 Maeddiol. Cymru ag Callomolol. Mae'r freshyn yn lleolomeu Cyffredinol yr honol. Felly, mae'n ei fithio i gydyddol i fynd gynnwys Cymru i ddiglygau eich pethau ymlaenau newyddol. Felly, mae'n ei fyddio i ddiglygau fyddio i gynnwys Cymru i ddiglygau eich pethau i ddiglygau eich pethau i gynnwys Cymru i ddiglygau gynnwys Cymru i gynnwys Cymru i ddiglygau of the management of offender's bill. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. Agenda item number three is our closing evidence session on remand, and I refer members to paper one, which is note by the clerk, and paper two, which is private paper, and I'm just going to give the officials a moment to settle and start by welcoming Michael Matheson, cabinet secretary for justice, and his officials, Philip Lamont, criminal justice division, and Kerry Morgan, community justice division with the Scottish Government. I understand you wish to make an opening statement, cabinet secretary. Just a brief comment. Thank you for inviting me this morning to give evidence on remand. It has been interesting to hear the range of topics covered in the previous evidence sessions. It might be helpful to the committee if I briefly set out the Scottish Government's position. Bill decisions rightly are a matter for the courts and are made within the legal framework that this Parliament put in place back in 2007. However, I'm keen to address issues relating to the inappropriate use of remand in Scotland by working together with partners and stakeholders to consider what can be done to reduce the use of remand, where it is safe and appropriate to do so. I'm committed to reducing the use of short periods of custody, as demonstrated by our intention to extend the presumption against short prison sentences. It's clear to me that remand is just as disruptive as short prison sentences. It impacts on families and communities and adversely affects employment opportunities and stable housing. The very things that evidence shows support assistance from offending. I believe that measures such as supported bail as an alternative to remand can have a greater role to play in supporting your vision for a safer, fairer and more inclusive Scotland. Where those involved with the criminal justice system can be supported to be active and responsible contributors to their communities. Crucially, such an approach can be taken while still ensuring that public safety is appropriately maintained. I hope that that is helpful and I'm happy to answer any questions from members. We now move to questions starting with Liam Kerr. Thank you, convener. Good morning. Just to pick up on the presumption against short-term sentences. It suggested that the disadvantages that the Scottish Government has identified in short-term sentences may be shared by those that are remanded. I want to clarify that the disadvantages of short prison sentences are shared by remand. Can you elaborate on what plans you have to reduce the use of remand? Do you mean that I share the view that short-term prison sentences and remand cause disruption to people's lives and that they end up affecting their employment, potentially their housing situation, just in the way that I made a comment in my opening statement? Of course they do. They do have a similar disruptive effect. Very often the average time for someone who is in remand is something like 23 days for a male but 26 days for a female for something that could be a longer period of time. We know that key factors in helping to support assistance from criminal activities such as housing, employment and family contact are factors such that short-term prison sentences very often have a negative impact on, and I have no doubt that those who also receive remand can be impacted on those matters. There are similarities between the two. What have we been doing in relation to those matters? Over the past 10 years, remand use has been down by about a fifth. There has been a reduction of around 20 per cent in its use since 2008. That fits alongside the new provisions that were in the 2007 act, which reset the criteria and arrangements around the use of remand and the presumption favour of remand with regard to the public safety issues that have to be taken into account and the exceptions that are in the legislation. We have put in provision to help to support the development of bail supervision programmes and bail information services. We have provided additional resources specifically for female-based programmes so that they can provide specialist bail supervision and diversion programmes for women who may end up in the criminal justice system. There are a range of factors that have contributed to the reduction in the use of remand, but overall, the levels of remand are reflective of the significantly high prison population that we have as a country of our size, compared to other comparable nations across Europe. Members will be aware that Scotland has a second highest prison population in Western Europe, which is only exceeded by England and Wales. Our use of remand is broadly reflective of that high prison population, the vast majority of which are people serving short term prison sentences. You said in your opening statement that the bail decision would be a matter for the courts. What do you understand as being the main drivers between the current level of use of remand? For sentences when they are taken into account whether they hold someone on remand, the likelihood is that there will be a variety of different factors that they will take into account. The legislation requires them to consider that, so there will be a variety of different factors that they will take into account. For many of the individuals that they are dealing with, many of them will have chaotic lifestyles. On the basis of their presentation to the court, they may already have several bail orders already in place, there may be issues around their likelihood to appear in court, etc. All the criteria that has to be taken into account, including public safety matters, and sensors make that decision. I was interested when you received evidence from Sheriff Liddle. There is a perception that, if there were more services available, would that change sensors' views? I hope that I have interpreted his views correctly, that there is only one factor that they would take into account, which is what services are actually available. There is a whole range of factors that they take into account. I do not think that there is any single aspect that you could say is driving our use of remand. It is ultimately a matter for sentences. There are issues around prosecution policy that cases are marked in the central hub, which is then determined by the deputy, who is dealing with the case in court, while there is a variation from their views on what the case was marked at the time. I do not think that there is a single factor. I think that there is a variety of different things that come into play. I suspect that most centres will take into account several different factors when they are making a determination on whether they should give someone remand or not. Briefly, if I may, you talked about the inappropriate use of remand in your opening statement. Do you mean that the sentencer has come to a decision that is not appropriate? Or do you mean that it is the appropriate sanction, if you like, but is the wrong thing for the individual? What do you mean by the inappropriate use? What I mean by that is that, where there are reasonable bail supervision programmes in place that could have been appropriately used, is trying to encourage centres to make sure that they are aware of them and to make appropriate use of them as well, and whether there are bail information services in place, making sure that sentences are making as much use of those as well. Is there more that we can do to give sentencers confidence around those matters? No doubt there is, which they may find helpful. We should always be prepared to look at how we can improve the information that is available to them. It is also about looking at aspects of house. For example, I know that you will be taking a briefing later on. Is there more that we can do through the use of electronic monitoring in addressing issues relating to bail as well? I believe that there is potential scope for that in the future. It is not necessarily about making the wrong decisions, it is about making sure that they are armed with all the necessary information that they require in making that decision. That includes information about bail supervision programmes and bail information services that are available in their locality at the time when they are making those decisions. Daniel Johnson Thank you very much and again good morning cabinet secretary. The starting point for this inquiry is that the stark figures, both in terms of the proportion of the prison population, are there because of remand. I just had a briefing or a submission from the court and tribunal service that shows that under summary procedure of those people who are remanded, 40 per cent are then given a non-constodial sentence and need 12 per cent do not receive a sentence at all. Half of people on remand who are going through the summary procedure are going into prison and ultimately that is not where they are destined, which I think seems odd. Yet one of our frustrations right the way through this is that there is a lack of data as to why remand is being used. Is that a sort of a frustration you share and do you think more could be done to centrally collate the reasons and purposes that remand is being used by the courts? Can I pick up on your first point about the number of people who end up in remand then ultimately through summary proceedings that receive a custodial sentence? One of the criteria that the court should take consideration of at the time when making a determination on whether someone should be remanded or whether they should be bailed is the likelihood of them receiving a custodial sentence at the end of it. That has been the criteria that has been in place since 2007-2008, so it is a matter that will be taken into account. I fully recognise though that there will be times when a sentence or will decide that a period in remand may be appropriate from a public safety point of view, it may be for witnesses, it may be for victims' purposes that they believe it is appropriate, even though they recognise that given the nature of the offence the likelihood of a custodial sentence is probably removed. I understand that it is important that our courts have flexibility in being able to make those particular decisions. On your second point in relation to the requirement for gathering more data, I am always keen in making sure that we gather as much appropriate data as possible so long as it serves a purpose. As it stands at the present moment in our courts, when it comes to summary proceedings, the court minute would normally record whether someone has been granted bail or not, but not necessarily the reasons for it, although the sheriff at a time or judge is likely to have set out orally why bail has been granted or not. I know that the Scottish Contribunial Service has said that there is a potential for gathering data. There are downsides in terms of the costs that are involved in it and some of the bureaucracy might be associated with it. However, I would also want to be clear about whether gathering that data would help to improve things, would it change things and what purpose it would serve. I am always open to looking at whether there are areas of data that we could collect that would help to improve things, that would have a purpose and that would be unduly bureaucratic, but we need to consider this further to see whether that would truly make much of a difference if the data was gathered. Perhaps I could submit that the two possible purposes for those are one, to ensure that there is consistency, to ensure that, essentially, people are receiving broadly the same outcome from different courts. Secondly, in terms of seeking to drive system-wide change, understanding why particular outcomes are arrived at a system-wide level are useful. I was wondering if you would reflect those two broad points. Without that data, it is very difficult to establish either of those things. On your later point, I am very open to hearing what the committee has got to say in its report, having considered evidence over five sessions that you have had on remand and whether you believe that collation of other data would be helpful in understanding some of those aspects. Would it deliver greater consistency? I am not sure that it will, because the relatives that often make decisions about bail and remand are very individualised, depending on the individual, the circumstances, the history, etc. It would be very difficult to create a data collection system that would allow us to have that direct comparison. I understand where you are coming from, but I suspect that there are just such variations in cases appearing in court that it would be very difficult to envisage a data collection system that would allow us to have that direct comparison between cases. However, I am open to looking at whether there are, given evidence that you have heard, where you believe that some further data collection could assist in understanding what is going on in the use of remand. However, my note of caution is that it needs to be the collection of data that serves a purpose in improving how the system would operate. What we are trying to achieve from the collection of data and if what we are trying to achieve could improve how the system is operating, then let's look to see if we can develop a data collection system that would help to facilitate that particular improvement, rather than just collecting data for the sake of it. Connected to data, are the individual court records enough? I can make a bit of a distinction. To my mind, data is about the aggregate view and collating data at that system-wide level, whereas individual courts will have a record of each case. You mentioned in a previous answer that the sheriff will ordinarily give a reason why he is granting bail or putting someone in remand but that that is not necessarily always recorded and certainly not always recorded in the same way. Given both the seriousness and the general concern that we should be trying to minimise the use of remand, whether or not there is scope in terms of what is recorded and in particular recording the reason that the sheriff gives when he is putting someone on remand rather than granting bail? The first thing would be that, in some of the cases, the minute of the court would just record the basic detail and that was whether remand was granted or not. If it was a solemn case, then everything is noted, so much more detail is held on those matters. I think that it would be more a case of, would the recording of the data start to drive change in the system? For example, we had, I commissioned three pilots in three different sheriffdoms around two and a half years ago now using improvement methodology on looking at the use of remand and bail, a big part of which was about collecting data during the course of those particular exercises. One of the things that it did show was just great variations in the use of remand from day to day, quite literally and from quote to quote, depending on what they were actually hearing. If we were to create a statutory requirement for the sheriff and for the court to record exactly the reasons for not granting bail, there is additional bureaucracy that goes with that, but not with standing at and going back to the original point that I was making is that what is the purpose of doing that and what change will it drive in the system? Even if the court minute writes down and it has got noted the reason that it was what we said orally in quote, why remand has not been granted, what purpose does that serve in affecting any change in the system and how remand is being used? That would be the key factor in my mind in determining whether there should be any change to the data collection system. Will it drive change and improvement? What improvement are we trying to achieve here? Although we collected a lot of data during the course of the three piots that we had in three different sheriffdoms, the data did not give effect to changing practice. It just demonstrated that we are marked variations taking place. I suggest that, if you can spot variations, that does not necessarily lead to changes in practice but at least allows you to identify where changes potentially required. I would also add that there is one other reason. I would suggest that, when you are depriving someone of their liberty, that recording the reason why I would suggest is quite important. The wider purpose is in terms of the system to one side, in terms of just the individual case and the individual person. If you are depriving them of their liberty, being very clear in recording the clear reason why their liberty is being deprived, I think that it is important to know what your reflection on that point would be. I suppose that we are going into the territory of what is in a court minute and what is not in a court minute. I would imagine that the Lord President would have views on what would be appropriate in being recorded in what. As I said, when it comes to solo matters, everything is recorded in these matters within the court. All the details are recorded, unlike in summary cases. I hear what you are saying about it. I will be interested in hearing what the committee's views are given evidence that you have heard about data and whether you feel that additional data collection would be helpful. I am not opposed to it. I just want to understand what purpose it will serve and what potential benefit could come from it. To make sure that any additional data that is going to be collected has a purpose to it and can help to inform practice and improvement in the system. I am very much open to looking at whether additional data collection could assist and improve things, but I am very mindful of the fact that it should have a clear purpose to it than about having effect on the system. Liam McArthur is supplementary. I take your point about the allocation of resources. We have heard considerable evidence that resources that become available could be usedfully spent, not necessarily in data collection, but following on from Daniel Johnson's line of questioning, notwithstanding the variability that I think you quite rightly pointed out, it would be a concern if it was not being captured, whether in an individual court or across the piece, that consistently, as part of the unwillingness to Grant Bale, was a picture of the lack of availability of services or the services that were available were not deemed to be effective enough either because multiple referrals to those services had not achieved the outcomes necessary. At least that information would allow some kind of policy response in terms of addressing whatever shortcomings there is, either in the lack of the service being available at all or in its effectiveness in a particular area. Would that not be a valuable outcome to be derived from the data-gathering that Daniel Johnson referred to? Potentially, although it is important to keep in mind that the presumption is in favour of Bale, the use of Bale information services and Bale supervision programmes is, as an alternative to the person being remanded. It should not be that someone who would ordinarily receive Bale should, in the quote, see it being appropriate, then they should receive Bale, irrespective as to what services are available. Wherever they are considering remand for someone and that they believe that the services that are available provide a viable alternative to someone being remanded, it is important that those services are known to the sheriff to be able to make a decision or the judge to make a decision in determination at that particular point. That is an important distinction to make around how the existing arrangements operate. I am open to where there is further data that could be collated, but I will re-emphasise this point about the need for it to have purpose and what we are trying to achieve with it. I go back to the evidence that you received from the Sheriff's Association very often, the reason for deciding not to. I think that you got this from the Edinburgh Bar Association as well. Very often, the Sheriff's Association judges in determining not to grant Bale is that there will be several factors that will often lead to that, rather than a single factor on its own. It may be that service provision is only one aspect that it would consider anyway if the word determining matters. If it is helpful, cabinet secretary, I think that the lack of data just generally is a theme that has run through the Parliament in consecutive years since its inception. Where possible if it is not to burdensome without trying to second-guess the purpose of the data if as much can be recorded as possible, because you never know in the future when there is an aspect that could be useful. I think that that is generally how I certainly would look at the emphasis in trying to record as much as possible. You received evidence from the Scottish Court Service, so we are saying that if there were additional measures put in place, it would have resource implications for them, not just financial resource but also court time resource. Our courts are very often under significant pressures. That is why I am very clear about that. I am not necessarily a fan of collecting data for the sake of it. It is better that if we are going to provide or request additional data to be collected, we should be clear about what the purpose is and what we are trying to achieve from the collection of that data, rather than creating a new bureaucracy and cost in burden that could otherwise be avoided. There is certainly the burden on the cost and very cognisance of that, but when you second-guess what might be appropriate data, it sometimes eliminates things that suddenly jump out from data. Are we having so many vulnerable people here? Is there a niche or a gap here or wherever? No doubt, if I was to make a request for lots of data to be collected and then people start to say that this is created around new bureaucracy and it is causing delays in cases because we have not collected all those data, people will say that you have created a bureaucracy that is unnecessary. I am just saying that when you go into collecting data, we should be mindful of the potential negative consequences that go alongside that, while at the same time be clear about what we are trying to achieve from the data collection, so that we are not asking Sheriff to spend more time collecting data or clarts of the courts to spend more time and resources dealing with matters, cases being delayed and court time being used up purely for the collection of data, because people like to pour over the data when it does not really have any effect on improving how the system is operating. If there is a view that we should go down that route, it should have a purpose to it and open up the potential to improve it, rather than just creating bureaucracy for the sake of it. I think that we are agreed that there is a balance to be struck. There is a balance to be struck, but I am not a fan of just collecting data for the sake of it because people like to collect data. I would like to move us on to the experience of remand, what actually happens to people when they are remanded. In 2013, the former justice committee reported on purposeful activities being carried out in prisons and said that there was a lack of opportunity for remand prisoners to be participating in purposeful activities. So, are you able to tell us, please, cabinet secretary, what has happened since then? Has there been an improvement? What opportunities are there now that perhaps were not five years ago? The purposeful activity framework that was introduced by the Scottish Prison Service was a long-standing piece of work that they carried out in looking at how they could make sure that the range of programmes that are available within our prison service are much more effective and much more consistently available across the system and targeted at the appropriate prisoner group as they can best serve. The challenge that you have with remand prisoners is a time frame for which they are actually in prison, which is extremely difficult for them to engage in purposeful activity programmes as a result. As I am sure that the committee would recognise, the purposeful activity programmes and education programmes, etc., which the Scottish Prison Service operate, are prioritised in being targeted at those who are convicted prisoners. They have a fixed timeline in which they can then engage with those individuals and work with them. For remand prisoners, they very often do not have that. The reality is that the opportunity to undertake work with someone who is unconvicted in prison for a very short period of time and at that stage it could be an undefined period of time as well, depending on what progress is made with their particular case, for the prison service to be able to deploy significant resources and provide them with additional input. The reality is that my personal view is that for the prison service to be able to affect much change in someone in such a short period of time, it is just wholly unrealistic. For many of them, they will come in and go through the same process as a convicted prisoner in being assessed, both in general terms and medically as well. They will have the opportunity to participate in education programmes, where there is availability for them, but for many cases it will be a case of stabilising them. Many of these are individuals who will be coming in with a chaotic lifestyle and potentially a significant drug problem. The prison service will need to prioritise to manage. Any medium to long-term work that you would expect through purposeful activity programmes is very limited in what you can do with someone in remand. You have the opportunity to participate in programmes, although the priority is given to convicted prisoners. However, I think that it is highly unrealistic to expect the prison service to have much effect on someone in changing them given a very limited period of time that someone might be in remand for. The fact that, very often, the prison service will not have a defined period of time is to know how long that person is going to be with them in remand. I understand the point that you make. I am now remanded for an undefined period of time, and I want to engage in purposeful activity. Will that be available to me or, because of the pressures that you have identified, I would not be able to positively engage in? If there is availability, they are entitled to be able to participate in education programmes. Will that availability be there as far as you are aware? Priority will be given to convicted prisoners. That continues to be the case, because they are there for a defined period of time. They have been assessed, engaged in programmes in order to address their offending behaviour. Remand prisoners are unconvicted prisoners. As you have already heard from Daniel Johnson, one of your own colleagues, 40 per cent of them will not end up getting a custodial sentence. No priority is given to convicted prisoners. I believe that that is the right thing to do, given that those are individuals who have been convicted, therefore a defined period of time, and it is about addressing their offending behaviour. Where there is additional capacity, where there is scope to provide opportunities for unconvicted prisoners, are unconvicted individuals who are in prison that they can participate in programmes. It was a follow-on directly from Liam Kerr's question, but, in relation to young people, I visited a Rossie school just outside Montrose recently, which is a residential secure facility for young people, where they talked about young people being put on remand. Obviously, the adverse impact that that can have on them is that they are in a prison environment, as opposed to an educational environment, where they feel that they are better able to work with young people and have a more positive impact on them during their time in remand than being in a prison environment and the adverse impact that that can have on a young person's life. Is that something that is being looked at at all, or is that something that can be looked at in terms of where we put young people when they are placed on remand? I think that the way to deal with young people is to try and prevent them from getting engaged in the criminal justice system in the first place, and their whole system approach is probably to be very effective in doing that. We have saw the number of young people who end up in custody as a result being reduced significantly, which has also meant that the number of young people who end up in remand being reduced significantly, and that is the approach that we are continuing to take. My view is that if we are to affect change, particularly around young people who are coming into contact with our criminal justice system, it is about prevention as well. If the arrangements in some way like the Polmund Young Offenders Institute are somewhat different from our adult prisons in terms of the range of services that are available for young people who may be remanded there, I agree that there is an opportunity for them to be in another setting rather than somewhere like Polmund that would be more appropriate for them. That is the approach that we should take. That approach has been taken through our youth justice strategy, which has had a significant impact on the number of young people who end up in custody. The way in which we should look at that is to try to prevent them from getting into that setting in the first place and to work hard to achieve that, and to have our resources targeted at helping to reduce the need for young people to end up in custody through remand or any other means. However, when they end up in need to go into remand, there is the opportunity to look at other settings as and when that is appropriate for that young person's needs and also to give them just safety issues and circumstances. You spoke earlier about the negative effects that remand can have on prisoners and their families, and the chief inspector of prisons agrees with that. Community Justice Scotland talks about the stress caused in relationships and the impact on housing and employment, etc. Can you maybe outline what the Government is doing to mitigate those negative effects? Part of that is to try and help to make sure that we are getting the balance and the use of remand right in some of the measures that I mentioned earlier on, such as the bail supervision programmes, the bail information service, the shine mentoring programme, the routes programme that we have for males, and they are all about trying to help to support people in moving on or to prevent them from getting remand as well. One of the important elements around individuals who are in remand is to try and help to make sure that we maintain family links. On a position where we have 11 of our prison establishments, we have a family centre provision. There were four introduced in the course of last year. There is a further one that will be introduced this year, which will take us up to 12 of our 15 establishments, and we are providing funding support for them. The purpose behind them is to provide an environment that allows the help to maintain and support family links and to give support and advice to the families as well. While someone is either in prison or they are on remand, someone who is on remand obviously has different visiting rights from a convicted prisoner, so remand prisoners are entitled to daily visits. The visitor centres can be a much more helpful environment to help to support families if they are visiting prison on such a frequent basis, and if there are children involved as well. It is worth keeping in mind that we know that a period in custody for a parent is a recognised adverse childhood experience—an ACE—that we know can have a negative impact on a child's development in their development future years. We need to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to help to support the needs of families and children who might be affected by parental imprisonment, whether that is due to remand or whether it is a prison sentence. The work that we do through the family centres is targeted at trying to help to address those issues. The other aspects such as housing and so on have the shore guidelines in place, which are about helping to ensure that people get housing if they come out of remand, or whether it is a period in prison. The work that we do through our through-care officers—I would very much encourage you to consider the report that was carried out into the effectiveness of through-care officers, which has been transformational in the way in which the prison service goes about supporting people when they move out of prison. Sometimes that will involve working with individuals where it is appropriate who have been remanded as well in supporting them for two to three months once they move into the community through the prison service. There is a range of different factors that are put in place to try to help to address some of those issues. Collectively, I think that they can help to address some of those matters. However, there is always going to be a level of damage that is caused by someone when they are in prison, whether it be for remand or if they have been convicted. What we need to do is to try to help to make sure that we do as much as possible to address some of the consequences that come from that. We are also helping to maximise the potential for when they go back into the community to minimise the risk of them coming back into prison and to maximise the opportunity for them to become productive contributors to their society. That is a short version of some of the measures that we have put in place to try to address some of the issues that you have just mentioned. I was aware of the support systems available, but I was not sure if they were available to those in remand, so I thank you for clarifying that. Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary. Good morning. I would like to ask a question. In a number of sessions, we heard the fact that there was information delays for data, for medical data that was coming to prisoners that were in remand, people who had an alcoholic or a drug use or chaotic lifestyles, or even someone who has got asthma and heart condition. Basically, they were presenting themselves to prison, but the data was not following them and their actual medical records. Are you confident that the NHS and the prison services are working together to try and sort this issue? That seems pretty basic and not beyond the sense to be able to take that information to them. It is worth keeping in mind that, back in 2011, we made a decision to transfer health and medical services within our prison service to the NHS in order to help to improve that flow of data. Prior to that period, we had a Scottish Prison Service that was responsible for providing health and medical services within the prison estate. One of the real challenges that came out of that was the transfer of information and data, not just into prison, but also back out of prison. By transferring it to the NHS, it was about helping to make sure that flow was addressed. I believe that that has improved significantly. Are there aspects that could probably improve further? I suspect that there are, and some of the evidence that you have heard would demonstrate the need for that to be taken forward. One of the areas of work that we are taking forward in government—my health minister calls it—is off the back of the health committee's report on looking at healthcare provision within the prison estate. Some of the measures that need to be taken forward to improve the consistency of the way in which healthcare is being provided. It would be fair to say that some health boards are better than others. For example, my own health board has three prisons that it has to cover. It has Pullman Young offenders, it has got Cormpton Vale and it has got Gunoco, NHS Four Valley. By and large, it delivers a very good service and is very attuned to working close partnership with the Scottish Prison Service. There are other parts of the country where we need to refine that and make it work better. There are aspects where we can further improve the work that my colleagues and health ministers are taking forward about trying to help to improve how that can happen. We have also created the joint health and justice improvement collaboration board, which is headed up by the director general for health and the director general for justice. It has a range of different parties, including the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service and the chief executive of NHS Scotland, looking at targeted measures that they can take forward across our justice system, but that includes our prison service and improving how we are getting the flow of data and those partnerships right in making sure that people receive the right service. By and large, when someone goes into prison, they will have that being screened by a nurse, provision of a very often to say adopted within 24 hours if that is necessary. There will be a consistency in how those services are being delivered. I think that there was some anecdotal suggestion in your evidence around whether people were getting access to their medication at the right times. My only note of caution on that is that there is a hard evidence to demonstrate that that is the case. If there is a hard evidence to demonstrate that that is the case, there is no doubt that both the NHS, whichever board is responsible for it, and whichever prison it is referred to, is to address that issue and to sort it out. Although my understanding is from the Scottish Prison Service that they were not aware of a particular concern being raised with them, they are open to address it if there is evidence that there are particular establishments where there are problems. I would say that those partnerships are stronger now than they have ever been as a result of the NHS now delivering prison service healthcare. There are some health boards who are doing it better than others and others that need to improve further. The work that has been taken forward by my health calls is about helping to improve that, and the work that we are taking forward in the health and justice improvement collaboration board is about helping to make sure that at a strategic level there is much clearer direction in addressing some of those issues. However, although there are individual concerns, those are issues that both the prison service and the NHS locally should be able to address readily as and when they are raised with them. Just to follow on from what you have said, some of the evidence that we have received is that people are not necessarily getting sent to a prison that is quite local to them, so not only do they get the distance, the difference in their medical records going on, but they also have the issue that there is a distance as well. One of the other points is that I asked Colin McConnell of the Scottish Prison Service whether he believed that the information sharing was a data protection problem or a process problem. His answer was that it is about all of that. There are information sharing blockages that are related to particular permissions that are not allowed to be given across organisations without the individual giving their say. Without doubt, there is a system and a process issue that is simply getting away because systems are incompatible. That is not beyond us to resolve, but it is a huge challenge for us. He has backed up what you have said, cabinet secretary, but the whole process, we still have this issue where there seems to be multiple various—we talk about a national health service, but within the various boards, there tends to be different IT systems. It seems to be basic things like that, and I know that IT is never basic, but it is basically informational. That is the kind of key. Surely there is some way, in your opinion, how do you think that we can actually overcome what seems to be a technical aspect if not a challenging one? I am not an IT expert in terms of the technical fixes in those things, which I think is often the term that is used by IT experts, what the fix should be. In terms of policy, well, just to give you an example, pre-2011, the challenge that you had was that you had Scottish Prison Service nurses and medical staff who would have difficult to be able to access the NHS medical data from a data protection point of view. What you now have is that you have NHS staff working within the prison estate so that they can access the NHS information as required. Part of the challenge will be having systems within the Scottish Prison Service, a computer system that gives them access to that NHS data. Some of the wider data issues are matters that are being considered by the Health and Justice Collaboration Improvement Board. That strategic work that needs to be taken forward so that we are looking at where there are barriers, blockages, whatever it may be, if it is an IT solution, is there a much more strategic approach that we can take to this? What I prefer to avoid doing is that each of our prison service establishments that are in different health board areas all have to have different fixes to be able to access the appropriate NHS information and the transferring of that information. It would be good to do once for Scotland, and that would be for the Scottish Prison Service in having a system that allows, as a minute, necessary within a prison establishment, no matter where it is in the country, to be able to access the appropriate medical records. That would be my view from a justice perspective. I am conscious, even within the NHS, that there are aspects between different health boards that might be able to access and share information as well, so I do not kid myself on that that is an easy thing to resolve. That is why we have brought together this new body that has some of the key leaders within both the justice and the health setting to deal with some of the more strategic issues. Part of that is about IT and data sharing and appropriate protocols being in place and systems in place that can help to facilitate that more readily. Okay, thank you, cabinet secretary. Supplementaries, starting with Daniel, Mary and then Jenny. Thank you. Just following on from George Adam's line of questioning, you are quite correct. The evidence that you heard about the delays were anecdotal, but they are coming from people with a wealth of experience. Indeed, we are repeated when the committee had a visit last week with Circle, who has got a fantastic track record. What they were telling us was that people are often waiting weeks, if not months, to see a doctor. To my mind, that sounds wholly unacceptable. If that is the case, we would share that point of view that it would be unacceptable for someone to wait weeks, if not months, to see a doctor if they are in prison. Depends on what purpose it is. For example, it could be someone in the community who requires to see a doctor for a particular specialist's purpose, so that there can be a waiting period for them to see someone. I am not sure whether it is those individuals who have just not seen a doctor full stop or that they are being referred to see a particular commission for a specific purpose. When we were discussing this with Circle, there was broad agreement that that was just a generalised problem, but we were talking specifically about addictions in particular. If it was to see, for example, a GP or to see a clinician, if they were waiting weeks for the purpose of actually seeing someone for a basic medical appointment, I would have concerns about it. It may be that, for some specific service, it may be that a referral is being made into specific specialist services such as addiction services, is that they will be meeting the demands that are coming from within the community as well. For individuals in the community, there may also be a waiting period in order to see someone. I am just trying to understand whether it is about basic healthcare issues and seeing someone like a GP or whether it is someone being referred into a specialist service. There are actually just demands for that service within that health bold area that there is a waiting time to see a clinician from that specialist, not because they are in prison, but just because of general demand on that service. I quite understand that you cannot react to the specifics. I was just really just trying to share our slight shock by that report. The other shocking thing from last week, certainly from my perspective, was that someone self-reports with an addiction problem without a prior prescription or prior diagnosis. They will only be referred if they have three positive drugs tests within prison. That is what we were being told by Circle, but the implication is that the only way that that would be possible is if they were procuring drugs illegally within prison. That strikes again me as being a very worrying situation. Indeed, anyone who is self-reporting is having an addiction problem. At the very least, that is drug-seeking behaviour and would be a worry in and of itself even if they were not correctly reporting the situation. Is that a report that you would want to follow up on and would that concern you if that was the case? I think that you need to get a better understanding of this. Is this a problem that has been peculiar to Circle? This is certainly something that they were reporting and the practitioners that were there who were discussing it, they were all in broad agreement that that was a... No one... This wasn't one particular individual and everybody else reacting in shock. This seemed to be a well-understood situation and problem. It may well be worth following up with them directly, but that was what the route was reported. Circle? Circle? Oh, sorry, yes. You were saying Circle? No, no, no, no, no. From the charity, rather than the... Oh, sorry, right, okay. Circle, sorry. I've misheard you. I apologise for that. I'm happy for us to look at that. I think we just need to understand exactly what that is. It sounds to me if there is a requirement for three positive tests. There is some protocol of some sort in place. I don't know what the history of that protocol is and why it was put in place. It may be there is good reason for it being in place, but until I know about that and have an understanding of that, I'm not entirely sure about it. I'm more than happy for that to be an issue that we can take away and to try to identify what the issues are. Circle, I think, is a third sector organisation if there is an issue about some of the experiences that they are having that we can pick up on and have those to see if those can be addressed. It sounds to me as though there may be a system in place that may be having some unintended consequences, but before committing to saying, well, that should end or it should change, I need to understand what the rationale and the reasoning behind that is, but I can certainly take that away and we can look into that matter. I think that that would be extremely helpful. Thank you. Mary, your aspect has been covered to Jenny. Good morning, cabinet secretary, and to the panel. We know that we lock up more women in Scotland than any other part of the UK, so I want to focus on women's experiences of bail. The committee has taken evidence from communities just as Scotland previously and we're told that provision of services was patchy, with a witness stating that I worry for women in rural areas. The position is great for those who live in town centres where there are probably enough people to justify having a service. In a letter to the committee earlier this year, the Government has committed £1.5 million to local authorities to improve bail support services for women. I suppose that this goes back to one of the questions that we spoke about at the beginning of today's session, which is the purpose of data. How is the Government monitoring local authorities' spend of that fund to ensure that there is national parity in services offered to women? The way in which resources are deployed for the purposes of delivering bail and bail supervision and bail information services is through the criminal justice social work funding, which is around £100 million a year for ringfence money. It is then down to those individual local authorities to determine what services they deliver in their area. What we don't do is ringfence within the criminal justice social work budget, and you have to deploy for the purposes of bail services. It is then determined by local authority. What is ringfence is the £1.5 million that we provide for the purposes of those programmes that are provided for targeted female offenders. They report back to us on an annual basis on the delivery of those services and the way in which they are using those resources. I hope that it will be helpful. We can provide you with further information on the way in which that has been taken forward. Some of them are targeted at reducing the risk of people ending up in the criminal justice system, some are targeted at helping to reduce the requirement for remand, as an alternative to remand. We haven't prescribed how they should go about it. We have allowed them the scope to be able to determine what they believe is appropriate in their circumstances, but the additional money that we provide for the purposes of female-based programmes is a ring-fenced element. That comes off the back of a change fund that we set up back in 2015. It came to an end, but we continued with the funding specifically for female-based programmes. That is distributed across the country via a formula that is agreed by local authorities. It is then for them to determine how they use it at a localised level. However, they report back to us on that matter. We can draw together some information and share that with the committee if that would be useful. I would like to ask a further question. Can I go back to Rona Mackay's point on young people? It is not always because a young person is involved in the justice system that they have experience of it. Obviously, if their parent is in the justice system, they will have direct experience of it, as you have already alluded to, Cabinet Secretary. David Strang has previously told the committee that many women face additional, more complex needs such as child custody issues. Social Work Scotland told the committee that people will not always tell children the truth about what has happened, but children will know that something is not quite right. I was really interested, Cabinet Secretary, when you spoke about the Government's work more broadly on additional adverse childhood experiences. I wonder to what extent you are working directly with the Cabinet Secretary for Education in terms of joining up the work of the Justice Department and the work of education on tackling adverse childhood experiences in that respect. That is a really important issue, because it is an area where we have now got, I believe, in government a much more extensive level of engagement that is taking place across portfolios in order to address those issues. You only have to look at a programme for government document where there is a specific section in it around adverse childhood experiences and a range of different measures that are taken forward across portfolios, whether it be in education, justice and health, in order to address those issues. We recently had the Deputy First Minister, who hosted an event in Glasgow, the Bell Houston Academy, where there were stakeholders across justice, health and education, including ministers, who are specifically looking at a range of different policy measures that can be taken forward to address issues around ACEs. For example, the work that we are doing around the— Is there any sector in Scotland to interrupt, but we are slightly off-subject a little bit and we are going on for an hour or so. You can continue, but be mindful of the time. We are just conscious that Raman is a paid-in-custy as I recognise this. Just to say that one of the things that we are doing in order to try to address some of those issues is, for example, through the family centres at our prison establishments to help to provide support to families that may be affected by imprisonment to make sure that we are providing a greater level of support and resource to those individuals and the children in particular. The expansion that we have had over the past year as a reflection of us recognising the real need to make sure that we maintain those family links to address some of the underlying causes that can then result in adverse childhood events for children. I hope that that is a practical policy illustration, but there is absolutely no doubt from a governmental point of view at a strategic level in looking to try and join up the dots around that particular area to minimise the damage that is caused to children who experience custody. The 2008 report from the Scottish Prisoners Commission stated that often reminds us of the result of the lack of information or the lack of services in the community to support people on bail. Has things changed very much since 2008 until now? Yes, they have. The range of bail supervision services that are available and also bail information services that are available have increased. For example, the comments of making around provision of resource for female-specific programmes has increased. That is reflected by the fact that there has been a reduction of some 20 per cent in the use of remand over that period of time since 2008. Having said that, is there more we need to do? Of course, it will be interesting to hear what the committee has got to say and what you believe are the areas that we need to make further progress on. However, yes, there have been improvements. Progress has been made, but there is no doubt more we could do and we should do. I hope that your committee report will help in identifying some of the areas in which further progress can be made. I was interested in the earlier cabinet secretary. That was about pilot projects that have taken place in Hamilton, Dundee and Paisley. We have heard differing views on the impact of supervised bail on the issue of remand. Does the Scottish Government have any specific evidence on that issue? With the exception of the evaluation, there was the evaluation in 2012 of the existing bail arrangements that we have in place. If I recall correctly, from that particular report, there was reference to bail supervision being valuable and assisting and helping to improve how the system is operating. I do not know whether the committee is aware of that evaluation report that was carried out. That was evaluating the changes that took place in 2007 and how they were operating. It came back and demonstrated that the existing bail arrangements that we have in place are robust, fair and appropriate in how they operate. Part of it made reference to bail supervision programmes and the value that comes from bail supervision programmes. There has been some evaluation carried out. The specific pathfinder projects, why were those areas chosen? What is different about them from elsewhere, please? Those were somewhat different. Those were informed by the use of improvement methodology. Improvement methodology has been used in our healthcare setting. For example, our patient safety programme has been developed on that basis. I was keen to look at whether we could use that type of improvement methodology in aspects of our criminal justice system that could help to drive some change in improvement in it. We worked in partnership with the Scottish Court and Tribunal Service and with the current office to see where we could identify a couple of sheriffdoms where we could test out whether that type of methodology could make a contribution to how our court system is operating, particularly around the use of remand. Those three particular sheriffdoms were identified, by and large because of sheriff principles that were interested and keen to explore how that could operate. The three of the pilots operate in slightly different models and a different approach to them. They were designed in partnership at a localised level, and it was to test out whether there were certain measures that could be put in place that would drive change around the use of remand. The results have been very mixed, and part of that goes back to an answer that was given earlier on about the consistency element of it, that demonstrates that there is no real consistency in the use of remand because of the different nature of the cases that are presenting in courts. Arbitrary levels or specific comparisons prove to be very difficult in itself. It demonstrates that information being available to sentences was valuable in helping them to understand the input from criminal justice and social workers, and it was important in giving sentences confidence in whether they were going to use bail as opposed to remand in certain cases. It gave us some important insights, but it did not demonstrate that it would make significant change in the system, and it demonstrated the significant variations that we can have even within an individual in the course of a day over the use of remand. It was trying to test out improvement methodologies to where that was a method that could help us in trying to get some level of consistency, and it demonstrated that it was actually very difficult to do just because of the nature and variation of the cases that the courts are dealing with. What is the Scottish Government doing to ensure that there is sustainable funding for an effective funding to help the third sector services to be effective? We provide direct funding to a couple of third sector organisations directly. We shine, would be one of them. We provide direct funding to the new routes as well. The funding for bail supervision and bail information services that are operated by third sector organisations will be provided by local authorities in working in partnership with them. From my perspective, where we can achieve it, I prefer to be able to provide third sector organisations with a consistency of funding over a couple of years. That is not always possible, but where it can be, I would seek to achieve that. The decisions on how funding is arrived at a local level between third sector organisations and local authorities do appreciate as a matter for them. In our discussions and information gathering, one of the things that has come through loud and clear is that they find it very difficult to budget beyond one year, because the funding comes through from local authority to them. In particular, this was very much mentioned to me by SACRO in discussions that I had to meet him on the other day. It concerns me because it would like to do some really good substantial planning, but doing it for a year is very difficult. Has the Government considered looking further along the term? Part of the challenge has been around the comprehensive spending review. If we do not know what is happening three years down the line, it is difficult for Government to plan, so if we do not know what our budgets are going to look like, it is difficult to offer others. Where can we do it? For example, the new funding that I announced last week for victim support Scotland over £13 million is over a three-year period in order to allow them a three-year period to know what their budget is going to look like to develop the new homicide service, a single point of contact to create a much more victim-centred approach. That three-year funding, where I have been able to do that, I have sought to provide that, but I am conscious that that is not always possible in certain areas. I recognise some of the challenges that local authorities have. That is not peculiar to the criminal justice setting, though. It is across the third sector and across the public sector in general, going from annual budgets. I recognise the challenges of that, but I have illustrated to you an example of where we can do it. We try to achieve funding over a couple of years to give them time to plan and to manage for services and to develop for services where we can. Cabinet Secretary, following the reforms to community justice that was made by the Community Justice Scotland Act 2016, the Scottish Government has responsibility for the national strategy and the national performance framework. We have mentioned the third sector and the requirements to use it to support alternatives to remand. Can I perhaps read you some of the concerns that the committee heard from Apex, for example, that it has been quite difficult because there is an underlying tension between the strategy and the localism agenda, and a vast amount of money is still going through the local authority filter. More specifically, going back to legislations, you will recall that there was a little bit of concern if the third sector would be involved to the extent that we would all like it to see. Here they say that there has been a reduction in third sector involvement in structures across local authorities. The legislation only suggests that they should include the third sector in their decision-making and strategic plans. Is there something that we could look at to firm this up a little bit to make sure that they are absolute partners given the very valuable contribution that they make? It is very clear that third sector organisations play an important part of the mix of services for working with individuals. That is why we as a Government provide some direct support to them. It is down to individual local authorities to decide on who they have direct partnerships with in the delivery of services at a local level. I think that there is a danger that, if you were to put in legislation, that is why the legislation does not specify that. It is that they must have third sector involvement in it because it may be in some local authority areas. There is not a third sector organisation who can deliver that service for them. It needs to be delivered by a statutory organisation such as local authority themselves. However, it is down to each individual local authority to determine what type of relationship they have with third sector organisations for delivering those services. I go back to your first point. That was about the issue of funding and the way in which Apex raised the issue about how funding still goes through local authorities. Do you remember when Paul Wheelhouse took the legislation through Parliament, when we brought forward the criminal justice bill? There were those who wanted criminal justice Scotland to be the budget holder and to determine how that money should then be distributed at a local level. It was very strong opposition to that idea, particularly from our local authorities, in saying, why are we creating another body that is now going to have control over how our money is going to be used? We agreed that the approach that we would be taking is that, although there would be a small amount of money that would be retained by community justice Scotland, the vast majority of that money would be distributed to local authorities to determine how it should be used within their own local environments. That was a debate that was rehearsed at that particular point. I recognise the point that they are making, but it is one that was considered at a time when the legislation was being taken through Parliament. It is a decision for local authorities to determine which third sector organisations they choose to engage with and on what basis, and for the delivery of other services that they believe are appropriate at a local level. I recognise some of the challenges that come from third sector organisations. I have seen some fantastic work being carried out by third sector organisations. There are some very good strong relationships between local authorities and third sector organisations that deliver very effective and good-quality services. One of the things that I am keen to ensure that we see more of is a sharing of good practice in those areas. Some of the work that community justice Scotland is taking forward is looking at how we can much more effectively share that good practice. Where there are good relationships, good services that have been developed and partnerships that are working extremely well, how can we share that with other parts of the country to demonstrate how it operates? One of the areas of work that community justice Scotland is taking forward is looking at how we can more effectively share that good practice across all the local authority areas, and that includes the work that it does with third sector bodies. In terms of legislation, you may mention where appropriate, so would it, for example, rather than saying only suggest that you include, strengthen that to must where appropriate? Strengthens a bit, but still gives that flexibility, and there is a subtle difference there that does make sure that the third sector would be more involved. While the funding goes through the local authorities, that gives you an element of localism with restrained budgets, there is always the temptation that local authorities are going to look at an in-house service, whereas very often it is the third sector that has the flexibility, the experience, and the ability to provide a better service, which is better value for money, but more than that, which has a better outcome for the recipient of that service. I think that you recognise that yourself, cabinet secretary, from your favourites experience. You will recall that you were a member of the committee that passed the legislation with existing terms up within it, and these were issues that were considered at the time. The legislation has only been placed for a year, and I am not minded to start looking at changing the legislation at this stage. I am not convinced by putting something in legislation that you must do that will make it happen. Relationships between third sector and local authorities or any service are better undertaken on a mutually agreed basis, rather on a forced basis. That is why the work that the community justice Scotland is doing around helping to share good practice and understanding about how things can operate more effectively and how they are working in some areas and how that can be translated into other parts of the country is much more valuable than trying to find a place to fix it. That is not something that requires a place to fix, it is something about culture and approach. If you try to force a local authority into having to undertake a service with a third sector organisation and they do not want to do so, but they are doing it pure because they legally have to do so, it is going to lead to a positive relationship. That sharing of good practice and positive work in relationships is much more valuable than looking for any type of place to fix it. Amily Coelman, you are absolutely right. I was a member of that committee that passed legislation and I labored it at some length, as Mr Wewhouse will probably tell you. It is worth raising again that the third sector is so valuable in so many ways that, if they are being disadvantaged or the perception is that they are, it is most certainly something that we would look at. I would ask you again to consider the language in the legislation, which is absolutely crucial. It is not forcing anyone, it is just a shift of emphasis to suggesting to must where appropriate that it is stronger, but you have given your view, cabinet secretary, I do not want to dwell on that. I will be absolutely clear. I have got no intention of revisiting the legislation and I do not believe that this is a matter that requires a place to fix. I understand that, but I think that the point was worth making. We now move on to John Finnie. Cabinet secretary, it has been argued that electronic monitoring should be available as a condition of bail and I know that we will come on to discuss that at a future date, but what plans does the Scottish Government have in this area? It has been raised in the course of this. You are about to have a briefing on the bill. One of the provisions that we have sought to provide in the bill is that powers were ministers could bring forward some potential pilots around the use of electronic monitoring within the area of an alternative to remand. There has been some practice around that in the past that was not very effective. I think that there are a variety of reasons as to why it was not effective in terms of screening to make sure that you are identifying the right type of individuals. It would have been radio frequency electronic monitoring that would have been undertaken at that time, whereas part of the management offenders bill will allow us to use GPS monitoring, which is much more effective in terms of knowing where someone is at a given time, etc. I think that it has the potential. What I am keen to do is to make sure that we have the legislative powers to be able to test some of that out to see whether it could add an additional dimension to the range of work that we already have around programmes as alternatives to remand. However, we have to do that carefully, because it is not just about providing electronic monitoring of other services that have to sit alongside that. I want to make sure that we do that in an appropriate fashion. In part of the briefing that you will hear later on, it will set out some of the provisions that we are intending to have in the bill and with the support of Parliament that will give us the scope to be able to test some of that out. The potential now with GPS monitoring is greater than what we had previously with the radio frequency electronic monitoring. The only other thing that I would say is that we have to be cautious of is that we do not simply see it as being used for up-tariffing. Someone who, at present time, would receive bail by and large or someone who would receive bail with the appropriate bail information service or bail supervision provision, anything that we do in electronic monitoring must be over and above that as an alternative to remand. That is why I want us to be quite cautious on how we take it forward, because it would be quite an innovative way for us to move around the use of electronic monitoring, but to do it in a way that it does not simply just fall into being up-tariffing and everyone who gets bail supervision also gets GPS monitored at the same time. That is not the purpose of what we are trying to achieve here. It has value, but we just need to be cautious on how we take it forward and how we manage that to make sure that it is being targeted and used appropriately. As you have been hearing from a number of questions from others, the committee has received evidence arguing that significant reductions in the use of remand require action beyond the criminal justice system, and we have already talked about the third sector and local authorities. I just wanted to pick up on one specific point that you talked earlier about working across Port Volios and sharing good practice in the disruption that is caused to individuals who are remanded in terms of their housing situation. I wondered how much your department is engaged with the housing minister on that matter, particularly with regard to the new action that is taking place in terms of homelessness and rough sleeping. As a constituency MSP, I have had individuals who have been liberated from custody or general custody or remand because a lot of the Edinburgh temporary accommodation is in my constituency coming forward with their concerns. I would be interested in your thoughts on that point. There was the offender reintegration working group that I chaired, which included the minister for local government and housing, along with other ministers looking at different portfolio areas and the contribution that they can make to help them to reduce re-offending, and housing is an absolutely key one in that area. There has been fairly extensive work undertaken, which is why we think that it was at the end of last year that the shore guidance was issued around housing provision for those who are leaving custody. A key part of what that is seeking to achieve is a consistent approach across the country. We have some local authority areas in which good and good engagement takes place, and there are other areas in which it does not take place well. The shore guidelines are specifically to help to achieve a greater consistency and a sustainable approach to providing housing. It is early days in terms of their impact as yet, but that was taken forward by the housing minister to try to help to address specifically some of the issues about people leaving custody and being able to get access to housing, which goes back to an earlier point that was making about housing being one of the key factors that we know that it is important to help to promote assistance and reducing the risk of re-offending. That is important in terms of the narrative around this. It is not about just trying to make sure that we are coming out of prison and getting a house. It is about helping to promote public safety because we know that if we get them re-housed and settled, the risk of them getting back to re-offending is reduced. It is about that virtual circle of trying to help to create communities that are safer and how to get our important parts. The shore guidelines that were issued last year, at the end of last year, were specifically taken forward off the back of a reintegration working group work and were led by the housing minister as a specific contribution to help to address that. We will hopefully see improvements coming about as a result of those guidelines being applied across the country. We will hopefully help to demonstrate greater consistency of approach, but time will obviously tell us how effective that has been. Thank you for that on that specific point. I will also ask the housing minister privately on the action group that has been put together on temporary accommodation in particular, because I think that a lot of the concerns that we heard were around that specifically. On the other hand, in terms of victims and families, I wondered if, as a final question, if there were any points that you wanted to raise on what is being done to ensure that the interests of victims and families are not adversely affected by any measures to reduce the use of reman taking place currently or might take place in the future. One of the central requirements for legislative requirements for the court to consider at a time when it is considering bail is the issue of public safety. As I mentioned earlier on, I can understand that there will be, even though they also have to take into account the likelihood of the person's sentence at the end, if they are convicted of the offence, whether they will receive a custodial sentence. I can understand that there will be circumstances where sentences would wish to have the person remanded for the purposes of protecting the victim or witnesses. I feel support and recognise that. That is why I am not in favour of the idea that you have carve-outs and say that you cannot have remand for those types of cases. Instead, the court has to have flexibility in considering individual circumstances, including potential victims and witnesses issues. It is balanced, and it has to give regard to public safety. There is a public interest element that has to be considered in making any decisions about bail. There are some particular exceptions in the exceptional circumstances. For example, in offences that will be considered on a solemn basis relating to serious violent offences, sexual offences and drug offences, where there are exceptions in that they should be looking to remand those individuals. The court then has to be satisfied if they are not going to remand them. It changes the balance from the presumption in favour to one opposed to that they have to give proper consideration to a number of factors in deciding whether they are not going to remand individuals who have been considered for particular types of offences. We have just added to that domestic abuse. The new domestic abuse bill, which we passed in Parliament a couple of months ago, adds to that domestic abuse case, which is our exception, where they should be considering remand and circumstances have to be taken into account in determining whether they are going to allow bail, and a key part of that is public safety in that test. The right balances that we have at the present moment, alongside the exceptions and the evaluation that was demonstrated in 2012, by and large, is robust and effective. The other part is that it also tightened up how we deal with breaches of bail in the actions that the courts can take, where there is a breach of bail. I hope that that provides reassurance in terms of the balances that we have within the existing system. I should just make the point that I think that electronic monitoring is also a method that can help to provide greater assurance to victims in certain circumstances, with certain types of individuals. If they are going to be given bail, it could actually be one of the conditions that are attached to it that could provide some assurance. Some of the pilot work that I am considering should the Parliament approve the legislation will consider whether some of the pilots can be in some of those areas where witnesses or victims may be particularly vulnerable to see whether electronic monitoring can provide greater assurance, particularly around domestic abuse cases. It is one of the things that I have already given consideration to and would like to explore as one of the potential pilots should the bill be approved by Parliament. I thank the cabinet secretary and her officials for attending. I now suspend briefly for five minutes to allow the cabinet secretary to leave and for a comfort break. Agenda item 4 is an evidence session with the Scottish Government bill team for the management of a Fender Scotland bill. I refer members to paper 3, which is a note by the Clarke and paper 4, which is a spice briefing on the bill, and paper 5, which is a private paper. Welcome to the committee, Neil Devlin. Bill team leader, community justice division, Nigel Graham, policy adviser, criminal justice division and Craig McGuffey, principal legal officer, director of legal services with the Scottish Government. Neil, you are going to give us an overview of the bill. Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with evidence this morning. The management of offenders bill brings forward a number of reforms designed to deliver on the Scottish Government's commitment to continue reducing the offending, ensuring that Scotland's justice retains its focus on prevention and rehabilitation whilst enhancing support for victims. The substantive provisions of the bill are contained in three parts. Part 1 expands and streamlines the use of electronic monitoring. Part 2 modernises and improves the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and Part 3 delivers some of the aims of the parole board programme reform to clarify the role of the parole board. The expansion of electronic monitoring supports the broader community justice policies of preventing and reducing re-offending by increasing the options available to manage and monitor individuals in the community and to further protect public safety. The provisions of the bill are designed to provide an overarching set of principles for the imposition of electronic monitoring. The bill provides clarity as to when and how electronic monitoring can be imposed by the courts in relation to criminal proceedings or by Scottish ministers in relation to release on licence from detention or imprisonment. The bill also creates a standard set of obligations that clearly describe what is required of an individual who is subject to monitoring. The bill also empowers ministers to make regulations to specify the types of devices that can be used for the purposes of monitoring. The introduction of new technologies, such as global positioning system technology, may present opportunities to improve the effectiveness of monitoring, for example through the use of exclusion zones, which could offer victims significant reassurance and respite. The rehabilitation of offenders act reforms will reduce the length of time most people with convictions have to disclose their offending history, bring more people within the scope of the protections not to disclose and make the regime more transparent and easier to understand. The provisions in this part of the bill are designed to achieve a more appropriate balance between, on one hand, the rights of people not to disclose their previous offending unless they move on with their lives, with, on the other hand, the need to ensure that the rights of the public to be protected can be effectively maintained. Those progressive reforms will help to unlock untapped potential in Scotland's people, helping them to move on more quickly from their offending behaviour and to assist the economy to improve their life chances and help to reduce re-offending rates. Finally, the parole board reforms deliver on the Scottish Government's commitment to improve the effective rehabilitation and reintegration of people who have committed offences and complete the implementation of the parole board reform project to modernise and improve support of the vital work of the parole board. The measures contained in this part of the bill aim to simplify and modernise processes and support consistency of approach in relation to parole matters. The specific provisions amend the tenure of board members to bring them in line with other tribunals, reinforce the independence of the board and provide for the administrative and accountability arrangements of the board to be set out in secondary legislation. Thank you very much for that. The 2016 report of the working group on electronic monitoring included a range of recommendations. A number of those are in the bill itself, but in terms of the recommendations that are not in the bill, could you tell me what the Scottish Government is doing, along with stakeholders, to implement those recommendations? As you say, there are a number of recommendations that are contained in the expert working group, which are not in the legislation. Some of those provisions are made for to be brought forward in the future. The intention of the bill is to provide an overarching framework that lays the groundwork for the future use of electronic monitoring. One of the provisions that are in the bill is to allow Scottish ministers to bring forward regulations that would extend the ways in which electronic monitoring is currently used or laid down in the bill. That would allow us in the future to bring forward alternative means not currently made provision for. If the provisions are brought forward, that would allow later points in time for those measures that were suggested by the working group, which are not necessarily included to be brought forward. Equally, there are a number of recommendations that did not require legislation for them to be brought into effect. They can be done in collaboration with SPS or local authorities. That work is being taken forward by the Government, but that falls out with the specific provisions of the bill. Are there any aspects that the Government does not intend to take forward from the recommendation? It is fair to say that we fully support the basic ethos of the recommendations of the report, which are that electronic monitoring could be used more creatively and more effectively. The report is disappointed. I think that it is fair to say that the current way in which electronic monitoring is used is purely restricted to RF monitoring of a curfew. The report definitely suggests that there are better ways in which electronic monitoring could be better embedded in the support that is provided to individuals and that it does not work as a standalone service but should be more integrated. That is definitely something that we have tried to carry forward in the underlying principles of the legislation. I do not think that there are any specific recommendations that I could point to and say that we definitely do not think that that is worth taking forward at all, but certainly the ones that are currently in the bill as drafted are the ones that we think have the most ability to have the most immediate impact. Thank you for that, John Finnie. Good morning, panel, and thanks for your input there. One of the things that the working group report did highlight was concerns over geographical variations and the use of electronic monitoring. Can you advise us how those have been addressed, please? I think that, to a certain extent, that question is beyond the capabilities of this bill to address it. I recognise that there are on-going certain ways in a number of the course-of-evidence responses that have been provided to the committee about difference in geographical provision. Certainly, in terms of the technology, the coventile rest technology could be used anywhere, by and large, and GPS technology is improving all the time and, therefore, it could be used around the country. I think that, within the bill itself, what we are trying to do is create a system that could be used anywhere and which has equality of impact, but I am aware that there are other measures that need to be taken forward to ensure that that happens. I think that the aim behind the bill is to ensure that we are not in any way restricted in the ways in which technology can be deployed. We fully intend to continue using the RF technology, which is currently available, because that is proven to be useful and has a very definite place. The enabling powers within the bill to allow Scottish ministers to specify new devices is in visits to meet that specific issue. If, in the future, technology comes along, which is better or which can be more usefully served, we can then start to use that, and we are not restricted to the technology that was available in 2018. Before going on to the questions, I was planning to ask just to follow up on John Finnie's line of questioning. As well as future proofing, the other expression that is entered into political lexicon of late is island proofing, and one of the issues around radiofrequency tagging in the past has been technological issues in the remote parts of the country. It is also possibly a reluctance in some sheriffs or judges to allow release given concerns about, for example, in different islands that there will not be a police presence, and therefore the response time to any issue is likely to be longer. Has there been consideration in the context of the bill to issues that arise not just in an island setting but perhaps more pronounced in an island setting, where it is partly about the technology, but it is also partly about giving public safety that the operation of a GPS system can be enabled without giving rise to unacceptable risks? I think that, certainly, public protection is one of the things that is at the heart of the legislation. The idea behind the expansion of electronic monitoring is to enable a greater range of sensing disposals whilst at the same time ensuring that the publication is taken into consideration. In terms of the technology itself, the committee may be aware that the Scottish Government recently released a prior information notice in relation to our intention to issue a new contract. The current contract with the service provider runs until the end of March 2020, at which point we will be needing a new contract to take us forward. The type of information that we will be looking for to be put into the new contract also relates to the ability of the technology to work in remote areas to ensure that it is fit for purpose and that it addresses the particular difficulties of the island and remote communities. Just looking through the financial memorandum, it would appear to be the case that the expectation certainly in the initial stages in the shorter term is no great expansion in the use of electronic monitoring, rather than the shift from radiofrequency to GPS monitoring. Can you be set out for the committee what those expectations are in terms of level of usage and the kind of time frames that are envisaged, say, for the five years of the new provisions being brought into force? To begin with, I have to put my hands up and say to a certain extent that we do not know. One of the difficulties that we had when putting together the financial memorandum is that, at the end of the day, the increase or, if the case may be not increase, will be restricted to the amount of which sentence and other decision makers make use of these new provisions. I think that it's fair to say that, in the short term, we anticipate that there will be a shift from the current position, which is that, in order to monitor somebody who is subject to a CPO, you also have to have an RLO at the same time. The intention is that the bill provides sentence makers with the ability to monitor somebody on a CPO without the need for a concurrent RLO. The information that we have from our contract provider is that that amounts to about 1,000 cases per year, and we would anticipate that that shift in the increased use of CPO monitoring will be offset by a decrease in the use of standalone RLOs. The financial memorandum gives anticipated costs based on a rough 10 per cent increase across the different forms in which monitoring can be used. We think that that's a realistic estimate in the first instance of what an increase might look like, but, again, it's very dependent on what decision sentence makers make of them. We're also aware of the fact that there will need to be a lead-in time between the introduction of the bill and the introduction of new technologies, so, to a certain extent, we haven't put in any estimations that we can make about how much uptake will be made of it until it starts to happen. I'm going to say that it's not envisaged that it will operate in isolation in many instances. It will run alongside and be supportive of efforts to assist and support those to which they're applied. Is there any clarity that you can provide around the estimated costs of those sorts of support measures that will sit alongside the electronic monitoring? To a certain extent, that's a slightly difficult question to answer. The intention of the bill is to try and ensure that, rather than being seen as a standalone service that is provided outwith the regular criminal justice social work system, that electronic monitoring should be moved more wholly into the ethos of person-centred disposals and tailored disposals, that work is already happening. Individuals who are subject to a CPR are already receiving support from local authorities. The idea is that electronic monitoring is another tool that is provided to enable people to work with those individuals to help them to rehabilitate. The bulk of the costs associated with the electronic monitoring part of that will be covered in the contract that the Scottish Government has with the service provider. Although we recognise that there will be a certain increase in the work carried out by local authorities, to a certain extent that's already captured within the work that they're carrying out. Is the expectation that the way in which the GPS monitoring would work could allow savings to be made in the way that the other measures are applied, whether they're applied through local authorities or in contracts through third-sector parties? Is that something that's been built into the assumptions that are being made? It's not built into the figures that are currently provided in the financial memorandum. The intention is that the extension of electronic monitoring should allow there to be savings throughout the justice system as a whole, but where those savings are realised is not necessarily going to be in the same place as the outlay is. In the sense, is that not slightly problematic? We could see savings being made that are being made by organisations that could very well do with that money being reinvested in allowing them to do the other things that will help to make a success of the system overall. However, if they're then being clawed back or benefiting other parts of the system, then we're not necessarily going to end up with an overall set-up that's delivering the outcomes you want to see. I think that there's a difficulty. I think that there is always going to be attention between the different parts of the justice system in the way in which expenditure that is experienced by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and then there are savings further down the line for the Scottish Prison Service. I think that the cabinet secretary mentioned in his evidence in the earlier session that the idea behind the block criminal justice service funding is that there is a pot that is made available to local authorities and then it is local discretion as to how they think that money is best spent. It may therefore be that savings that are experienced because of the way in which electronic monitoring has been used can therefore be moved around within the local authority system to allow them to spend money where they wouldn't have always been, but that's something that we'd need to look at further down the line. Because otherwise you'd end up possibly with the perverse situation where the local authority perhaps with electronic monitoring disposals have been used frequently freeing up savings that are then deployed in other parts of the country and there may be a legitimate call on that funding, but at the same time you're going to have organisations that are operating in that local authority area that is using electronic monitoring extensively. We're saying, well, we're under pressure as well and that funding could almost better be deployed here. There isn't really a way through the bill to safeguard against that, that's presumably it. I think that that, certainly my colleagues in community justice who deal with the finances would be better placed to explain how that might be guarded against, but I don't think that it would be possible within the face of the legislation to put into place something that would allow that to happen. I have a question in particular about, we've touched on already, some of the new technologies that might emerge in the powers for ministers within that just to make sure that we can kind of keep pace with those changes. I really just had a couple of questions specifically, first of all, I suppose, in terms of the transdermal alcohol monitoring. I was really curious to find out what current conditions would be set by the courts at the moment where that would be required and what does that technology essentially involve and how far off do you think that that would be from being implemented? If I can answer your second question first, which is a slightly odd way to take things, there are a number of different alcohol monitoring systems that are commonly available. One of which is the transdermal alcohol monitoring, which is an ankle bracelet, which monitors the level of alcohol into one sweat. That's designed to be much like a current tag, it's designed to not be removable and it monitors 24-7. There are also a number of essentially breathalyzer kits, which are available, which monitor at certain points in time and can either be fixed in a home situation or can be carried around. Of them, it's like a breathalyzer that the police would use and the data from those can then be sent to the monitoring service. In terms of how far off that is, I think that that is probably further along the line than GPS. The GPS products that we are aware of are things that we could bring in very quickly, they are tried and tested. In terms of the Scottish Government's understanding of how alcohol monitoring would be used within the current legislative setup, I think that there is more work that needs to be done before we are in a position whereby we could say that we are definitely ready for that. That is why we are hopefully providing the ability to run pilots, as the cabinet secretary said earlier, where we are definitely not wanting to run before we can walk. The idea is that we can have pilots that would allow us to work out where those type of monitoring devices would best fit within the current legislative system. If they were successful, they would roll those out in a wider sense. I think that that is not something that is going to be happening as soon as the bill comes into force. The initial part of my question is about the conditions that are given in the first place that require that alcohol monitoring to take place. I can answer that. The ability of the court to impose a condition whereby an offender must not take alcohol, there is nothing specific in legislation just now, but the power to make sex offences protection orders and their replacement to sexual harm prevention orders is a power to impose a general power to impose conditions on an offender. In theory, one of those conditions could be that the offender must not take alcohol. I would say that that is possibly less likely than in the custodial setting of where a prisoner is released early from prison whereby licensed conditions regularly have conditions whereby an offender must not take alcohol, whether on temporary release or on parole. In those situations, that is probably more likely that we would see a restriction on a prisoner's intake of alcohol. If the transition on alcohol monitoring is introduced at a later date once the technology is ready for it and we take any other legislative steps that are necessary, the legislation here would allow us to specify devices that want to transition on alcohol and would also allow us to add any other court disposals or forms of release to the list in here that we could attach Eltramodran to. In terms of the GPS technology as well and how that might be a bit further away, what would be the main benefits of that as opposed to the electronic monitoring and the radio frequency that is used at the moment? The current radio frequency technology is limited in the way in which all it can tell you is whether someone is or isn't present in a particular place. The typical way in which that is currently used is that a box is placed within an individual's house. That individual is made subject to a curfew between the hours of 7pm and 7am, and the tag that they wear on their ankle will tell the monitoring system whether they are within that area within those times and if they are not it will send an alert. The GPS monitoring system is much more wide-ranging in that as well as being able to say this is an area in which you must stay for at least certain periods of time. It could also say this is an area in which you couldn't go. Now in theory that is potentially possible with the current system but that would involve having to have a box in the place where you couldn't go and the difficulties of that is that if you had to walk more than one place then you'd have to have more than one box whereas with GPS essentially what you have is a map and you can draw on that map areas in which you would want to create an exclusion zone and then if the tag is present within those exclusion zones it triggers an alert. Okay thank you. I just have one further question and it was about the working group report which recommended using extended monitoring as an alternative to remand and obviously remand is something we've been looking at in quite a lot of detail in the committee. Obviously the power that Scottish Government ministers will have to expand the list as to what can be covered by electronic monitoring. However the bill refers to things done in respect of that being in relation to an offender. Is that something that will be further clarified because obviously if somebody is on remand they haven't been convicted of a crime and will the language around that be made clearer? I think that that's something we can certainly look at at stage 2. The difficult with drafting at the stage was that we weren't at the time of art to describe person because already in the context of ultra-modern we had designated person and in some disposals we also have a sort of advising officer which would be criminal justice social work. So I appreciate the problem there and I think that that is something that we can certainly look at at stage 2. Okay thank you. Rona. Thank you convener morning panel. I'd like to probe a bit further the disclosure of convictions that you mentioned earlier in your opening statement and analysis of responses to the Scottish Government's 2015 consultation paper noted that there were calls for more substantive reforms of disclosure. Can you say what they were seeking and to what extent they've been reflected in the proposals set out in the bill thus far? Good morning. The more what they were looking at is when we had the engagement events discussion paper published discussion paper, there's not anybody of a particular view in terms of what an appropriate disclosure period should be. If you talk to NACRO or Unlock or Recruit Reconviction positive presidents or with her, some people accept, majority accept that the disclosure period currently in the 1974 act are too long. What they should be is open to question. What the Scottish Government is proposing is a balanced approach. Some wanted to go as far as the Home Office-led report in 2002, which was breaking the circle. The recommendations were that all custodial sentences up to life imprisonment, but not including life imprisonment, would have a length of sentence plus two years. There's views that because it only relates to general disclosure, i.e. it doesn't have an impact on the high-level disclosure system, there may be a point at which there shouldn't be any disclosure at all. Should you disclose a fine for working in an office or working in a garage or working in a shop? If you need public protection and have the balance right for public protection, should that really rely on standard disclosure, enhanced disclosure or to do with regular care with adults of children, the protection of normal groups act? There are views that there should be no disclosure at all for basic disclosure. If you talk to an insurance industry, there should be far more disclosure in relation to basic disclosure because they assess risks on the fact that they can only look at unspent convictions. You talked to a whole variety of other people and they sit somewhere in between when we actually had the engagement events. The initial view was, oh, well, I don't believe, well, that should be this length. I mean to say, well, how does it affect your brother, your son, your daughter, yourself, your husband and wife? Most people wanted to move to a less disclosure, but it's about what society can take at the moment based on the fact that the rehabilitation of Fennifesad in Scotland has never changed or the disclosure periods haven't changed. The Government's approach is to trying to get that appropriate balance based on those who want no disclosure, less disclosure and some who want more. That's the balanced approach that the Government's tried to adopt in the provisions in part 2 of the bill. So, just for the record, can you outline what that actually is? You know, what are the Government proposals then if they're trying to get a balance if you've got that? Well, the Government proposal is to reduce the disclosure periods. So, currently, the disclosure period for a fine is five years, so the proposal reduced that to one year. Admonishment currently is five years, the proposal is reduced that to zero. Absolute discharge is six months, the proposal is reduced that to zero. Children's hearings disposal that is only classed as a conviction or a sentence is a special provision with the act. To provide protection is currently six months for a discharge or 12 months for the length of the order for a compulsory supervision order, both of those will be zero. Reducing the disclosure periods for custodial sentences as well while increasing the actual scope to 48 months and creating three sentence bands, so you'll have a sentence band of zero to 12 months, which will have a length of sentence plus two-year buffer period. A sentence over 12 months and up to 30 months will have length of sentence plus four years and the new sentence band over 30 months and up to 48 months, length of sentence plus six years. The reason you've got a buffer period of six years there is because the Government's proposal is also to maintain the current 10-year maximum disclosure period for a sentence that can have a finite period of disclosure. Do you think that that will be widely accepted by stakeholders in the community? Well, looking at the evidence that you've received so far, majority are supported of that. Some insurance companies have come back and said, no, please, Scotland are supported of it. Unlock, NACRO and Recruitment Confections Opposited Prisons, what I've read, are supported of that. The feedback that we received from the consultation would be supported of that because we're based it on those consultations, we're based it on letters that I've received over the last number of years from individuals, from MSPs on behalf of their constituents and from Scottish MPs as well, and for the types of questions that have been asked in the PQs over the years as well. So it's a balanced approach to always have somebody who wants more who wants less. But remember, this is the system of basic disclosure. This is not the system to do with high-level disclosure where you get standard enhance or the protection of vulnerable groups act. Thank you, that's helpful for anyone else. Thanks very much. On the basis of the conclusions reached through that consultation, it does seem to mirror relatively closely, though, with a few exceptions, the approach that's recently been taken in England Wales. Was that a factor? Were those that you were speaking to looking to whatever consultation processes went through there? The view was at least equivalent to England Wales because of the cross-border movement in terms of employment, people moving and travelling and also companies that may have employees that work in Scotland, employees that work down in England and Wales as well. So we looked at that and that was part of the consideration. We've also got to look at what is the condition of Scotland and what is the Scottish Government's view in terms of taking forward disclosure. The system of high-level disclosure in Scotland as well is more progressive than in England and Wales. We've been looking at the conditions, what's the current policy in terms of that and also trying to understand where does each disposal fit in the spectrum of what's the seriousness of that particular type of disposal, like life sentences over here. That's compared to a police warning. How do you fit all of those dispositions together to have some meaning? There's not such a thing as an optimum disclosure curve. We can put a line down and say, if you have that disclosure there, that will reduce re-offending by this or do that. It's about trying to measure, look at what's happening in England Wales, that's one. Look at what the feedback is received. Listen to the conversations that we had in the engagement events as part of that discussion paper and try to come to some balance that would be appropriate, that reduces disclosure, allows people to move forward and also still allows employers to have information at a particular point in order to make employment decisions for those general disclosure purposes. In terms of what the Government's doing, it's trying to get that balance approach. I suppose that point you made at the outset about the interaction between those moving back and forth across the borders and businesses, for example, that want to have a degree of consistency across the country. It would, I suppose, suggest that the process that has been gone through in England Wales was one into which the Scottish ministers and officials and the wider stakeholders would have wanted to feed into as well. Was that, in fact, the case? It's certainly an aspect of how things have worked. The UK Government looked at the Home Office-led report in terms of breaking the circle. That's about trying to match the custodial sentence length more to disclosure period, so that's why you're having sentence bands plus a buffer period, so that matches disclosure more appropriately with that. So we looked at that and also looked at what were the recommendations of breaking the circle. That seemed appropriate. Also the evidence that we received from the consultation paper responses to discussion paper and engagement events also gave us that information that would be better to be more aligned. Whether you get it perfect or whether you can ever get a perfect system is open to question, but it's trying to get that right balance that feels appropriate and that's what we've done. It's about considering all aspects of that. You could quite easily say, well, we'll just copy what we've done in England and Wales, or you actually do investigating and you listen to what people say and you actually look at all the reports and evidence. What we did as well is go right back to 1974 and 1972 and look at the Gardner Committee report, which actually set up the Rehabilitation offence act and said, what were the founding principles behind that act, i.e. it should be based on sentence? Is that something that's still consistent in terms of new research? Well, breaking the circle still said it should be based on sentence. The UK Government said it's based on sentence. The evidence that we received from the discussion paper consultation is imperfect, but, yes, it still would be based on sentence because it's an easier way to consider disclosure and also the courts when making a determination of sentence can consider all the information available, culpability, the season of defence, the person's previous convictions as well. At all those instances, we're just making a determination of whether a sentence should determine our disposal. We're not looking at a lot of different factors in order to come to that conclusion, and the Scottish Government's conclusion was that it's still appropriate. Okay, Maurice Corry. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, panel. In relation to the armed forces, the bill doesn't propose any changes to disclosure periods for sentences imposed under the legislation. What's the reason for this? It's reserved. Ah, thank you. I'll answer it. And you have another question, Maurice? Yeah, sorry. One of the aims of the bill, panel, is to make the rules of disclosure easier to understand. To what extent will the changes set out in the bill achieve this and could more be done to simplify the system, for example? Well, certainly the Government, I'm sure, will be open to any proposals to try and improve that. Certainly in terms of accessibility, what has been done is removed redundant provisions. The key thing that people asked, the stakeholders asked, was to actually change section 5 and section 6. Section 5 is where the disclosure periods are set out, and section 6 are the rules around when someone gets more than one conviction. So we've removed all the redundant provisions and we've set out clearly and excessively exactly what the disposal will be. So it's fine beyond table A, 12 months, or six months if you're under 12, clearly set that through. So it should be easy for anybody to go to section 5, have a look at that. This is, I've got a CPO, what will that be, what will be the length of order, what will be 12 months, what will be the length of the order and what can we through. Now because one of the provisions as well was to deal with the way section 1-1 is constructed to do with the disclosure sentence rule, i.e. if you get a sentence, say, a fine at the moment and before the disclosure page ends, you get an exclusive sentence, i.e. at the moment a sentence is over 30 months, then both will be disclosed forever. I didn't think that was right, we thought, an exclusive sentence should be out with the rules within the rehabilitation of the sentence, so if you get an exclusive sentence you know that you'll always have to disclose that. You may, as a consequence of getting subsequent sentences later on, eventually get an exclusive sentence. For example, if you get a consecutive custodial sentence, the sheriff turns around and says, I'm going to sentence you two years and three years to run consecutively, consecutive sentences are added together, so 2 plus 3 equals 5, which is greater than 48 months, so therefore that would be an exclusive sentence. So there's still the possibility of getting a further exclusive sentence, but it shouldn't impact on the rules. We appreciate section 6 as probably one of the most difficult sections to try and work out, but because we changed some of the definitions, changed the exclusive sentence rules, we were able to actually change the language to section 6.1, section 6.2, section 6.4, section 6.5 and section 6.6 top data, which will make those rules easy to understand, but part of that will also be published in guidance in the Scottish Government webpages to explain how those rules work more effectively. You mentioned terminology there, Mr Graham. In the policy memorandum, it notes that the rules on disclosure are not intended to suggest that a person who has unspent convictions is always unsuitable for employment. Specifically, it changes some of the terminology to hopefully clarify that for employers. Is there anything else that's being done to clarify that for employers going forward? Well, certainly, Cabinet Secretary, it's clear that changing the law itself is not enough. The community, I work in criminal justice, but there's also community justice when it works. There's a lot of work going on with employers, the employer support network, in terms of trying to develop understanding why employers may have an unconscious bias around thinking that I shouldn't employ someone who has an unspent conviction. It may be down to the fact that the person is not rehabilitated or deemed not rehabilitated. There are organisations such as Virgin, BT and Marriott hotels that are very positive about employing people with convictions and recognise the fact that just to bar an individual because they've got an unspent conviction or even a spent conviction for a high-level disclosure isn't necessarily good for them because they're cutting off their employment pool, so there's work in terms of community justice to discuss with employers, I'm in discussion with organisations that look to recruit with conviction, positive presidency, how best can we discuss with employers and order for them to take an approach and say, well surely it's best to have a dialogue with someone, surely it's best that the person who may have that conviction may actually be the best person for the job, may have all the skills, but are you just going to ignore them? So it's the legislative change to try and change that language, as I say, to remove that unconscious bias that lots of people have may not even realise that they've got unconscious bias. We sit here and we're immersed in justice issues, but if you're working in a small business and you see this person is not rehabilitated, well I don't want to employ that person, it's not rehabilitated, so maybe they'll just ignore them. So change the language to say it's just about disclosure, there's nothing that act that prevents anybody from having that, from having a job under the Rehabilitation Offenders Act, so it's about the opportunity, it's about disclosure, disclosure for a period of time and then if it's still unspent you can have that dialogue, so it's work within the community justice with employers as well as changing the law. Understand, in terms of the disclosure, and you talked earlier Mr Graham about the higher levels, so you talked about the basic disclosure and then there were three other categories which require more disclosure. This bill doesn't seek to change any of those higher level disclosures, but the committee understands that the Scottish Government is consulting on possible changes to the higher level disclosures. Can you give us any more details on that? There'll be consulting on it shortly. I'll help you on disclosure and it will be on PVG. What's their interest there? I'm not a spokesperson for the PVG act or for the higher level disclosure system there and obviously I'm conscious about the consultation paper hasn't been published yet, so I'm limited to be able to talk about that really. The key thing is that they'll be asking questions about how the protection of vulnerable groups act works and the number of disclosures that are available around that. Looking at standard disclosure and enhanced disclosure, what does that actually mean? Standard disclosure is spent in unspent convictions and enhanced disclosure is spent in unspent convictions but also is part five of the police act. The police are allowed to provide other relevant information around that as well so that could be non-conviction information, soft information around that as well, which is different then from the protection of vulnerable groups act which could be a member of the vetting and barring scheme. If you're part of that, you could be monitored for your life in terms of being part of that scheme. That would be to do with regulated work with children and work with adults and its question is around what does that mean. It's trying to look at that whole system of high-level disclosures and recognises that as a result of changes to that system because of case law, the Supreme Court has ruled that. There's been changes to that system of high-level disclosure. Bring that together, ask in certain questions and order then maybe to take forward legislation in the future around that. I appreciate the difficulty in being clear. I'll phrase the question and we'll see if we can get an answer. I am limited to talking about something other policy. It's out of this bill when a consultation data hasn't been and I don't want to get really into details but that's not my policy. Do you have any sense of the current thinking of the Government? The current thinking by the courts is less disclosure. Less disclosure on the higher-level checks. That's what's happened. I think that we just got there and no more. I was really wanting to ask some questions regarding the changes to the parole board. I'll be very conscious that, as you were preparing this, the whole warboys situation really came into sharp public focus in England. I was just wondering to what extent that there was any reflection on that or what your view is or the lessons that may be gleaned and whether or not, to what extent, you feel that those changes address those and to what extent there are maybe possible changes that are out with the scope of what you can do with the legislation that we have in front of us or the bill that we have in front of us. I think that it's fair to say that the changes that are proposed by the bill have been entrained for some time and, as such, they have been in gestation for a while and they're designed to address specific difficulties that had already been identified. In terms of the specific issues that were raised by the warboys case, it's probably important to say that there are distinct differences between the way in which the parole board for Scotland operates and the way in which the parole board in England and Wales operates, but, certainly, if there were any additional issues that were identified during the course of your investigations into the parole board, then I don't think that there would be any reason why we would be against the idea of seeing if there were other difficulties that we could address whilst we have this legislative vehicle available to us. I think that if there was one lesson to be drawn from that case, it was really about the public perception as against how the parole board in England operates, certainly, in that particular case. In terms of the tests, and that is one change that is being implemented, the parole board itself has made a submission and it has suggested that, perhaps greater clarity with regard to what tests are applied, that is one area where the bill could be improved. I was just wondering if that is something that you have reflected on and what your reaction to that suggestion is. Part of the difficulty in relation to tests is that it is difficult to identify what a common test might look like. I don't think that there is at large a greed position on what a common test could look like, but I don't think that that were such a common test to be identified. Thinking on that common test was sufficiently far along that there wouldn't be a reason why we couldn't look at that. I think that the other key point, and probably one of the central points in terms of the parole board submission, is regarding its independence. In particular, I think the way appointments to the parole board are made. While I understand that one of the substantial points is about changing the composition, I think that the point that is made here is that greater assurances regarding the independence of those appointments could be made and should be made. Indeed, the suggestion is that, perhaps, the parole board could be made by the judicial appointments board for Scotland. Again, is that something that was considered if it was dismissed? Why was it or is it something that might be considered through the course of the bill? I think that there are a number of competing demands in relation to the way in which the current system works, which involves the regulator and the way in which appointments might be taken forward in the future. That is something that we are perfectly happy to continue looking at during the course of scrutiny. If an agreeable compromise was reached whereby we could identify a way in taking that forward, I think that that is something that we are happy to look at. Including that specific point about the appointments being made by the judicial appointments board? I think that that is something that we would probably need to discuss with the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, but I am more than happy to get back to you on that point. Again, in particular, they say that the parole board should be explicitly set out as a tribunal NDPB. Is that a point that you would consider through the course of the bill? I think that the Scottish Government's position is that the bill is designed to reinforce the independence of the parole board. We feel that the versions that are currently drafted are sufficiently strong in that. Again, if during the course of evidence it becomes a parent that that is not necessarily the case, I do not think that that is something that we would dismiss out of hand. However, our position is that the independence of the board is enshrined in the bill that is currently drafted. If I could just ask one final question on the composition of the parole board. Under the prisoner's criminal proceedings in Scotland in 1993, the overall membership of the parole board must include a high court judge and a psychiatrist. Why have they been admitted from the composition of the new bill? My understanding is that the position of the board is that there is sufficient current expertise within the breadth of members of the board, that the specific requirements are no longer necessary and that going forward our intention is to ensure that there is a wide range of expertise on the board, but there are certain administrative difficulties that arise because of the specific inclusions of the requirement to have those specific members that can be overcome by the removal of them from the specific legislation. Can you be a bit more specific about what those difficulties were? I am afraid that I do not have that information to hand, but it is certainly something that I can get back to you on. Certainly, including a high court judge, you are looking at cases that are very serious in expertise. There, a psychiatrist too seems to me with particular expertise seems to be a sensible suggestion, so I would certainly welcome further information. If there are no further questions, that concludes our questioning and I thank you all very much for attending. We now move on to item number five, which is feedback from the Justice Sub-Committee on Placing on its meeting of 19 April. Following the verbal report, there will be an opportunity for brief comments or questions and I refer members to paper six, which is a note by the clerk, and invite John Finnie as the convener of the sub-committee to provide feedback. Thank you, convener. As you say, the Justice Sub-Committee on Placing met on 19 April, when we took evidence from Police Scotland's review of its custody provision, we took that evidence from Chief Superintendent Gary McEwen, the criminal justice services division of Police Scotland, Callum Steele, the general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation and Lucille Ingalls, chair of the Police Staff Scotland branch of Unison Scotland. The sub-committee heard that, whilst a number of people were being taken into Police custody had been reduced and there had been improvements to Police Scotland's custody provision, there remained a number of custody issues to be resolved. Those included the continued use of police officers to back full vacant police custody and security officers, PCSO posts, some PSOs working alone in custody centres, which is not best practice, and whilst there are to be 70 new staff employed by July, there was doubts about whether that would be sufficient to fully resource the custody centres and that, while the number of prisoners being transferred long journeys had reduced, it still occurred. That was further exacerbated by an increased in custody processing times. The sub-committee agreed to keep the issue under review and it also considered its forward work programme and agreed to request information from Police Scotland on its ICT strategy. Do members have any questions or comments? I think that there were some important things that were raised in the sub-committee that would mitigate and certainly make sure that we did monitor the delays in processing and how the new RLOs, the restriction delivery orders that we are working, are certainly things that we would want to keep in view. Liam McArthur? Just on that point, I think that that is fair and probably also worth reflecting that there was an offer from Callum Steel to follow up in terms of some of the bureaucratic issues that appear to be arising out of the new forms. I will be offered the sub-committee to see how it responds to that invitation, but there is certainly an issue there that we probably need to explore in a bit more detail. That concludes the public part of today's meeting. Our next meeting will be on 1 May, when we may take evidence on the proposed integration of the British Transport Police in Scotland into Police Scotland and we now move into private session.