 I welcome to the fifth meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee in 2023. We have no apologies this morning, and our first item of business today is consideration of the Scottish Government's response to our pre-budget scrutiny report, and I refer members to paper 1. I intend to allow about 25 minutes or so for this session and I'll just simply open it up to members for discussion and agreement on any follow-up as required. I think in the spirit of efficiency, I'll maybe just start. I'll come to you Russell Findlay for any comments that you want to make on the response. I'm fairly okay in terms of the capital budget. I'd like to get more clarification on that particularly in light of the fact that Greenock as well, HMP Greenock in the prisons, is a cause for concern given what we heard previously. Other than that, I'm fairly comfortable with everything else, other than the capital spend. I've got a few different items to discuss, but I don't want to impinge on other members' opportunities to speak, but maybe I can kick off the conversation at least on some of them. I think probably the first one to start with is the cabinet secretary's response on the budget for the Scottish Police Authority and police budgets. I just wanted to probe a little bit into that. First of all, there isn't quite an important clarification from the cabinet secretary over our report around police budgets. Now, when we took pre-budget scrutiny evidence, it was made quite clear to us that there would be a very direct knock-on effect on police numbers in terms of budget in proportion to a flat cash settlement or a retail real terms cut, depending on how you phrase it. It's an area that I probed quite vociferously on. The cabinet secretary wanted us to make clear that we said in our report that he had no intention of cutting police officers or staff numbers. I say that in the context of the evidence that we took that that is what would happen. There would be a reduction in front-line officers or back-office staff. Now that he's replied in his comments that he thinks that this is an inaccurate reflection of what he said, it may not necessarily have been a part of—I need to look at our report and see what we did say that he said, but it certainly was the essence of what he said. We may have misquoted him or he thinks that we have misquoted him in our report, but that was very much what I thought he was saying. I think that's what other members thought as well, which is why we put it in our report. He's come back and said, actually, I had no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving. That's welcome. I don't think that's a position any cabinet secretary would want to be in, but that seems to be, in my view, falling quite short of a commitment that there will not be a reduction in police officers. What is quite unclear is whether that leads us to surmise that there will be a potential reduction in officer numbers or staff numbers. If that were to be the case, the cabinet secretary would be content with that, given that he has watered down his position. I appreciate, in the next paragraph, the additional £80 million of resources being allocated. I presume—this can be clarified—that that is resource budget, not capital budget. It is unclear whether that is intended to meet any percentage pay rises that are asked for or that are settled, given that we don't know the final outcome of those in the group. My fear is that, even with the £80 million, what we don't have is evidence of what that would translate to. If all the £80 million would do is simply be swallowed up in an inflationary pay rise, we would be left with a static number of police officers. If that would not be enough to cover any pay rise—and I think that you would need to look at this on a percentage basis—what does 4 per cent look like, what is 5 per cent, what is 6 per cent, what does 10 per cent look like, then we still could be in a situation where we are seeing a reduction in police officers. We still could be losing front-line police officers. That is a matter of concern. I don't think that just chucking in a number and the response clarifies and then diverting back to saying, well, these are all matters for the chief constable and operational matters. We should be evidence-led when we are scrutinising the budget. I don't see how we can marry up the statement that there may not be 4,000 officers leaving, but there may still be a substantial number of officers leaving. I don't know what effect the £80 million will have and where that money will go into the service and how it will be spent. It's a bit late now, of course, but it opened up more questions and answers. I've got other comments on other parts of the response on specific around the prison service and legal aid, but I'll maybe just stop there in case other members want to talk about the police budget first. I'll come back to the matter of the wording in the cabinet secretary's response to our report, but I'll move on to Katie. Did you have your hand up, Rona? It was really just a supplementary to Jamie, but you said you were going to talk about the... I mean, I understand what Jamie is saying. I tend to think maybe he's overthinking that a wee bit. I think the cabinet secretary's clearly just trying to sort of say, well, you know, we need to see the official report number one, and it could have been taken out of context what was in the report slightly. And I think it's perfectly reasonable for him to say, well, these are operational matters, and I wouldn't be taking control of that. And so I think that's what it's about. But I mean, I appreciate Jamie would like more information about where that money would go. I'll get back again. Surely that's up to the chief. OK, thanks, Rona. I mean, if while we're on the subject then, I mean, I think in my interpretation of the comments that he's made in his reply, so at the bottom of page three across into page four, is more about the sort of interpretation of the wording that was recorded in the official report on that particular session and is also replicated in our own budget scrutiny report. So what he did say is reflected accurately in both of those documents in the official report and our budget scrutiny report. In, he has made reference to the fact that in paragraph seven, we have paraphrased what he has said, as you've highlighted, Jamie. My view is there wasn't any intention to mislead on the exact phrase or represent what he said in committee. And that seems to have resulted in him feeling it was necessary to highlight what he felt might be interpreted as an inaccurate account of what he said. So I'm happy. It was my intention to raise this with members. And obviously, Jamie, you've made your sort of views on the sort of wider issue of the police budget you've set them out just now. Pauline, do you want to come in on this? Just since it was on that point. So I start by saying I don't think for a minute the Cabinet Secretary was, you know, intending to mislead the committee in any way. I don't think that for a second. However, I totally agree with what Jamie said. That's what I took it to mean. I was really pleased when he said it. And this doesn't make sense to me. My understanding is, Chief Constable said, if this flatline budget is, you know, the final outcome, that it's going to result in four points, whatever the figure was, leaving the police force. Well, not leaving, but I thought, oh, you'd have to let them leave or cut is what I assumed it meant. But the way he's rephrased it, I said, I have no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000, that's okay so far, 4,000 officers leaving. If you see the distinction I'm making, that doesn't make sense. The question wasn't 4,000 officers leaving, as we couldn't fund 4,000 police officers. That's what I thought the issue was. So just to come back on that, my interpretation of him raising this is that, as you said, Rona, this is ultimately an operational decision for the Chief Constable to make. And what he said in the session was that he had no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving. The concern that he's raised is that the paraphrasing of that is misrepresenting what he said. I don't particularly want to get caught up in the minutiae of what is in our report by way of a paraphrase set against what he actually said. I think that if there are still questions around the budget then I'm happy for us to go back to him with those questions, because this isn't important. So you want to come in with anything, just over and above the... If it helps a committee, maybe, because I did look into this when we saw the response from the Cabinet Secretary had discussed with the convener before. As far as I understand the point that the Cabinet Secretary is trying to make at the bottom of page 3, in your report or your letter that you published a few months back, you said at paragraph 67 you quoted the Cabinet Secretary directly from the official report and the quote that you used was that the Cabinet Secretary had said he had quotes, no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force, excuse me, that results in 4,000 officers leaving, unquote. But when it came to the conclusions of your report at paragraph 77, the committee paraphrased that with the following statement. The committee welcomes a statement from the Cabinet Secretary that he has no intention of cutting police officers' staff numbers. I think the point that the Cabinet Secretary is making in his letter to you is that he is not the person that cuts police numbers. That is a matter for the chief counsel. He just didn't want that confusion to be clear that he had said he had no intention of overseeing a budget, whereas we had paraphrased saying perhaps inferring that it was his decisions on police numbers, and I think he was just drawing that to the committee's attention. I hope that that helps. Jamie. I understand what you are saying. I know what he said and I know what he said and I know what he is saying. I don't think he's changed his position. I'm not accusing him of doing that. I'm less interested in that and more interested in the context and the content of it, and that's the fact that it is welcome that he will not preside over a budget that will see a loss of 4,000 officers. Nobody wants to see a loss of 4,000 officers. I think the inference from the exchange that we had was that there would not be a cut of that nature, whether he does it or whether the chief counsel does it is irrelevant. He then goes on to say that we found some cash in the pot, which again is welcome. No one has a problem with that. But what I don't know is that if he may not be content presiding over a budget which results in 4,000 officers lost, but it may be 3,000 instead or 2,000 or 1,000, we don't know is the answer. So I think there are unanswered questions and if it's correct that these are operational matters for the police not the cabinet secretary, then we should be asking the police what the £80 million will be spent on. And if in that context they are still looking at the potential reduction of the numbers. I say that because officer numbers at the moment are at their lowest level since 2008, so any suggestion that they will drop any further I think should be a matter of concern for the committee. Okay, thanks. So I think the key things there, Jamie, if I'm right, are how will the additional funding, how will that be used and there's perhaps a question in and around that for Police Scotland as well as for the cabinet secretary. Yeah, it's all about officer numbers. I mean what we want to know or we should want to know is are we still looking down the barrel of a reduction of officer numbers or are we looking at a flat cash, flat settlement of officer numbers or indeed is there sufficient budget there to increase officer numbers, which should be welcome news if that's the case. But we don't know. Okay, so are members happy that we perhaps write and ask those questions? I think those are legitimate and we can write to the cabinet secretary and Police Scotland on that. Okay, thank you. Okay, Katie. A small addendum to that, it would be helpful just to get clarification on the position in terms of civilian police staff as well. Because in the past what has happened, because of the political contention of cutting officer numbers disproportionately civilian police staff have taken the hit and that does have quite a significant impact obviously on the service, so perhaps that could be incorporated in the letter. I think generally the point that we need to make is that initially we were looking at cuts of the region of 20 per cent to justice budgets when we started this conversation quite a number of months ago. There has been significant movement on that and whilst we're still seeing real terms cuts like big cuts in justice budgets it's not in the region of the levels that initially we were looking at and I suspect that's important. Partly, as a result of some of the work that we've done but the cabinet secretary going and making representations strongly and presumably fighting his case. I think that we're not looking as bad a picture as we thought we would have been at the beginning of this process but we are still looking at drastic cuts and I think that we're going to ask Spice to clarify exactly what the nature of those cuts are so that it isn't a party political point. There's a great acceptance of what we're talking about in terms of the cuts that the justice sector is facing but they are significant. It's clear that there could be ways to spend less money in the justice system. The obvious example is prisons. The fact that we put so many people in prison is very expensive but there's none of the structural changes that would be necessary within the budget that we're looking at that's going to really enable those kind of long-term cost savings. That's obviously a discussion that we're having in relation to the bail bill that we're looking at in terms of how we put money into the other parts of the justice sector that would enable custodial sentences to be used less. I think that's always a point worth making. In terms of echo the points that have been made on policing it may well be that Pauline McNeill will come in more than that but just to pick out a couple of points. On the capital budget to do with prisons we've heard evidence that it's a lot cheaper to house people in your prisons. I visited Greenock prison two weeks ago. It's quite clear that there is an urgent need for capital spending to be made available to Greenock. If that doesn't happen there is a real risk that Greenock will not be able to stay in operation. I think that's a specific issue that's been highlighted to us as a committee by the chief inspector of prisons and a huge cause for concern. A number of us here represent West Scotland as well as the justice issues is a big economic impact that would result if that prison was to close in the Inverclyde area. I think that's a point that I'd want to make. In terms of capital spending we've had very strong representations from the fire brigade union in relation to capital spending and in addition to the carcinogenic nature of many of the toxins that firefighters are exposed to. We've already this year had a tragic death of a firefighter in the generous fire that brings home the risks of that employment but a number of other firefighters were hospitalised and we know that the cancer levels and leukemia levels from firefighters are far higher than the general population as a result to the work exposure. There's over 100 fire stations that do not have proper sanitation facilities and I do think that's a point that we need to put forward as something that really needs to be given far greater priority. Okay, thanks Katie. So quite a range of issues covered there. Are there specific points that you would like the committee to go back to the cabinet secretary or you just want to note these for the record? I think both the civilian point in the letter that we're writing to do with the place and the Greenock prison issue. I've already written to the cabinet secretary about it but I think it would be useful if the committee was to raise that also and also the issue to do with capital spend for fire stations. I believe that the fire service is actually in breach of its duty of care to provide safe systems of work to firefighters and from a health and safety perspective the work is required urgently to bring fire stations up to standard to ensure that firefighters can wash after being involved in incidents. Okay, thanks for that. I don't disagree with those points. I note in the cabinet secretary's response that he's looking at a capital budget for the Scottish Prison Service of 97 million in order to continue this modernisation programme so that's welcome but very necessary. I think that it comes back to the point that you made Collector earlier on about clarity around capital budget. Okay, thanks very much Katie. Pauline. In fact, Russell you want to come in? I could do unless you. I've got one additional point on that. Okay, again back to the police budget issue. I mean the 80 million additional resource I mean I suppose we need to know how does that square with the statement the cabinet secretary has made that he's no intention of presiding over a budget which would result in 4000 officers leaving. I don't know what then 80 million does that. I don't know what that actually means so I would be concerned then if that 80 million doesn't represent a figure that would prevent eight or four and a half lines of officers from leaving. I don't know do we pursue this from here with the police service authority or is that something to pursue with the cabinet secretary? I think perhaps that's what our intention was in terms of writing to the cabinet secretary and Police Scotland was to get some clarification on what that spending would look like. Is it going to be used largely to settle pay deals so I think it would be appropriate for us to follow that up if you're happy with that. I'll come back to Russell and then I'll bring in Fulton. Thank you, I found my notes. I've got two observations about what's been said so far and two quick points to make. The first one is in respect to the fire service Katie Clark's bang-on. I mean the chief acting chief fire officer told us he needed something like half a billion pounds just to bring infrastructure up to standard due to year after year of not having enough money to do so. I totally understand the point that Jamie is making as well. It makes sense that while the cabinet secretary wasn't stating that was his intent or nonetheless that is the outcome and I think we've agreed a form of way to deal with that. The two other points that I wanted to raise was Scottish Police Authority. It says that £45.5 million for investment in police assets including the estate, fleet and technology, which for all that isn't a lot of money. Now in December Police Scotland said that they would finally be rolling out body-worn cameras for their officers. The only force in the UK not to have them other than a few hundred for specialist firearms officers. I just think I want to understand. This was described in the media as a £20 million programme over five years. Does it follow therefore that this 2224 sum of money, four million of that goes towards body-worn cameras? I'd just like some clarity about the speed in which the body-worn cameras are going to be delivered because it is crucial to helping police officers primarily but also public confidence. If it's worth getting a bit of a breakdown explanation, I know it's an operational decision that they're spending this money but the media stuff's not very clear. The second point is about the prison service. There's no reference whatsoever to, as far as I can see, the fact that HMP Kilmarnock is either now or is in the cusp of becoming under the direct control of the Government, with all the costs associated with that, and HMP Iriewell is about to follow. It does talk about the cost of private sector contracts but I don't know if that means the likes of the one that we touched upon, the provision of food and dairy produced and so on to the prisoners. Kilmarnock a Iriewell are going to end up costing a huge sum of money to run in staff costs, then the responsibility for infrastructure and maintenance and then the pensions, I understand, so be useful to know where that money's come from, how much it is. I think that the information provided around the figure that's been allocated for police assets, including estate, fleet and technology, has been outlined. We've been interested in Iriewell and Cameras for quite some time and I think that we did receive an update from the Cabinet Secretary. I wouldn't care to guess when that was fairly recently. Again, that's an operational decision for the chief constable but there is general support for that to be introduced and rolled out. I don't think there was any further update on that in terms of the last communication. I believe that there might have been a question in the chamber or a written question that the Cabinet Secretary updated Parliament on body-worn video cameras but were the committee minded to also ask for an update, you could incorporate that in the letter to the Cabinet Secretary? There may be things that I haven't seen but the media report was in December and it said five years, so five years is a long time if it's going to take that long for all officers to have the kit. Many of the other police forces are on to second and sometimes third generation kit, which is even more efficient. Only if it helps just to clarify, so I can send this to the committee afterwards. It was a written answer dated 24 January, so I'll circulate that to members so you've got the latest point. On the issues that you've raised about the prison service, again I'm happy to write back out with some further requests for clarification. The issue around private sector contract costs and some of that, those challenges linked to inflation and increasing prices was a reasonable one because it's having such a significant impact. The other points that you've raised about Addwell and Kilmarnock, I'm happy to write again for some further detail on that. Fulton, would you like to come in? Thanks, convener. There's a bit of an echo here but hopefully you can all hear me okay. I think Katie Clarke has actually maybe stole my thunder a wee bit there because I was looking at the reply and I've seen it in quite a positive light from a committee point of view because when we were taking evidence towards the start, as Katie's already said, we were looking at quite really bad cuts. It looked a very, very bleak picture but I think that what the cabinet secretary has outlined is that he's been able to invest in the justice system as it currently stands. I think that the committee can take some credit in that, to be honest. I think that I just wanted to come in and be positive in that note because this could have been a very different conversation we're having today. I think that the conversation now is around the edges of things rather than the overall picture that we're perhaps first looking at. I do remember that this is a very early stage in the budget process as well, so there might even be scope for further good news if we want to put it like that. I read it quite positively. I thought that we might have been in a worse position by this point but I would echo for Katie Clarke's comments. I'd already pressed to speak as Katie was saying that so otherwise I would have not convened but I wanted to put that on record then. Can we also seek clarification from the bottom of page 5, Justice Transformation? It goes on to talk about blue light collaborations. What is that? I'm not quite sure what that means. Is it that they're firing money from the police reform burden over to cross justice? That was something that I had flagged in my own head as well. I'd be interested to know a wee bit more about what that £5 million of reform budget is going to be used for a wee bit more detail. I think that it would be very welcome, so we'll incorporate that into our correspondence. I'll pick up on some of my other points, some of which have already been touched on by other members. I hope that Fulton is around his seat belt or he'll end up with a blue plaque next to that tree next to his car. I mean, I'm glad he's positive about it, but I think there's nothing positive about uncertainty around police numbers and I think that is something that's not around the edges of the budget. It's absolutely core to delivering a good public safety. I wanted to mention some other points. I would echo the comments on body-worn cameras. I think that it is one of those issues that, yes, it is the minutai of detail of operational matters, but it's a big one. I think that it's inconceivable that officers should have to wait years for what is fairly simple equipment and is very standard in other forces. I don't think that's going to do very well at all with officers on the front line. On the fire budget, my colleague Russ Finlay pointed out the massive capital backlog. It says in his response that we have maintained the £32.5 million capital budget. Maintain, I presume, means that it still is what it was. In other words, there's no increase at all, so that is a real-terms cut in the capital budget for the fire service, which I don't know how on earth is going to go any way towards some of the problems that Katie Clark identified, which we have debated in the Parliament already. Those are quite serious and urgent matters. I know that you can't magic new fire stations overnight. They take time to properly procure and build. That needs to be a longer-term project, but I'm pretty sure that there are many fire stations right now that could do with some injection of cash to make them at least semi-fit for purpose. It's absolutely deplorable that we send our firefighters into conditions like that and expect them to work in those conditions at the moment. I still read this, and I'm willing to be corrected as the Cabinet Secretary is happy to do in other matters if that is a flat cash settlement for the fire service this year, which I think will become as a disappointment to them on prisons. I would question the issue, notwithstanding comments made by the convener around the £97 million in capital funding, the continued modernisation of the prison estate. It does go on to say that this will include completion of the new female prison at HNP Stirling, so I don't think that's new money, I'm afraid. Again, I'm willing to be corrected if that is the case. I'm sure that that will just be the next tranche of the procurement and build costs of the prison, and that money would already have been known to us prior to this revised budget. I don't think that it is new magic cash. I think that it's probably going in some way to resolve payments towards those who are building HNP Stirling, as it seems to imply. There are major issues around HNP Greenock, and I know that we've asked about it many times and we've been given a very honest answer. There simply isn't enough money in the pot to do anything there, but it will close if things carry on as it is. If it does not receive cash of any shape or form, then there is an inevitability that it will close. I don't think that's scaremongering, as was reported in local media. It's a real possibility, and I think that that is an issue. The issue of legal aid is one that we haven't discussed yet, so I wanted to bring up. I was quite intrigued by the cabinet secretary's response. I'm not sure if it was meant to be in this light, but he says, in addition, following positive engagement with the legal profession, we will bring forward regulations in the year to further increase and reform legal aid fees. Nobody in the legal aid profession I've spoken to thought that the engagement was positive, or indeed are happy with the outcome of that engagement. In fact, the SSBA here on the record is saying that it's better than nothing, but it doesn't really go far enough, and I think that's something that's been echoed by many others in the sector. I think that there's a little bit of head and sand syndrome here. It's unclear what that additional budget will look like in fees versus what they think is required to continue to provide services. We are now starting to see the very real effects of those financial problems in the legal aid sector. Members will probably be aware that places such as Orkney, for example, now have little to no access to practitioners, and that's repeated right across the country. I know that's again an issue that we've been raising for many years, but I don't take much positive away from that statement. The last one is on victims, which I think is an important one. It was very welcome announcement on the multi-year funding for some of the third sector organisations. That's something that another committee I sat under, a huge piece of work in the last session of Parliament, and that certainty of funding is very welcome. My understanding is that we were actually due, and I'm happy to be corrected by the clerks if I'm wrong, but there was actually a report due to Parliament that was going to outline the plans for future burns-hoose models. I think that the Government was doing a piece of work that would identify how many would be needed and how much budget would be required to roll that out. I think that that's overdue that piece of work, but again I could be corrected on that. I think that that would be quite helpful. I don't think that it's going to happen in the next financial year anyway, even if it had been released, but it would give us an idea of what is happening down the line with that. I appreciate that obviously getting the first one off the ground is the priority, and that's something that I do support. That's all, thank you. That's very much. Right, there's a covered a wee bit there. In terms of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service funding, it's pretty clear in the room that there's an interest in what has been provided. Is that sufficient? I think that it's the £32.5 million in terms of the capital budget. Is that sufficient? There's a mood in the room that's probably not for the scale of the reform or modernisation that is required. We could write to Scottish Fire and Rescue, ask how that will be spent and, I think, importantly, what the shortfall might be on that. I suspect there will be one, and it might be quite significant. I'm happy if members are agreeable that we correspond with Scottish Fire and Rescue on that. On that point, the Fire and Rescue Service is receiving a slight cut. It's a half, roughly, I think, £400,000 cut, whereas other areas are getting slight increases. I appreciate that we're focusing on the capital budget, but when things need to be done, often there is a discussion about whether it comes out of revenue or capital. I think that it's quite surprising that the Fire and Rescue Service is getting any cut at all given, in particular, some of the debates that we've had in the Parliament, that there clearly are long-term underfunding issues and we seem to be going backwards. I think that that is a point that, perhaps, should be incorporated in our court reasons. I think that we'll just pull this discussion to a close in a moment, but I think that we're finally going back to the matter of the prison service. Again, just to clarify, we can ask for some detail on that £97 million spend, which is set out as capital budget specifically for modernisation, taking into account the comments that you and Katie and I are making. I think that others have made. Are members happy with that follow-up? I agree with all the points that have been said. I'm pleased about the victims' money and the multi-fund year funding. The prison service is pleased that the modernisation of the new female prison is going to go ahead. What makes the point, Jamie? Is it magic cash? Is it new money? I don't know if it is, but the fact that it's going to happen is the main thing from my point of view. I won't say any more. We'll move on to our next agenda item, which is consideration of the following negative instrument, which is the Parole Board Scotland rules of 2022. That is SSI 385 of 2022, and I refer members to paper 2. As usual, I'll open it up to members if they have any questions on the instrument. A couple of things. On page 4, there is reference to an issue of people convicted of murder, a culpable homicide, a provision whereby the Parole Board could consider whether these individuals make known the whereabouts of their victims' remains. This is something that my colleague Jamie Greene has been calling for as a vi and is indeed part of his forthcoming bill. What puzzles me is that it was on to say that this may be considered where relevant but does not change the underlying test for release applied by the board. Effectively, it's a superficial tweak. It says that the Parole Board can consider it, but it will have absolutely no effect whatsoever, which begs the question why bother, either do it with intent or don't do it at all. It just seems to be a bit of a swap to suggest that this is something that they are aware of. I know that these cases are rare, but there are a significant enough number of them. There are families right now who don't know where their loved ones' remains are, and prisoners who are serving a sentence do know. If there is a meaningful way of motivating them to disclose that by virtue of what has been called Suzanne's law in Scotland and other names elsewhere in the UK, it should do so. The second point is about victims on page 5. Two things about that. One is that I am a bit underlined about an intended to prevent any victim getting information or contact that they do not wish to have and which may cause distress or disruption. From my experience in the committee, I have not really heard any meaningful evidence that that is really an issue. The issue largely is about crime victims having to battle to get information, even where they have engaged with the victim notification scheme, which the Government admits isn't doing its job on a subject to an on-going review. The evidence that we have heard is that barriers are put up and you have to be proactive. It is all very impersonal, almost a sort of sense of hostility sometimes towards victims trying to get basic information. I think that it has been interesting to see when the victim notification scheme review. I don't know when that is due, but I am curious to see what they say about it, because it is clearly not working. There is quite a lot contained in this SSI and clown your way through it. There are a number of fairly significant issues, which is a very short procedure for us to comment on something that could be extremely important. There are two issues that I wish to highlight. The first is on page 4. In relation to the new addition to the rule and decision, summary rule 34 provides that the board must give reasons for a decision where it differs from the recommendations in the risk management provision. Those provisions ensure that the most recent assessment of risk is available to the board in their consideration of such cases and that they articulate their reasoning in reaching their decision. When I read it, I thought that that is quite an onerous responsibility for the parole board, because if we have an authority who has expert opinion taking and making a recommendation, if you are going to go against it, it is quite an onerous decision to set out. It is just an observation. Also, in prisoner preparation, I read through it. That is in relation to adding to the rules to assist a person concerned to be better prepared for a parole hearing. I do not think that there is any mention at literacy issues, given that I just thought that that should have been mentioned. In the end of page 4, it talks about prisoner preparation for parole hearings, which seems to be a good thing. This allows information to be obtained from the person concerned in advance to assess whether they are ready to proceed. I did not know whether that was relevant or not, but it just occurred to me that a lot of prisoners or some prisoners have literacy issues. If there is any point in choosing a new rule about preparation, it may be worth mentioning that that should include support for any literacy issues. The first point is a wider point. That is quite a big SSI, and we are looking at it in the context of the negative procedure, which, as members know, has very limited options to us. It is impossible, for example, for us to amend. On matters like this, it is outside of our control because of the primary legislation that it is connected to, but it is the sort of thing that, had it been subject to the final procedure, we could have heard from the cabinet secretary or advised us on, we could have taken evidence on, we could have done other things with it, rather than simply be left with the only option of annulling it, which is unhelpful, because there is some good stuff in it. However, there are other things that are not so good, and that is what I wanted to point towards. The first point is absolutely correct around matters that the board may consider around release, and that is specifically that of someone who has been convicted of murder or homicide and whether they have failed to reveal the location of a victim's body, as was noted by my colleague Russell Findlay. I think that this is a real missed opportunity, because it does feature in my own member's bill yet to be drafted, however, but it does feature heavily in my consultation. The overwhelming response to that was positive that it should be a more overt rule when it comes to the test of release. It just simply says that this does not change the underlying test for release, but may be a factor that may be taken into account, which I presume already was a factor, so it does not seem to make any change. Had I been given the opportunity to amend this, I would have done and made it stronger. I think that the Government has missed an opportunity here to introduce Suzanne's law through a very simple procedural mechanism, which would go a long way to serve justice to the families of those victims. The second point is around the last paragraph on page 5 of the policy memorandum where it talks about victims and changes to the rights and roles of victims and all of this. The first is that this provision simply allows for victims to observe parole hearings. It is still a missed opportunity here. It still does not give them the opportunity to make meaningful representation during those hearings. That is an issue that is a long-standing one. The SSI could easily have been altered to allow victims to speak or have a voice during parole hearings. That is something that I have felt strongly about for some time. Furthermore, it talks about those registered with part 1 of the VNS who did not want to be involved in the pro-board process. I would question the evidence on that. How many chose not to be involved in that process? How many were just subject to the poor communication that the VNS seems to be in charge of and the notification of those decisions came so late or out of the blue to the victims and their families that they were unable to participate or unwilling to due to this retraumatisation element of it? We know that the take-up of the VNS is poor, in my view, due to the opt-in nature of it. Again, there was a missed opportunity to look at perhaps opt-out versions of the scheme or better communication. We also know that a number of people who actually requested to participate, when I say participate, I mean observe parole hearings, those applications were rejected. Again, I would have liked to have seen some evidence around that, some numerical evidence. How many people requested to attend a parole hearing and were rejected? I only have anecdotal evidence, but I know it's certainly the dozens. I've tried to get some more information on that over the last couple of months, especially when those hearings moved online. There were a number of people who were denied access to that. Should the parole board rules not be explicit in making it clear to victims way in advance and up front that they have the absolute right to observe hearings unless there is good reason for them not to or a reasonable objection is made, and it shouldn't be a matter of discretion for the person in charge of that parole board hearing. I do have questions about that as well. Again, I'm disappointed that we've been asked simply to shoo through a negative procedure or SSI on what I think are quite important matters that we really could have empowered victims of crime, and it is failing to do so, I'm afraid. Thank you, Jamie. Anybody else want to come in at all? For clarification on the timeline on SSI and whether there is scope to take some of those issues up with the Scottish Government, because it does seem like a missed opportunity not to try to get some of those issues incorporated. I appreciate that this is probably the end of a very long process, but it's not a process that we've been engaged with. I do think that it would be appropriate to perhaps enter into correspondence to raise and highlight some of those issues and see if this is an opportunity that can be taken. Not for me to say about correspondence, that's for your decision to do so, but I'm just to point out that the SSI will come into force on 13 February. With the recess pending, there probably isn't scope for this to come back to the committee. The SSI will come into force on 13 February unless any committee member or other member lodges a motion to annul. Of course, there's nothing to stop the committee seeking further information or making the points that you have made in various letters if that's something you choose to do so. Again, it's not the first time we've been put in this position where days before something comes into legislation we've been asked to review it, especially ahead of a recess where there's no opportunity to discuss the matter until after it's come into force. It would be a different matter, for example, if there were things in here that one would oppose. If there were clear policy differences or matters of opinion where it was suitable to oppose it, there's little to a oppose in the sense that there's nothing I disagree with. Some of the sensible changes that it does seem to be making, but there certainly are things that it could have done differently or better or should have been added to it. That's where it's unclear. If your only option is simply to lodge a motion to annul, then you're losing 70 per cent of the good bits, even if you have a problem with the other 30 per cent. That's the unfortunate position we're in. In this scenario, I think that there's no point in stopping it going ahead, but I do wonder how we can raise these issues because they could perhaps be dealt with in a further SSI, which I'm sure the Government could find an appropriate way to come to. With good time, we should stress this to the Cabinet Secretary, we should have had paper on this week's ago. I think that that kind of covers off what I was going to suggest. I think that the points that members have made are really valid ones. It's not just one or two. We've largely picked up issues across quite a number of the specific areas around which the SSI is relevant. I'm grateful to members for highlighting their concerns and thoughts around that. We now have them on the record as well. Unless anyone's planning a motion to annul, which we've spoken about, and we have no further recommendations to make, we'll proceed as planned. I think that it is important that we use the opportunity to draw attention to the matters that have been raised with the parole board and the Cabinet Secretary, and perhaps we can incorporate some further work on that at a future point. I'm grateful to members for raising those, but, as it stands at the moment, are members content not to make any recommendations to the Parliament on the instrument with the caveat that we perhaps do some further work on the points raised? Members are happy with that. Fulton, can you confirm that you're happy with that? Yes. Short and sweet. What options are available to us? Can we watch some kind of motion? I can speak to Russell separately. Do you want to speak to Steven separately on that? Do you want to do that just now? If it needs to be acted upon now, because if we don't do it now, is that... I'll take it. Essentially, it's a process of any member speaking to the chamber office and lodging a motion to annul, and I can speak to myself, Mr Finlay, after the meeting about the details of doing that. We'll probably have to be done fairly swiftly, and then arrangements are made for that motion to be considered and debated, and I can go through the process with you. It would be fairly imminent that you would need to do that in the next day or two. I'll catch you at the end of the meeting if that helps, Mr Finlay, and we can go through the process. Thank you very much indeed. That concludes our public session for today's meeting. We'll now move into private and take a short comfort break.