be redone because I guess another way of putting it is that it can actually do both it can improve existing community orders as well as providing opportunities which don't currently exist would that be a sort of affair? I agree and that's I think what we said in our thing and I'm just going to take a moment to add one quick thing which is a bit the elephant in the room around criminal justice social work from a domestic abuse perspective which is that we have the Caledonian program which is a perpetrator program and everybody wants to have something that will fix perpetrators of domestic abuse I think we need to have supports for and to look at how we respond but I think we have one third of the country at the moment that will not have even after the rollout a Caledonian perpetrator program and what we're seeing and have been seeing for a long time is that criminal justice social work departments that don't have access to perpetrator programs to appropriately accredited perpetrator programs like the Caledonian make it up as they go along and because they are under such local pressure to provide some some intervention for courts and I think it's really important that we take a look at the risk associated with all of the other different kinds of interventions by criminal justice social work with convicted offenders of domestic abuse that are supposed to help them limit their re-offending because there's very little evidence space that says they do and it provides again a sense of confidence about safety being provided to victims and children, which is not real. I think that when we talk about the resources for criminal justice and for other parts of the system that might then come into play with the passage of this bill we need to be taking a look at perpetrator programs in the context of domestic abuse and what are we going to do about the one third of Scotland that still won't have one? Sorry. Can you please repeat the question? It's really about whether this is an opportunity to get people out of prison who otherwise might have been or whether there's a risk that electronic monitoring gets used to simply add on to people that might already have community-based orders of sentences. I think it adds an option and I think that I can back the Government's understanding that short-term prison sentences do more damage and are less likely to help people to reconsider their way forward than community-based sentences and community-based sentences have a far higher success rate of people completing them and not going back to offending. If there's some way in which electronic monitoring can support that positive side of things then I think that that's something that has to be looked at but I don't think that there should be no automatic process in any of this. I think that it has to be done by taking into account everything that Marcia has said and everything that's been said by Nicola about the needs of the families affected by domestic abuse or the victims. I think that it has to be worked out very carefully and not taken as a simple answer. Can I just jump in there and say that the bill does introduce the scope for electronic or technological options to support a community order alcohol bracelets, for example, where they're used in the right context already getting support in recovery from addiction can be used on a voluntary basis very effectively. What you don't want is to add so many conditions that you're setting people up to fail because that's not helpful. On that very point professor actually I'm going to ask questions referenced to the electronic monitoring of alcohol on drug use and what do you see the opportunities and risks of that scheme being implemented so maybe professor you can start on that one. We had addressed that in our written evidence saying that if you use it purely as a punitive measure then that goes completely against recovery focused approaches you can use it however as a supportive measure ideally on a voluntary basis which will support people who are trying to work towards their recovery. You can use it as similar to what the young man was saying you can use it as an excuse to avoid going out with your mates going out to the pub and so on but it does need to be used in that context rather than as punishing people for an addiction. I agree I agree with Nancy that it should be a support process not a punitive thing and it has to be voluntary as well. As a supplementary tomorrow's question Nicola Fraser in your submission you say with regard to GPS technology that this has a potential to give the victim a sense of security by limiting the movement of the offender and creating safe spaces for victims but Marsha Scott was quite taken with some of the evidence that you had submitted and you point to the limitations of GPS in terms of it not being able to do the same thing in terms of it not being able to detect certain types of behaviours for example text contact, chance encounters as you describe it social media contact as well and I note from your submission you're calling for further exploration with Scottish Government and criminal justice partners in terms of the use of GPS with bail conditions would the rest of the panel be supportive of doing that and do you also acknowledge the limitations that perhaps GPS technology might provide to the victims? I think that we have to be very careful that we don't have a one stop shop solution here and I think that the use of GPS has got great potential but I think that we need to make sure that it is properly supported and carried out in a way which means that the victims particularly are protected in a way that is gives them sufficient confidence that they can go on with things or controlling access to social media or the telephone I don't know how we can do that and I understand the reason for that being raised as an issue but I think that that's where the support element comes in for somebody who's monitoring is that they have to be supported towards realising that making contact by the means suggested is wholly inappropriate and harmful and so I think that the support element there is important but rather we can stop people from accessing machines that will communicate with others I think in that respect you're dealing with different kinds of victims and I certainly totally respect that it's different in a domestic abuse situation we can also look at things like stalking or those kinds of cases where the perpetrator is often very manipulative very clever very underhand and I agree that it's very difficult to stop access to internet, texting whatever unless my only feeling would be as if that's part of the order that they're not allowed to contact or they're not allowed to enter a zone then the second they breach that we're back to community having faith in that breach process so is it a case of if there's an exclusion zone and a buffer zone and somebody goes in that we deal with that immediately to give that victim confidence and they need then to be able to report back and say he keeps contacting me and therefore that's a breach so there's a lot of different ways I totally get it with domestic abuse it's a totally different thing and a lot of domestic abuse also is based around children you tend to find that they're desperate to get access for children so you've got lots and lots of different processes involved but I think it has to come down as part of the order part of the risk management and also part of the breach process underlining that this all needs to be done in very close discussion and communication with the victims because we were working with the family not long ago where the ex-partner was sending a series of abusive and threatening texts and so the police response was to remove his phone but the problem was that the phone was the one way that they knew where he was so it made it actually more disconcerting for the victim for him not to have his phone than it was for them to be receiving the text in the first place so it's just making sure that that is the conversation and it's not taken out of the victim's hands It's a very encouraging research, it's a bit old now but around use of GPS actively monitored GPS with an exclusion zone that's sizable enough to give women confidence that they will that there's an alarm set up so that they know that there's not going to be any surprises in the middle of the night without the alarm going off and really important and that they trust that there will be a response when that alarm goes off that is timely and sufficiently robust and those are really important conditions but again, this is a bit about let's make this work for us absolutely in communication with victims because everybody will say oh well it might not work here or there we have the keys to use this but it'll be absolutely critical that we explore the impact of it initially and test that before we roll it out I think GPS is quite exciting from our perspective but it's not you know, magic clear then given it is a little bit vague in the bill about what would happen with breach it's not something that should be explored further as we're scrutinising this bill to ask for more information and detail going in to breach to perhaps ask for pilots to test the various scenarios that can the mobile phone, yes it's good to have of course at least you know where they are but if they're then using it in a way that is called a fear alarm or continuing the very behaviour that they've got the electronic monitoring for then that needs to be dealt with do you think there's sufficient on in the bill at present to be added as we scrutinise this on the face of the bill because it seems to me this is the difference between this being a very effective on worthwhile tool and potentially going the wrong direction I think if you want to build community confidence in this then it needs to be zero tolerance I understand that zero tolerance is very difficult because you need a lot of your statutory bodies to buy in so the police would need to react quickly how the courts then react quickly I don't know because normally they'll get a breach report and then they'll assign a hearing within four weeks well four weeks is no good to a victim so I agree with you in some terms we maybe need to look deeper into how the actual system will cope with increased breaches if we're taking zero tolerance in relation to these things any other motion I think we definitely need more clarity about the status of a breach will it be a criminal offence in what circumstances it's already a real problem in terms of CPOs let's not replicate that problem let's be clear from the beginning how we expect these to work how these orders to work in the context of offenders who are not necessarily going to have that good positive response to community disposals which many will but domestic abuse offenders there's a big question mark about it I have nothing to add I'm fully in support of what Marcia and Nicola have said and I think it's a way forward but we have to be very very careful that we do it properly so a little bit more direction in the bill would be helpful anything to add in the through that's good John, you do supplementary I wonder panel we have a submission from Social Work Scotland which I have to say I entirely agree with and that is regarding one aspect the remote alcohol monitoring where they say it's important to acknowledge the trip of journey towards change may involve several lapses or relapses for example so in relation to the issue of someone with an alcohol addiction problem and I'm simply talking about the consumption of alcohol rather than any other issues would you understand that there must be a level of discretion around how that breach is responded to it's not something that we commented on but going from experience with things like drug testing and treatment orders there are a lot of times that somebody could relapse is it not that it would be beneficial to be in that sort of style where it monitors somebody's alcohol level as a part of the support but I think it would be somewhere they'd have to have started that pathway and you would need the kinds of support with alcohol counselling etc are you talking John about the use of alcohol bracelets I mean I think if there's no involvement of domestic abuse then I think what we have to look at is what does the literature tell us about recovery and it tells us that recovery from addiction involves lapses so I think that the construction of a response around that needs to reflect what we know about it's most likely to be helpful in recovery I think like with the other elements of the bill that we would benefit enormously from and I know that there's a plan to do some pilots including alcohol bracelets in the pilots to find out just how it works because I'm quite concerned about a punitive response to them but I'm also concerned that because people misunderstand the relationship between domestic abuse and alcohol they think that if they keep an offender from drinking that that will keep them from offending and that's a really dangerous assumption I think that the concept of people wearing those bracelets is a good one but I think that it has to be a voluntary decision and the person has to put themselves up for that and I think that that's part of the recovery process so there will be laps and relapses in all of this but the direction of travel I think is one that can be supported in the right circumstances to help people move away from their use of alcohol and their likelihood to re-offend Determ zero tolerance earlier Mr Wight I mean people might understand that with going somewhere where you shouldn't go but sitting in your house and breaching that you would hope for a measure of discretion to be afforded with the authorities with that I presume What a wonderful question John, thank you so much I think that a lot depends on the way in which somebody conducts themselves prior to the breach in terms of alcohol I think that's a different thing from somebody breaching an order which is to do with their behaviour in the wider community I think just to add to that that I think there are different types of technology that are addressed in the bill and therefore if the bill is to improve the response or have a clearer section regarding breach I think there are then different responses to breach based on the different types of technology that we're talking about so I think there is probably a different type of approach to going outside a curfew or outside a boundary compared to the use of an alcohol bracelet so it's just trying to make sure that whether it's the guidance documents or whether it's the nuances within the bill itself can actually address that I just wondered if you would agree that before this bill comes to fruition it's absolutely vital that it's communicated to the public and I'm thinking in relation to families and children and to remove the stigma that you were talking about and also I can imagine that children will need some form of counselling to younger children particularly to answer their questions about why mum or dad can't leave the house between certain hours or big brother or big sister and that's going to require a lot of work would you agree with me? That's what we do so yes, I do agree that it does require a great deal of work and a willingness to talk about it because the tendency is to try to pretend that something else is happening whether it's daddy's working away your brother's gone into the military mum is in hospital you could see similar types of excuses being used for tagging as well and in order for children and young people to be able to deal with these sorts of issues they do need to be able to have open honest conversation where they can ask questions about how they're communicating with the public and I can see hysterical headlines already when this comes out so we need to be very careful about how it's put over to the public and just how we communicate it so that it doesn't have a detrimental effect We're always a bit tied by the press who always go for the negative aspects we get that all the time somebody commits an offence while tagged or does this or while on bail we have a report on the positives and let's face it there has been a lot of positive stuff that has come out of community based it's supporting victims it's supporting people to get back into the community so it's how we get it out there on a positive note that's the major issue but without getting buy-in from the community that's a difficult one to sell I think this is about what kind of a country we want to be and I think that we can equally say that this is not this is about this is about having second chances for everybody but it's also about making some people safer and I think it can be the message is about this is a balanced approach given the changes that we all hope you'll make this is a balanced approach to making sure that people who are very vulnerable get both the supports they need but also the technological protections that we might be able to provide I think that there are a number of other initiatives under way which will support this bill being publicised along the lines of the employers support network as an example where people are going to talk about people with convictions and talk about the benefits of them finding work disclosure of Scotland works for you programme is another one which is doing a very good job but saying that if somebody is committing defence and being punished for it it's time they can move on and do so in a structured way so I think this is not standing alone and I think we can do something very positive with it Thank you Just a brief question with regard to resourcing Dr Marsha Scott you mentioned previously access to the Caledonian perpetrator programme and we heard in the previous evidence session from Social Work Scotland and they also highlighted in their written submission that the use of electronic monitoring in Scottish prisons as a condition of temporary release from prison may further increase the number of assessments completed jointly by community based and prison based social work and this may also impact on staffing levels and resources do you foresee that the legislation in its current form will impact upon your organisation in terms of resources I think as I said first of all I just need to make sure that I wasn't given the wrong idea we don't actually have Caledonian in two thirds of communities at the moment but it is getting rolled out to an additional one third but we will still then have a gap of a third once that happens and I do foresee some questions some concerns in part because if this is done correctly it means more information flow needs to be more information flow with prison officials with victims and children with criminal justice social work and sharing information in our GDPR world at the moment it's quite complicated and difficult and the other additional thing is if we have fewer people in custody which is a bit of a nightmare from our perspective in some ways that means more burdens on our women's workers and children's workers in terms of providing advocacy in the legal system so this is not a plea for more money this is a please we need an impact assessment although if there's more money around we'll take it thank you Mary I'd really just like to ask a question that we've heard so far and it's around part 3 of the bill and the changes to the parole board for Scotland and I know that in a couple of the submissions that we've had particularly from yourself Pete it was about we all used to say that there's a lack of understanding amongst the prison population and the wider public of the detailed workings and procedures of the parole board so it was really just to try to tease that out a bit more I think that from sitting on the justice committee is certainly an area that we haven't heard too much about and we're not too familiar with and really also the evidence from families outside about the engagement with families through the parole process and to hear a bit more about that I think that the difficulty that I've highlighted in my response is that there are a great many myths go around prison halls and the people who have successfully negotiated the parole process are not still in the prison to tell people how it works because they've gone and I think that the rumours and the misunderstandings are something that lead to a lot of people failing to manage their expectations with any kind of factual basis to them and I think that the that leads to a lot of upset and anxiety which reflects its anti-social behaviour in the prison itself because people are frustrated when if they understood how the process worked they'd realised that perhaps their opportunities for parole were further away than they imagined I would underline that our organisation were not particular experts on the operation of the parole board by any means and I think our written response said that quite clearly but we do feel that there is opportunity to engage families in the conversation about release and preparation for release much more effectively than happens at the moment another example is the fact that in preparing someone for release they might not discuss conditions of parole or conditions of release and housing for example where they're allowed to live depending on the nature of the offence until six weeks prior to release and if you're a family that is willing to support the person in their release and we're working with a family that we're willing to sell the house move somewhere else, relocate the kids in different schools and so on but they weren't actually involved in that conversation at all until six weeks prior to release which is not really enough time to make quite major life changing decisions for the entire family it's also recognising that families while they might be supportive they're not just a tool in the resettlement of the person coming out of prison and it's recognising the impact on them in their own right as well as their ability to support someone on their release because there will be complexities in relationships and families and just making sure they're recognised as people who are impacted separately from what's happening to the person coming out of prison so really there needs to be more information and I suppose better general awareness of how the whole process works and really involving people in that in another stage and making sure that they are involved in that discussion often there is a perception from the family's perspective that social work assessments because social workers are required to visit the home for people who are coming out of prison after a long term sentence that that visit is specifically in relation to the prisoner and not in relation to it. Can I ask again about the parole board at present there must be a High Court judge and there must be a psychiatrist now they're seeing in the bill that maybe that isn't necessary the judicial member really sits and the role can be fulfilled by legal members of the board and there are also sufficient members with experience of forensic psychiatry would you have a concern about these two elements being removed from a must-have in the parole board? I think one of the issues there is sometimes the parole hearings can't go ahead when one of those people is missing and I think that is my understanding of the reason for the changes being proposed. I wonder if that's a good reason that they should be there I would have thought to assess but I guess I just have to chime in my expertise on parole board is pretty thin too I have to confess but I would say it's been an hour and I haven't talked about the importance of training for sheriffs who hear domestic abuse cases I can't believe it so I will just say that that I think we need more evidence in the whole system from victims and their advocates around the impact of release the likely impact of release on them and their children while I absolutely think that the judiciary and the psychiatrists are welcome to add their expertise I'm not convinced that they always understand the dynamics of domestic abuse. Can I just ask Panof finally that the Scottish Minister has the ability to add to the list under regulations would that be a concern that it was done that way? I think it's fair that we allow for the fact that technology will move faster than government and I think that the possibility of new developments coming along being identified as useful and appropriate in terms of monitoring I think that if it was held back by parliamentary process I think it might be that wouldn't be good One last question Community Justice Scotland we're very very strident on the terminology the use of offender and ex-offender Could I have the panel's views on that? On the 1st of May 2015 the Scottish Government agreed to never use ex-offender and ex-prisoner again in terms of Cabinet Secretary, Ministerial and other speeches and publications so that was the decision made and has been honoured by Cabinet Secretary's Ministers and other politicians and civil servants I think that when somebody has been found guilty of an offence they no longer are an offender they are either a prisoner or they're someone serving a community-based sentence and I think that the term offender is one that holds people back when they're already in the justice system People in prison were surveyed some years ago to find out what term they would find comfortable and they said, if I'm not going to be a person then I'm going to be a prisoner because they realise they're somebody being held inside a prison but I think that the way forward is one that was very well put by Community Justice Scotland the labelling of somebody as an ex-prisoner or an offender when they're already being processed away from that offence back to the situation where they might rejoin society is not helpful Is there a balance to be struck to other panellists have another views maybe looking from the victims perspective I am slightly uncomfortable with that statement and again I guess I would say in certain contexts I would be totally supportive but I also think that in the context of domestic abuse where we know re-victimisation is so much more likely than many crimes that I think at the moment we suffer from a failure to share the information about the background of convicted abusers which is the phrase we use and I think we need to be very careful that the balance doesn't underplay the risk that many of them continue to pose to their families and to future partners Nicola and Nancy I think a lot of victims are actually in some ways tied by the criminal justice system in as much as this could be their first time to actually go through the system and it uses terminology all the time how it actually affects them it's not something I've ever asked a victim what they want to call them most of the time it wouldn't be equitable anyway so whether it actually changes anything for them but we don't work on that side so it's not something I don't feel it has a massive impact on victims I do think that the terminology is unhelpful to be honest not only because of the labelling of labelling someone according to the worst thing they've ever done but also in fact that it creates a dichotomy between over here and the offenders and the victims when often both of them have had both experiences I think there's also a lack of recognition in the bill that it's not just talking about people who have been convicted but talking about people on remand who may not be offenders and may not actually ever be convicted so I think it's just the reality of trying to be clear about what we're actually talking about Thank you all very much that concludes our questions and we'll be just to allow the witnesses to live Thank you very much