 y Gwaethe действительно mae'n cykelwyd. O Gwaeddeby erbyn unrhyw nrhyw dderbyn numbered 7, mae'n cael cael ei ddechrau ddiwedd mewn gwestafol am ynglynektif hon will Gigeliadau. mleidio i meithio y wneud hynny i'r cyflogol cyffredinol. Agenda item 2 oedd y decision ar bethau item 6 honno yn dalych chi arnau rhan o'r fforddiglwyd. Rwy'n wneud gorau? Rwy'n wneud. Agenda item 3 oedd y lleidio i hoffa'r ardal yn unigol, ac mae gennychau i Looeddydholadol Llyfriddol Cymru yn unigol i gyrraithodau driffiwyr 2017, SSI 2017, oblyg 421. I refer members to paper one, which is a note by the clerk. The committee has until the 22 of January to report to the Parliament. Do members have any comments? No comments. Is the committee therefore agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument? I agree. I suspend briefly now to allow witnesses for the round table to take their seats. Agenda item 4 is a round table evidence session on remand. The purpose of the round table is to explore issues around the use of remand in Scotland, as well as the experience of prisoners held on remand. I welcome all our witnesses to the committee's round table evidence session and suggest that we perhaps start by introducing ourselves and going round the table to do so. I'm Margaret Mitchell, I'm the convener of the Justice Committee. I'm Diane Barre, I'm one of the clerks of the Justice Committee. Fulton MacGregor, MSP, for Co-Bridge and Crescent. Anton McGein, Procurator Fiscal for Policy and Engagement from Crown Office. Good morning, Ben Macpherson, MSP, for Edinburgh Northern and Leith. Good morning, Van. John Finnie, MSP Hines and Ions. I'm David Strang, the Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland. I'm Eir, MSP, for the North East region. I'm Maurice Corry, MSP, for the West Scotland region. Good morning, Theresa Mayters, Scottish Prison Service, Director of Strategy and Innovation. I'm Mary Gougeon, MSP, for Angus North and Merns. George Adam, Paisley's MSP. I'm Ann Pink, when representing the Scottish Working Group on Women Offenders and the Prison Reform Trust. I'm Daniel Johnson, member for Edinburgh Southern. I'm Rona Mackay, MSP, for Strathkelvin and Bair Sten and Deputy Convener of the Committee. By way of explanation, part of the round-table session is to encourage a free exchange of views, and that includes witnesses addressing each other directly and expressing views, rather than simply responding to questions. However, in order to maintain some kind of discipline with it, it would be helpful if you could speak directly to direct your comments through the chair, and if you wish to speak at any point, please indicate to me or the clerks, and this will be noted. There's no need to press anything as if by magic, then it's your time to speak and your microphone will go on. I refer members to paper 2, which is not by the clerk, and paper 3, which is a private paper. I wanted to start with, please Scotland aren't represented here, but in the written submission they say, that remand is a permitted breach of ECHR article 5, The Right to Liberty, but breach must be proportionate, necessary, legitimate and subject to appropriate scrutiny and on-going review. Are those conditions being met at present in Scotland as regard remand? I think that the qualification that they put on the right to liberty is just a common sense one, that clearly if someone breaks the law in a serious way, then as from a police point of view, they'll be detained, arrested and then kept in custody for court, and the more serious the case, the more likely they are to be detained. In my view, the use of detention of prison of remand is about protecting the public from further harm, and therefore I don't think anyone would quibble that it is perfectly legitimate and proper that someone who poses a risk and a threat to society is detained in custody for however long that need be. If someone is a very serious offender, then clearly they might at the end of a court case on conviction be sentenced to life imprisonment. That's at the hardest end. I don't think anyone is saying that that detention is a fundamental breach of the human right. I think that what they're saying is that the right to liberty that we all enjoy is a qualified one. If you behave in a certain way that particularly threatens others in society and causes harm, then in a way you have faltered that right to liberty. As long as there's due process and the rule of law is followed, then to answer your question, I think that in those circumstances the human right has not been breached. I'm not sure that the terminology is exactly right that it's breached. I think that it's a qualified right and in circumstances it is perfectly legitimate and justified to remove that right. Is it just, if it's a threat to the public, that there's another condition that's often used for remand or M, which is flight in... Yes, so my comments were more a personal view that that is what imprisonment should be used for, but in terms of the legislation then, yes, if there's, and I don't know exact terminology, but if it's suspected that someone will interfere with witnesses and so corrupt the due process of law, then that's a ground. If there's a fear that someone might flee and leave the country, then I think that that's another reason that that's perfectly legitimate, as long as there are good grounds and it's not an arbitrary decision. I suppose that what I wanted to communicate is that I think that those bars are quite high and you'll see from my submission that I think remand in prison before trial is used too frequently when perhaps there's a minor fear of someone not turning up at court or re-offending and then the only alternative seems to be, well, let's remand them in custody until trial and I think I would like to encourage society and the Parliament to consider other ways of ensuring that people attend court for their trial. Having set out what seems to be the criteria for this breach then I suppose the question is how much has that followed through and to what extent are other people being held without meeting that criteria. Yes, Anne, sorry. I think that the statistics that have been provided by our submission and the other submissions indicate that there is an increasing use of remand over recent years and the fact that the matter is using women as a good example, we see more women remanded in custody than males and only 30 per cent of women who remanded go on to get custodial sentence. I think that far more you should be made of alternatives to remand and using your example of individuals who, for example, may flee. I know that the Government is currently looking at the use of electronic monitoring and, to me, that would seem an ideal example of consideration for that but there's also supervised bail which is shown to be extremely effective, much more efficient and far less disruptive than the effects of imprisonment on individuals and their families. Any other views? If that's the case, why are we doing this? Any other views from the cooperative fiscal, et cetera? I think that Anne covered the necessary bit, legitimate, proportionate. One view that Mr McGeehan proffered was to ensure that they were perhaps in place that remand players were in place to appear at court, would that be something that you would recognise as a reason? I would suggest that the reasons for remanding an accused person can be broadly categorised under two headings. The first would be public protection, the second would be administration of justice. That administration of justice and the issues in relation to the effective administration of justice may take a variety of different forms. One of those forms may be, for example, not attending child diets or future diets of the court. That is a feature of remand in Scotland and there are mechanisms that may be available in different locations across the country that would mitigate that risk. As Anne has said, there are possible mechanisms in the future that may also assist to mitigate that risk, such as electronic monitoring, but electronic monitoring is not currently available in terms of a risk mitigation measure. Is there anything that you would like to add, Theresa, from your perspective? We, obviously, our role is to take those who are sentenced by the courts, whether that be on remand or convicted. In general terms, the remand figures from our perspective seem to have been fairly stable over the recent times. However, with regard to the implications and the impact of a period of remand, there are quite significant implications when somebody is taken into custody, both in terms of their family life, their home and their stability. We see that kind of experience for those who are coming into custody, regardless of sentence. If we look at the ethos, which a number of you talked about behind why remand could be used, do we have any data on why remand actually is being used? Is there been any analysis done as to some of the reasons for protecting public from harm, corrupting the process, and flea risk? Is there any data done to look at why remand has been used in each particular case? If I could respond, I am not aware of any data in relation to reasons of remand being kept. The court makes the decision as to whether or not to remand an individual. There may be a headline reason for that remand, or the remand may result from a number of different factors that combined. The court is obliged by statute to articulate why they are remanding an individual. I presume that the sheriff or the court would record the reasons for that remand, but in terms of any data capture of those reasons, I am not aware of any dataset that would allow us to understand why individuals were remanded or on a systemic basis to understand the profile of reasons behind remand for the current prison population. I agree with that. It is wrong that we do not have that data, and we should have that data given that sentences are obliged to make that matter known. Anecdotally, we know that a lot of individuals who are remanded in custody are remanded for failing to appear, for example, for criminal justice social work reports. Sentences are obliged, in many circumstances, to have a criminal justice social work report prepared before they can impose either a custodial sentence for many individuals, not all, and certainly for any individual who is to be made subject to a community payback order. Very often, those individuals have chaotic lives. They will fail to appear for court, but too little is being done on a national basis to assist individuals to appear at court on the required date. There is very little use made of, for example, stand-down reports. Sentences are able, rather than continuing a case for two or three weeks for a criminal justice social work report, to have the ability to ask the court social worker to do what is known as a stand-down report, whereby the case would be continued for two or three hours. There is very little use made of that. That is surprising, given that many individuals who appear before the courts are known both to the courts and to criminal justice social work services. The court social worker should be able to access previous court social work reports electronically from the court social work base and from there interview the individual, access that information and then present a verbal report to the sentencer. I find it frustrating that that function or ability is not used by senteners in something that should be encouraged. Likewise, mentoring services such as Shine are very successful in working with women, and they will literally accompany women to court, thus reducing the need for remands for failure to appear. I would like to follow up on the point that I made there. It is about the time frames in which we have to operate. The scenario is that, of course, someone has to be retained in custody by the police before the situation would be, and then they would have to be put to the court. The time frame can be very short, but are there no examples of experience being drawn on when it is often, as you said, the very same people who are coming back the experience? That is not something that, for instance, the Crown Office of Procurator Fiscal Service would have that could inform decision making. If I could pick up on the constrained timescale and then the awareness of a person who repeatedly appears in front of the same court and how that might impact upon the decision-making process, you are absolutely right that we are dealing with a time critical process whereby a person who is arrested by the police may be arrested up until midnight, the preceding day, and is required to be brought before the court by the next lawful day, which means that in real time the police only have the next working day to report that case to the COPFS, and the COPFS in turn only has the next working day in which to properly consider that case, identify whether there is a sufficiency of evidence and identify whether or not proceedings are in the public interest, and then identify whether or not bail should be opposed in the event of that accused person pleading not guilty when brought before the court. So any attempt to engather information is an additional step within an already time critical process, and that is one of the challenges in relation to schemes such as bail supervision. In terms of the parties already being aware of that individual, then yes, a knowledge of that individual may accelerate that process, but not so much in the part of the police or COPFS, but more in the part of the defence agent who is regularly appearing on behalf of that accused person, and also the criminal justice social worker who in the real world would be sitting in court, it would be aware of the individual who they are seeing on a regular basis in that court, and may well be already aware of the issues that that individual has and the support that may be appropriate for that individual. So there is a knowledge within the system of individuals, but that would be most relevant in relation to the criminal justice social worker who is perhaps looking to assist the court in its decision making process as to whether or not bail supervision is appropriate for the individual or remand is the appropriate decision for that individual. I find that an accepting the time constraints. Presumably that is information that would inform whether the fiscal in court was going to object to the individual being released in bail. Can that not be collated, as has been suggested by Ann, in a way that would mean reducing the likelihood? I appreciate there will be accommodation issues and there will be time constraints, and I am conscious too that we have not been in touch with criminal justice social worker for their comments on that, but presumably it is all a doable if there was some flexibility. Again, I suppose that criminal justice social worker would be the best place to comment on that, as to whether or not they have a bank of information in relation to an individual that they could deploy in the event of those persons who are regularly in front of the courts. I am somewhat surprised, and if the fiscal has to make a decision on representations that they are going to make to the sheriff regarding what happens to accused, whether they are to be remanded or whether there is information that the Crown Office's appropriate fiscal service has, whether uniquely or shared with criminal justice social worker. The information that the COPFS would have would relate to the accused criminal offending. It would not relate to his or her personal circumstances, his or her personal issues, and the support that may be available for that individual, depending on the nature of their current situation. I would have hoped that there would have been information sharing that may well have informed previous decisions about bail. I would understand that you may well know if someone is offended whilst they are on bail. It is fair to say that the provision of courts social worker services varies considerably across Scotland. Indeed, you can have a single courts social worker who may be covering two or three courts at one time, and that brings with it its own challenges. That said, there are examples and pockets of very good practice. One that I cited in the evidence that I submitted in advance of today is the supervised bail project in Glasgow that is run by two voluntary organisations. They receive in advance each morning a copy of the custody lists, and the workers are able to go into the police or court cells and interview—in this case, it is women—the women who are in custody, explain to them the support that is available through the supported bail service, encourage their willingness to agree to a supervised bail order, and from there ask them to inform their defence agent that they have been interviewed and willing to comply with a supervised bail order should the sheriff be willing to consider that. That is proactive, but that is only one example. It is patchy and it is frustrating that similar, very efficient, effective and cost-saving projects are not available on a national basis. That is something that I would encourage the Justice Committee to ask why, and why that could not be available on a national basis. I am going to bring in David Strang and then I think that you had a point to raise, Fulton. Thank you very much. I think that the administration of justice is a legitimate aim, certainly from a victim's point of view. For the accused, the trial should be as timid as possible and delays by witnesses not turning up or the accused not turning up is something that needs to be counted. For those who are remanded in custody, it is more likely that, if they have already been involved in the system and have already been convicted of offences, it is more likely that they will be remanded in custody on the basis of their criminal history, which does not justify remanding in custody at all. I think that the statistic that Anne mentioned earlier on this morning of the women and this was in the Angelini commission report that 70 per cent of women who are remanded in custody, when it comes to disposal of the case, do not then end up in prison, either because they have served time or the case has dropped or they are not convicted. I just think that that is evidence that we are overusing remand in some ways—I mean, overstating this, but as an administrative function—to make sure that the trial can go ahead when there are successful schemes to support people on bail to make sure that they turn up at court, but they are very patchy. As Anne has just mentioned, there are some good schemes in some parts of Scotland, but there really should be those support services available throughout Scotland. I was just picking up on the national discussion, and I do think that I wonder if there is something that has been talked about remand, particularly because you do not need a criminal justice social work report for a remand that is for a full custody. Actually, I will declare an interest to be registered by the Scottish Social Services Council in a previous criminal justice social worker. A lot of the time, based on a social work office, we got told later on that the remand had been made, and if we had been discussed with the local office as well, that there could have possibly been another outcome. What I am suggesting is that it seems that, just now, if there is a bail supervision officer or a court social worker on site, then, yes, they will be consulted, but if there is not—and you have talked about the patchiness of the service, which is due to resources and everything else—it is perhaps not the same every part of the country. However, there is a local social work office everywhere in the country doing criminal justice service, so if there is any way that that could be tied up between the different services. Of course, in all that as well, we need to respect that the sheriff in the court has the right to make decisions, because, in this committee, it is quite a law, but that is something that, personally from my experience, I would quite like to see a bit more of. That might reduce the need for remands. Is that something that the Crown Procurator Fiscal Service could intervene and say that, before we make a decision, the court would give us a little time to contact the local office? Do you recognise what the court is saying? Can I just say that, before you bring me in? I think that it needs to be more fluid than that. I think that it needs to be more about local practice, relationships, development, and maybe the way in which the service would have a role in bringing that together, but I think that it needs to be— Your view, Mr McGeehan. If I can pick up on a couple of points that have been made and maybe return to the point in relation to the availability of social work input, firstly, in relation to bail supervision, I would absolutely agree that that is an effective support mechanism for accused persons, but I think that we would have to be cautious before concluding that there is a direct correlation between the availability of bail supervision and the reduction in remand numbers. The reason that I say that is that the Scottish Government led on a penal improvement project that had three pathfinder sites at Hamilton, Dundee and Paisley, where bail supervision was offered as a support mechanism for persons on remand at those three sites. The committee may be interested in receiving information from the Scottish Government in relation to the data available from those three sites, but there was not a direct correlation between the availability of bail supervision and a reduction in remand. There was a reduction in remand at those three sites, but that reduction in remand coincided with the reduction in the number of custody cases being reported to those sites. One might well expect that, if there is a reduction in the number of custody cases de facto, there will be a reduction in the number of persons remanded. One of the complexities within those three sites was the very issue that was identified by Mr Kerr in relation to what were the reasons for remand and was, for example, bail supervision. The difference in relation to remanding an individual or perhaps a support mechanism that was put in place for an individual who would have been allowed bail in any event, because remembering that bail supervision may assist an individual not only to attend court but may also offer support to an individual with issues in their lives. I am not challenging at all the value of bail supervision nor a conclusion that a more uniform provision of that would be a good. It is whether or not there is a direct correlation between the availability of bail supervision. To see if there was a direct correlation, you say at the same time that the custody has gone down, so that may have been the reason. Is it inconclusive, then? It is inconclusive in the sense that the data fluctuated significantly on a monthly basis in relation to numbers of remand at those three sites. I am not saying it might not have been, but it was definitely established because of the circumstances. Because of the complex decision making process and the availability of bail supervision, there is an option in relation to all persons who are released on bail by a court. In relation to the access to information or the desirability of information from criminal justice social work, the sheriff is always able to ask any party who is appearing in front of it. Sorry, I used the word sheriff, but it is the court. The reality of the majority of business front of our courts is that the majority of remand decisions will be made by sheriffs. But he or she, in statute and in practice, has the opportunity to ask any party, whether that be the crown or the defence, or the criminal justice social worker if he or she is present in court for additional information to assist their remand decision. The sheriff can also adjourn the case for 24 hours for receipt of that information. That does happen day in and day out in our courts. That is reflected, for example, in the law society's written evidence whereby they describe sheriffs asking for information, continuing the hearing for 24 hours, to ensure that the remand decision is as informed as possible. Is that balanced? You mentioned the law society submission that is not represented here. That there was a question over the availability of courts, so there is pressure to move business on and maybe they do not have that luxury. I have never had experience in 20 plus years of a court not continuing a matter to the next day because of the unavailability of a court. A custody court will sit every lawful day in every court in Scotland because, by definition, the next day's custody business will be there to call and it is one more case that is simply added to the next day's business. Marie, you had a follow-up on this line of question. Two points. One is for clarification. When I made mention earlier about stand-down remand and the use of access to criminal justice social workers, I made mention of stand-down reports. That was specifically in relation to individuals who very often remanded into custody because they have failed to make themselves available for an appointment, failed to attend an appointment for the criminal justice social worker to prepare the criminal justice social work report. My point was that very often that is not absolutely necessary. What a sentencer can do as an alternative is to request a stand-down report. The data that we provided was that 60 per cent of women who are remanded into custody have been on remand before and there is every likelihood that previous criminal justice social work reports fairly recent will exist. That was my point about the use of criminal justice social work in court for those stand-down reports. That said, criminal justice social work reports are well placed to provide information for sentencers should they so wish for bail. In relation to the use of bail, I would again refer members to the statistics. In 2015-16, there were 7,300 requests made for bail information and only 360 bail supervision cases made. I think that those statistics speak for themselves. In relation to an earlier point that was made by Mr Strang, would received evidence from the police and unfortunately there is not anyone from the police to respond to any questions today. In relation to the provisions of the Criminal Justice Scotland Act, because of that act, it believed that that would lead to less people being held in command in police custody. For example, because there is the new ability for the police to set a bail condition of curfew. They said that those arrested on warrant requirement for them to be remanded in police custody prior to court appearances shifted considerably with the act. It was just really to get your views on that as to whether you think that that will or will not lead to fewer people being held in remand in police custody. That is a provision that is coming in next week that you are talking about. This is a fair assessment of the likelihood that there will be fewer people being kept in police custody before appearing in court. However, at the heart of our discussions this morning, it is really about the court decision to remand someone in custody, i.e. to a prison. I suppose that it is less likely that someone has been on police bail and has turned up than it may be less likely that they will then be remanded in prison custody, so it might well have that effect. I think that, to answer your question specifically, it will reduce the number of people who are appearing in court from police custody because there is this provision for bail from the police station. I think that part of the issue—and it is entirely understandable—is that the people who are making the decisions about whether someone is remanding in custody are those who are responsible for the administration of justice. If it is considered that they are likely not to turn up at court, they are much more likely to be remanded in custody because that will bring them to court. I suppose that, from a balanced point of view—this is something that Teresa talked about—the damage that someone locked up in prison on remand has the same disadvantage as a short prison sentences. There is a break of relationships, there might be employment, there might be housing issues, it might lead to them being more likely to re-offend in the long run because we know that custody—someone sent us to a short prison sentence—is more likely to re-offend than someone on a community sentence. I think that it is important that we can see both sides of this. The advantage of someone in custody is that the court case is more likely to go ahead. The disadvantage to the downside is the harm that is done by those people in prison and being in prison. Very little happens for someone who is on remand. They do not have to work so they do not work. They have to be kept separate from convicted prisoners. In general, they will spend a long period of their day locked in their cell. It is a very unproductive time and disruptive and damaging to other aspects of their lives. Indeed, in the 2016-17 annual report from the inspectorate, you bring up the very issue about the fact that there is a lack of access to activities for prisoners on remand. I was just wondering whether you could elaborate a little bit further on the impact and the underlying reasons for that. I would like to ask the prison service some of the questions. People on remand are generally there for a short time. It is not known how long they will be on remand necessarily. The case might be dropped. The court dates will change. However, because they are innocent in law, they are not convicted, they are not required to work. Because of the shortness of the time that they are in custody and the lack of predictability, they tend not to get on to courses or programmes. Some medical procedures will not be available for them. For instance, in some prisons I know that dental services are only available for emergency treatment for people on remand. However, in general, they have lessened regime opportunities for activities, for education, for work, because they are not required to work and because they are there for a short time. That is just the practical reality of life in a prison for someone who is on remand. In your view, what is the underlying issue? Is it purely practical? Is it one of policy or is there an underlying resourcing issue in terms of just the availability of sufficient resource to make those things possible, particularly given that the prisons need to be kept separated? I do not think that it is a resource thing. I am not arguing that the most resource that should be put in there. The fact of the high turnover of people on remand takes up a lot of energy and effort and prison service time. Obviously, who comes in from court has to be processed and have a medical examination and researched and so on. It is just the fact that there are so many people held in custody who ultimately do not get a prison sentence. For me, I had strength to the argument that we should not be remanding so many people in custody in prison. Do you say that that is something that I give most of the questioning or the time available to hear what the witnesses have to say? Members, if you are wondering why you have not been called, it is the witnesses that I will always go to as much as possible to reason. I will echo the evidence that David has just given. We experience very short periods that people are on remand when they come into custody. The very nature of the fact that they are on remand is that they do not know or sometimes do not understand what the implications of being on remand are for them. If they are convicted, they will then move on to a custodial sentence, so that uncertainty, while they are in custody, provides them with a degree of difficulty in terms of where they are in relation to engaging. Over many years, we have made and we continue to make attempts to put on activities that we consider those on remand might engage with, but because of consistency issues and because of the individual's choice over whether or not they wish to engage, it means that the participation is very variable. A lot of the support and activities, as David says, can take several weeks or months. Because of that uncertainty, if somebody starts something, they are very unlikely to finish it. There are very limited opportunities for people to engage in anything meaningful, but at that point in their custodial experience not knowing or understanding what their circumstances are means that people do not necessarily want to engage. Sometimes there can be a fear of, if I say that I have an addiction problem, then it means that it will have an impact on me in court. People can be very suspicious, very weary, and part of that is just because they are so uncertain as to their future and therefore their willingness to engage and do so in a consistent way is very much impaired. Very often as well, the last statistics that we had from our addictions prevalence testing on those coming into custody was somewhere in the region between 70 and 80 per cent of those coming into custody do have addictions issues, so very often that will be the main focus, will be making sure that individuals are stable and are settled and are probably in a better frame of mind to engage with the court process when it comes for them to attend court. We have looked at studies, short term sentences, there was little or no rehabilitation, I think that the previous committee looked at that. That is with the prison population, so if you are going to remand then the chances of getting any are even more reduced. If there are no more questions around that being thrown in now. My name is really about the use of remand and the levels of remand. Am I right in thinking that the general opinion around the table is that remand has been used too much and would a lower use of remand be desirable? That is certainly my view, I am not sure of the current office share that view, but certainly from what I see in prisons it is, as I have said, an unproductive time. It does damage to people's prospects of living a successful life outside and I think it is overused when there are alternatives that we have heard about and certainly I mean obviously electronic monitoring, the tagging is not an option today but that could be an option for the future. Rather than just having two options, one is unconditional bail or remanding custody, I think that we should have different levels of supervision that are more intrusive. Obviously tagging is very intrusive because it forces someone to stay at a particular address between hours and there are ways of increasing that level of supervision and therefore the likelihood of their not offending and the likelihood of their turning up at court before we go to the failsafe option and the very expensive option of remanding someone in custody in prison. Can I just address my next question to Ann? With regard to women offenders, I think you said at the start that the number, the statistic that you had was 30 per cent. The statistics that the committee received was 70 per cent, so it was 70 in which I find astonishing to be quite nice, so that would clearly show that the balance I would suggest is not right. Are there any circumstances other than women being in danger to themselves or others that you think they should be in remand? I certainly do not think that all due respect to any woman who is in danger to herself should be remandered into prison to others. I think that sometimes prison is used too often as an alternative to a mental health facility. We know that the majority of women who are received into custody have experienced trauma and the levels of mental health are extremely high. Way before the commission on women offenders was established, we knew that over 80 per cent of women in custody had experienced trauma and abuse. There is nothing to indicate that that has changed. On statistics, when you look at the nature of—as you look at the sentences that are imposed on women and, indeed, men, most women—and I would refer you to the document that was a link to that was recently published by the Prison Reform Trust on Why Focus on Women's Imprisonment in Scotland, the numbers of women—90 per cent of the sentences that are imposed on women are less than 12 months and the vast majority of those are less than six months. If you look at the admissions of women into prison, unfortunately, the most recent statistic that we have for full years is 2013-14, when there were almost 3,000 women admitted to prison. Two thirds of that were for remand. That imposes significant impact on the prison service, as Theresa was mentioning earlier. What is the average length of time, then, that men and women are kept in remand? Does anyone have access to that data? We did a snapshot last year of women on remand over a three-month period. At that point, the average time was 26 days on remand, so that was for the female population. I am not sure if I have got those statistics for men. The impact of imprisonment—indeed, remand, as I mentioned earlier—is just as disruptive and impactful on a woman's life as it is a short-term sentence. The impact on children, we know that. There is very little research being done on the impact of maternal imprisonment. Some research on parental imprisonment, and we know that that is an adverse childhood experience, recognised adverse childhood experience for children. However, 90 per cent of children who have a mother go to prison do not go on to live in the family home. That is a very concerning figure. We are doing research on the impact of maternal imprisonment, and we will share the results of that with you. However, there are other caring responsibilities, as well as laws of accommodation and laws of income. In relation to laws of income, when somebody is remanded into custody, or byggypardon, is released from custody from a period of remand, they receive no discharge grant, unlike individuals who are liberated from prison having served a custodial sentence. Those individuals receive on approximately £75 a week. An individual, and a woman who may have care of her children, would be discharged or released from remand with no finance, and it would take her approximately four weeks to receive benefit. There are the most harrowing stories about how women are having to survive during that period until their benefits are reinstated. Of the women who have mental health issues or have experienced abuse, do you feel that that has never taken into account when they are remanded? I think that it very much depends on what information is made available to the sentencer. As we heard earlier today, sometimes pressure time information is not always available. In fact, I would go as far as to say that, in cases of remand, it is less likely to be made available to sentencers than being made available. Can I ask about child impact assessments? I understood that they were now available. Is that just for sentencing, not necessarily when you are considering someone on remand? They are not available at the point of remand. My understanding is that they are not routinely available at the point of sentencing. Anthony, can you clarify that? Are you aware of child impacts and impact assessments being available before somebody's decision is taken about remand and sentencing, because my understanding is that they should be in place now? I am not aware of that information being available in relation to remand decisions and sentencing. That information may be available, but COPFS would not see the social work report that was submitted to the sentencer. I think that the social work department would be better placed to describe that information or sentencers. The research that the prison reform trust is currently undertaking on the effect of material imprisonment and what we have established already is that in many women are failing to disclose that they have the care of children for fear that social work will swoop in and remove them from their care. Very often, children, the women will make informal arrangements before they appear in court and are reluctant to disclose that they have children. That is interesting. Just to finish off this area of questioning, Fulton. If anyone has not got a point, do not worry, we will get to you. There will be a wash-up towards the end. Thank you, convener. It is just falling directly on from that point. I was reading on the weekend about the inquestant at the death of Emily Hartley in Newhall in West Yorkshire opened yesterday. Emily Fremrie has fallen, the case was 21 years old when she was found dead. Yes, yes, I am coming to it, but I think that this is important, actually, convener, on the 23th of April. She was remandied into custody, it was her first appearance in custody, and she set fire to herself at bed and curtains, so that was the offence. She had a serious history of mental health, including self-harm and drug addiction, in Deborah Coles, and I think that this is a very, very powerful quote, who is the director of the service inquest, said, Emily Fremrie was the youngest of 12 women to take her own life in prison in 2016, and just like the many women who died before her, she should never have been in prison in the first place. That inquests my scrutiniser death and how such a vulnerable young woman was able to die whilst in the care of the state. Now, I found that very powerful when I read it, and I was keen to ask something on this today. In a Scottish context—I know that you have talked a lot about it around the table—what can we learn from that about female offending and how we treat our female prisoners, particularly in remand, given that many of the organisations say that remand and custody have the same impact on people, and in particular in connection to the Scottish Government's current policy regarding community hubs for female offending? What can we do to learn from that and take forward for the policies? In the Scottish Prison Service, we have over a number of years experienced suicide and custody, so we have developed our policy and practice in a multidisciplinary way with experts in their field to support us. That would include people like the Samaritans, NHS colleagues and others. We review every death and custody, and we ensure that any lessons learned are used to inform policy and practice where applicable. We ensure that our staff are trained. We have what we call our talk-to-me policy, which is that everybody who works in prison, regardless of whether they are a prison officer, receives training and familiarisation so that, if people come across anyone who is either distraught or has parasoesidal thoughts or behaviours, they can use our policy to inform and enact that policy in order to support the individual during that period of crisis. The other aspect of that would be that we have also developed over a number of years our first night in custody and our admission processes to take account of that, so that anyone who is coming into custody—for the first time, everyone is treated the same—will go through an admission process, which looks at their immediate needs and an immediate nurse assessment, and that nurse assessment will take account of their presenting behaviours and issues at the time of admission. They are also then given to go through a first night in custody process, so that, during that first 24 hours, more information and support is made available and provided to individuals. What we have tried to do over a number of years is to learn from our experience in Scotland, set against the increasing complexity—I think that is probably how you would describe that, unfortunately, young women—but the increasing complexity of those cases that we are receiving into custody would apply to men and women, unfortunately. However, those who are coming into custody are presenting with more complex issues. The experience of women is very similar with young people where they have experienced trauma in their history and background. We are developing, particularly in relation to our approach to women and young people, a much more trauma-informed approach and supporting our staff and others who work with us, but learning from others who work with us to improve our practice and ensure that we take account of those very complex factors during the period in custody, so that we can support the individual as best we can, not just in relation to their criminogenic needs but also in relation to their personal needs. We have spoken very much today about what we do with women who become involved in the criminal justice system, but it has also been recognised, certainly, within the justice strategy for Scotland that much more needs to be done in relation to prevention. Two initiatives or developments that I think are very welcome are the development of triage services, which are now available, albeit in different formats and styles across the country, whereby police are working with NHS and where police become aware of individuals who perhaps indicate that there may be a mental health issue, a crisis issue, that what they are doing now has the ability to call on colleagues within mental health services, community psychiatric nurses and, certainly, in the pilot phase. It was found that almost every case was diverted successfully, so rather than police officers, for example, taking along, two police officers taking along an individual to hospital and waiting for several hours to be seen, they could be diverted to community psychiatric services and dealt with accordingly and, more importantly, avoiding any involvement in the criminal justice system. That has now rolled out across the country and is beginning to show very positive results, which is something that should continue to be invested in. Secondly, the local NHS has responsibility for the provision of health services and police custody suites. Again, we are seeing improving use of triage services and police custody, whereby individuals who have mental health problems are more readily identified and diverted from custody from the criminal justice system at that stage. I think that that is extremely welcome and an area that we should continue to develop. I will bring David Denwood in a lot of the comments that have related to women. We will also relate to men. Do we have the average time on remand for men? You were looking at that. It was a period of years, unfortunately, in 2013-14, but over a period of years, it was 23 days. Was the median of those? Right. So it is actually higher for women, 26? Slightly, but those were very recent figures, the figures that I am quoting for men are not as recent. That is recent, so you need to update it so that it is that caveat. David Denwood. Just on that point of the short average time, if it is about a crime prevention method, you will only stop with them committing crimes for 23 days in the community. I wanted to comment on the issue about self-harm. Clearly, the prison service does not decide who comes into prison, and all that Theresa Desgribe described is what they are doing in relation to vulnerable people who come into custody. We know that people who go through the courts who are convicted have high levels of addictions and mental health problems, and on top of that is the very act of being imprisoned for the first time. I think that it is a particularly vulnerable time. The worst thing, as Mr MacGregor says, is that when that can happen to someone, detained, is that they lose their life. The particular vulnerable time is the first 24 hours, first two or three days when people are coming to terms with what has happened to them, and they are particularly vulnerable. That is when all the medical support and care needs to be there for them. Sadly, in Scotland, two people do take their own lives, and each case is an absolute tragedy. Liam Kerr, you wanted to pick up on something that you thought hadn't been fully covered. No, it was just to go right back to the start, my question about data. We have talked quite a lot about remand being overused, and I do not necessarily disagree with that. What I am hearing is that there is a lack of analysis of why that decision is being taken in preference to alternatives. I might ask you about what you said in your evidence. In some cases, it appears that remand is being used as a heavy-handed way to ensure the attendance of court for trial. I suspect that I do not necessarily disagree with that. Are you able to just talk about your authority for that statement and whether you have any idea what proportion of people are being remanded as a heavy-handed way to ensure their attendance? Do you know that courts accept that analysis? It is a great question, because you are asking about what I am tasked to do, which is to inspect and monitor the condition of prison and the treatment of prison. I am looking at it from the perspective of the experience of someone in custody and what happens to them. For me, I am interested in what causes them to be in the first place and then what happens when they leave. Ann was talking about the liberation grant of £75 in their pocket, not £75 a week. I think that that was a slip of the tongue. My comment, and the reason why I slightly qualified it by saying that it appeared, is that it is not my business to do an analysis of decision-making by the court. Whether the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service can provide that data or the Crown Office. It is a very legitimate question that you are asking. It might be something that the committee would want to pursue. I have not done an analysis of decision-making by sheriffs. What I am saying is that the people I speak to, and I hear their life story and I see one after another after another. I just know that this time in custody is not doing them good. I think that from a society point of view, my background in the criminal justice system is that the short period in custody is more likely to lead to more offending than less. It is not a moment of inspiration where they suddenly realise that their life has been on the wrong track and they are now going to change it. It is disorientating, unsettling, stressful. Depending on whether they are guilty or not, they can be traumatised and have senses of shame and guilt. It is not a constructive time where they are learning some new skill that they are not going to leave. Once people are into the criminal justice system and going through the process, they leave prison, they re-offend, they come back in. That is partly also what I argue in favour of the presumption against short sentences. I think that a short prison sentence in the long run does more harm than it does good. It starts from your position. I accept entirely the position on the effects of remand, but the people who are making that decision are making a decision. There is an analysis that needs to be done to say why that decision is being preferred over the alternatives. Mr McGeehan, do you have any comment on that? I think that it is unknown as to the reasons for the remand of the prison population, as currently described. That data is not available at present and that data may be useful if we wish to understand whether or not the particular considerations that were prominent in decision makers' minds were, for example, the protection of the public or the administration of justice or a combination of factors and whether or not any of those factors could be appropriately addressed through measures such as bail supervision, electronic monitoring, mentoring or other alternatives to remand. I address David Strang. In the Scottish Prison and Commission report in 2008, it was said that often remands are the result of lack of information or lack of services in the community to support people on bail. You made a comment just now about looking inwards at the prisoner, at the people on remand or what have you. Through your time since you took over as the inspector, have you seen an improvement in the fact that there is a better assessment of people going on to remand but the courts and also are the right things being applied within the prison service to the end result because you sort of indicated some concerns on that. Thank you. Ten years ago, I was a member of the Scottish Prison and Commission, so those are my views then and they are still my views now, sadly. Partly, people are being remanded because those alternatives to supports are not there. That was a comment that I made back in 2008 when we published Scotland's Choice. As we have heard this morning, there is no provision of electronic monitoring as an alternative to remanding and casting at the moment. The provision of bail supervision is patchy across the country. It is inconsistent. If there was confidence within the judiciary that an effective bail supervision was in place in every local authority area, then I am sure that it would use it more. I think that it is a lack of those services. In fact, we have heard—I think that it was one of the written pieces this morning—that the service in South West Scotland has been—the funding has been withdrawn for that. Rather than having more confidence that the provision is being spread out, my fear is that it is being restricted and that some of those services are not being delivered. My re-bit is about the experience of people in prison. It is too late by then, but I am wanting to contribute to the public debate about the use of imprisonment and how we could support the judiciary to be making better informed decisions by the provision of good alternatives to custody, both in terms of a sentence or not a sentence in the community, and also a remand. You said that the lack of the local authorities being able to deliver the necessary services. Why do you think that that is? It may be political will, but it is not a priority. It is clearly—often, I find, when I am arguing for services for people in prison and the criminal justice system, there is quite a very judgmental attitude. People think, well, it is your fault that you are in prison and you have committed the crime, why should we be providing services for you? If you are a local authority councillor, you have a limited budget, is someone coming out of prison going to be top of your priority? I suspect that there is a bit of political reality that this particular group of marginalised people in Scotland do not particularly have people championing their case, and there is probably a low priority in terms of local authority priorities. I think that that is a mistaken view, because crime has an impact much wider just on that individual. I think that if we support people who are vulnerable to offending, if we write from school and as they grow up, the benefits are for the whole community, as it can become safer and more confident. To comment on what is available locally, when the Crown agent came in, I think that the committee was very heartened in the back of our Crown and Procurator Fiscal Service inquiry that he was going to look at geographical differences and try to see where resources were available or good practice or whatever were available that maybe had not been properly identified so far, and that was something that we were going to look in at local solutions almost. I think that that mapping is being carried out, but that is in relation to diversion, as opposed to bail supervision. Is there a kind of exercise to be helpful for bail supervision? I just do not know what central organisation holds data in relation to the provision of bail supervision across Scotland. From your point of view as a fiscal, do you feel that you have that information when you are looking at the whole case? When bail supervision is available, there is a link between the local criminal justice social work department and the COPFS, but that national picture is not held by COPFS. That picture of bail supervision services could be found by asking local society criminal justice social work services in each area what it is that they provide. If I may, in terms of the cost of bail supervision, the most recent figures that are available are for 2014-15, whereby there was just over £1 million invested in bail supervision across Scotland. That paid for 402 bail supervision cases, which provided a unit cost of £2,636, to be precise. When you look at the comparison of bail supervision costs with the cost of imprisonment, which is currently over £36,000 per annum, I think that the figures speak for themselves. A piece of research dated 2012, which is on the Scottish Government website, which is supervised bail in Scotland research on use and impact. That is a survey and research on the use of supervised bail across Scotland. Before we on to Ben's line of questioning, Daniel, you had a small clarification. A data point following up on Liam Kerr's line of questioning. Is there data on the proportion of those on remand who then either go on to non-custodial sentences or indeed find not guilty? Obviously, that would provide an insight into the point that is being made about people being put in prison when they do not need to be there. I do not know if that is available now or could be supplied subsequently. The figure that has been quoted was in the Angelini commission on women offenders, which was 70 per cent at that time, but that was published five years ago as well. I do not know who has that data, but it must be available. I have some data about the number of individuals who are received into custody and liberated each month. It is difficult to ascertain the disconnect between the statistics that the SPS collects, my understanding, and the Scottish Courts data, whereby individuals who are remanded will be captured in the SPS data, but if they are then liberated from courts, that is where the disconnect is. I think that that is something that needs to be addressed. On those individuals who are remanded in custody but do not receive a prison sentence and are acquitted, do we have a sense of what impact the time spent on remand has on those individuals in terms of particularly family relationships, housing and employment, and what is being done to assist those who are released after a period of remand? What more could and should be done? I know that you mentioned social security earlier, so I am interested in expanding those areas. There is no statutory obligation on any service that I am aware of to provide services to individuals who are liberated from remand. There are services that will support individuals, but it is a question of those individuals being identified, and they are accepting the support or alternative. There are those individuals being aware of the support that is available, but they are absolutely right when an individual is liberated from remand or is freed from the court. They have to resolve their benefits issues, they have to resolve their issues in relation to accommodation. If they were receiving housing benefit, they need to make a claim for housing benefit. If they have not already done so whilst they were in custody, they need to address an issue in relation to health. For example, if they have their own prescribed method, they will have to make their own arrangements to get an appointment with their GP. The individual is very much left to their own devices, unless they are willing to accept support, should a service already be aware of them. That is the situation as it is. There is no statutory obligation on any agency to proactively provide a service to somebody who is liberated from remand. I think that it is in terms of someone who is sentenced to a supervised community sentence, so a community payback order that could have a condition that they have to tackle their addictions or addictions issues, then there would be some form of supervision in the community by criminal justice social work. That might lead to some support in some of the issues that you raise, but certainly someone who just walks from court unconvicted, there will be no support for them. There is no statutory obligation for those who come into remand. Bear in mind what has already been said about the variable nature of the length of time somebody will spend on remand. It is very difficult for them and for others to plan any support round about them due to the fact that they can attend court at any time and then be released. As David has just alluded to, I think that the figure for men is round about 50 per cent going on to a non-custodial disposal. We do not know how many of them will be found not guilty or go on to a non-custodial disposal, so therefore there may well be, through other mechanisms, some support available to individuals just because they have not returned to custody, but we do not know that. SPS undertakes a survey every two years, a 2017 survey, which is almost ready for publication. Part of that this time will include a separate section on remand, which will give us a lot more data around the impact on remand. We have statistics from previous surveys about the impact of imprisonment on individuals' homelessness and the number of people who are leaving and not really knowing or understanding what the accommodation arrangements are going to be. I would say to you that what we are doing is that we are working with a number of partner agencies just before Christmas in partnership with COSLA and Alotjo, and I'll have forgotten somebody, so I'm getting into trouble for that. However, we developed a set of housing standards that apply to everybody in custody, and that was signed up by all of those organisations and bodies to provide support for individuals leaving custody. We are working towards trying to address some of the issues that we know and understand have an impact on individuals leaving custody, whether or not they are on remand or convicted. Certainly, from our own perspective, we are learning more from our through-care support officers who are prison officers and working with short-term prisoners moving into community. We are learning and understanding the impact of imprisonment and the requirement to link with other services and things such as health benefits housing. We are trying to improve that experience for individuals through individual support from our staff, as well as creating arrangements with other national organisations to try to improve the standard arrangements about support for individuals leaving custody. Ben? I welcome that work and I'd be interested to receive more information in writing following this meeting if that would be available. Can you come on to their points? Yes, please. We talked about the individual involved, but particularly from working with Circle Scotland to headquarter the Mack constituency, there's an impact on the family as well that's not being touched on yet. I wonder if—and perhaps starting with you again, if you could just talk about what impact the remand has on the families of those held in custody and what is being done to help families. Is there again more that can be done? I would refer members to the submission that was provided for you by Families Outside. One of the key issues that was provided in that submission was the impact that the remand has on families is the same as the impact of a custodial sentence. Children in particular it's very difficult to get them to understand the difference between a remand, somebody being in prison for a remand, somebody being in prison for a sentence, and there are particular challenges for families supporting individuals on remand, not least the uncertainty. David Made mentioned earlier today about the ability of remand prisoners to receive regular visits, and that's absolutely right. My understanding is that people and individuals on remand can receive visits on a daily basis, and they are innocent, so that is perfectly correct. However, that brings with it huge pressures on families to visit in terms of cost, time, travel and indeed the impact on the family. The assisted person visit unit, if somebody exists, will provide payment for the cost of visiting twice a month if somebody is on benefit. We know that many families feel under pressure to visit on a daily basis, or more than once or twice per week, and that brings huge pressure on families. It also has a similar impact on benefits. If one of the adults is in prison, that can take quite some time for the payments to be adjusted. The uncertainty is considerable, and we know that the impact on families is the same as that of imprisonment. It's no less and in some respects greater. Lastly, moving things back to where the conversation started about public protection and the need for that side of the debate. Perhaps Anthony or David want to touch on what can be done to ensure that the interests of victims and their families are not adversely affected by measures to reduce the use of remand. My starting point was that remand is absolutely necessary for public protection. If someone is awaiting trial for a serious offence and that it is absolutely proper that they are remanded in custody, if there is a risk of them re-offending and causing more harm, that is in the interests of any potential future victims, which is the victim that has already been victimised. That event has happened, and clearly justice requires that the perpetrator should be dealt with through a due process of law. In terms of prevention, we want to make sure that there are no more victims. If people are being remanded for serious offences where there is a risk to serious harm, that is appropriate. In terms of what we are talking about, where people are remanded for 26 days, we are talking about the lower end. If a short period in prison is likely to lead to more victims, we are not serving future victims by remanding people in custody for a short period. I think that that would be my argument that we are more likely to be reducing victims in the long run and looking after their interests if people who have been charged in a period before the court are supported through the period up to trial rather than being remanded in custody. Can I pick up on that? We have concentrated on the average time, but in the Law Society's submission, we are talking about the time limits that are wanting to remand people as short a time as possible. Often, extensions are being asked for, and they offer the reasons for that being complex cases, such as serious organised crime, murder, sexual offences and terrorism. They say very clearly—I suppose that it is one for you, Mr McGeachan—that the extension is not to be granted, where the Crown is responsible for repeated, inexcusably wholly unexplained major errors resulting in an inability to bring the accused to trial within the prescribed time frame through no fault on the part of the Crown. I believe that it may be an application for extension to time bar and a resource issue is what the Law Society is getting at. Can you comment on that? My reading of that chair was that an extension would not be granted in those circumstances, and therefore an extension would only be granted in circumstances where those factors were not present. I think that he was saying that it may not be fatal that the Law Society gave the extension of the time bar, even though all those things have happened repeatedly, inexcusably wholly unexplained major errors. We know the pressure that is on the Crown and Procurator physical service, so I suppose that it was a comment on that. The comment that I would make is that any application to extend a time bar is considered by the court and that the factors that are identified by the Law Society would not justify an extension. I read that piece of evidence in a different way in the sense that, if those factors were present, that would not justify an extension. If an extension is granted by the court, one can assume that there is good reason for that extension, separate from any of those factors that are identified as negative factors by the Law Society. I just want to pick up on that. I just want to say the general comment that having time limits contributes to a more efficient criminal justice system, the administrative justice system, and that is in the interests of both the accused and victims of society generally that a case proceeded to trial as soon as possible. You have mentioned terrorist cases and technical cases, so cybercrime can be very complicated to investigate and prepare a case. However, in comparison with some international comparisons, there are some countries where people are in prison for three or four years before getting to trial. I think that that is a very positive aspect of the criminal justice system in Scotland that there are time limits. People are not in custody awaiting trial indefinitely, so there is a time limit. Any other comments? If not, that concludes our roundtable discussion. I thank you all very much. There is no doubt that the information that you have supplied and the issues that you have raised are ones that I am sure the Justice Committee will want to follow up on. Thank you so much for spending the time and for breathing the elements to be here. It has been very worthwhile. We now move into private session. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, 23 January, when we will have a briefing from the Scottish Law Commission on their definition report. We will also have an evidence session on policing in Scotland, and I suspend to allow the witnesses to leave and the public gallery to clear. Five minutes, 10 minutes, break.