 Gwbod ei ddwylliant i'r Gwladol Cymru'r 31 mlynedd y 2018. Felly, mae gennym ni bod Llywodraeth Cymru yn gwybod ymlaen i'r gwerthol am hyn yn meddwl i'r gwerthol. Y rhan o ymdillion yma y nifer yma yn y terfodol i'r prifysgol senedd yng Nghymru, Scotland Bill. Rwy'r cymdeithasol i Gwladol Cymru, yr Eistedd Gwladol Cymru, yn y perthegorol, ac yr Eistedd Gwladol Cymru, yr Eistedd Gwladol Pryd. I welcome our first panel, Jaljeet Dagon, national programme manager for child sexual exploitation, Bernardo Scotland, Mary Glasgow, chief executive of children first and Malcolm Shafer, head of practice and policy, Scotland's children's reporter administration. I thank you all for your written evidence. As always, the committee found out particularly valuable in advance of our formal evidence session. We now have questions from members starting with Rona. Thank you. You can make a good morning panel. I note from your submissions that you're all largely supportive of the measures, but I wonder if you could maybe tell us of any concerns that you might have, including special measures, anything that you'd like to flag up about the proposal. I'll start by saying yes, we do welcome. This is a progressive way forward and nothing I say should contradict that and I do understand the need to do it incrementally to test it out in terms of resources. I guess I would like to speak briefly about our end, the children's hearing end and its relationship to those proposals. I always have a slight worry that we make law by silos, that your constitution is upon criminal justice and about the prosecution and that's what this bill is about, but the law intervenes in different ways in these cases. If you have, for instance, a child who is alleged to have been raped by her father, then the law will intervene to prosecute the father and these proposals are very much aimed at securing the best quality and the best experience for that child if she has to give evidence, but quite separately the law also applies to protect the child, which is where we come in, the children's hearing system. Where I'm left slightly confused about is where do we stand in relation to the issues of recording being applied to the hearing system. We will often have to go through the same proof. Quite often, if the child, for instance, is in a place of safety, that proof will have taken place before the prosecution, so there's a very complicated interrelationship between prosecution and protection proceedings and an overlap in terms of the evidence that is heard. We do have, because we are civil proceedings, the ability to admit hearsay evidence, which can mean that the child's direct evidence is not always required, but on occasions it is. I am left slightly confused and I think there's more work to be done just ensuring that there is seamless between the two parts. The hearing system also obviously applies in relation to children who offend and there will be some occasions upon which a child who commits a rape may be referred to or has to deal with. Now, these provisions are very much in relation to high court prosecution proceedings. They don't apply to the children's hearing proof. There's a few gaps there. We have been involved in the discussions on the evidence and procedural review. We've very much supported, as I say, on the way forward, but we do need to look at the mistakes that have sometimes been made in the past of creating laws in one silo, which don't apply across to the other silo, which is equally important in terms of the protection of the child. That, above all, is my main issue in relation to those provisions. On your first point, do you have a solution to that or a preferred way that we should be going? A preferred way would be rather than creating laws in criminal justice and laws in family law, which is what is happening at the moment, that there is a joined-upness that constitutes on the child rather than the system and doesn't create any confusion or creation. For instance, in terms of special measures, there is a provision in criminal law to allow the evidence of prior statement to be admitted. It is very valuable and very useful, but it hasn't been extended to our proceedings. There are examples of innovation in criminal justice, where somehow it's not directly applied across, and it's because we work in different silos of law and justice. There are separate family law consultations, which I hope will bring about many of these issues. We need to marry it together. We need to ensure that children are not caught in the middle where we require that child's evidence to be heard in our proceedings but have to apply separate measures that may not offer the same protection. Ironically, that's available in criminal justice. That, above all, is the main issue that we have with this. As I say, it applies to law reform in general, not just to these provisions. Okay, thank you. Any other panel member wants to comment? Malcolm, we welcome the bill and also concur with the comments that he's made, but also we feel that there are already measures in place. One of the big challenges with this bill is about how you ensure that custom practice, culture and behaviours are enforced in the way that we should. We've already had special measures, but we hear lots of stories whereby they're not applied or our children are not offered them, and that, although the bill is welcome, it really doesn't go as far as it should in order to realise children's rights to be able to give their evidence in a way that can measure it with their developmental stage that takes account of the way in which they communicate, that understands the impact of trauma. There's much more that could and should be a much quicker pace for children, so we often hear of situations where children are still being told that they'll get better justice if they give evidence without special measures. There still continues to be a lack of support for families, whole families, for parents and for children. As they go through the process, there's long delays continually, and there's often situations where we hear children continuing to tell us that the experience of going to court in itself is more traumatic than the abuse that they have suffered. The other thing that we feel that we really need to think about is the shocking lack of support to prepare families and children for the experience and then to recover in the aftermath, because that's where the gaps are. Although we welcome the bill, we would really like to see a much more faster approach towards a child's house model where no child goes into court because it's clear that they are not able to give their best evidence in that process. The court system that we have is not set up for children to be able to do that, and we think and strongly believe that if we got the system right for children, if it was much more developmentally appropriate, if it took account of the impact of trauma, we would get better justice not only for children but also for the accused because of the impact that the process has on a child's ability to be able to explain what's happened to them and give good evidence in that context. Are you saying that the bill doesn't go far enough or that it's being too phased in as a slow phase? I think that it's welcome but we would like to see it go much further. We would like to see, based on the stories that we hear from children who are victims and witnesses, that special measures are a useful way to mitigate against a system that doesn't allow for children to give their best evidence. What would be much more welcome would be if Scotland could move towards a much faster system where children are removed from having to go to court at all, that they go to specialised suites where the trauma recovery starts at the moment of disclosure, where they give their evidence away from the court system and they are not expected to engage in a system which they find it difficult to navigate their way through and which causes them harm currently. I suppose that there's not very much left to say. I suppose that it's similar to Malkham and Mary Bernard who have also welcomed the opportunity to give evidence today and also welcomed the opportunity to improve measures. I suppose that my starting point would be that although we welcome this, there are actually stages before we even get to this stage that act as barriers for children. Many of the children that we work with who have experienced child sex exploitation in particular, often because they don't recognise the abuse, won't even disclose it. Therefore, we need to have practitioners on the ground who are able to identify what the issues are to begin with so that we can safely support children through that process that both Mary and Malkham have spoken about already. I think often what we find in our experience of child sexual exploitation cases and I've been involved in a number of police operations over the last seven years is that even when the police investigations concluded and statements have been taken, the actual process then can be years later. We recently found ourselves in a situation where we were chopping the doors of young women who are now in their 20s who had given statements when they were aged 14 and 15. Their situations moved on and yet we are going back again to re-traumatise to say what we've got new evidence that are you willing to come forward but we don't know how long that process is going to take. Again, in terms of that lengthy delay in understanding procedures and processes, there's also that link between the children's hearing process and the criminal justice process because young people become adults and situations change. I think that it is about reiterating Mary's point about culture and practice. It's not necessarily about the measures but it's also about making sure that we've got the right people involved at the right stages and that we're competent and also child-centred at first and foremost but it's about making sure that we've got that support for children before, during and after that whole process. Does that come down to training then at all levels? I think that it's significant because it's not just about training but it's about people who are involved, who actually want to be involved and who want to work with children and understand not just child development and attachment and trauma but also brain development and also understand that a child's ability to remember in terms of recalling memories can be quite difficult as well. I mean, we had a young person, I was saying earlier to a colleague, who gave 27 statements to the police and by the time it came to the court process she was deemed an unreliable witness and she should never have given 27 statements. It's about thinking about at what stage do we take the statement, at what stage is this child now ready because the more she was interviewed, the more she remembered but the more she contradicted herself because there were multiple perpetrators, there were multiple occasions, there were multiple episodes so she couldn't remember the details so every time she was interviewed information changed and when the procurator Fiscal looked at it she said, there's absolutely no way I'm putting her on the stand. Do you know what I mean? She was a main complainant. I think that it's about training at every single level not just in terms of the actual court processes but it's way before that in terms of that first person who engages with that child in terms of how we take them through that process and also workers on the ground often don't understand what they can and can't talk to children about because they have this fear of contaminating evidence so often they think, well, I'd rather not say anything and then the child feels even more or even less supported and then doesn't go through those processes so I think it's about that culture that we have just now which doesn't seem to be child friendly in terms of taking young people through a process that should hopefully give them better outcomes and help them recover and move on with the rest of their lives. Thank you, that's really helpful, thank you. Supplementary, we've got Fulton, Liam McArthur and then Daniel. Thanks, convener. It was actually going back to Malcolm's point although the conversation moved on a bit and that was some really powerful evidence here. Would you agree, Malcolm? I agree what you're saying about the systems marrying up but would you agree that children's healing systems designed to be child friendly, child focused in a lot? It's got some areas where improvements are needed and I know you've said that before that it's totally different from the court system where it's not a good place for kids to have evidence and that's what this bill is primarily trying to address. It is but we could still do it better at all stages and that's something we're working on through a better hearings project but we have to remember that the court does come in to the children's healing system at different stages. If the grounds are denied it goes to court for proof as you'll be aware and that can be a very challenging and formal process heard before court in formal court setting and secondly there's obviously an appeal against any decision of the hearings so the court again comes in then so court rules do come in and apply court facilities come in, the settings and the whole way in which children are supported in that process if they're needed applies in our setting. As I've said earlier where we do have an advantage is that we can apply, excuse me, hearsay evidence so in many occasions if we can avoid the child giving evidence at all we will but that is not always possible and in particular will not be possible if the child is the victim of an offence committed by a child. So as you're concerned more around when a case in the circumstances that a case proceeds to court and a child's evidence may be required as opposed to when you would use hearsay evidence or when it stays at the children's healing system in your first instance. Well it's trying to work out what the status is of the evidence that has been collected in the criminal process. You know if the recording has already taken place how can we use it? Do we have to start again? Do we have to take evidence by commission which we've done on occasions? Can we rely on that as the hearsay evidence? I'm not sure we can. It would be regarded as a prior statement. So the elements of that which you know as we progress the criminal side let's make sure that the child protection side progresses as well. Let's remember yes there is the informality of the children's hearing itself and let's not forget that there is the quote that comes in the elements and that needs the protective measures and progressive measures that are being introduced in criminal law. All right. Lee McArthur. Thank you. You're just following up. Mary, your evidence in relation to the current measures that I think you're suggesting aren't necessarily applied in all circumstances as one might expect. The argument that we were getting from the bill team last week was that this is a staged approach in essence to ensure that things are bedded in before the schemes are extended further. Is that an approach that you think is sensible picking up where it's not currently being applied when it should be as well as the extensions that are proposed through this legislation? It is, but I think that there are huge practical challenges around this, so we have to think about the training and the experience and the knowledge and skill of the people that are involved, but we also have to think about where it is that children are going to go to give evidence in terms of a pre-recorded interview. We still know that children will be interviewed in police stations, there's still been interviewed in school, which is totally inappropriate, so it's useful. It's a step in the right direction, but it just doesn't go far enough in terms of delivering right-space justice for children. If we really thought about the best possible opportunity for children to give their evidence, they would go nowhere near court, they would go to specialist resources where their whole needs were supported, where their family were given advice about the process, what would happen from the moment of disclosure and interview right the way through to the court process in terms of timescale. We would also offer much more effective support to help children and their families, to talk about what's happened and recover. Although it is a step in the right direction, there are many practical challenges, there are many ways in which this will be difficult to implement unless we're really, really clear about what true child-centred right-space justice looks like. What you've described there wouldn't necessarily say that you'd be extending it to a broader range of circumstances, but more that the setting, as you've described, needs to be appropriate as well as the fact that the child has been triaged through this and has been kept away from a court setting. That would tend to suggest that an incremental introduction of this in the right locations, with the right support, is the best way of securing the objectives here. The challenge is to make sure that... Yes, you're right, there needs to be a careful approach to this so that people can build something that gives all children no matter what their circumstances, the same level of support. The thing that we would urge the Parliament to do or the committee to do is keep an eye on this, not just in relation to this legislation, but throughout the lifetime of the Parliament because the fear is that we do this and we think that's it, job done. There is a long way to deliver justice for children. We know that the children are continually subject to the things that are convenient or possible or that the agencies are able to deliver. What we really need to do, as all the panel members have said, is to make sure that what children need is at the centre of what the system is that we build, not just what's possible for us to deliver incrementally. We need to hold on to this notion that children will give their best evidence, which is better for them and better for the justice system in total. If we build a system around them that understands the impact of trauma, understands the way they communicate, gives their whole family the support they need to understand what is an incredibly complex system to navigate, most professionals find it intimidating to go to court. For children, even when we put special measures in place, it's often still not built around what the child's needs are. It's built around what's possible for the professionals or the agencies to be able to do well. Just as a point of clarification and part in terms of what you've just said, you said that, in your view, children shouldn't be giving evidence in court and be away from that in an appropriate setting. My understanding is that the court surface is developing facilities to provide exactly that evidence can be given in specially designed suites. That's clearly not on the face of the bill, but it is what is being developed in practice. To what extent do you think that needs to be on the face of the bill or are you saying that that's insufficient? Likewise, some of the things that you were mentioning in terms of interviews and police stations and schools, that's very much at the investigation stage rather than at court proceedings. Are you saying that the bill should be looking at those things as well or are you saying that that's the next step? I'm just trying to clarify what you think should be in the bill to improve those things and, to what extent, it's insufficient simply to leave things up as a matter of practice. We would have welcomed if the bill had gone much further and fully worked towards the implementation of a child's house model whereby you do take children completely out of the court system. We recognise the challenges in relation to our adversarial justice system and that there's lots of work that's been picked up that needs to happen. The concern for us is that, when we talk about the child witness suites that are being developed, there are some real positives around that, but they are far from being the same as a child's house model that you see in other countries. They are the place where children will go to give their evidence that will be pre-recorded, and there continues to be a huge gap for children and their families, as Daljeet talked about, around navigating their way through the whole process. In order for the court system to work for children and for justice, there needs to be a much better recognition of children's needs. Long delays, so if something happens to a child and they're interviewed and then the evidence is taken and then the evidence goes into court, that's one thing, but there's still an impact on child around understanding the timing, what's going to happen, who's going to support them, who's going to feed back to them, how do they access support to recover from what's happened, and the bill. We do welcome the bill and it is a step in the right direction, but of course there's an organisation that works with child victims and witnesses, and here every day the dreadful impact that situations have on them and then that the court system can often make worse. It doesn't go far enough for us. We would have wanted to see something that said there is no way that children, with all that we know about their development or all that we are learning about the way in which children communicate, should be entering into an adversarial system that was developed in a Victorian era. We would want them out of the court system completely and we think that we need to do that sooner rather than later. We do recognise the challenges around it, so we welcome the bill and we do think that progress has been made, but we don't think that we should rest on our laurels and think that developing child witness suites where it's just a different place for children to go. It might have a nice, differently painted room and some nice people there, but the whole system needs to be right for children from the point at which they tell their story to the support that they get alongside their families to recover from what will have lifelong impact on them. It needs to be a much more holistic approach to how children interact with the system. It's not just about giving evidence and it's difficult for us to comment and see that it's just about that. If you got that right, it would help, but it's much more holistic than that. My difficulty with that is I don't understand how you could do that without essentially completely moving away from our adversarial system. Is that really fundamentally what you're asking for? We think that we could go further within the system that we've got. Of course, we would like to move to a system that is not adversarial because it doesn't work for children. It doesn't respect their rights. They don't recall and give evidence in the way that suits them, but we recognise the system that we're in. We're supportive of the measures to improve things as they are, but there is a need to continue to go further for children. We do think that there are ways in which within our system we could have gone further and we can go further, but there are challenges around that. You were nodding vigorously. I suppose, from my perspective, at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is get the best quality evidence from a child that we possibly can. What we shouldn't be doing is making them jump through hoops and it shouldn't be a postcode lottery because that's what it will become if we don't embed right from the start what we mean by a place for children to go to give their evidence, because it's not like going to a sexual health clinic where you get patched up and then you go through the next door and you go and get your medication or your contraception. What we're doing is getting young people to go through different doors, speak to different professionals at different stages who can often tell conflicting and give them contradictory information and often those professionals don't know what stage they're at during that process. It's about having a holistic approach almost like a team around the child where you've got a team who are working quite closely together whether it's teams that are based in the court or playstations or social work or voluntary sector services but it's about that team around the child who have different roles to play but also keep that child in their family and their wider network informed each stage of the way what's actually happening and providing that feedback because often what we do is take information from a child it goes into a machine somewhere else and we don't actually let the young people know what's happening next and often we as professionals don't know what's going to happen next but even if we were to say I can check with Mary and Mary will find out and Mary will come back to me in two days' time to know what I mean it's keeping young people informed about and that also keeps them engaged in a process and less likely to then retract and withdraw their evidence as well which is certainly our experience where young people will say well do you know what this is too difficult it's too much hassle I just want to move on with the rest of my life so I just want to put this to one side and that's what often happens Good morning panel your evidence has been extremely interesting I wonder Mary if I can comment on the information that's in your evidence we haven't touched on directly yet excuse me the circumstances whereby a young person was advised that they were more likely to secure a conviction if they presented their evidence without special measures now that's advice from Victim Information and Advice Unit which in itself is a cause for some concern and you then go on to talk about cultural notions of justice consultant child witnesses expressing a strong preference to give evidence in court in a courtroom setting without a fully informed understanding of what this could be like I mean that's presumably absolutely key to everything that you have been asked already does the panel think that this legislation goes far enough into addressing the culture that still has these foundation stones that stand up strong and say a bit That's the challenge with any legislation isn't it about it it helps in terms of you know obviously it helps to lay the ground work around what we should be doing but what we really need to think about is how do you embed practically an approach that recognises that children have an entitlement and a right to engage with a system in order to achieve justice which recognises the ways in which they are able to recall information the sense that they make of a very complex world the impact that the trauma will have had on their ability to communicate what's happened to them and there is a huge gap we know that there is a huge gap it's hopefully going to be addressed through a number of other processes but there is a huge gap in professional understanding of the impact of trauma on children there's a gap in relation to the understanding of professionals around child development children do communicate the system doesn't take account of the ways in which children develop and that has a huge impact on their ability to get justice so you know the legislation will help but we really need to be very clear practically about what resources there will be required in order to be able to make this legislation and the principles in the legislation a reality for children oh sorry did you have a moment I'm very briefly pleased to tell you tell you clearly there's been a lot of resources deployed to secure 20 odd statements from someone what you see in the legislation would you envisage that that would mean that that situation wouldn't happen again I mean I think certainly one of the lessons from that operation what was more important was not getting the statement but actually building and developing a person and understanding who they were what their talents and interests were and actually because often what young people say is that all that police officers are interested in is getting my statement and then going away and I never see that person again and I think sometimes certainly when we've been involved in a number of police operations things have developed and changed but you know it's like when we've had young people who have been subject to special measures they have recounted that often what that means is maybe going along to the court seeing what the courtroom looks like who's going to sit where and although that's helpful what happened for that particular young person was at the very last minute that actual court changed so they found themselves going to a different court so actually the benefits had no impact whatsoever so it is thinking about what's the best way in evidence from young people and where should that take place whether it's in a court setting or whether it's in a different place but it's about for me at the end of the day about making sure that we're meeting the holistic needs of the child and their family and their networks around them because often as professionals we will follow young people through our journey but often at the end of that journey we all step aside and it's about how that young person continues to develop and recover because often the kind of support step away so it's looking at what are the supports that we're putting in place not just before and during the court processes but afterwards when everyone just steps aside Thank you Jenny I know that you spoke at length there about the best quality evidence and about meeting the holistic needs of children I just wonder with regard to the current use of taking evidence by commissioner what delivers the best quality evidence presently I suppose we had put quite a limited submission into yourselves and it was based very much on young people's experiences of before, during and after so I think in terms of the measures I think we'll welcome the measures clearly what we would like to see is and understand why they're phased in terms of age and court settings but I think at the very least what we'd be looking for is for the possibility of it being increased to children under the age of 18 because I think often what we have is we've had young people for instance where there's been a kind of fence committed against some aged 14 but by the time they've presented at court they're 16 and a half and they're a very different person from that 14-year-old trauma they're now potentially involved in lots of behaviours that are not seen to be positive so what the court sees is quite a difficult belligerent drug-addicted alcoholic young person rather than the child that was in front of them in terms of when these offences happened so I think it's about making sure that we're actually presenting what happened to the child as opposed to how that child's went across now because it does take such a lengthy time in terms of the court process Do you think perhaps in terms of that time that we've alluded to that already this morning that could be expedited then perhaps for children? Is that what you would be advocating for? I hope to the very least but I understand that that will be a challenge but it's looking at what I mean I don't have the technical knowledge in terms of all the different processes that the young person discloses right the way in terms of recovery but I suppose it's about sitting down and looking at what are all those markers and not applying adult processes and looking at what's in the best interest of the children and what can we do now to expedite some of those processes Thank you Threst of the panel I think we are hearing continually and I think this is a danger in the bill actually that when children talk about what's happened to them currently we still hear particularly in Sheriff Court where there are still long delays. The child gives a statement to the police we've got children who do that alone so nine-year-olds who go to police stations give their evidence alone and then nine months later a letter pops through the door to cite them to go to court. That child has coped in whatever way they can usually not well with what happened to them and then out the blue without any support to really think about that and the intervening period are expected to go to court. We need to be really careful that you're right we don't think that job done just because children are then able to give their evidence in a pre-recorded way and then evidence goes to court because the process needs to be shorter that stays with that child it doesn't disappear once you've given your evidence that's recorded and you don't need to go to court but that child is still living with the knowledge that at some point that story that evidence will be presented so if we can shorten that process as quickly as possible we have a much better chance of encouraging and helping children to recover and the truth is there is a huge lack of resources there is a huge lack of human resources children want a person a relationship with a person who can walk through this process with them who can support them from the moment they talk about what's happened right the way through to the process being concluded and support particularly parents to talk about what's happened the danger is, as Dalgeach just eloquently described children bury this stuff and then it always emerges when they're older it emerges in behaviours that are viewed as not helpful and then they're often punished for those behaviours and no one tracks it back to the moment at which this child was a victim of a serious crime to hold our understanding of what it is that trauma does to children and that we should not have a system that through its protracted nature which is set up to suit all the agencies that are involved for their damages children Thank you Mary Glasgow, in your evidence earlier on you spoke about that lack of support for families and that I suppose ties in in terms of providing that emotional resilience to young people and Dalgeach in your written submission you also alluded to this and you talked about a gap in for parents and carers and you then go on to talk about perhaps suggesting advocacy is that what you think support should look like because obviously some young people don't have parents or carers at home to look after them so perhaps might there be a role then for the school to be involved in that support who would you acknowledge or who would you like to see providing better support to young people through this process I suppose that that's why in some of the answers I've given I've referred to children, their parents and carers and their networks around them I don't think we can say it should be the school it should be the youth worker I think it's about getting alongside that child and actually working out with them who's best place to support them and who they actually want to support them because often what you find is that the very agencies that have the closest relationships with children and young people are often excluded from some of these processes because they're not statutory or they're not experienced in that particular area of work but that wouldn't be the choice of the child and I think that Mary is absolutely right because from our experience I used to work in a service where there was this idea that you would undertake street work and you'd meet the young person you'd then pass them on to a duty service you'd then pass them on to the resource resettlement service the young people I met in the street wanted me to continue that journey with them through the process but resources' capacity didn't always allow that to happen and we have this notion in our head that as professionals we hand young people on to other people as we go along that journey and often that's not what young people want and it's not about having that expert knowledge it's about that consistency the flexibility it's about the predictability of that support as well and I think that often for young people that's the most important thing rather than having all the knowledge and skills but it's about making sure that worker or that person, whoever they are supported and actually has access to all the information timeously so that they can then really that information not just to the child but the people who are looking after the child and who are actually supporting that young people out with the kind of nine to five set up as well just a couple of issues one in terms of quotes and timing quotes are very insensitive in terms of time it's not something that the institution allows the sort of human impact to come in on but we do see green shoots in particular in family law where we see the success of the PACE project in terms of permanency planning which involves the court process as well in terms of looking at all the causes of delay and how to reduce those and we do that by bringing all the different agencies together in particular areas to look at what's causing delay and perhaps an initiative that focuses on cases where children are giving evidence and brings together the court's administration police, social work to look at how do we reduce delay in these cases may have an impact in terms of the support provided to children I don't know a lot about it I do know that in England and Wales they view the role of an intermediary as being very successful and appropriate somebody who is particularly who knows who knows the court system knows the contacts knows how to fix things but also is good at taking to children and supporting the child and family in this process and that isn't within the bill and obviously is an extra person and an extra cost but I just wonder how much we need to learn from the experience in England and Wales where certainly they view that as being an important part thank you and just finally going back to that parent or carers point that was raised in your submission do you perhaps an education programme to support parents and carers with understanding the court process would that be something that you would be advocating for as well do you think that there's a lack of knowledge then to support young people more generally because their parents or carers can't explain the system to them and that takes away perhaps from some support that could be provided it's just a bit education sometimes parents and carers are excluded from the processes because the services that are set up work with the child but I think often it's about parents and carers not being aware of what it's not sometimes about the process and the procedures sometimes it's about understanding the impact on the child and how they're going to manage some of those behaviours and getting that additional support around the parent and carer and to build their resilience as well as the child's resilience as well so yes it's about education in terms of navigating that system but it's also about I suppose parents and carers being fully informed and being properly prepared for the impact before we bring in Fulton Malcolm then victims support submission and we'll be hearing from the next they said they'd be quite interested to having discussions with the children's hearing system to see if they could play or get involved in the role I suppose of the intermediates or to discuss the role of the intermediates and given you say there's a gap in the bill would that be something you'd welcome Indeed we've created much closer relationships with Victim Support Scotland who used to only support victim witnesses in criminal proceedings but now supports children in our proceedings and we found them extremely helpful in all sorts of ways I can think of one case where the worker sort of identified it was a sexual abuse case, it was a girl giving evidence and the court officer was a male and they just asked it was nothing to do with a particular individual but they just asked if it could be a female instead to make the girl feel more comfortable so that's just a tiny example of the sort of work that they can do because they know their way around so yes they've got a lot to offer and it would be interesting to hear their thoughts That's helpful Fulton I want to stick on the pre-record and the evidence and specifically joint investigative interviews carried out by the police and social worker I should probably declare at this point my register of interests as a registered social worker and I was previously involved in joint investigative interviews so I think there's a general acceptance that they're not perfect by any means and I just wanted to explore with the panel how you feel they could be improved probably around the period prior to the interview taking place and in the period after and I think some of that's already been touched on but perhaps elaborating that We're involved in both the strategic and implementation groups around the work around JIIs which is focusing currently on improving the training for social workers and police officers so I think that's really welcome and we think that there is a need to make sure that the JII interview takes account of the broader needs of the child again, the danger is always that the child is subject to fitting into what the process is for the police and social workers so social workers are interested in care and protection making sure that there's a safety plan for children police officers obviously have to be focused on the same thing but also securing enough evidence in terms of the accused the danger in all of that is always that the child needs to get lost so what we really want to do and what we're involved in supporting the process and in saying this training really needs to start with the ways in which children respond, the ways in which children experience abuse, neglect whether they're victims or witnesses we need to build a system that understands that professionals really need to start with an understanding of child development and communication they need a broad training programme that focuses on children's holistic needs so there is real progress being made there but we need to make sure that practically we have police officers and social workers who are able to build enough confidence skill and knowledge to be able to do these interviews, they're incredibly tricky I was seconded into a multidisciplinary team years ago and delivered child protection training to groups of professionals the challenge was always when they went back into practice, it might be six, eight months between interviews and we know the evidence is that it takes somewhere around 100, 150 interviews before professionals get really confident and feel that they're really able to engage with children in a way that elicits their best evidence so we need to think about the resource issue we need to think about the support for practitioners it's a highly skilled challenging environment that we're expecting police officers and social workers to work in and it's very difficult if in the morning you're at a children's hearing and in the afternoon you're rushing somewhere to interview a child we can't operate like that as humans, we need to make sure that this system isn't just about the GII training and we don't just focus on the interview, we need to get the whole system right and we need to have professionals who are specialists who are skilled and who are able to give that child the best shot they possibly can to get their best evidence given so a new sort of suggestion there because just now that would be mainly done through social work offices in police offices a little specialised up and down the country a new suggestion there that it's possibly a specialised resource that the workers would only be involved in that particular line of work rather than anything else We strongly advocate along with partners and we welcome the Government's commitment to work towards this towards the Barnahus model the child's house model which takes children right out of the court system develops a resource in a community that looks like an ordinary space for children that has the child's rights and needs not only for justice but also for caring support built right into it so the child and their family engage with one place they go one place and the professionals come to them Right now the system involves children going one place to get interviewed and sometimes two or three places to get interviewed depending on how many times that happens another place to get medical treatment or a medical examination if that's required and then possibly most often nowhere for any support to receive any long term support to recover so what we strongly advocate is that we really move at the speed to deliver a child's house model that will elicit best justice for children and accused but it will also save us all on the long term because you build in the support for the child to recover from the impact of trauma so the child goes one place and the professionals come to them I suppose that that links into the earlier part of my question because I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how we can develop relationships beforehand because many a time when I was involved in such interviews struck me as it would have been perhaps better if there was a perhaps a non-interview setting prior to the actual meeting and I know that's more difficult for the police and social work and I understand the reasons for that but I wonder what your thoughts on that and would the model that you're talking about be more open to that if you like I think that it's such a complex area that what we, the first thing we should say is that we would also advocate that we need to talk to children and young people because they have really strong views about this process and often the answer some of the most practical answers lie with children and young people because they would be able to they do clearly articulate what would have helped but we do think that there is a space that we need to create a resource that we need to create to be taken into account of a place for exploratory interviews and discussions with children for planning for much better planning we know that resources are so stretched that the system is so pressed that we cannot currently cope with the numbers of children that need this support and so that what happens is that we don't give children the best opportunities we can because we're always having to work at pace and what we need to do for children is slow the process down that really matches where they're at and gives them the opportunity so that there is a space, one space that's set up for people to have conversations planning meetings, discussions about how you get the best evidence from children but the most important thing is the current system and you know the bill is progress but we are still incrementally tinkering with a system that is not built around children's needs and never will be and we really do need to think so I think we urge the committee to think about this just as a start and not a finish that this is better than we've currently got but it is nowhere near good enough for children we're still squeezing, squashing children into a system that is not built with their needs and our view is that if you build a justice system that is right for children and for vulnerable witnesses then it delivers better justice for everybody we'll all do better if we build a justice system that is much more human and recognises the ways in which humans are impacted when they're involved in processes that require them to be victims or witnesses Just one more point, convener, is that right? It was to interject mainly as well in terms of one of the things you mentioned the last thing you spoke was about it's not always the social worker or the police officer that would have the best relationship do you think that the model discussed there by Mary would allow for possibly a third person to be involved in such interviews if necessary and required? I mean certainly we've been involved in four police operations in Glasgow over the last seven years and each operation has operated differently because what we've done is we've used a learning from each operation to try and improve our practice going forward so in the police service a long time ago they established something called solo officers as part of the operations what would happen is each victim would be allocated a solo officer and that person in terms of their job that's what they do that's solely what they do and police officers are used to doing the whole statement given when it comes to social workers it's an add-on it's as Mary described you could be a children's here in the morning or a core group at lunchtime and that person how well you prepare so in terms of the police operations we've been involved in we've had quite a lot of focus on planning meetings and sometimes we can have two and three planning meetings before we go anywhere near a child and that's about getting the people around the table who know the child best in terms of what's the best environment what's the best time what's the support that we need to put in place before the interview, after the interview sometimes as the third person we've sat outside the room sometimes we've been allowed to sit inside the room as an observer as somebody who has a comfort who knows what particular stress what particular triggers might result in that young person becoming stressed or animated or angry or whatever so we've tried lots of different systems but I think ultimately what you need is people who know the child and who know how to get the best out of the child being involved in that process but you also need whoever is undertaking the interview that being their sole task because if it's an add-on then it's something that they're not particularly skilled at confident about and I suppose the question that I would put to you Fulton is how many GIIIs did you do in your social work career and how confident did you feel going from one to the next given the gap we're near 160 anyway so I think it's thinking about actually if we are not in the best place do you not feel confident then how's that child how are we supposed to bring out the best from that child if we are not completely clear about what we're doing and how we're doing it Daniel Denchawna so I'm quite interested in looking at actually how the rules will apply I think that the panel has been very good in terms of identifying kind of where we need to be and stating that this is limited so can I begin by looking at the offences that this will apply to and the courts I mean I note that there is essentially much of this will be brought forward by regulation it's not all coming in at once and given that I was wondering if the panel thinks that it would be sensible improvement to this bill to at least provide for the possibility of these measures being extended to other crimes and indeed to the sheriff court or indeed other tribunal settings I mean is that something that you would look to see at stage 2 so I would particularly single out offences involving domestic abuse where the child is at the centre of it it strikes me those are the ones that put the most pressure on that child and are an obvious example of where you need to look to extend it to in understanding criminal approach but the sooner it can be applied to cases which caused the most trauma to children and these may be some of them the better I mean are there any particular considerations you'd want to see looked at prior to the extension beyond the current scope or is it purely a sort of practical considerations once the practice is already established well I've already flagged the court issue for me which is its links for the child protection proceedings in that and I think the other practical issue which has an enormous impact on this is the ground rules hearing which we haven't touched on I'm about to come to that because I think we have experience of that in the hearing system and certainly when that's applied properly that helps make the setting and helps create control in terms of the direction Is there anything either Mary Glasgow or Dalgi would like to add to that point? Certainly agree in terms of children who are witnesses in domestic abuse situations which is incredibly difficult for children as you can imagine to be involved as witnesses and then also for children who are accused of crimes that we need to really think about their children too first and foremost and if we are seeking better justice for all them we really need to again think about how these measures can apply to those young people so that their best evidence is also gotten and just some equal provision between High Court and Sheriff Court because there is a gap I suppose the only thing that I would want to add to that is I agree with what both Malcolm and Mary have already mentioned is the whole issue that we refer to as harmful sexual behaviours certainly what we are seeing is more and more young people that we would refer to being involved in peer-on-peer abuse and it can be harmful sexual behaviours it can be domestic abuse, it can be child sexual exploitation it comes in various guises but often what we find is what happens is that we will get a referral for the victim but we will not get a referral for the accused who is also a child and this can be children as young as 9 and 10 and 11 and I suppose what I am thinking is what we need to think about is for that accused to have been involved in that activity what has that child been exposed to and we need to pay consideration to that as well so I suppose I am thinking about if we were to kind of open this out is to look at how do we realistically support those children who may have been involved in the offences that are extremely harmful to other children but also take a licence of the potential in terms of what they have been exposed to themselves either as witnesses but also as victims themselves because often just now what we are doing is focusing on the victim and that's in particular in relation to online offences in terms of sharing of images and also acting out some of those kind of activities as well but we've had some recent examples where some of those offences that have been muted out by other young people haven't even been seen as child protection issues or as criminal offences and that's because the gender of the child has been looked at and considered rather than thinking about the actual offence and the harm that the victims have experienced so we need to think about peer-on-peer abuse as well so Malcolm Shaffer just hit upon I think it was one of the central points that strikes me that when you look at this bill that the it's highly dependent on the ground rules hearings working that if you essentially the practice will flow from those establishing the right principles and essentially the different parties agreeing to a particular approach do you think that is the right way i.e. the argument that's made is that that allows it to be flexible and to develop or do you think that the bill needs to go further in stipulating certain things that need to be considered or certain ways that either the ground rules proceedings either work or indeed how they what elements they should be looking at in terms of how the commissioned evidence is actually taken I'm not sure there's a limit to how much you can legislate for isn't there indeed and I think you have to you've set up the provision it is a provision which we've as I've said before when we've seen it working it works it can really set the scene if the sheriff or commissioner whoever's doing it is in control of asking the right questions ensuring it's there I'm not sure whether legislation can help develop that further or if it's more just using the experience and understanding of the commissioner or whoever's doing it I mean one of my thoughts had been whether or not there should be just a requirement to consider particular elements so that rather than it being explicit about precisely what has to happen but just simply saying that the ground rules hearing should reflect on the support that might be required for the child and familiarity with context so that it doesn't need to particularly just simply asking certain things to be considered might that be a way of perhaps addressing some of the points or concerns that have been raised by the panel this morning I think that the issue about the support in particular would be very welcome yes absolutely because that would ensure that I mean hopefully they would be asking that question anyway but I think having that in black and white that is a check Are there any other absolutely I mean I think that challenges I've already said is that our measures in the current system which are not always applied so we need to firm up the legislation to make sure that it's a default position that we anticipate that children will always require special measures and that those special measures are easily accessible available and that children have and young people have the choice of the measures that they want to be in to use so if I could just ask the panel one final question is I think one of the things that has been slightly surprising to me is that in effect what this gives the possibility to is that you had a different individual who is the judge in the case from the individual who will be presiding over the ground rules hearing who again could be a different person from the person who is actually the commissioner taking the evidence itself I just wonder if that strikes the panel's order and whether it would be better to have the same individual in all three of those contexts or whether there's the sort of knock-on effects from doing that I hope to anyone answering that I would agree that continuity of individual has a lot of advantages the one danger is it could build in huge delay if that individual is already tied up with say a lengthy trial of the next two months or something like that and certainly that's what we found by experience that while there are huge benefits in having that continuity the huge danger is that it builds in further delay Good morning and thanks for your very interesting evidence this morning I'm going to come back to child accused and resources but first I just want to I guess ask about the tension that exists here because throughout your evidence this morning you've said a number of things such as we need to work towards the child's house model we need a whole system approach to get that right we need to move at speed but we've also heard you say what's already in the bill will be difficult to implement and I think the tension is what should be about policy and strategy and direction should be on the face of this bill and the two things I don't think are the same thing and I think we need to be cautious that we get the basics right here and given what you've said about resources that we don't through unintended consequences add more delay into the system so I guess what I'm looking for is first of all acknowledgement that that tension exists but where you think we should get the right balance of what is on the face of the bill and what should be about a very clear policy intention so that's not an easy question but I guess it's to reflect on some of the tensions within your own evidence this morning which show how complicated this is and I guess the Scottish Government have said in their evidence for that reason that it's about proceeding carefully because it's of such a major change so where does that balance lie? It's a really difficult question because... One we need to resolve though because I think that's the difficulty for us and you know I come here to represent the voices of the children that we support and their families and to represent their stories and to you know to describe to do justice to that actually in the best way that I can and it's incredibly difficult because what we believe is that we don't have a justice system that is fit for purpose for children that's really difficult and we would want us to see us implement an entirely different system but we're also practical and we know that we are where we are with what we've got and so we don't want to as you say rush into something and have potential and intended consequences because we work at speed and we don't take account of all the other complexities within the system but we do think that there are things that we could do we could have we've agreed with this we could have a more holistic approach we could have a system whereby we don't children go to one place and we could still do that within the system that we've got children could give they could have their evidence pre-recorded they could access support they could get less about education for parents and more about support for parents and understand and navigate their way through what is a very complex system currently so we do think that we could make improvements to the current system whilst continuing to focus on this bigger prize which is a much more child centre child rights based justice system the worry for us is that there are welcome there are measures that are welcome within this bill of course there are there's always been a challenge where even when there have been measures previously because the system is not built around children it's built around what the system needs and what the system thinks it requires from victims and witnesses so you're right to point out the tension that is tensioned there but you know it's our we are obligated to the children that we support who continually tell us really painful difficult stories about their experience of the justice system and they are very clear about the things that they would want to see some of the awful things that have happened to you get support much quicker to understand what's happened to you and to recover from them to deal with a system that understands that you're a child and that delays impact on your ability to recall and to make sure that you are prepared and understand the process with which you're engaged and there is a tension in the two things because we want to see progress but this doesn't go far enough we know it doesn't have a difficult place for children so we need to implement this bill but not forget that this is a much, much longer term goal for children and we really do need to work towards something different we do think we could immediately so the child witness suites are welcome but they are far from Child's house and far from Barnahouse we could have resources where we have all the professionals based in one place where children go there and get all their needs met pre-recorded and that goes to court there's nothing to stop us doing that it's a challenge around resources but our argument is the resources challenge, it costs us all anyway because these kids and young people pop up in other parts of the system which cost us and I'm not sure I'm answering your question and I apologise for that because you're right it is a tension and one that we don't have the answer to we welcome elements of the bill we'd like it to go further and we know that we are engaged in a process which isn't designed around children I mean it sounds to me what you're asking for is for a clear statement of intent of where the end point is and this is part of the jigsaw but it's a part of the jigsaw that needs to be got right resources sort of to interrupt there was going to be a further question you've touched on resources already and maybe in answering the others could touch on this obviously resources are not infinite therefore in terms of the key priorities for resources what would those be you've just touched Mary Glasgow on the getting the facilities right and obviously the staff to therefore support the children is within all of the resource implications and demands is that what you would put as your number one priority okay I would absolutely agree you know there's a lot that is not legislation dependent there's a lot we can achieve by skilling ourselves better by improving procedures within the law this legislation can act as a further boost and incentive to getting that right Mary's already talked about the improvements that are already planned in terms of joint interviewing I think that can make a significant difference so there's a lot that can be achieved and it's just always remembering we've got an ultimate goal and hopefully a timetable to get to it and it's not just a matter of we've got this bill we've ticked it, that's it done this is just a stage so you would like to have a timetable set out that wouldn't necessarily be on the face of the bill but a timetable for okay so it's about you having children back a sense of control because I think that the children that we work with feel extremely disempowered and disengaged from the processes because they don't have an understanding of what's going on and why and continually what I hear children young people saying to us is I just want this to stop it's not that I want justice or I want this person charged and convicted I just want this to stop so it's about making sure and not disempowering them even more by going down a path that actually isn't in their best interests or isn't actually what they want okay just finally you've all touched on I think the issue of the child accused which clearly is the bill that does not extend the rule to the child accused and you've touched on some of the great areas of an accused child could also be a victim just in brief I mean do you think at this stage should be included or is that something again that you would like to be part of a timetable going forward what's your view going back to our original submission what we said is we understood why you were taking the kind of pragmatic steps that you are in terms of phasing but I think ultimately it would be very helpful if we could also consider accused because I think children first and foremost and we actually don't know what's happened to them and I think it's really important that we work with them as victims first and foremost and accuse secondary I mean one of the issues put forward against that argument was that I actually could do a disservice to the child accused in terms of their ability to then come back on evidence that has been heard in court if that might be difficult if it's already evidence that's been given so do you recognise that as a tension Yes it can be but there would be provision that could be and would be allowed that if there was any supplementary issues that that child could give further evidence I think that's already built in for the child witness so it could be covered I would agree but then they're already disadvantaged by the current system and we would strongly advocate similarly to Daljeet that the children who are accused are most often children who have experienced trauma have been victims of crime or abuse or neglect in most cases we have to consider that these children are involved in the justice system because of things that have happened to them that we may not know about and they're already disadvantaged by the system that they're in and I think that there are measures that you could put in place to make sure that they do get an opportunity for supplementary process and questions Supplementary Liam I think that a number of you have mentioned the child house model and ultimately that being where you think we should be aspiring to get to is there a risk in terms of what we're putting in place now around this legislation as Shona Robison was saying without a pathway to the ultimate objective that we end up using scarce resources to put in place a model that in due course we need to rip out in order to replace with something else is that a risk? It is potentially a risk but I think that there are we need to get to the child house model but there are some challenges in getting there because it really does challenge the whole adversarial nature of our process so it's not just a resource issue it's challenging some fairly basics in the legal system so I'd love to get there tomorrow but I think realistically I can understand again the need for a staged approach and that Is there any concerns you'd have that approach can be adopted given that the resources required across the board, across the country not simply in areas of highest demand? I don't think it's just a resource issue it's a cultural issue because actually if we really believed in getting the best for children we wouldn't be having this debate and discussion because it's a way of thinking about just now what we're doing is fitting children around an adult system that actually probably doesn't work for adults either and we need to think about what is it that children need and how do we get there and it is about having a timetabled approach so I think that would be really helpful because obviously I agree with Malcolm that I'd like it tomorrow but it's not going to happen tomorrow but I suppose my worry is what Mary said right at the beginning which is we do this and we've ticked the box and we think it's done whereas if we know that there's a vision to get to a better place and we know how we're going to get there incrementally all the organisations around the table would be much more supportive of that because we know that we actually know what the end game is The panel may be interested to know that the committee are actually going to see the Barnhouse model so we're very interested given your comments John. Thank you, convener. I was going to ask your position on the procedures for standard measures I think that the generality of that notification procedure has been welcome Malcolm, particularly if you wish to expand on the other panel members in a comment you responded to that when you said that anecdotally witnesses' views are not always being sought at the moment and a screen and supporter are used as the default special measures and you very helpfully suggest an amendment that would ensuring that reasonable steps were taken to ascertain the views of witnesses Can the panel comment on that is there any further suggestions you would make in relation to that Mary. You earlier about a support person that travels through the process with a child and young person that elicits their views and gives them information and is a flow between the system and the child and their family that would be the process by which we could consult children on their views and make sure that any choices that they make about measures are based on really understanding what that would look like and feel like so children being able to physically see what it would look like to be given evidence in certain situations would be really really helpful there's a huge gap in that just now In the hearing process where we do consider special measures we are under an obligation to consult with the child and parents so that is built in and the effectiveness of that is partially dependent on their understanding of what those measures are and that can take a bit of explanation so certainly yes the intervention of that special person who's got that link I think will add to that process Had already in a previous answer my reference to intermediaries that we have in England we've got services in England where they're called ISFA workers so it's independent sexual violence advocates that's their role and what they would do is talk to a child or a young person right the way through that process in terms of about who they need to talk to what they need to talk to them about and what the processes for that would be but also continually be the person that shares information feeds back to the child and young person the wider network as appropriate in terms of what's happening next so that that young person is kept informed all the way and isn't excluded from any decision making whatsoever and that seems to be a system that works for children and young people it is introducing yet another person and I think if we could introduce that person as early as possible in the journey would be helpful Okay that's very helpful thank you Communication is something that I've noticed coming up in all the submissions Is there anything that hasn't been covered that you'd like to very briefly add in terms of communication with the child taking the child's view into account I think certainly for children we've got experience of supporting children where they have communication issues or developmental delay or learning disabilities where there is a requirement to have specialist support for the professionals and speaking with that child interviewing that child make sure that those children's specific needs are taken account of and that there's careful planning about who might be the best person what particular measures might be most useful for those young people so just a real need to build an understanding that children's stages developmental needs will vary across the piece and we know that there is a huge gap around children with specific communication difficulties in learning disabilities and communication more generally that you've emphasised I suppose the only thing that I would add to that is that we've had very recent experience of working with a particular community where we simply in this country don't have interpreters who speak the same language and actually back home in their own countries those people would be part of somebody that they would describe as being their oppressors because of the language that they speak so we have to be mindful not just of communication difficulties and cultural difficulties but also that power dynamic because what you've got is people who don't speak the same language and also interestingly that particular community also don't have the actual vocabulary in their language for words such as domestic abuse, sexual exploitation mental health, submissives they physically don't have that vocabulary and I've personally sat in some of those interpreter sessions where the actual interpreter said whatever they're saying and then had sexual exploitation and you know the parent has had absolutely no understanding of what everyone's concerned about so if we're going to properly communicate with children and young people if we know right at the beginning that we don't have the words or the language we need to find a different way of being able to communicate and make sure that people fully understand what's being communicated and can't be misrepresented in any way at all. Mark-umann, anything, Tad? There are delays that will still occur in the system and more than anything else all of us need to be aware of just keeping somebody in touch as to what the delays are why they're happening what the timetable is it's a small issue but it's the one that can cause most anxiety especially if something goes away and then quite suddenly you gave examples of suddenly nine months later hearing about a prosecution I think that's something that must cause huge dilemmas for child witnesses in particular and is one that we need to concentrate on ourselves included. Thank you very much that's been an excellent evidence session and we will now suspend to allow it for a change of witnesses and a five-minute comfort break. I welcome our second panel Ronnie Barnes, trustee, action and elderly abuse Scotland Mary McGowan group manager, assist, community safety Glasgow Colin Mackay, chief executive mental welfare commission for Scotland and last but not least Kevin Cain parliamentary policy research officer victim support Scotland and as always I thank the witnesses for the written submissions which do make a real big difference to the committee in advance of our taking evidence from you in person. Moved straight to questions starting with Ronnie. Thank you convener, good morning panel yes I could just start on the submissions and maybe ask you to expand a wee bit on any concerns or anything that you've highlighted in your submissions albeit you do appear to be largely supportive of the bill can you maybe just expand a bit on what you feel could be added to the bill? Who'd like to start? Mary, you're making news. For me I very much welcome the bill but I have a real worry that it will be brought in for the most serious cases and then the progress will stop and that has been our experience with the introduction of MAPA for example we were assured that when MAPA was introduced that it would be introduced at first for real serious crimes and that eventually domestic abuse would be picked up under that process and it never has been so my real concern is that without a timetable laid down Parliament can raise properly that we'll lose any other benefits so for me a timetable for extension I'm aware that the previous session witnesses raised that so that for me is a huge issue so I'll my big concern was about how it affected both adult and children's experiences of domestic abuse in the justice system for example to let you to talk you through that but obviously happy to do that in that process over the session That's fine Echo that we believe it's important that fewer witnesses are required to give evidence in criminal trials and we base that on our work with our witness service who prior to this submission have been very very helpful with me we've supported over 10,000 children in court and provided a supporter to witnesses in court over 4,000 times last year and as an organisation we received over 22,000 via referrals many of whom were children and the most serious crimes involving violence and sexual crime and during the process of these discussions we've been told of the depth of trauma that our volunteers have experienced one volunteer described feeling harrowed and that's the volunteer that's not the witness so you can imagine the impact it would have on the witness themselves so we support the bill and we support a timeline to broadening that to a range of victims as soon as practically possible Can I just ask you at this point can I ask you what point you get involved with the victim you heard Mary Glasgow talking about you know, step by step same person all the way through etc so what point are you involved You're involved at every stage of the process our victim service can be involved very early on our witness service with communication between the witness and the victim service are involved and also have to be reactive to on the day case load based in courts all around the country and we also provide support after and that's really important as well but organisations are trauma informed and seeking to make a lasting difference so the answer is every step of the way Would that be the same person? If we can manage it a single point of contact is what we try to achieve and we are also supportive of the wider Scottish Government mission which is to have a single point of contact to provide continuity with multiple agencies and people and we know that sooner that a particular children a vulnerable witness can have their evidence heard that their recall is better because it's exacerbated by the challenges that they've faced and more generally if we can support someone start to finish, that's what we set out to do Thank you Mr Mackay Thank you very much We didn't actually put in a response to the bill so if you'll forgive me I'll just kind of try and outline I suppose where the commission fits in in this process I mean the commission is a statutory body and our role is to protect and promote human rights of people with mental illnesses learning disabilities and dementia and I guess we didn't put in a response because we felt the bill was primarily directed at child witnesses which is that other people are better able to speak to but we're very grateful for the opportunity to comment on this in relation to people with mental illness learning disability and dementia because I suppose the first thing to say is there is a problem and there are two problems one is that there is reasonably good evidence that people with learning disabilities and mental illnesses are more likely than members of the general public to have crime and there are particular types of crime that they are especially vulnerable to and which can be very difficult to prosecute and can raise problematic issues in relation to the criminal justice system so there's certainly a problem in terms of victimisation and I think there is also a problem in terms of having equal access to the justice system and we would see equality of access to the justice system as a human rights issue the committee on the rights of people with disabilities and the Scottish Government has committed to implementing but it's a duty on the states to take all appropriate measures to protect people with disabilities from exploitation, violence and abuse and put in place effective legislation and policies to ensure that exploitation, violence and abuse are identified, investigated and prosecuted so there is a need both in terms of the experience of people with mental illnesses and learning disabilities and in terms of the broader context of equality to do something in that context I think this bill there's nothing we would object to in this bill I think we would agree with others that if it's felt pragmatic to start with children and look at extending it later on that's absolutely okay provided there is a proper process and commitment to do that I mean a lot of this work's been talked about for a number of years the court service's evidence of procedure review is back in 2015 so this does take a while but in fact in relation to people with mental disorders there are probably some more specific things that need to be looked at which I'm happy to talk about later on particularly around how this links in with the appropriate adult system and perhaps the opportunity to develop the registered intermediary scheme which I think you've already heard some mention of Mr Barnes Thank you very much for the opportunity to address your committee on behalf of Action and Elder Abuse Scotland campaigning charity to consider particularly the needs of older people I think our submission highlighted the fact that our experience is that many older victims of crime are extremely reluctant to speak up due to the fear of consequences through the court process I mean why put yourself through such a stressful process if you believe that it's unlikely that there will be any prosecution we're also aware that there's a very low level of reporting of crimes against older people furthermore the ones that actually do end up in court our experience is that the prosecution the court system doesn't seem to take it seriously and that perpetrators of abuse are treated on a lighter end of the sentencing scale and this sends a signal that in fact these things are not taken seriously having heard some of the submissions in the earlier panel particularly relating to children I think you could read across some of the measures that I think you would want to introduce for children as vulnerable witnesses you may want to think about the same sort of processes for older people who again would require special treatment special measures to be able to give their evidence successfully and to be taken and nurtured through the court process in a way that isn't available to them at the moment Colin mentioned the appropriate adult scheme and maybe there's something that could be expanded to include something similar for vulnerable older people particularly older people with dementia okay thank you Jenny I'd just like to ask a general question with regard to the benefits of pre-recording evidence the panel for example in terms of the impact on vulnerable witnesses and the quality of evidence that that provides I should maybe just clarify I never actually said in my nervousness what assist did we're an advocacy project that works across the west command of police Scotland apart from the recent galloway so all of the west of Scotland supporting victims of domestic abuse from the day after the incident right through to the end of the court process we support adults and we support children and young people we're co-located with the police as well in various various police stations so we're very well aware of the issues that present we talk to victims again adults and children the day after the incident takes place and that's when you get fresh you get good recall to expect traumatised people to remember what has happened over a long period of time just doesn't work and especially when it's a witness who's giving evidence against a family member against her dad or against her partner it's incredibly difficult if there's a sustained course of conduct for example over a number of years and this incident that's going through court is perhaps a section 38 threatening and abusive behaviour and if the witness is thinking now what one was that then it's very hard to get best evidence so while there have been some advances made some witnesses can see their statement beforehand but in terms of vulnerability I think it's crucial for the administration of justice that statements are taken as quickly as possible and as near to the incident as possible thank you the committee are probably already well aware that section 28 pilot in England will just take me 10 seconds to run through the report of that which included prerecording of evidence in chief and cross examination and a robust ground rules hearing the result of that was that it made it easier for vulnerable witness to recall events they produced more reliable evidence which means it's fairer for everybody including the accused the questions themselves were more focused the more streamlined the scrutiny was better the cross examinations took place for a shorter period the trial durations shorter in length and there were fewer trials that were cracked during that process now we should be looking to adopt best practices where we can so I would urge the committee to look at that report Barnardo's in their 2017 report also concluded that better supported and informed the witness and their wellbeing included and promoted and protected the better the evidence will be and that's in the interests of everyone thank you in relation to somebody with a mental illness or a learning disability in particular perhaps a learning disability dementia the same point about taking the evidence the earlier the possible in terms of recall it's obviously much more likely that details will be forgotten if you have a person with dementia and of course obviously if a person has dementia it's a progressive illness and so the person may be more ill by the time a trial comes along and the other big advantage I suppose is just in terms of the level of stress and anxiety and trauma experience in giving evidence that if that's done in a managed way that will both reduce the harm to the person and improve the ability the person to give evidence because it's obviously easier to give evidence if you're not being traumatised by the process the only caveat output is that a bad interview done early is no better than a bad interview done in the trial which is why I think some of the issues about the support and assessment of how a person should be interviewed if they have difficulties with communication for example is very important it has to be tailored and individualised for the needs of the person it isn't just about pre-recording it's about how you prepare for that interview that is very important if you want to get the best evidence those comments as well anything that assists all the people to give their story and to be able to give the quality of evidence it's necessary to bring about prosecutors has to be welcomed can I add some of the examples that I mentioned earlier what happens is that the length of time really interferes we had a 17-year-old victim who submitted a soul in conscience letter excusing her from court two months before the date of the trial but she didn't know until the day before the trial whether she was going to give evidence or not so by that time she was physically ill with worry she'd visited a GP had become very withdrawn and her sleeping and eating was not very helpful we supported a 13-year-old boy who gave evidence via CCTV on the day of the trial but he was physically sick at court prior to being called to give evidence due to the extreme anxiety and if that had been done earlier permitted to give his evidence advance there wouldn't have been that build up of trauma so there's something about giving evidence in early but there's also something about keeping witnesses informed about what's happening through the process that we're supporting a 7-year-old boy at the moment and we are concerned about the level of stress and the quality of the evidence that will be given but we also know, as does everybody else that if the case his evidence hasn't heard then the case will fall so it's about trying the effort that our children and young people's advocacy workers put in to try and prepare witnesses for the court beforehand and as Kevin was saying about the debrief afterwards so in terms of resources it's hugely resource intensive Can I ask a brief supplementary because I note in your evidence you say with the advent of the new domestic abuse bill we'll expect more children will be cited to give evidence so in your expert opinion is the level of stress increased because of the length of time to get to court without a doubt if you can put yourself in the mind of a child who knows that a parent usually dad is being prosecuted and they're going to have to speak up it would be far better if the evidence was taken at the time because all the way through you also get people putting perpetrators family putting pressure why are you giving evidence why couldn't you just withdraw your statement etc so there's a lot of subtlety a lot of subtle pressure that goes on outside of the court process because after all it's people's lives so if we were because of the new domestic abuse bill a lot of the context hopefully a lot of the context around the individual section 38 or the assaults that are led just now the context will be picked up under the new legislation but that's fantastic and we really welcome that but unless we also look at the consequences of bringing in things like this we make sure that we we move to a far better process for children as quickly as possible thank you and in terms of taking evidence by commissioner I wonder if the panel might have any views with regard to whether or not that delivers the best quality of evidence currently we'd like to start I had an increase in evidence on commission we looked specifically at the Edinburgh High Court there is issues with facilities going to court whether that's given evidence on the day or by commission is still traumatic of itself and there's issues of timing consistency predictability on what room that will be so we would support that in terms of the joint investigative interview that all of these things are are mapped out in advance evidence on commissions being on the books since 2004-2005 are there abouts and there's only been marginal increases which takes us back to the point that some of the other panellists made about there being a timetable we need to be pragmatic however we can't adopt a bill for Bill's sake and there needs to be ambition around the facilities that give evidence in the Scottish Government's submission to this committee last week they were candid about not knowing exactly how much resourcing that would entail which I think is fair enough when we don't know what the take-ups will be when the bill comes in but in principle we support evidence on commission with the best possible facilities and if that can be done away from the court the better we supported Scottish courts the recent money that they got to do that which had hearing suite mirrors, special facilities access to intermediaries all those things need to be considered as part of the wider package Yes, Colin Yes, it's probably the record but as with the pre-recorded evidence it's not just about giving evidence on commission but it's who the commissioner is what knowledge they have and what advice and support they have in relation to any particular communication needs should be asked because those are quite detailed and specific things which will be different for a person with Autistic Spectrum Disorder as against a person with dementia for example so if there is to be evidence given on commission it needs to be on the basis of a very clear assessment of what the needs of the person give the evidence are so that that can be done in the best possible way Model work for older people I don't know what to do I'm hearing from my colleagues we're heading probably to children and younger people is as I said earlier my own opening submission I think some of you could read across to older people certain vulnerable to people who would have the same issues of being able to tell their story in the way that children and vulnerable young people would have the same issues about Okay and Liam supplementary One quick point and one substantive question just Mr Barnes How do you define older people I know in your submission you say you try to narrow it down but where as we can define children for example very precisely what's an older person Well you could actually expand it to all adults at risk which would be the three point test and the adult support and protection legislation but as opposed for us we're particularly thinking about older people probably in their 80s and 90s who are now living longer living in more cared for situations but nevertheless vulnerable to some form of exploitation and abuse simply because of their living circumstances and people who are challenged by having some degree of dementia again what we're seeing is the lifespan is for people is increasing but the risks are increasing exponentially with that and it's finding a means by which people do not feel that they're going to live in circumstance where they can be exploited without the opportunities to be able to report that and having the comfort of a system that supports and understands them Now on that point this is my substantive question if I may we've all the evidence that we've seen starts from the position that an appearance in court and the current processes don't elicit best evidence that we've traumatised and Mr Cain talked about getting better evidence better recall Ms McGowan talked about not building up trauma getting the evidence in early all of those things could be applied much more widely than just vulnerable witnesses everyone could say the same thing with merit I think so why if there are only positives to what's being proposed in terms of the process changes and no negatives to the accused particularly Mr Cain and victim support why are none of you calling for the introduction of these changes across the entire spectrum not just limited to vulnerable people or are there any negatives to the fairness to the trial to the accused we're working within the confines of an adversarial system what this bill potentially does is open up the possibility of looking at the justice system as a whole and taking it towards a more inquisitorial system and there are many systems around the world and that would be a child based rights based approach which would include the accused it would include safeguards for anyone involved in the process so we would be open to discussions on what a renewed compatible system with the bill would look like yeah I mean I think similarly with something like mental disorder I mean you know the definition in the mental disorder that on some views could apply to one in four people at any point in their lives now I think there's certainly an argument that says that there's a lot about the current court system which is there because of historical circumstances and doesn't necessarily provide the best evidence but I think it's also fair to say that there are people who are further away from fairness than others and I think it's probably reasonable to start with the people who have the worst time in the current system and think about how do you alleviate the system for them and as that develops and as you understand how that can work to give you an example I mean some of the work that's been done around cross examining people and the kind of questions that you're asking on cross examination that started with looking at a person who may be a child witness or an adult with a learning disability well don't ask questions with double negatives in them, don't ask leading questions don't ask the particular styles of questions which for a child or a vulnerable adult are more likely to elicit an unhelpful and untrue answer and so you get better at that but one of the things that has I think happened in the bar the people who've been working that I said well actually this is how you interview everybody you shouldn't be engaging in a kind of mind game with somebody trying to trip them up you should actually be asking them questions in a way which they're able to understand and respond to so I think it's right to start with the people who experience the worst defects of the current system and think about how you fix it for them but I think it's absolutely right that over time that might extend to a much wider group of people for all nobody would disagree with that but I think it's a system as it stands at the moment there are some who suffer more than others and I would contest that older people particularly but while vulnerable older people are among those almost victims of the system rather than recipients of it I think we also need to be realistic if we go into a discussion about how we would fix the justice system as a whole and pick up staff and look at the adversarial process and move to an inquisitorial process for example that's going to take an awful awful long time and meantime you've got vulnerable children young people and vulnerable adults who are suffering and I don't think that we can leave that which is why I'm in favour of having a staged approach I don't think we'll ever get to a situation where we can say we've got a perfect system and that it shouldn't be looked at but we've got to be pragmatic and move what we can, when we can when we get consensus across society and I think there is a consensus that children, young people, vulnerable witnesses for me that's vulnerable all victims of domestic abuse are deemed vulnerable under the victims and witnesses act 2014 so that for me is an issue about let's pick up those we've already identified as vulnerable Jenny I'd just like to go back to my question on taking evidence by commissioner and ask the panel what their views are with regard to the importance of the ground rules hearing in cases where evidence is to be taken on commission Kevin It's important that the child's development needs and safety are met and it's easier to do that if you can get people to agree at a very early stage there's a big picture vision for how that can be done in children first highlighted they call it the parents house model where there are graphs on the wall in Norway that's something that you'll get a chance to look at which outlines based on the child's cognitive ability and any other complex needs that they may have exactly the tone and the type and the duration that that questioning should last there are some good practice examples that we have evidence on commission the best examples are where good relationships exist between Victim Support Scotland and Scottish Courts Crown Procurator that's where we can make contact directly but we're navigating around a system with good people in our ranks rather than responding to a structural reality and that's where we would like to be Port the move to the Barnahouse model for that particular reason we don't have experience of fighting for evidence to be given on commission because most of the folks that we support it's mostly through the Sheriff Court so that's why I'm not going to detail me your question I do think that the ground rules model is probably fundamental to preparing whether it's evidence on commission or at the trial and certainly the English system around register and intermediaries that's very much tied into the idea of the ground rules process so that you can have an expert assessment of the needs of the person giving evidence of their deficits and how those could be overcome and then you use the ground rules hearing to actually establish well this is how we're going to play this and if you have an intermediary this is when you can intervene this would be the basis on which you might be supporting the person so that we're all clear and you don't have the situation as it were when the evidence is being taken that somebody suddenly is saying or you can't do that that's unfair so I do think preparing Fulton, have you satisfied or be? Daniel I'd like to in some ways take up where we've just left off there both in terms of the extension and also looking at how some of the rules will be enacted in particular the ground rules hearings but just beginning by the scope of what this takes in and in particular based on what you just said Mary McGowan about you probably being primarily concerned with the sheriff court and this obviously only pertains to solemn procedure and the high court and specific offences given that section 3 already essentially just by simple ministerial regulation extends this to other vulnerable witnesses do you think that you'd support a move to put similar provisions to extend this to other types of court hearing obviously based on how it embeds in practice with the child witnesses and so on is that something that you would support? We do support victims through petition a lot of the incidences of domestic abuse don't go through the sheriff court but the vast majority of them do but for me if we look at the experience of the witness then we need to put create a process whether it's in the high court a sheriff in jury or whether it's a sheriff court where we're looking at how does the system ensure that best evidence is given and the only way we will do that is by extending the process as laid out so I support wholeheartedly the fact that you're starting with the high court it makes absolute sense of course it does to make sure that it doesn't stay there because the evidence that we have from service users from children, from young people and the trauma that they're experiencing is as great for them in the sheriff court as it would be in a sheriff in jury or in the high court I think that the entire panel has supported the extension of this principle and practice to other areas there would obviously be practical considerations for doing that, given the volumes are there any other things that the panel would think would need to be considered or reviewed prior to extending this to other categories of both witness case and court I think that you need to look at the support for children the Daljeet mentioned earlier on about the ISVA model our children and young persons advocacy worker is that in fact the whole of assist was based on the IDVA model which was the domestic violence advocate down south and that's exactly what we do here so we've taken a lot of that and used it for over 15 years passing information back and forth between ourselves and the Crown and the witness and acting as an intermediary and out of court of course but the issue for me is that we've got systems like that that we could build on and having some kind of support worker who was skilled and experienced that there was a set of standards that made sure that everyone adhered to I think would be very helpful but I don't think it's enough just to we need to look at the wider process and a support worker I think would be helpful Kevin Cain you were nodding your hand The role of the commissioner is I think still to be explored in who that person will be we would support the commissioner being the ultimate arbiter on what questions to give but it ties to just a point that Mari made there about training training doesn't end when you become a solicitor the Law Society of Scotland by the way excellent response to this so I'm not having a go they seem very supported provided that there's remuneration and resourcing but we need to upskill the commissioners to be trauma aware and there's already the national trauma training network and other useful tax that we could take to ensure that they understand the ramifications of certain tones of questioning we know that solicitors from the evidence out there are 30 years' worth of empirical evidence all over the UK that routinely do not adjust their questioning so training is of paramount importance to get what we're trying to achieve in the bill right so you can I just interpret what you're saying that there should be explicit training and a review of practice for commissioners in these circumstances and that should be put in the face of the bill it should be a judicially robust function and if that means explicitly outlining that in the bill then so be it but that be some work with our partners to ensure that that was deliverable before we put inked paper and just on that note and again following on from my question that I asked the previous panel the considerations that are required on the ground rules hearing are relatively narrow about the form of questioning with the possibility of extending support where that's necessary I was wondering if the panel thought that there were other considerations that should be made explicit and indeed one of my reflections this morning is whether or not that possibility of further support should be a much more positive duty to examine what supports can be extended to the individual I was just wondering if there was any thoughts on those suggestions I've got my colleague who's an expert in that field but just to say there should be consistency with other progress in the justice sphere and the autism justice strategy there's just one item that's sort of bobbing along there so we need to get consistency across the board so we can tackle complex needs in a very drilled down focused way Yes, I think you've been talking particularly about adults with vulnerability through mental illness or learning disability the comments you heard at the earlier session around consistent support throughout the system for children would equally apply and that's also the conclusion of work that's been done where people with learning disabilities are accused of crime so there's work done by the organisation called Sold and that's the kind of key demand really is saying that you have to have somebody who helps a person to understand what's going on at different stages in the system and the difficulty up to now has been we tend to take one bit of the system and say what can we do to get this person out of this bit of the system and on to the next bit of the system and the appropriate adult scheme is a very good example of that I mean, as you know it's legislated to put the appropriate adult scheme on a statutory footing and the government's about to implement that but the appropriate adult scheme is a police scheme, it's there to help the police to get an interview and once the police have got their interview that person goes away doesn't normally participate in the court process and so whether there are a witness or a victim or indeed an accused person needs somebody who can take them through the system and that really isn't a role for anybody at the minute I think even if the ground rules hearing or a judge were to say can somebody do this, there wouldn't be anybody stepping forward to do that so I do think that that is something which does need urgently to be addressed Can I ask one final question do you think an explicit assessment should be made at the ground rules hearing of the deficits or requirements of the individual giving evidence cos that's not actually, I don't think it's stated it's sort of a much broader assessment that's required I think if somebody's communication is impaired by your mental disorder of whatever kind then or ability to engage in the process is impaired then I think that does need to be explicitly addressed because as I said people have huge differences in what their vulnerabilities are or what their deficits are and of course some people will be well able to understand that they may have a mental illness for example but other people may have quite complex or possibly even hard to notice deficits one of the issues for people with dementia and Ronnie can probably talk about this often is that they may actually present as being more competent and capable than they actually are so there may be an assumption why this person can come and give their evidence where in fact they may have difficulties with some aspects or may appear to be unable to give a gear into account to themselves but if properly supported could give a gear into account to themselves and I think there's a very important point here which is it's not just about the trauma of people giving evidence in court it's about the fact that unless people are supported some of these cases will never get to court I mean the historical evidence around for example sexual abuse of people with learning disability there's often these cases never came to court essentially the system decided well this is never going to we're ever going to secure a conviction here because of the person's inability to give evidence so why put the person through that trauma so unless we actually do that more kind of thorough and detailed assessment it's unlikely these cases will go through the system properly Shona oh sorry sorry I had to realise just to confirm what Colin was saying in relation to older people I think there are certain categories of vulnerability in terms of physical frailty and also in terms of mental impairment particularly dementia which I think would be recognised at an early stage within the complaint making process that a person is not able without some degree of support to be able to sort of give their evidence appropriately and I think anything that within the model that you're talking about should be applied to certain categories of older people as well and I would like to see that as part of your consideration in this bill and Mary did you have anything to add well just I think there's a lot that we could do in terms of providing support for court the work that we do for example is not available across all of Scotland so children don't have the support even the small group that we've got in the west can do and I think it's really important that the Scottish Government and look to ensuring that there's an equality because people in Stornoway and whatever just need as much support as someone in the centre of government I want to just explore as I did with the previous panel a little bit about the tension of what's on the face of the bill and what's about clearly setting out policy and strategic intent and I think that's quite important previous panel it was by one of the panellists said that they would be concerned about unintended consequences so for example further delay potentially because of maybe a mismatch of pace of what becomes law and what can actually be done on the ground so I guess what I'm looking for from the panel is just where you think that balance lies around what should be on the face of the bill in order to make progress incrementally as I think everybody's accepted needs to be done and what could better lie elsewhere whether it's in a timetable for example or clarity around policy and tension and strategy so where do you lie in terms of that tension in terms of what should be on the face of the bill and what should be elsewhere I think if you start with the high court cases that you've talked about and that you have an absolute timetable set down so that everyone else is aware of when they can be brought into this I think that would go a long way to alleviating issues I think that I don't think we could ever be in a situation where we could say that the timetables won't slip but we do need to be aware of the impact of delays we're supporting a 19-year-old victim at the moment the substantive issue happened three years ago and the trial has been adjourned seven times now nobody is doing that deliberately nobody the system isn't trying to upset that young person but the reality is that that young person has been waiting three years so there needs to be some way I think of whilst we have for example all domestic abuse trials should be done within 10 weeks there needs to be some kind of the only word that's coming to my head is backstop it's just no the right word in a day like today however there needs to be something at the back of it and issues to be picked up so that we're not just looking at what's in front of us we're looking at where the unintended where would the system pick up things that are falling through because what happens is we tend to focus on what's in front of us not who's fallen through or what's fallen over the edge the others might want to come in but maybe just while we're on the subject of resources which is part of this as well and the fact that they're not infinite what would be your key priority for investing in terms of what you've just said about what the day-to-day experience so where do we focus the resources in addition to the timetable of what needs to happen when what's happening specifically with this bill the biggest difference could be made in terms of resources what would that be a timetable set out to anybody else needs to be checks and balances written in where perhaps Government and our statutory body partners have an obligation to review the progress quickly after the bill comes in and children first submission they refer to the European Promise Exchange which is a starting point for developing a framework for monitoring progress and that might be something that's worth looking at and I think money should be spent there to ensure that that we get it right and if we're not getting it right it gives us a chance to revisit it quickly and then less vulnerable witnesses will be put in any sort of predicament for that. Yeah, I mean this may just be me speaking as a former civil servant but I think I am a bit thoughtful about not putting too much detail in primary legislation sometimes because as you say sometimes it turns out that it didn't work out quite how you wanted to and it's then very difficult to change so I think it's important that the legislation does set out the broad parameters and a framework within which progress can be made and it's important that you have a political commitment and a process of monitoring progress. I mean one of the things I would commend the Justice System for, I mean I think the work that was done for example around the evidence and procedure review and the general progress around joint working around a lot of reforms to the justice system over the past five years has been quite significant and it's not the way that the justice system used to work in the past, I mean almost constitutionally inappropriate that the police should talk to judges or judges should talk to government and the fact that something like the evidence and procedure review of Scots Farset has I think is to be commended. I think there's a danger though that once you get into the difficulties of implementation you're right some of that energy and commitment gets lost because you know you get into the well let's just get this one thing done and then we'll see where we are kind of mentality so I think it's important that the committee in the parliament is supposed to continue to hold the government to account for a clear framework for action. I'd also think about, as I say, some of these international obligations such as the UN convention on the rights of the chance such as the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities because they have monitoring mechanisms as well and I think sometimes the government needs to be held to account through those measures and how the justice system has served the needs of children and people with disabilities so I think there are different ways of doing this but I think it's important that collectively this adds up to a framework for action. We don't echo what's said, I'm not so familiar with what may well be in the bill but anything that sort of ensures that things are moved as progressively and swiftly as possible is to be welcomed. Finally, we've touched on this already but just to make sure that we've got your full views on the record of whether adult witnesses who may be vulnerable on other grounds but are not deemed to be vulnerable witnesses should be covered by the new rule and if not what should be done to ensure taking evidence by commission is used where appropriate. Now you've already touched on that to some extent but is there anything else you would want to put on the record in terms of that question? Well, we're not what you said there about UNCRC because that also does explicitly state that where possible Governments should seek the views of children and not put them in any traumatic position this bill would give effect to UNCRC so that's just a broad point worth getting on record. Anybody else? I think just picking up the point that Ronnie made earlier around other definitions of vulnerability around things like adult support and protection legislation which I think may be slightly broader than the definition of vulnerable witnesses sorry, I haven't done a detailed check but may be slightly broader and it may be there needs to be a process where people who as a way don't quite fit one of the categories but can identify why they would need additional support or additional measures can ask for those measures so that the legislation could allow an additional process by which people could demonstrate why they would need extra support if they're not in one of the existing categories. I think that the adult support and protection legislation does give you that useful three-point issue in relation to an adult at risk and using that to the definition as a starting point. That three-point test is very, very few people satisfy that three-point test and that's why I was talking about vulnerable witnesses in relation to the Victims and Witnesses Act because it's far wider in those particular categories there. My worry about the three-point test is that it's so difficult that there's so few people picked up. It would really be important to identify what the definition would be and why. Okay, thank you. There seems to be consensus on the support for the Barnhouse approach for child witnesses. I wonder if you have a view if some form of Barnhouse approach could be adapted for vulnerable adults. I guess it would be in my wish list. I suppose again it's my pragmatic approach that I would like all adult victims of domestic abuse and I can see how it can fit under adults to go through some kind of model like that but being pragmatic I know that it's going to take some time before we get it in place for children as Malcolm said earlier on there's a lot of groundwork that needs to be done but there's absolutely nothing to stop that model being used as a way to ensure that best evidence is got from children and from adults. Okay, any other views? Yes, Colin? I wouldn't say that I've I know enough about to be honest the Barnhouse model to say that it could readily be adapted to vulnerable adults so I guess I would say I wouldn't be against it in principle but I suppose there's a note of caution around as we're taking something that works for one group of people for children and saying we'll just do that for adults as well because they have a learning disability for example I think you do need to be on the kind of needs that they may have and the other thing in terms of what you might do quickly is in relation to the registered intermediary scheme it just feels like that's something which is kind of on the shelf the English have had that scheme since 2004 it's been copied in Northern Ireland it's been copied in South Africa it's been copied in parts of Australia so I think in relation to vulnerable adults there are already schemes that would potentially make quite a significant difference which I think could be possibly adapted more quickly than the Barnhouse model I'd say that's not to say that you shouldn't do the Barnhouse model but I think there may be other things as well A mapping exercise of just where the facilities are in Scotland at the minute to elicit the best evidence there might be something that's useful there's some good signs out there from the justice centre that's spades in the ground in Inverness, you've got the advancing facility at Atlantic Key and you've got the money given to Scottish Courts recently but I'm not sure there's an accurate picture at the minute of where the best evidence on commission sessions are happening where are the best facilities have those facilities been born out of what child and other vulnerable witnesses have said that would be something that maybe could run alongside the bill and we also accept as a large victim that the Barnhouse organisation our role in that and will help if we can to map out our experiences and see if that ties in with the Government bill team, our statutory body partners and our third sector agency partners because at that point you might be able to identify and drill down in the gaps in the system I think that would be helpful I noticed that you had mentioned about maybe working on talking to the children's hearing in terms of the intermediate response for the children and they were quite positive in the response in the last session That's on-going I'm not familiar with this particular model but accepting Colin's caution about maybe it doesn't read across to all vulnerable adults I think there may well be merits from what I've heard about it suggests that it could be applicable to all vulnerable little people as well John Thank you, panel on this in general terms but specifically about the procedures for standard measures and the simplified notification procedure I wonder could you comment on your views on that and we'll see whether you feel there's a need for further reform We heard on the last panel perhaps you weren't all there that the children's hearing suggested that a specific amendment to guarantee consulting witness is the suggestion being that in the form of a companion or screening without consulting the individuals I think it's really important to consult witnesses beforehand but I would add the caveat that I put in my evidence whereby we find that a lot of victims of domestic abuse will start by saying I am going to face them in court and as the court date gets closer that becomes just too much and this is where the trauma informed approach would be really helpful because sometimes when we say at the last minute and we ask Vee are the court to ensure that there's screens then it's seen that trying to get screens at the last minute is always seen as a bit of an issue so if there were some kind of standard measures it would make it a lot easier for that category but if we could consult with victims beforehand because some people do find screens can be great but the issue is that not everyone when they apply for screens understands that the accused can see them it's only the witness that can't see the accused and some people when they find that out will rather just have an ordinary courtroom so I think we do need to be flexible and bearing in mind again the argument about resources and the level of cases that are going through the system but I think that we could combine standard standard special measures being available but also consult with the witness beforehand I think it would be helpful I do think the worst thing you can do is say well you've got particular labels so you'll be getting one of these and that may not be what you want to need although I think the second worst thing you can do is probably say expect the person to understand immediately what it is that might help them or might not help them it often makes me think about the way that doctors are going to get consent for operations now and they've all been told that we need to get the patient's view so they then explain this very complicated procedure and say what do you want to do and you think well I don't know you the doctor you tell me so I think there is something about the time and the space and the support to understand what it is that might actually help them why they might want to make choices and as Mary said to change their mind if actually nearer the time they feel well I thought I could do this but now I feel I can't so absolutely you shouldn't just impose things on people because if a category we also need to support them so that the choices they make are genuine and informed choices ok, thank you very much and just finally communications being touched on anything you would like to say over and above what you've said about special needs but also communication generally which can be so important in the whole process Kevin perhaps the example that I gave earlier about the joint investigative interviews the potential for that to drive up the collaboration between victim agencies and the statutory bodies is huge and I based that on what our witness service has told us about the best application of current special measures and evidence on commission and time and time again it's where there are good relationships so if we can get to a situation where we're all the various people with different interests around the table early so that the positive domino effect will be that we'll communicate more effectively and we'll see one another as allies in the system so it's a holistic approach any other comments? just really a brief comment about data I absolutely get the point that's been made a few times about prioritisation and limited resources and how big a problem is this and I think one of the difficulties particularly for adults as we perhaps don't have very good evidence around the prevalence of crimes committed against people with learning disabilities for example that was a recommendation we made in a report called justice denied about 10 years ago and an awful lot has changed since then there have been some tremendous improvements since then but I still think sometimes we do lack and it might be something the Crown Office might be able to help with much evidence about the nature and type of crimes the extent of vulnerability and victimisation of vulnerable groups I just hope that in the course of the progress of this bill that we do actually see mention made of older people and their particular issues in relation to both being victims of crime and how they're treated and also their ability to give their evidence and their story in the way that is appropriate to them that concludes our questioning thank you all very much for attending and for that very worthwhile session we'll we now actually move into formal into that concludes our Justice Committee 31st meeting of 2018 I'm so unusual for us just to have two panels and to be able to say that concludes our meeting next meeting will be on Tuesday 4 December when we'll continue our evidence session on the Vulnerable Witnesses Bill