 Good morning. Welcome to the Justice Committee's 26th meeting of 2018. We have no apologies. Item 1 is a decision to take in private. Does the committee agree to take agenda item 8 in private today, as this relates to our approach to forthcoming SSI? Agree. Agenda item 2 is an evidence session on pos-legislative scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform Scotland Act 2012. today we will focus on the views of the unions and staff associations, representing both the police and fire services. I refer members to Paper 1, which is not by the clerk, and Paper 2, which is a private paper tip. I welcome Chief Superintendent EIVOR Marshall, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendent Chris Macl hon, Executive Council member of the Ffarr Brigade Union Stuart Akin, Association of Fire and Rescue Services, Calum Steele, General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, Derek Jackson, branch secretary, fire rescue service branch, Unison Scotland. I thank all the witnesses for their written submissions, which are always really, really helpful for the committee prior to you appearing today. Also, thank you for managing to negotiate the train problems, which I know some of you had and managed to be here on time. We'll go straight to questions from members, starting with Rona. Good morning, panel. Can I start by asking you all if you think the initial case for reform put forward by the Scottish Government for both services was sound? Did you have any concerns about the initial case for reform at the time, and if so, do those concerns persist? Maybe we would like to start. In many cases, we have to look at the realities of what existed in terms of the public sector landscape at the time of reform, or the time of the case for reform that was being developed, and that was the onset of austerity. Certainly, the onset of austerity from a Scottish perspective was the reality of diminishing budgets that started to take effect a number of years previously. What I think was probably unfortunate at that time was that the reality of austerity and what it was meaning for public sector finances was not front and centre of the argument for reform. Much was made and created around improvement of services and so on and so forth, whereas, in reality, if services were going to be improved, reform would have stood alone many, many years earlier than it did. In fact, from a policing perspective, the former Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, was on record more times than he would care to remember, I suspect, saying that, were it not for austerity, he would not have pursued the argument for the creation of a single police service. I think that that is always important context when it comes to anything to do with the police and equally also through the fire and rescue service. In terms of delivering a better or more effective policing police service, to some extent it has compared to what we would have been facing had we not done it. However, whether policing is better now than it was a number of years ago, certainly before the creation of the single service, if you look absent the reality of finance by any measure, in some areas it is much better and in other areas it is not better. Would that be due to the changing nature of policing perhaps? No, I do not believe it. Policing is a profession that changes dynamically on a daily basis. The police service has always been adept at dealing with that. There has certainly been a change in the demand upon the police service. I do not think that anyone would pretend otherwise. In terms of some of the challenges that prevail today, there is still, undoubtedly as a consequence of a business case, which did not take due cognizance of the realities of what we were facing. I am sure that my colleagues from Unison, either at a previous session or at a session that will follow this one, will make the case that the act line business case was seriously flawed in terms of the financial savings that were contained within it. Those financial savings were also drawn against what you could probably call a routine, whatever routine is, but certainly a routine policing environment and certainly did not take cognizance of the realities of a terrorist threat, which did not exist to the same extent as it does now in the demands that that is placed upon the police service. It certainly did not take into consideration the realities of what the service was going to uncover when it looked below the bonnet of the former police services and the state of much of what they left for the service to deal with. I am speaking on behalf of support staff here, but it has been, if we are into year six now, the new service has been very hard trying conditions, there has been a lot of change thrown at our staff, and I think through sheer dedication and loyalty to the services, if the services came through better. The only thing is that there is a lot of things where through strategic intent there has been buildings closed, so people have found their workplaces having to travel maybe a considerable amount of time as opposed to what they used to. So a work life balance kind of side of things has changed a bit, but in general there is benefits there. I think that compared to the old way the services, unison's point of view, is a benefit that we get recognition within the service. We sit at a lot of forums and tables and boards and meetings and such, so I would say that that was of a benefit, but there are still people in the last five years. We have went through significant change, mainly so, tees and seas, the terms and conditions that were agreed to in 2015. We have went through a job evaluation process that has previously stated here, left a considerable amount of people in detriment. People have left the service because they could not afford to work for a service and that has been a lot of knowledge, corporate knowledge expertise that we have lost over the last five, six years. There are specific jobs that we are struggling to fill outside of that. We have introduced a marketplace supplement to try and encourage people to come to private sector in, but overall there are negatives here as well, but we recognise the fact that we, as a union, get involved a lot more sitting at forums and tables and boards and meetings. There is a staff survey out in a minute that concludes Sunday, so I will be interested to see the outcome of that. I hope that we have been trying our best to get members to encourage them to take part in it, because if a service does not know that it is not working, how are we meant to fix it? I think that a lot of people are sitting back thinking that it is the same old, just with what has happened in the last five years. The trust side of things within support staff side is lost. Moral, as I said, that should hopefully come through in this survey. It concludes on 28th this month. I am encouraging to hear that you have more of a voice at board meetings, etc. That is fine. I think that in relation to part 1 of your question was the business case, the initial case sound. Again, I think that it is important to remember the context at that time. It is easy to look back with the hindsight and roast and the spectacles and forget some of it. There were significant operational drivers for change. They need to build capability and capacity across policing in general. The evidence that we have seen over the past five and a half years is that that has been a success as far as creating the ability to respond to major threats, changing threats, particularly around about national security, counterterrorism and some of the more strategic issues. There were definitely financial drivers at the time. Mr Steele has already referred to the austerity measures that started to affect public sector in Scotland. That was a significant driver or felt as if it was a significant driver in terms of the actual change process. Personally, I think that the business case, the financial business case, has not stood up to the test of time in that the projected savings that were part of that business case have not been realised. The services had to operate with a structural deficit in its budget for the past five or six years and the transformation budget that was intended to make the changes was used to patch up in that shortfall. Some of the constraints around the fixed costs of 17,234 officers made it extremely difficult to achieve some of those savings. Concerns around that have persisted. Thankfully, it looks as if that has started to be addressed by the service so that we are operating on a sustainable budget footing just now, but there still needs to be investment to move from integration to true transformation. That is still an on-going piece of work. There were concerns and continue to be concerns about the scale, complexity and scope of the change and the pace at which it was initially conducted. The timescale from introduction of the bill to going live was very short for the scale of the change and, as I say, we are still living with the consequences of that change five to six years later. In some ways, and my key points around it, there was definitely a focus on the structural procedural elements. I think that that has been recognised and conceded as well. For a business that is really about people, people delivering services to the citizens of Scotland, there was not really a focus on the people side of it and the officers and staff. Thankfully, as I say, that has now started to be recognised and addressed. The readiness for change in the hearts and minds of the officers and staff was probably overlooked in the first three to four years. I think that, broadly, it was welcomed the change to the one-fire service. However, the potential benefits that could be brought to more resources, standardisation of practices, that really has not come. We are still talking about harmonisation and transformation. They have not been sorted in terms of the fire service. The retained service comes across as unique problems. It comes across with real problems with recruitment and retention. That goes way back before the one-fire service. Indeed, there was parliamentary reviews into it back as far as 2003. To fix that when you come across the one-fire service is what we hoped. The financial restraints that have been placed, I do not think that it is possible, and it is shown that it is not possible. We still suffer from lack of training, lack of equipment. Those have just not materialised. The whole picture? Yes, I think that it can be done, but it has not been done so far. Good morning, convener committee. The fire service point of view, as I think that the Christie commission sounded the initial alarm and set the context for the merge of the organisations where they agreed with the contents of the Christie commission and the issues that were raised in there. However, the language of the Christie commission innovate, collaborate, transform or you just will not continue to survive in your current form, I think that set is all. Set the hares running and set the pace, if you like, of that initial reform when they move into the consultation on where the fire and rescue service goes. Certainly the initial case, I think, was fairly sound and it was supported initially by the Fire Brigade Union. Whether or not it is the best option now, I think it appeared to us to be the best option at the time. Would we look at it differently now, looking back after five, six years? Possibly would we look at a three-service structure instead of a single-service structure? Possibly because of the size of our country, 50 odd thousand square miles. It is a massive country with a lot of diversity from the central belt into remote rural, etc. Am I convinced that the single-service at the moment completely serves those diverse communities? Possibly not at the moment, but they obviously are looking into the aspects where it might not, and the retained duty service is clearly one of them. For ourselves, to answer the second part of the question, I think that I probably have to make reference to the three main policy intentions in the act for the fire and rescue service, and we have obviously provided a significant degree of evidence with an ear submission. I am quite sure that panel members might be interested in exploring that at some point through the session. Can I just briefly give your opinion on the issues that you have raised? Do you think that they would not be there had the legacy forces remained and the single force had not come into being? Do you think that you would not be having some of the problems that you have highlighted? I think that the creation of single-service itself is clearly and will always be going to throw up its own set of problems and unique issues. I do not really think that we had a choice at the time, to be honest. I think that Carlham painted a bit of the context of the fiscal and financial background at the time and the difficulties that the whole country was facing with regards to financing our public services and public sector. I think that some of the previous antecedent services would have been in real trouble by now, and we are actually in the process of being bailed out by others, if I am being absolutely honest. I do not think that some of those original brigades would have existed in their current formats. The one thing that at least the single service did was that it enabled us to pull resources and probably enabled us to protect ourselves against the worst elements of the fiscal background and austerity at that time. On the front line, some of it has been addressed, but a lot of the main issues have not been addressed, and that puts pressures on our members. It is hard to explain in such short terms, but when people have such commitment in their own personal life, their own meantime job, and they are expected to do this, the broadening of the roles in transformation is fine broadening a role. If it is your main occupation, that is fine, but if you have two hours a week and the role keeps broadening and broadening and broadening, people cannot be competent. So, while there has been benefits, the ability to pull resources from other areas and especially resources, that is very good, but the continual broadening of the role is just not sustainable. Do you have any ideas of training? Yes, training. Initially, you would go back to your BA, RTA, then the role gets water rescue, line rescue, going to medical rescue, and the role keeps going like that. That is not sustainable in a retained service where you have two hours a week to train. So, while we welcome new roles, roles have to be either withdrawn or maybe put to one area or split the roles in the station, but you cannot expect people to be competent in all the roles. It is just not possible. I would argue that anyone who does say that it is possible does not understand. I think that in terms of the issues of the people's side of things and the change process and internal communications, absolutely, I suppose, as eight forces, we might still be quite people-centric, but the proceolism of that set against the risks of, as we have seen the threats and risks change over the past five, six years, the ability of the service to stand up and deal with those. I think that we would be sitting here dealing with different consequences of a different nature, so it is hard to speculate on some of that. There are lessons that need to be learned. Looking back, that is important. The important thing for me is that we are now one service, that we move forward. Having done the structural technical elements, we need to secure the right budget that is sustainable. Now, with a focus on engaging and empowering all the people that work for Police Scotland to the fullness of their capability, I think that things can improve and deliver all that was intended under the reform process, as opposed to saying, well, what if something else would have stayed the way we were? I think that we would be dealing with a whole series of different questions about lack of capability, lack of capacity, lack of sustainability, lack of ability to respond to significant threats in the UK. I think that, just to echo in the rest of what you are saying, I think that, in terms of when a better place, we are, but at the same time, there are still lessons to be learned and should have been learned the same way, like the business case side of things, financial side of things. I think that it was, if you want, a bog standard, but, as we see now in a year six, the new services things have developed and diversed away from them, came with terrorism and, as I said, specialised skills and that, even, like you say, locations, work locations and that as well, money having to be spent on new facilities and that as well. I just think that, I think that, if it hadn't been for a dedication, as I said, in a lot of our staff, support staff, would have been a far worse place in what we really are, and I think that those people just want to be valued by the organisation because they feel loyal to the service and proud to be part of the service. As I said, overall, I think that we are in a better place, but there are still lessons to be learned and there is still a long way to go yet. Thanks again to yourself, convener. Short answer to your questions, will the problems be there? Yes, they would be arguably compounded. Of two supplementaries, if you keep them very brief, we can fit them in. Daniel and Liam McArthur. I just want to ask you a brief clarification. You are saying that the expansion of the role of firefighters is potentially overstretching them. That is pretty fundamental to the transformation programme and consultation that the fire service has set out. Are you saying that the addition of anti-terrorism and first responder roles is that overstretch, or is it going beyond, if we are looking at additional competencies beyond those, that would be overstretching? I would be interested if Chris MacGlone would reflect that. No, I would say that just adding those two alone is overstretching. We are for it, do not get me wrong, especially in medical response. That should be rolled out as soon as possible. That is only going to benefit the community the longer that is held back, the only community that is going to suffer from that. It has been long known that the problems with the retail service are very limited time. People are committed to a full-time job elsewhere, they have family life. Think about it. We are asked to do the same role as a whole-time firefighter. When we turn up at an instant, we do the same thing. We have two hours a week to do all that training, to keep our skills up. The amount of paperwork that we have to do now, what we call tick box exercises, the IT systems are not up to it in the station. Twelve bodies, two computers. If someone takes five to ten minutes to input, you work out for yourself as an hour to two hours just to input your paperwork. So what you get is people coming down out with their time, coming in and doing that off their own back. That is not sustainable. We have made a compelling argument and provided a lot of evidence for job role expansion over the next few years and beyond. It is certainly not something that we are opposed to exactly the opposite, but there are concerns around the capacity in the organisation to take on those additional roles. I have constantly made the case, and I have previously submitted evidence to the committee that we just do not believe that there is significant additional standing capacity in a firefighter's role, daily role and in the RDS, to take on all those additional very specialist roles that require specialist qualifications, skills and training. To put it into context, there is only roughly 300 hours in a whole-time firefighter's year to train for core competence in their role. It takes approximately 222 hours to train for that core competence in the basic role of a firefighter and approximately another 80 hours to train and maintain competence within another specialist skill. There clearly is a difficulty with moving forward and taking on those additional skills, not only within the whole time, but it is exacerbated, I would say, within the retained for the reasons that Stuart is obviously highlighted. It is more for Mr Jackson. I do not know whether there is a question or just a clarification. I appreciate that you have stepped in it at short notice due to a colleague's illness. I was just listening to the responses that you were giving to Rona Mackay's questions, and it did not quite chime with what Unison Scotland had suggested in the written submission where they stated that police staff have borne the brunt of the process of centralisation budget cuts and what it sees in, I quote, politically driven targets that have, and again, I quote, significantly compromised the ability of Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to develop a modern and sustainable police service. Now, some of those may be legacy issues that we're working through, but I think it was just important for the committee to get that on the record as it was set out to us in the written submission. I don't know if there's any observations on that and I appreciate it, but it would have been your colleague that drafted that rather than yourself. I was just to answer that. I was contacted by Unison Scotland, me personally on behalf of the Scottish Fire Service Unison, and then the police staff Scotland would have their say as well. Both written submissions were submitted to the committee sometime back, so I'm just purely commenting on SFRS and no police side of things. Thanks. Good morning to the panel. I'd like to pick up on a point that you raised in your written submission, where you say that it is our strong view that policing and its associated structures have never been subject to the intense media scrutiny that they are now and that political opportunity has been considered ahead of allowing the structures that exist to discharge their responsibilities. I'd welcome other panel members' views on that point and perhaps, Calum Steele, you could expand upon the impact that has had on staff morale. Police officers by their very nature tend to be fairly resilient individuals. Listening to the realities of expanding roles within the fire and rescue service, it strikes me that police officers undertake activities that extend to being carers, psychologists, psychiatrists, parking wardens, dog wardens, councillors, social workers, nurses, doctors, supermen and wonder women. We tend to be fairly robust, but the reality is that when the new service was created, it became something that policing never had in Scotland had not been before. It became the totem of government policy and it became the totem of targeted criticism against government because of the environment that was prevailing in Scotland at that particular time. The service was not provided the time or the space to be able to reflect the realities of working within the realities of the territorial landmass of Scotland rather than the artificial boundaries that used to exist for the single service. Many of the difficulties and many of what were reported very salatiously as failures or crises in the early days of Police Scotland were the kind of things that happened on a routine basis but that happened periodically across the former forces. However, because they were confined to local press and to largely local radio stations, they did not get anywhere near the salacious headlines and they certainly never got the attention in Parliament the way that the single police serviced it. I think that that was the reality of that from a media perspective, both print and broadcast. In terms of the continual effect of that, it created a sense of frustration among officers that the reporting was not reflective of the reality of the service that they were delivering. Police officers were metaphorically busting their balls every single day to deliver the police service that Scotland's communities were used to. I have heard journalists say that it is not their job to write stories of postman deliver sliders and doing their job is exactly what you are meant to do, which was true until his Royal Highness was flying helicopters in the rescue service in Wales where postman deliver sliders seemed to be an appropriate headline at that point in time. In terms of the continual downward impact on officers delivering service, it did not impact on their day-to-day activities. However, when they encountered members of the public, members of the public would say, my experience with you has been first class, my local experience has been first class but my God is not policing in a terrible state. It created this pernicious effect across the opinions of many that the service was failing. While no one would pretend that it did not have its challenges, the reality was that the service was functioning. It could have been functioning better or less and it would not pretend otherwise. However, it set a public narrative that was not reflective of the reality and that was the thing that officers and staff found more difficult to deal with than anything else. I am interested in any of the other panel's thoughts on that point. We obviously sit—the police and fire sit on both sides of that justice coin and we attract very different types of attention. Broadly, our experience is that the media attention that we get in the fire and rescue service is pretty positive and supportive. The perception that we get on our side of the justice coin is exactly the opposite. The police come in for a lot of criticism and stick. I think that that must create its own difficulties within the organisation with regard to staff, morale and so on, because it is difficulty rough, I think, as it is at the moment, within both organisations trying to cope with the big structural changes that have taken place over the past five years without getting criticised from outside your organisations for trying to do your job. I think that my reflection on it would be that, as a service, we have always quite rightly been scrutinised through lots of channels. The media have always been a part of that and they have the lens through which a lot of the public garner their views to a point. There is a real issue about reality versus perception across all of that. Over the past five to six years, undoubtedly, the level of reporting on certain aspects of it has been exponentially of interest, I suppose, in terms of selling newspapers or getting website hits, whatever it happens to be. There is a risk that that has provided a skewed sense of what that looks like. Certainly, I concur with Mr Steele's view that the real experience of citizens as they engage with officers and members of staff delivering a service is one that has been generally positive. That trust and confidence has always been there. Almost the reaction that we have experienced at first-hand or through surveys of customer satisfaction is that the service is doing a really good job. A lot of the stories, salacious headlines, were actually not reflective of what the reality was. Admittedly, there were some tensions in terms of a new organisation, certain personalities, big personalities and immature police authority perhaps. It still had to establish itself. All of that fed into a news cycle, which has persisted, I think, for some considerable time. I am kind of hopeful now that perhaps we have moved on to more stable footing and that there might be more fair and equitable reporting around some of that, particularly if we focus on the tangible day-to-day delivery of what policing services look like because there are some fantastic stories that happen day in, day out. If there was a focus on that more so than some of the political wrangling around some aspects, I think that the public would get a fair reflection of what it is really like. I note in your submission that you highlight national access to specialist resources, stopping a duplication of support services eight times over. Knowledge is now shared nationally in a way that it wasn't before. Police Scotland has solved every murder since 2013, which is surely a good news story. Reform has had its benefits. I would be interested to hear some more of the panel's views on the opportunities and the benefits that reform has led to, perhaps challenging that negative culture that has grown up around at the same time with regard to the media. Yes, absolutely. I think that there is a list of benefits that have happened as a consequence of it. You have alluded to some of them there, but the services approach to domestic violence, the services capability around about firearms public order, the services capability to deal with fraud, cybercrime, the ability to move resources around about the country, the ability to respond to major events, to civil emergencies—the list goes on and on. The problem with that is that, when Calamary alluded to this, good news doesn't really sell newspapers or doesn't get hits on websites. Perhaps the issue is that we all around this table should be advocating about the good news that happens within policing much more. The service certainly can step up to that. We've got a role in that. I would say also, I suppose, to the members around the table. There is definitely something about creating a honest, fair narrative about what policing delivers for the people of Scotland. I'm not speaking for Calamary in terms of his submission. I think that that's the point that he was raising in his written submission. We've inadvertently moved on to another session that we were just going to cover with John, but before we do, Liam, you had a supplementary. Yes, we heard from Calamary Seal earlier that the justice secretary at the time had claimed that this was about approving policing, which he's now said was not the case. It's generally accepted that a lot of the concerns that were raised were raised by staff and officers on the basis of concerns that they had—complaints that they had—not about making police service worse, but about concerns about the way in which policing was delivered. Is it not a corollary if you centralise policing for issues that previously would be aired at a local or regional level through the media, through local elected representatives? Now we have to be raised at a national level because the only challenge function is now at a national level, given the nature of the concerns that were being raised. Was that not inevitable as a result of creating a single structure? I suppose that, in terms of that, I will let Mr Sealer respond as you referenced him, but as part of that on-going conversation, I think that again, lack of maturity around where scrutiny happened at first, everything became a national issue, as I say, with the somewhat immature police authority being set up and the mechanics of how that operated and how they discharged their functions. Likewise, at local scrutiny board level, it took some time for that to be mature, but the relationships there have consistently, in my experience, been positive with local area commanders and divisional commanders, because those are a lot of the same people who were there in the previous legacy forces. That happened quite quickly. Those conversations were still happening there, and the local news stories and parts all around the country generally remained positive about that type of local engagement, but I think that a lot of the national debates that were happening around some of that. In terms of scrutiny and conversation and how that plays out, there is a difference between what happens in local newspapers vis-à-vis what is perhaps reported nationally. In terms of that question of information flow and the ability for issues to be aired, the nationalisation of the service made it more difficult for local voices, perhaps, either internally or from regional parts of the country to be heard on a national level. In fact, I remember from Professor Nick Fife's submissions to the committee, he alluded to the fact that sometimes that voice of localism was lost against that sort of national agenda. It is, I think, an unintended consequence, perhaps, of that centralisation. As I spoke about, that focus on structural and technical, perhaps at the expense of the relationships and the human interface that we had perhaps in the rate forces. Again, I would say that, thankfully, it seems to be sort of we have recognised that, or the services recognised that and made moves to actually repair a lot of that damage that was done. Can I ask all the witnesses, we have five, and we want to make sure that you all get a decent hearing today in a limited time. Could you be as succinct as possible with your answers, and could members be as succinct as possible with their supplementaries and questions? Thank you, convener. In direct response to the question, was it inevitable? I do not think that it was inevitable. In some ways, I am taking back in time to an evidence session that we had in this very room about four or five years ago when representatives from COSLA and others were talking about the local scrutiny arrangements that were going to take place at that period in time. It is worth reminding ourselves that the previous scrutiny arrangements were not legislated. The arrangements for police boards developed organically across local authorities. Although they ended up being largely mirrors of themselves, they were not things that were legislated for centrally to determine how local scrutiny arrangements take place. It was certainly my expectation, naively, as it turned out, and it would appear to have been the Parliament's intention that there was no requirement to legislate for local scrutiny in that they had demonstrated in the early 1970s that they were capable of putting their own house in order of putting things in place. However, the reality was that when the new single service that was created is that, to a large part, many of the former local authorities that had involvement in scrutiny effectively gave up. Much of the pathway projects that were developed on the run-up to the creation of the single service were abandoned or allowed to wither on the vine. Local scrutiny became something of an inconvenience to routine council business. What was once a dedicated committee of a local authority or local authorities working together in terms of joint police boards or union three authorities became 20 minutes at the end of some other meeting. I do not believe that it was inevitable. I also do not believe that it is the responsibility of the police service to fix that. As I have said in the written submission, there is probably something to be done between the Scottish Police Authority and local authorities about improving, even now improving, the relationship that has to exist to make sure that local scrutiny exists. However, it is definitely not something for the police service. We had no role for it in the early 1970s. We have no responsibility for it here, because if we direct local communities as to how they should be scrutinising, we can understand the whole host of difficulties and headlines that that would create thereafter. We have moved on to your area of questioning a bit, Liam. Do you want to just continue with that? I think that both Mr Marshall and Mr Steele have touched on issues of concern about a loss of localism at the time of centralisation. I would be interested in your views now about the extent to which communities can hold policing to account. I take your point, Mr Steele, about where that responsibility ought to lie, but it would seem from what you were suggesting that this is the gift of local authorities to resolve. If that is the case, are there suggestions about how they might go about doing that, or are we in the territory here of directing local authorities to act in particular ways? The concern is raised that their access is not necessarily to the area commander, but to those within the SPA, and to those higher up in Police Scotland, where budget decisions are taken and so on, is not as good as it might be. Therefore, what they are dealing with is the consequences of those decisions that are taken somewhere else within Police Scotland or somewhere else within the SPA. How can that be rectified? As far as the extent to which local communities can hold police to account, that has taken some time to mature. As I said earlier, I think that there are good relationships between local elected members and local area commanders, chief inspectors, superintendents, chief superintendents, divisional commanders. As far as influencing what local policing services look like, local scrutiny boards have subject to Calam's comments earlier. I have started to mature the development of local outcome improvement plans and locality plans, writing that down in some ways. My frustration around some of that, and I say that this is a former commander of a division, is that sometimes you do not have the autonomy in terms of budget to be able to commit to joint working as per Christie Principles collaborations because of the centralist control of budgets within the service driven by the cuts, so they get sucked into the centre. I also have frustration on the part of local commanders that, at times, the desire to deliver those gold standard specialist national resources and services inevitably has a drain on local services at that end. I think that there are frustrations around that and that ability to influence communities. Absolutely, I think that the local police managers who are there are cognisant of the views and do their best to deliver initiatives and plans and day-to-day services that respond to the local needs. I think that their frustrations would be that they do not necessarily have that full autonomy and full commitment of resources to be able to work on a partnership basis. The legislation that set up a structure of scrutiny, as Calam Steel rightly suggested that it was not there previously, but that it is overseeing a smaller area of responsibility because of the way in which decisions are now taken within a centralised force. I will be interested in the final rescue side of things in terms of the area of discretion for local chiefs. Would that be a fair characterisation? It is a fundamental consequence of, and I will keep it brief, a fundamental consequence that your balance between strategic decisions about national issues might be about capability around firearms and the consequence of threats and so on and so forth on a national level. You are balancing that against putting enough resources to deal with the day-to-day routine policing matters. It is always a balancing act around some of that. At times, it has felt certainly over the last piece that there has been more of a focus on setting up those national structures and making sure that those are robust at the cost of the local resource. Inevitably, if you have to take officers away to do a historic sex abuse case, fundamentally, those will always create vacancies on the operational uniform front line. I am mindful of the fact that you have asked your question in two parts and the second part is obviously how we improve it. I am not naive enough to believe that, regardless of the desire as to what should have taken place, that it did not take place. Therefore, the question is about how we fix it as a pertinent one. To me, that comes down to how we make sure that local authorities, and local elected members, are seen to have some kind of skin in the game. Given the change to the funding arrangements where no, effectively, half the money does not come from local authorities anymore, the influence over finance is something that no longer exists in a direct level. Of course, financial decisions have a direct impact on policing that is delivered in local communities. That kind is still down to the number of officers and staff that are available, the type and number of buildings that they work from. I suspect that it will be front and centre in any Liberal Democrat library, that the speech of the chair of the Scottish Police Federation that was given at our conference last year contained some suggestions as to what could be done to improve it. Although I believe that the general principle of the Scottish Police Authority is fundamentally sound, I do believe that it could be improved to the point where COSLA's umbrella body for local authority should be able to identify people for appointing to the Scottish Police Authority. I think that that would enhance the Scottish Police Authority and it would absolutely bring direct buy-in to local authorities then to recognise that they have skin in the game, because they are there seeing and able to influence at the very centre of the governance body financial decisions that are going to impact on communities the length and breadth of Scotland. Speaking as somebody who has obviously worked for a long time with an organisation in his Head of Fibrigate Union, I think that the Fire Scotland Act and the structure of the organisation is conducive to good local devolved decision making and relationships with the local community as well. I think that things like the Community Empowerment Act hands a significant degree of autonomy to those local communities to engage with their local fire and rescue service. There is a clear pathway up to the local senior officer who, for all intents and purposes, is the accountable officer within that local area. Whether or not the decisions in the decision making autonomy that that local senior officer has is fully supported by devolved budgets from within the fire and rescue service is probably something that I cannot answer and something that I am sure the chief officer could answer for you. I want to ask Mr Marshall and Mr Steele about what might be seen as a misunderstanding there, namely that the Police and Fire Reform Act introduced centralised services that were not there previously. In advance of Police Scotland, there were centralised services where the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency, the police officers will be aware of that, I am sure, the training, the recruitment, some specialist services for which there was no local input. Is it not the case that there is more scrutiny of those bodies now and in any case the former police boards had no one of a sufficient level of clearance that could scrutinise issues like counter-terrorism and that is not the case any more either. So there is actually better scrutiny of these elements, important elements and significant resource. Would I be right in? I am taking Mr Steele from the convener's short answers, yes. Better scrutiny and better line of sight and an opportunity now for bidding of those type of resources and other specialist resources to be able to be deployed around the whole of Scotland as opposed to perhaps in a more parochial way as they were before. Shona Fulod, John Lennon Fulton. Good morning, panel. A lot of the area of questioning that I was going to ask has already been answered but maybe just focus on one aspect and that is the next phase of delivering that coherence and consistent approach. We have talked about the improvements made in specialist services, we have talked about some of the improvements made in terms of scrutiny and delivery of services and structure. Where is the next phase of improving that consistency? For example, one area that springs to mind is around IT infrastructure, for example. What next for that maturing organisations in terms of improving that and delivering further on that consistency? Where are those gaps still existing? I think that where next has to be a return to first principles. It is all very well talking about national and specialist services but to a large extent they have been delivered to the detriment of local services or services that would traditionally have been considered to be local policing activities. That is not to take away from the realities that we need to invest exponentially in our IT infrastructure. We need to invest considerable sums of money in our estate but the reality is that local policing has suffered, response policing has suffered. Yes, the type of policing has changed but policing has always changed whereas, once upon a time, police officers would deal with the volume in terms of call after call after call. We are now dealing with complexity, which takes time in a way that police officers largely did not have to do in the not too distant past. The continual taking away of people from those kind of roles, which is in itself probably the most specialist area of policing, deals with all manners of complexity on a daily basis. The taking away of individuals for that to put people in siloed roles, where they have a very clear defined area of responsibility, be that the investigation of serious and organised crime, be that in the investigation of historic sex abuse, be that in the investigation of fraud. Supporting those services is hugely important and, undoubtedly, the service is much more adept at that than it ever was in the past but the price of that has been local policing. The price of that has been human. We have police officers in all areas of the service working ridiculously long hours. We have stripped out ranks in supervision, which introduces its own risks, and, undoubtedly, those will turn out to be realised in years to come when problems of lack of supervision will show what lack of supervision has always shown, that eventually get to a point of critical mass and end up being criticised for it. There actually needs to be a return to first principles and stop talking about the big and just look at the practicalities of the here and now. How do you, where's the balance between making sure that that local policing is delivered in a consistent way across Scotland with the ability for local responsiveness? Where does that lie so that you've got a consistent quality wherever you're delivering policing across Scotland but with the ability for local decision making? How do you balance that? Again, I think that you're never going to get consistency in an absolute sense, in much the same way as you don't get access to a heart surgeon if you live in Barra. The reality is that policing will be tailored depending on, first of all, the resources that are available to deliver it and also the needs of the community that are there. Of course, when something big happens, and this is what I think is important, when something big happens, the consistency of that service is pretty much guaranteed because large numbers of officers are picked up, they're flown in or ferried in or driven in, they deal with the issue and then they go away, but that in its own right ignores the realities of the importance of community relationships. It ignores the realities of the fact that police officers have to continue to deliver service after these individuals have gone, and it also ignores the reality that perhaps that police resource has been there in the first instance, there might have been more of a preventative impact to prevent the big thing happening in the first place. To some extent, that comes back to the priorities that are set by Parliament. If Parliament thinks it's important that we concentrate on historic child sex abuse and terrorism to the detriment of local policing, then Parliament can make that clear on how much money it gives it. The police service just now does not have the funding to pay for all of the police officers that it currently has. That is a direct thing that goes right back to Parliament. If you don't want to fund the police officers that you have in our communities, then don't give us the budget for it. It's very simple. I agree with Colin Huck that there is a bit to revisit first principles. What is demand look like now and projecting forward? The real demand, the perceived demand, the failure demand that the service has to cope with? What is the sustainable operating model that can deliver that? How do we know that we've got the right resources in the right place, rightly equipped to deal with that demand? You mentioned IT. That's an enabler. It can help people who are doing their job to do it, maybe more effectively and more productively. But that's not the panacea. It's not the answer to all the ills around the demand that we face. I personally believe in terms of what are the next steps. There needs to be that. I've mentioned the back to valuing of people a bit more and a demonstration of that in terms of proper investment in professional development conversations, proper investment in terms of the training and development and empowerment. That feeds into organisational culture and how that's developed through the style of leadership that needs to happen and go forward to create a learning organisation. As a consequence of that, that's the answer to your second question about how you balance consistency with quality. You rely on the people who are there dealing with it at that time. They can provide a consistent approach, which is the framework within the service operates, but tailored to whatever that local context is. Thank you. The next phase is a very risky phase. We are both trying to consolidate what we've got at the moment, what we've inherited from the previous eight services. We're also trying to meet the aspirations of both the Government and the service with regard to expansion and transformation. One of the ways that we think that that can be done, or that we've continually made the case for, is some kind of national standards. We think that it's one of the areas that we've gone backwards in the fine rescue service. We lost response and attendance times, so we have no way of measuring that, for example. We lost section 19 of the 47 act, which dealt with establishment levels of the organisation. Changes to establishment had to go back to the Scottish Secretary of State, for example, for permission. We lost the Joint Council for Design and Development, which ensured consistency in standards and equipment and appliances, which then fed into delivery. We moved from ranks to roles and lost layers of management within the structure of the organisation, which I don't think has been particularly broadly helpful. However, I think that there has to be a proper method of audit and assessment against meaningful performance indicators, because the service that we do, for example, makes broad-sweeping statements about we always have the right resources in the right place at the right time. We'll have no idea how you can make that statement if you have no meaningful method or way of measuring that. I think that if you had response standards, for example, if you had response times, you would be able to do that, because the evidence shows that it isn't true all the time. I think that the recent evidence in Aberdeen, for example, where, clearly, if you are taking the same mantra, more than 300 times within a 10-month period, clearly the service did not have the right resources in the right place at the right time. I would like to echo what you said there, and add that there really needs to be a coherent plan, an incredible plan going forward to address the retained service and the recruitment and retention. That has to be at the front of any plan going forward. It's a valuable resource and highly motivated people, and people who really care about their community, but they are just overworked and underfunded, I guess. Thank you for that, Mr Jackson. I want to say the same thing, just the fact that it is overstretched due to, as I said, the strategic side of things as well, where there has been closures, the previous bonds, workplaces and that people have had to move. There is already, excuse me, within the last couple of years, there has been restructuring going on within certain directorates, departments, just to try and make sure that it is focused on going forward. Me personally, I would just like unions to be more involved in the restructure and get an insight into what's happening and even your opinion on things as well. As I said, even like recruitment, retainment and staff, that is key as well. There are specific key jobs where we always struggle and, as I said, a lot of people were in here and have stayed in here on a lesser salary just simply because of the value, the role that they play, and they are proud to be part of that service. As I said, it's the same again. We would like our staff to be valued. The service does have core values, so we would like them to stick to them and honour them. That would encourage staff to keep going and stay here. John Finch-Saulton Thank you, convener. It's a question from Mr McClone. Mr McClone, in your submission, you talk about there being an insufficiency of knowledge, operational knowledge, within the fire service board for which, for them to do the necessary scrutiny, and you suggest that, perhaps, what's the phrase, independent objective advice be provided. I wonder, just with linkage, that scrutiny is clearly important, but was it not ever thus, and I wonder in response if you can say, do you see an enhanced role for the inspectorate in providing that independent? I think that the inspectorate has been extremely helpful. I think that some of the reporting from the inspectorate over the first five years has been very useful. We've had very positive and useful productive dialogue with the inspectorate when they've been carried out their inspections, especially the local area inspections, and I think that they're a very good critical friend to the organisation as well. I don't might not look like that sometimes, but they were recently in the city of Glasgow, for example, and I highlighted the fact that, despite a lot of good work, there are still some issues with the age and availability of appliances, appliances being off the run, some of the PPE, etc. I think that the service does need that critical inspectorate role, and I think that it's quite clear that that role is performed by, in large and certainly in my 30 years, an ex-chief officer, because I think that that individual brings a vast degree of wealth of knowledge and experience within that operational environment, and therefore informs the product that ultimately comes out of the inspectorate. We feel that the board could do with some kind of similar input from an operational head as well. Jimmy Campbell, one of the previous ex-chiefs at Lothian and Borders, fairly recently left the board, wasn't replaced by somebody with equivalent knowledge, for example, and we think that the board in the scrutiny role, especially within the operational environment, which, let's face it, is the most important environment for the fire and rescue service, is weaker as a result of not having that operational head on the board. We feel that it's something that the Scottish Government is supportive of, i.e. some kind of employee representation on public boards. I think that it's something that is lacking on the fire and rescue board now. I think that there are examples where the chief is obviously speaking on operational matters. Fairly recently there was a discussion around the services ability to respond to a Grenfell-type incident, for example, and I think that the chief made reference to operational discretion. I don't think that there's anybody sitting on that board that would have any idea or clue what, in today's terms, in a dynamic, risky, hazardous environment, what operational discretion means in relation to dealing with an incident. Thank you very much. Thank you for voting. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, panel. It's picking up actually from the last line of questioning there and something that Eric Jackson had mentioned a couple of times when he spoke about individual firefighters and police officers and other members of staff being able to impact positively on decisions at a strategic level. Do you think that this happens and how does it happen at what level? What can be done to improve it further, perhaps, picking up from Chris McGowan's previous point? Basically, strategically, we did have an involvement, as in, like the executive board, but there's a lot more to it than just being part of it. Although you're getting your say, is it actually getting listened to and is it actually getting acted upon? That's the difference, and that's where, like I said, we've recently gone through. It's a soft FM thing here, and it's where 95 jobs are going to be a loss to your service. Right for day one, we've condemned that and said that it goes right against privatisation, the public pay sector, and that's 95 jobs we will never, ever get back in the service. But we were able to go, we still go to the board meetings and that, but it's an indication that it's like we get involved, but, as anything, as your opinion has been taken on board, that decision was kind of made before we even went along. Strategically, as I said, we've had a seat at the table, even like the new bridge training project board, the new west arc training project, we do get seats on that and we do get a say, but as I said, the biggest thing for us is actually our say being listened to and acted upon. What do you think could be done to demonstrate, if you like, that your views and concerns have been heard and have been acted upon? How could that be fed back to you? Well, even back, as I said, that was last year regarding the soft FM project, we'd write for day one, as I said, to our regional organisers on behalf of support staff, trade unions, UNICE and Anionite, both even wrote a letter to the board saying that we were there against it, the board approved it and that was pretty much it. That's been approved, that's it. We then wrote a letter again, a joint letter to the then Minister for Fire, Annabelle Ewing, who requested a meeting in the same again saying that these 95 rolls, I mean, it's more prominent now that more contracts are becoming back in house as opposed to going out because it's been proving that they've never worked in the first place and that's we were kind of highlighting that as well, in fact, but the same again, even like saying going back to Annabelle Ewing, we never got an opportunity to sit down and explain and put our point across, it was the case that because the board had approved it, that's the decisions being made. So, as I said, we do get a chance to say, but at a lot of times the decisions have already been made and that's it. I just like to follow up on that. Very much along the same lines, often our views are canvassed, lost count many times over the years, people come out and recognise there's a problem with the recruitment, retention, we need to look at that, go away two, three years later, another visit at the station, we've got problems, they go away and nothing's ever done and we get no feedback on their visits either. So, it leaves you feeling isolated, it leaves the members feeling, so their opinions are not valued and, like I say, for 20 years that's been the case, the problem has been recognised but no credible plan or alternative has ever been proposed or put forward or trialled. We do have a pretty good strong voice within the organisation and it's recognised by the service and it's reflected in the actions and decisions that are made as well. We've got various methods and forums within which we can voice, raise concerns and have input. We've got an employee partnership forum, partnership advisory, a group that we can go for, dispute resolution for example. We do have a working together framework that's based upon our own good industrial relations protocols within our own terms and conditions. I think that our voice, certainly from the FPU's point of view, is well heard. I'm certainly in regular contact, as is my Scottish regional secretary, with the chief officer, the deputy chief officer and officers within the organisation as well. The only thing that I would say is that I would encourage perhaps the service to invite us along to the subcommittees of the board a wee bit more often. There are four or five subcommittees that sit and deal with more of the board work than has dealt with on-table at the public meetings and I think that we haven't really attended those subcommittees too often over the last few years. I think that there is a body of evidence from Scottish Institute of Police and Research, Nick Fife, from our own internal staff surveys that we tend to indicate over the lifespan of Police Scotland over the last five years or so that perhaps internal communications has not been what it should have been, certainly not a two-way process. Quite often there was a lot of what and how being pushed out but no engagement in terms of why certain decisions were taken and certainly not in terms of any strategic decisions. Again, I would say that there's probably was a bit of a, it's a dental leadership, it's down to style of leadership and the organisational culture. Perhaps there was a degree of fear and compliance, as far as you're told, as opposed to offering a view. I'd like to think that things have changed somewhat round about that, again, with the maturity. I think that the new members and the Scottish Police Authority are much more open to conversation and being engaged and force executive. Certainly the members that I speak with regularly are very open to that. The key challenge is about making that throughout the whole organisation. I think that we've all got responsibility to engender that culture of ensuring that everyone's voice is listened to, that innovation is valued throughout the organisation, not all the brains are at the top of the organisation, there are some really good ideas at all levels and those need to be embraced. There needs to be a translation from things that people say through staff surveys or through representatives like myself or Mr Steele that that's actually listened to and that there's seen to be some kind of tangible cognisance of that and perhaps even at times it's strategic direction, a change of direction on a decision. Feeding that back would encourage people to say, you know what, my voice has got some kind of impact and that I will be listened to not simply in terms of to be part of it in the head but actually my view is of value. So I think that all of that together, I think that there's still something to do about creating that learning organisational culture and as I say myself, and I know from association and from other staff associations, we do have forums to speak at and we certainly take that as far as we possibly can. Okay, John, if you're very brief because we are running for you. It is. Thank you, convener. Mr Reacon, I sense your frustrations. I wonder if you're selling yourself a bit short in regard to one thing and that is, I represent the Highlands and Islands and for your representations that have been made in respect of training in the island areas have been responded to with very significant investment in facilities in the northern west islands. I wonder if you'd recognised that and maybe take some credit for that. Okay, first of all, our organisation, I think we submit the nevins about, you know, we're not really recognised. We've asked for a post similar to the FBU, one post, so we can have someone full-time to deal with it. Any communications that come out during just now like harmonisation and standardisation, the last email that come out from the fire service, it's always a joint statement of fire service and FBU. We're never mentioned in these statements and Tristan, who's been part of these negotiations, doesn't even get that update. It's like we don't exist. The email that come out this week— It exists, Mr Reacon. These excellent training facilities in Orkney and the Western Isles do exist? Well, I can't comment on them because I'm not part of them. What I can say is in our area is that we have 50 per cent of the training staff that we should have for the stations in our local area. There should be four training staff, there should be two. One is temporary. There is no plan to sort that for at least six months. You're here to speak on behalf of the whole— No, no, I'm sorry. Sorry about the other one. Okay, thank you. That's been cleared up. Before we leave this kind of area, can I ask about the formal complaints process and any comments on that? You've said views aren't listened to. I think, in particular, Mr Unison's submission focused on that. Could you ask just generally around the panel if the process is working well in your view? I don't want to be in a position where I'm asking questions off the chair, but complaints are a very wide subject. I suppose that I'm looking more at formal complaints because it's unclear if we're talking about formal complaints that have been brushed aside or just views that are expressing concern. It was really to do with the Unison— Sorry, you're in at the last minute and here we are asking more questions about it. It is our view that the challenges and Christmas of their service have been stifled and there are limited pathways to pursue complaints and concerns about the operation of the service for police staff. Is that just a form of wording and have you really expressed today what the issue was? Do you think, Mr Jackson? As I said, I'm here on the kind of behalf of SFRS. The representative—I'm sure that I've been here—was from Police Scotland, so she'd been able to— I understand that. What we'll do is we'll clarify that with the person that wrote it. That's fine. Right, moving on. Daniel. So, some of what I was wanting to talk about has been covered off by Shona. Can I begin by asking Callum Steele what his understanding of the phrase capacity creation means and whether he thinks it's a useful one? From telling you exactly what I think it means. But it's probably the smoke that accompanies the mirror that then feeds the spin about how the police service has got a tremendous amount of ability to do an awful lot more with a damn sight for your people. Like I said a few moments ago, the police service at this point in time does not have the budget to pay for the officers that it has got. Anything that talks about capacity creation is a ruse for cuts. Thank you. The reason I led off with that, I mean I think policing 2026 is an incredibly important bit of work but I think some of my concerns is that it has focused on where you might be able to reduce numbers and in particular I think some of the elements of that have potentially been looking at that local level and just given what both yourself and Ivan Marshall have been saying, do you think there's a need to refocus that effort in terms of the strategic work about the balance of the police force on that balance between local divisions and what both of you have described as sort of gold-plated national units and resource? I wouldn't say refocus, I think it's got to be done in conjunction with what's currently taking place. The reality is that anything that talks about capacity has to recognise that we're currently delivering a police service now which struggles to meet all of the demand that is placed upon it, so anything in terms of capacity would arguably provide the ability to respond to more of what's being done. In fact, large numbers of the police service full stop, don't get a break during the course of their working day, don't get a break during the course of their working week, largely suffer tremendous disruption to their rest periods, largely work far beyond the maximum working week in any event and that situation gets worse and I'm sure that Ivan will speak from his own membership perspective. The further up, the rank structure you go on over time tends not to be payable. So it's definitely something that's got to be recognised and if I may steal a part of your question to respond to that that was asked previously about engagement, the way in which you engage your workforces you provide them the time to be able to be consulted with and to deliver that to be engaged, but if from the moment they come in until the moment they leave they are run ragged and they can't catch a breath, can't get in for a pee, never mind, never mind a sandwich or a cup of tea or coffee, then you look at the complexity of the problems that just sheer demand creates, so I don't think it should be done instead of the national priorities which continue to be important, I think it should be done as well as. Do you think there's sufficient focus on that in the policing 2026 plans as they exist at the moment? I've got my own view on the plan in terms of the 2026 document and I think it's like many of these strategic documents, it's so wide and woolly that you can take it in any particular direction you want, which tends to be the purpose of them if I'm being honest, but whether there is enough attention paid to policing and policing response, I'm not entirely sure that there is a whole load of aspirational beliefs and philosophies around about other services stepping up and delivering their part, their end of the bargain, but I'm not seeing any evidence that that's going to take place, I mean the reason that we are, and I mentioned a few moments ago, the reason we are psychologists, councillors, social workers is because other services are stepping away and the reason that the police exist is because, you know, for a whole variety of reasons is we are the act of our service for every other service and it's about time people started to recognise that and put the money in to make sure that we're able to deliver it, because if we're not there to pick up the pieces when, for example, social worker aren't able to pick up the pieces, then you've just left with pieces. So, rather than duplicating those questions, I'd just like to ask Ivor Marshall, I mean is it correct to say at the moment that we actually have very different levels of policing between local policing divisions and that those levels are, in some ways, a legacy of policing patterns before the police service and to what extent is that to that hangover feeding to this issue in terms of availability of sufficient resource at local levels? I think it's fair to say that the staffing profile in the territorial divisions varies and that is largely based on what was there previously, but that driven by the resources and the demands that were there. I think it's not a question necessarily in terms of balancing that out. I think it's looking at that bigger picture and as you've sort of alluded to, I don't think it's as binary as specialist versus local. I think we need to take a step back before that and ask the question zero about where is the real demand, perceived demand, the failure demand right across the organisation and understand what that looks like in terms of the type and number of resources that it takes to meet that demand, so that we do get that balance between national specialist resources and a robust, capable, competent front service delivery, which, as Callum has alluded to, is overstretched at this point in time. So we need to ask that fundamental question, design a sustainable operating model and get the appropriate resources put into that. Added to that might be looking at what is that distribution in terms of local policing and seeing where that is. If there is any disparity in terms of the ability of local divisions to be able to respond to those things, but it has to be a multi-layered situation because there is local policing but there are aspects of regional and national and even international policing which impacts on local communities. So we have to look at it in a sort of three-dimensional map and understand that. So the phrase that ASPs have used with me in direct communication is that there is a need for a demand-led review. Is that something that you would repeat here and what does that demand-led review look like? Yeah, and as I say, that's that question zero. We'll go back and ask what is the demand and demand has changed and will continue to change and we need to project that forward. I think that the services certainly listened to that. There's a project under the 2026 workstreams that you referred to. I suppose my reservation with some of that is, and it's back to the point that was maybe raised earlier about sometimes the professional services-led approach rather than the policing-led approaches. It can be wrapped up in a lot of project management language. We need to understand what that looks like and there's a lot of professional judgment around it. We have a lot of data and we need to make some informed decisions around that rather than waiting three or four years for a fancy project with lots of detailed analysis, perhaps. So the services listened to that and I think, as far as I understand, are expediting that sense of understanding demand and then looking at that. So just a final question. Just on that point in terms of fancy projects. I think that Mr McLean wanted to get in. Is this on the same point that you're continuing with, Daniel? Yeah, it just relates directly to what's just been said. To what extent is there a sort of when there is something that needs to be done, a sort of a specialist unit or project that gets created at the centre? And to what extent actually could things be done or led by local divisions rather than being kind of specialist resource created at the centre? Are ideas like that something that need to be explored? I think there are mechanisms in terms of strategic, tactical and operational decision making, tasking boards again across those three levels that would enable decisions to be taken about which part of the organisation might take, primacy or take, lead. For example, the interconnectedness of elements of a particular issue would be such that all elements across specialist and local will have a part to play. So there are mechanisms to deal with that and as I say it's always a balance to be struck. It's not a binary local officers dealing with things and specialist. Those two things are conjoined. The important thing is have we got the balance around that sometimes and I think that's where it needs to be looked at. Mr McLean. Right. Thanks, convener. It's just a very quick point on the capacity issue. It's an argument that frustrates me and annoys me continually. We've challenged it previously because I think it's a weak argument and it's one where the services are saying, we are wanting to expand into these areas and do these things because we've got lots of spare time. We simply don't have lots of spare time and it's been based on a single argument that there's been a significant reduction in fires over the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Nobody's challenging that. Everybody knows what that percentage drop in fires is. The argument should be that the fire and rescue services are expanding into these roles and are able to take on some of those additional roles. For example, emergency medical response, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, formal arrangements for responding in a multi-agency environment to a terrorist type incident because they're the right organisation to do it. Firefighters are the right professionals to take on those additional roles, given obviously the right pay terms and conditions, the training in PPE, etc. We do welcome the Government's additional investment recently in the budget to help us to support moving to those areas. In terms of specialist support, I can just ask you perhaps if you think the right balance has been achieved there for more equal access, just specifically on that point briefly. I think that that's probably one of the most difficult questions because the amount of resource that you require depends on the incident that you're dealing with. I think that what's probably fair to say is that because of that, you've got to look at specialist as a multi-disciplined area in any event. It can be fire arms, it can be public order, it can be major investigation teams. Is the balance right? What I can say is that those departments, not exclusively but by and large, have been staffed to gold standard. Would you want to diminish that? I would say that the answer will probably be no, but if the cost of maintaining that gold standard is a copper standard elsewhere, no pun intended, then perhaps there is a need for some rebalancing of what's there, but the consequence of that will be that we will not be doing as well what we currently do in some areas. Okay, thank you for that. Liam Kerr. Thank you, convener. Just going back directly to the act, the final policy intent was to strengthen the connection between services and communities, to involve many more local councillors and better integrate with the community planning partnerships. Do you believe that centralisation has helped or hindered in that intention? I'm experiencing the fire service, I think it's helped that without repeating what I said earlier, there is a good line of communication for local communities and other partner agencies within local senior officer areas. Those local senior officers are held to account scrutiny by their local scrutiny boards, so everything that they do is held under scrutiny and it's opened to scrutiny by members of the Republic and the communities as well. I think that that element of the act has worked. I think that probably those other partner agencies are the people best placed to judge whether or not that engagement from the fire and rescue service has been improved or has been positive. I think that there is definite room for expansion within that area as well. I touched on some of those areas by talking about an expansion of the role when I move into other areas of community safety and health out of hospital, cardiac arrest, emergency medical response and MTFA. I think that the local set-up and the local arrangements assist that process as well, because I think that the communication within those areas, in the areas that may require some of those services, there are good communication links and good evidence of collaboration between certainly blue light services and some of the wider health and social care services as well. I'm going to come back in a minute and ask about whether the act could be improved in order to with specific reference to the local fire and rescue plans being agreed. I'll just put that out there just now for you to think about that whilst I take the police answer to my first question, if I can. First, I think that the simple answer is that despite what was written in the act, I think that how it was implemented in the first perhaps two or three years actually hindered it. Fundamentally, there was a focus on certain aspects of structural technical elements of building the service. The centralisation of budgets, the lack of empowerment of decision making within territorial local divisions meant that there was a bit of withdrawing from partnership working, perhaps around community planning. I think that that tide has turned back again and the service recognised that. There's a project again under the policing 2026, which talks about local approaches to policing, so there's been a recognition that we need to regain some of that. The one, I suppose, caveat to that would be that the personalities and the individuals within local policing divisions, a lot of them remain constant and those working relationships stay there sometimes under the radar of what was happening centrally. I think that there was still lots of good work going on, perhaps not recognised or valued perhaps as much as it should have been in the first few years. Thank you, convener. I think that this is always going to be one of those subjective questions. To some extent, it very much depends on where people take their interpretation of what connecting means. I know that the service would advocate that they've enabled communities to connect with the police service in a whole variety of innovative ways that didn't exist to the same extent that they used to, principally because of advances in technology. However, if you're talking about connection on the human level, depending on what part of policing or how you're exposed to policing, I would say that many of the communities would say no. The simple reality is that the police service was drawing carefully here, was drawing for many communities in terms of physical presence a long time before the creation of the police service of Scotland. However, what the police service of Scotland did is it provided no hiding place for that and it removed any illusion of connecting with the community through community assets in a way that prevailed before. The obvious removal of police stations is a consequence of finance being the obvious example of that. If you look at those that are involved in advocacy groups for victims of domestic violence or those that are involved in some of the large inquiries that are on-going into historic sex abuse or child abuse and various different institutions, I'm sure that those that represent those communities would say that that has been improved as a consequence of the single service. However, if we're talking communities, as we traditionally know them, clusters of people living together in certain geographic areas, I suspect that many would say no. Sticking on the actual 2012 act, has it set out some specific ways in which local policing plans and the local fire and rescue plans were to be agreed? Do you take a view on whether legislation itself could be improved to ensure that the local input is as effective as possible? I'll take Mr McGlone first, please. Quite a diplomatic answer. I'd quite happy to have a chat with the Deputy Assistant Chief Officers and local senior officers to get some feedback on that before I get back to you, because I don't think that I could give you a decent informed answer at the moment, so I'm quite happy to get back to you on that. That's okay. I don't think that there needs to be a change to the act. I think that it's about interpretation of what's there, the ability of the relevant people with the right ability or the empowerment to make the decisions at a locality level or a divisional level to get together, agree the plans, put the resources to it and empower the staff to go out and deliver the service. I think that there's modern enough professional ability within that framework to deliver that. Thank you. Very quickly, convener. I would largely agree with Ivan Marshall that the principles in the legislation remain sound. This is an argument that has been rehashed from a number of years ago. The service in the first years of its creation gave the plan to the local areas to tell them to agree on them. We've refined our approaches since then, but we still haven't got it entirely right. Shona. I think that's been answered about changes to the legislation. In that case, can I thank the witnesses very much for attending. If there's anything which we haven't been able to cover regarding policing from unison, then we'll follow up that in writing, but thank you all for a very worthwhile session. We now suspend to allow for a change of witnesses and a comfort break. Five minutes. Agenda item three is an evidence session as part of our pre-budget scrutiny ahead of the publication of the Scottish Government's budget 2019-20 later this year, and I welcome him to the use of Cabinet Secretary for Justice and James Wolfe, QC Lord Advocate, who are accompanied by their officials. I refer members to paper three, which is a private paper, and I understand that both the Cabinet Secretary and the Lord Advocate wish to make a brief opening statement starting with the Cabinet Secretary. Thank you, convener, and I will be brief. I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me here today to give evidence as part of its pre-budget scrutiny. This budget will seek to maintain the Scottish Government's strong record of public service delivery to ensure stability, security and equality of services across Scotland. The principles that govern our justice system, including the rule of law, public safety and the protection of rights, are central to ensuring and maintaining sustainable economic growth and wellbeing. The justice system contributes significantly to our economy, employing tens of thousands of staff directly and indirectly in critical roles across all parts of Scotland, protecting and maintaining key infrastructure, ensuring safety at high-profile national and international events, and challenging those who undermine legitimate businesses. The portfolio contributes towards longer-term prevention and equality through, for example, our whole systems approach to youth crime, violence reduction and tackling adverse childhood experiences. As has been the case for the last decade, once again we are delivering the budget in very challenging circumstances. We continue to deal with the impacts of the UK Government's austerity agenda and the uncertainty that is caused by Brexit. Regrettably, we are now having to plan for a no-deal Brexit. No-deal planning is already absorbing significant resources with justice agencies. Maintaining the rule of law in the event of a no-deal Brexit will have a significant financial and operational impact on justice agencies, further damaging our economy and our public services. That includes removing police officers from community duties in the event that they are called on to provide mutual aid, for example, to other UK police forces, and the cost of funding additional police officers should that be required. In spite of the challenging financial context over the past decade, justice agencies have performed well. Record crime is down 42 per cent. This is down to the policy choices that this Government has made, but undoubtedly also to the commitment of all those working in the justice sector. The delivery of substantial and challenging public service reform and rationalisation, including police and fire reform, have provided substantial and recurring reductions in revenue expenditure that are built into the Scottish Government's baseline budget. While maintaining and improving services, police and fire reform are on track to exceed the delivery of anticipated net savings of over £1.1 billion and £328 million respectively by 2027. Last year, of course, the UK Government finally acknowledged the inequity of forcing our police and fire services to pay VAT, a position that no other territorial police or fire service in the UK has faced. The Scottish Government has ensured that communities will benefit in full from Police Scotland and SFRS being able to reclaim £35 million vat from March 2018. The justice sub-committee in policing heard and pre-budget scrutiny evidence from the Scottish Police Authority in Police Scotland out of the potential also for its digital data and ICT proposals to transform policing. Of course, my calls, I would reiterate them for the UK Government to fully reimburse the £175 million already paid in police and fire VAT over the previous five years. That would go significantly in helping us to fund that DD ICT transformation. Within the wider justice portfolio budget, we are directing resources in line with priorities and outcomes set within our justice vision and priorities document developed and agreed jointly by key justice agencies and published last year. That includes increasing funding and services to support the victims of crime and also preventative services to help to divert people away from crime and to reduce re-offending third organisations, play a vital role in helping us to deliver those services. Finally, we want to use our budget to recognise the significant contribution made by those working in our justice sector. For example, the two and a half year pay deal recently agreed for police officers will put significant cash into their pockets, giving them and their families certainty. I am sure that the committee will join me in recognising the very significant contribution that those who work in our justice sector make to making Scotland a safer place to live and work and invest in. I am happy to have the opportunity to assist the committee with its pre-budget discussion. Thank you for the invitation to appear today. During a period of significant change, the Crown Office and Procurate Fiscal Services continued to fulfil its public responsibilities to prosecute crime and to investigate sudden unexpected and suspicious deaths and to do so rigorously, fairly and effectively. That is a tribute to the professionalism commitment and skill of the service and of its staff. In line with the comments that the Crown Agent and I made to the committee last December, this year's budget has allowed the service to maintain staffing levels and to implement the public sector pay policy for Scotland. The pay award was higher than in previous years and was implemented at an earlier point in the year to the benefit of staff. The Crown Agent will be able to update the committee if it wishes about the position in relation to the various staffing issues that the committee has raised with us on previous occasions. The service has also made significant progress in delivering non-staff savings. It has reduced its estate costs while continuing to serve local courts and local communities across Scotland. It has now begun full implementation of the project to use tablets and digital case management in court. That project has taken some time, but the time has been well spent with a view to getting the system right. When I last appeared before you in December 2017, I referred to the services changing caseload and I advised the committee that I had tasked the Crown Agent with scoping the implications of a strategic shift of resources to deal with serious sexual cases and other complex cases. That work formed the basis for the additional resource that the Scottish Government has made available to the service in the current budget year, in which I wrote to advise the committee about in August. I am pleased to report that the service has recently been awarded an additional £1.1 million for the development of three new digital facilities. Those increased resources are the start of what I anticipate will be a long-term initiative by the service to respond to the challenges that are presented by a changing caseload, while meeting reasonable public expectations and, at the same time, continuing with the important work of system-wide reform. Both I and the Crown Agent will be happy to elaborate on the services plans in the course of this session or, indeed, in the future, if that would be of assistance to the committee. Thank you, Lord Advocate. We are going to start with a general question for the Lord Advocate and the same sort of general question for the cabinet secretary about additional in-year funding. John. Morning panel. A question for yourself, Lord Advocate. It is about, can you outline the work that the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service took to analyse the changing profile of his work and how that fed in to the additional in-year funding, please? Yes. The starting point was a demonstrable change in the nature and complexity of the cases being reported to the service. We are seeing a secular decline in the absolute number of cases, but we are seeing a change in the profile, most markedly in the context of sexual offending. When I last appeared before the committee, I reported a 50 per cent increase in the number of reports of high court-level sexual crime being reported to the service within a year. That is an astonishing increase in that area or in that particular area of criminality. That is welcome. That reflects confidence of complainers coming forward, cases being investigated and being prosecuted. The service needs to respond to that and has been responding to that change. At the same time, we are seeing a body of large, complex cases in different parts of the services caseload, but perhaps illustrated by significant and complex serious organised crime cases and which present particular demands. At the same time, we are seeing in local courts a change in the profile of cases, an increase in complexity, as I have mentioned, and indeed there too an increase in the number of relatively serious sexual offences. A 19 per cent increase of sheriff and jury sexual offences is in the same period as the one that I mentioned. I task the Crown Agent with looking across the piece at the implications of these changes for the work of the service. It is fair to say that, as I understand it historically, the service has looked very much at the core need for prosecutors in courts up and down the country. Of course, that goes without saying that we need prosecutors to be present in every court where a case is being prosecuted around the country. I task the Crown Agent with looking at, as it were, the preparation side of matters and look at what the service needed if it is to deal with this changing profile and to do so in a way that meets reasonable public expectations, recognising that evidence to the committee and the inspectorate and other evidence presents us with a picture of what the public reasonably demands of the service. Crown Agent did the work to look at the resources required to meet the various challenges, and that formed the foundation for the analysis that underpins the additional funding. Thank you for that. The Scottish Government announced £3.6 million. Would you anticipate getting that maximum amount of funding in the coming financial year? I do not think that it would be right for me to anticipate what are on-going budget negotiations, as the committee will appreciate. I think that what I can do is I can say that the in-year funding reflected the analysis of the resourcing needs of the services that I have described it. In terms of future budget, if the funding of the service does not reflect that analysis, then that will present me with the need to make choices about what I do going forward. Finally, we are accepting that it is a robust analysis. Is that an on-going process that you will continue to look at? Of course, the service always has to react and respond to changes in the nature of the caseload and the volume of the cases. While that was a significant and particular piece of work looking, as it were, afresh at the needs of the service in response to the changing caseload, I am sure that the service will be keeping an eye on changes as we go forward. Clarification on that point, Lord Advocate. Given that this is primarily for staffing, is there an assumption that additional funding will be baselined within the budget for future years? You are absolutely right that the particular needs of the service relate to staff. The core work of prosecution is undertaken by people. The non-staff costs have come down very significantly over the past period, and it is in staffing that the additional resources are needed. Plainly, if future budgets do not support the same level of staff, then the service would have to respond to that and choices would have to be made in light of particular budget allocations as to what the consequences would be for the service's work. You just follow on from that line of questioning. Will the need for recruitment and training delay the impact of that substantial extra funding that you have had, or had you anticipated that that is how it would be spent? Inevitably, the recruitment process takes time. There is then a period of training and a period during which staff recruited to the service are building up their expertise in what is in many ways a specialist professional activity, namely prosecution in the public interest. There will undoubtedly be time before the additional resource translates into staff within the service. The Crown agent can probably give more detail of the recruitment process. It is also fair to say that the planned improvements, for example, in bringing down the time to indictment, which is one of the responses to reasonable public expectations, those plans will take time to implement. They are dependent on staff being recruited, trained and worked to get those plans implemented, but the plans are in place. The project is in hand and the service is pressing forward with that with some determination. Liam McArthur You have talked about the management of caseload. You have talked about the aspiration to bring down the time to indictment. Are you aware that the evidence that was received from the court and tribunal service shortly before the recess that, while in welcoming the additional funding, pointed up a potential difficulty that that change in the ability of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal to manage its workload could have consequential impacts on, for example, the court and tribunal service? I would just be interested to know whether you recognise that as a challenge and perhaps outline the discussions that have taken place with the likes of the STS about how that might be done in a way that does not just shift the problems around resources and the strains to another part of the system. It is absolutely right that this is a whole system issue. What happens in one part of the justice system has a direct impact on other parts. What happens in relation to policing feeds through to prosecutors, what prosecutors do feeds through to courts. That was reflected in the package that the Cabinet Secretary made available at £0.8 million of the in-year funding that I have received from the Scottish Government was a transfer from the cabinet secretary specifically for sexual offences. That was associated with additional funding that he also made available to the Scottish courts and tribunal service at the same time as a package. That reflects the joined up working that is now, as I perceive it, routine across the justice system. I have regular meetings with the senior judiciary and the Crown Agent has regular interaction with Scottish courts and tribunal service and, indeed, other justice agencies. Part of those interactions is about seeking to make sure that the different parts of the system are, so far as can be, reasonably aligned. I presume that you would be quite surprised that the committee heard the evidence that it did here in the previous session. As I said, the specific concern was that, while welcoming the funding, nevertheless, there was a concern that whatever had been transferred, and I assume that it would have been aware of that, it was not necessarily—obviously, that was sufficient to meet an additional pressure on workload through the court and tribunal service. Well, I suppose that, if I look at it from the perspective of the head of the system of investigation and prosecution, I recognise that when we are dealing with justice, it is a whole system that one has to be mindful of and changes in the caseload. I do not necessarily see that additional funding for one part of itself, or how that impacts on other parts, may depend on analysis, but, undoubtedly, the change in caseload that we see is something that all parts of the system are having to respond to. Follow-up question from Daniel, and then we will move on to the additional in-year funding questions for the cabinet secretary. My question follows on from Liam McArthur's line of questioning. If you look at the fiscal budget in real terms, despite the £3.6 million in additional funding, the funding level will still be below that of the 2015-16. To what extent will the £3.6 million fund additional resources, and to what extent is that actually replacing resources and capacity that has been lost in the last two or three years? Well, I think that one thing that one needs to be alive to is that, over that period, the service has been very effective in two respects. One is in responding to changes within the system, and also in prioritising staff numbers relative to non-staff costs and the proportion of the budget that is spent on non-staff costs has gone down significantly. At the same time, there has been a reduction in the number of senior staff and, again, a prioritisation in terms of the numbers of staff at the front line, if one can call it that. What that funding does is it responds to the particular set of challenges that I described a moment ago. It will, if the services' plans in relation to recruitment reach fruition, result in the service having, as I understand it, a higher staff level than it has ever had before. The Crown Agent will be able to give chapter and verse on that, if that would be helpful. If I may say this very briefly, just for clarification, the end-year funding of £3.6 million, the full-year equivalent is £5.8 million. I just want to be clear about that in relation to that funding. Insofar as staffing numbers are concerned, I will be brief with the additional permanent staffing that we would be able to bring in with this funding, then it would take us to the highest number of staff that we have ever had and also the highest number of prosecutors that we have ever had. The historic high in relation to prosecutors is £558. If we can, if we are in a position to follow this through, then we will have over £600. I am just so that I can be clear. I do not see it, this is not just about numbers, it is about the resource level that is needed in order to respond to the complexity of the case load, the nature of the case load and to seek to meet reasonable public expectations in relation to the prosecution of crime and investigation of deaths. Plainly, from my perspective, as head of the system of prosecution in Scotland, it is very welcome. One more point, because it was simply a relation to that. That high is 2009-2010, when we had the actual cash budget at that time was £118 million. In terms of the non-staff savings that we have made in the interim, what I am saying to you is that even within that budget, we would be in a position where we would be able to have higher numbers than we have had before, in contrast to that £118 million. Forgive me. That is a very useful baseline. I will ask about retention, because that is a critical element within that. In our last evidence session, we heard something that was maybe slightly surprising. We might well expect prosecutors to be tempted away by more tempting job offers. It was maybe surprising to hear that so many of them are being tempted into the Scottish Government. Is there an issue there in terms of pay scales in comparison to other parts of the public sector for the Crown Office? The starting point is that, since the 1990s, the service has fixed its own pay and grades, and the current levels within the service reflect choices made over a period of time. In terms of context, the retention rate of staff within the service, generally speaking, is good. It is true to say that we have seen a loss of staff to the Scottish Government, particularly in recent periods. Indeed, we have seen a loss of staff to the Shrevel bench, where the pay comparison is very different from the service. It follows on from that, if I may, Cabinet Secretary. There is extra funding going into one side of the equation. Are you comfortable that the resourcing of the other parts of the justice system will be sufficient to ensure that any improvements made at that side will flow through the whole system? I think that that is a really good question. Fundamentally, we have to work collaboratively to do our best, along with justice analytical services and many others, to try to forecast as best we possibly can the impact of one funding decision or policy decision or guidance decision will have on another part of the justice system. To answer your question in short, I am confident partly of the reasons that the law advocate has already articulated very well. Some of that funding will not substantially increase the overall number of cases, but it is about, for example, speeding up the process around the high volume of sexual offences that we have seen over the last few years, giving FAIs ready to come to court quicker and so on and so forth. Some of that is speeding up as opposed to volume, so we have some confidence. However, our dialogue with the justice board is hugely important for me, so the justice board, as members will know, and there is a subgroup of that justice board, brings together colleagues right across the criminal justice system on an operational level, on a policy level and, importantly, on an analytical level. They review current trends, potential future trends, et cetera, et cetera, and it is important for us to take that very much into account. So, yes, it is confident, but clearly it is a matter of on-going discussion. Thank you. Can you perhaps help me out? It might have been to an extent touched on what you said at the end there, but what analysis has been done? What robust scenario planning has been done to analyse an increase in funding at that point will have whatever impact it is at the end point and, therefore, that is the funding that is required? What analysis has been done? The justice analytical services that we have are hugely impressive, and a hugely impressive team, I have to say on it, to go over my role as Cabinet Secretary for Justice. When I met the team, the amount of work that they do, the statistical information that they have at their hands, to be able to do some of that, that is why they are such a key member of the justice board that exists. The regular statistics that are available, I think that the member will be aware of some of them, for example, Police Scotland's quarterly management information, on particular crime types, crowns data and prosecution levels, for example, SCTS quarterly data, which was already mentioned on criminal court volumes, criminal justice social work statistics, et cetera, et cetera. I get weekly prison population figures, so using all that statistical evidence, using the expertise of the justice analytical services, using the expertise around the table of the justice board, all of that feeds into policy decisions, funding decisions, guidance changes that we tend to make, particularly when we think that there might be a substantive impact. The cabinet secretary, if you could share some of that analysis with the justice committee, that would be very useful. What particular analysis, convener? The analysis that you have just referred to on the court service, various other organisations within the justice set. That would be very helpful. Thank you. We are going to move on with the cabinet secretary with particular interest in funding of the third sector organisations after we have completed that. We will move back to the Lord Advocate and ask more staffing questions. Be aware that there was evidence taken from third sector organisations around their various priorities and analysis of the funding position. My question would be to you, as the newly appointed cabinet secretary, what you think the areas of priority should be in the funding of the third sector in areas of civil and criminal justice. It would be useful as a follow-up to have a breakdown of the funding of third sector organisations within the justice sector. I do not expect you to produce that today, but as a follow-up, that would be good. From your perspective, where would you see the priorities? Do you think that there is an opportunity, which we explored with the third sector organisations, to have a more strategic approach to funding of those organisations? Rather than competing, if you like, for doing the same things with the same funding pots, is there an opportunity to do things more strategically and avoid duplication where possible? How could that be achieved? In terms of priorities, if I can try to answer that question, I hope that I have been able to demonstrate in the first 100-plus days of being in the role where some of my priorities are. Community justice is absolutely essential to some of that. For example, strengthening the support for victims and families of victims of homicide in particular, but certainly victims and the most vulnerable victims, I think that that is absolutely essential and the support from community justice is absolutely essential to help us with that agenda. A different side of the same coin to that is the rehabilitation of offenders and never forgetting our duty to that. A number of organisations, community justice organisations, are vital to making progress in that area. Related to both those agendas, of course, is effective early intervention, as well as the ACE's agenda that we have talked much about and that is often talked about, of course, but early effective intervention. From a young age, and I saw a great example of that in West Lothian Council a couple of months ago, of where the community justice organisations working closely with local authority were making a really, really big impact on levels of youth crime. Some of the priorities are going on and on and on, but those are some of the key themes and key priorities. For me, community justice Scotland has a huge role to play in terms of an overarching body and organisation to prevent some of that duplication. I have to say that I have been hugely impressed in this portfolio by the willingness of partners to work really closely and collaboratively together. You see that particularly well, for example, when it comes to tackling issues and giving support around sexual offences and rape from organisations such as Scottish Women's Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland and so on and so forth. Community justice Scotland has certainly a role to play in that. Bringing the right people around the table and any ministerial role is always useful in helping to do that, so the victim's task force that I announced just a couple of weeks ago hopefully will be able to play a role in that as well. I have a question around the breakdown. I do not have it on top of my head, but I am sure that we can provide you with that in writing. I can provide it through the committee, through the convener. Is it on subject, Daniel? I hope so. I will let others touch that. If you are not sure, perhaps you can leave it to me. No, it is. It is about community justice Scotland and its role. My understanding is that we are moving to a commissioning model in terms of the procurement of the services from the third sector. There is some concern that that has slightly, if you forgive me, neoliberal connotations. What efforts are you making to make sure that it does not and that it is about partnership working as opposed to a bidding process? As you say, I have been really heartened by what I have seen from the organisations thus far, but I have also picked up some of that concern that you have picked up through your evidence sessions and in conversation. All I can say at this moment in time is that I am more than happy and more than willing to make sure that we get the ethos right as well as the mechanisms and the processes right. Those concerns are ones that I have also heard as much as you have. I am keen to make sure that we continue to work with community justice organisations to make sure that the new arrangements that we have in place do not impact them in a negative way. Inevitably, we are going from one source of funding that there is that competitive element to it. That is understandable, but that collaborative approach, which I have been really impressed with us for, I want it to continue. Reflective of the point, understand that it has been raised with us as well as with yourself, but it is certainly willing to work with organisations to make sure that it is not negatively impacted. Is multi-year funding going to be addressed within that process? Multi-year funding that is raised by a number of organisations, is that going to be addressed as well? Yes. There are a number of organisations that are in receipt of multi-year funding from us, such as Victim Support Scotland, Migrant Help and TARA, which works with victims of human trafficking. They are all in receipt of multi-year funding, so I can completely understand the sense and see the sense where multi-year funding is helpful to organisations. The more we can do that, clearly the better. However, as you know, we operate on that one-year budget process, but we are doing it in some elements where we can do it further. I am very open-minded to that, where it is possible and appropriate. Just briefly, on the funding breakdown question. Does the information that you hold extend to organisations funded indirectly by the Scottish Government, in particular money going to local authorities, where that is the front line and where decisions are made and where the funding goes? Do you have that information on what local authorities are funding, basically? I do not hold information centrally, but I am more than happy to work with Community Justice Scotland to see information as a new body for community justice right across the country to see what information it holds and how to be collated. As we tend to do with local authorities, they are placed well to how to spend that money to get the maximum impact locally within their communities. We do not hold information centrally, but I am happy to work to see where there are information gaps and see where we can plug them. That would be useful, thank you. Daniel Johnson has covered some of what I was going to cover in relation to the concerns that we had heard about the lack of reliability or predictability of funding. You have given a couple of illustrations, cabinet secretary, of where something beyond an annual allocation of funding is provided, which opens up a question as to whether a wife that can be provided in these areas can be provided in other areas. We are seeing from the health portfolio where such an approach is being taken. I think that one of the concerns that was being laid out to us was around how you can plan at all for the longer-term delivery of a service that is absolutely integral to achieving a range of the objectives that you and the Lord Advocate have laid out. On an annual basis, you are sending out redundancy notices two or three months before budgets are signed off. Can we have a clear commitment to look again at the extent to which a greater level of certainty over a two, three, ideally longer period budget allocations can be set out? I am more than happy to take that away. I am more than acutely aware that it was raised to you as Justice Committee members. It would be wise for us to reflect on that. Some of that is within our gift, and some of that, of course, may be needing further collaboration with local authorities through criminal justice and social work. The community justice or social work pots of funding and, therefore, conversations with local authorities on that as well. However, the point that I think is well articulated, and all I can say at this stage is yes, I am more than happy to take a look and reflect on that point further. One of the other concerns that has been raised alongside that was that initiatives that have been taken forward by the Scottish Government, those that have the support of many of those third sector organisations, that is not necessarily an early engagement with those same organisations about the budgetary impacts or the change of that legislation or the roll-out of those policy changes might have. Again, that is something that will be very much within your gift, and certainly you would expect the Government to take a lead role but be informed in terms of the way in which any decisions that you are taking are going to impact on the third sector, rather than simply taking the decision that may have support, but which leaves a number of third sector organisations in the uncomfortable position, or either having to try and deliver that and make changes to whatever else it is that they are delivering, or simply spread the jam far more thinly than would be ideal. I mean, I've always thought that the most sensible approach, and we've tried to do this as much as we possibly can, of course, is by co-design really. Understanding from those that are at the co-face, those organisations that are working with victims of crime or indeed be it those who have the perpetrated crime and anybody in between, what are the needs of those individuals? How do you rehabilitate the offender, or how do you provide that victim support? You tell us in rape crisis Scotland. Victim support Scotland are great examples of organisations that have helped to develop my early thinking within, as you say, the first 100 plus days around where our funding priorities should be for the future and so on and so forth. So if we can co-design with them where our funding priorities should be, then hopefully we avoid that situation that Liam McArthur articulates well. I take the point absolutely fully that we're still going away to go to get there. Finally, a consensus raised with us by family mediation, those working in terms of family mediation, and I should declare an interest as my wife's involved with Radio Relationship Scotland, Orkney, was that in terms of the funding available, there are very few shows in town. There's Scottish Government, there's big lottery funding, a degree of local government funding as well. Is it your view that either an awareness of or a greater biodiversity in funding pots needs to somehow be stimulated in order to try and cover the breadth of demand there is for this sort of funding, where in a sense if you fall out of favour with Scottish Government and you've had an allocation of funding from big lottery that inevitably because of the way they operate has to come to an end? In a sense, there's a kind of cliff edge with that service upon which many people, often very vulnerable people, may be reliant. It's a really good point that's raised now. Again, I'll reflect on how we do this. There have been a couple of organisations that have written to me in my relatively new role where they have had funding challenges, and I immediately look at their projects. I think that there's a process to go through undoubtedly, but I immediately think that there will be a number of other funders that I'm sure will be interested in organisations that are providing XYZ service, and it's about making that link. I know that probably most members around the table do a funders fair locally, for example, where they bring in the funders and the amount of organisations that then turn up and go and quite realise XYZ funder that is able to provide funding for my project. Maybe, from a justice perspective, we can reflect on the community justice partners that we have, the funders that are out there wider and see if we are able to help to make that connection, because your central point is one that I wouldn't disagree with, that the more diversity that is in funding pots, the better for everybody, actually. I think that the relationship with Scotland did make the point that, for the big funding, it was either the lottery or the Scottish Government, and that was a very stark message. Fulton, the supplementary. Thanks, convener. It's just following on from the point raised by Rona Mackay and Liam McArthur. I'm just wondering if the cabinet secretary has any plans to to bring in guidance for local authorities around specific agencies. In the example, I'm thinking about which is relevant just now. In my own local authority area, there is a minute of work in growing injustice in particular local authority run. However, there has been recent decreases to the local women's aid budget, which has obviously not went down well. Is there any plans around that? I suppose that, in some respects, the right across ministry of portfolios can often be a tension between local authority and government around how money should be spent, priorities and national priorities. That's in any ministerial role. I remember the minister for transport talking often about the active travel agenda and how our national vision was not perhaps being realised by all local authorities. In some respects, we have to accept that that tension will exist if we want to give local authorities the autonomy to do as they think best. However, I hope to address that in my previous portfolio. I hope to address that to make sure that the relationship with COSLA with local authorities is a really, really good one. I think that that's probably the best way to do it. The few local authorities that I have managed to visit in this portfolio thus far, there are some excellent examples, really good examples of good practice. I mentioned earlier about effective early intervention, if we can share some of that and maybe even think about forums by which we can share some of that. There isn't singling out one local authority saying that they are not doing what they expect nationally for you to do, but instead saying that they hear some really good practice from one local authority about replicating that if it's suitable for your local authority. However, I accept that that tension almost inevitably will always exist in some way, shape or form. I don't know about you, cabinet secretary, but I'm a big Joe Biden fan and he once said that don't tell me your values, show me your budget and I'll tell you what your values are. From that perspective, given that the community justice services budget is £35 million and the Scottish prison service budget is £361 million, what does that say about the values of non-custodial sentences versus community justice orders and provision? Do you expect that to change in the future, reflecting many of the things that you've said publicly, which I would broadly agree with in terms of the need for the emphasis on non-custodial options for sentences? The latter part of his question absolutely I agree with him. I would expect that balance to shift to some degree. I'm certainly, as he knows, very supportive and will be looking to bring forward a presumption against short sentences of 12 months or less. His party position timescales might be slightly different, but generally an understanding that short custodial sentences are not as effective for rehabilitation when it comes to, in comparison to community sentences. In some respects, yes, inevitably, a shift on that. That being said, there are calls from his party, in fact from probably almost every party around the table, people that commit the most tenuous and the most serious crimes that have to be and should be locked up in chills, in custody, should be serving sentences and long sentences, and those sentences for the most tenuous of crimes when it comes to those on life sentences are serving longer. You have to have them in jails, and that is the fact of life. I see some misreporting sometimes, which doesn't fit in with the Scottish Government's vision. I'll give you one example. A recent newspaper had a splash on the front page around replacing Barlinnie, for example, and talked of a super-jail. The Government doesn't do super-jails, it doesn't do super-jails. If it were to replace Barlinnie, you'd be looking at around about the same capacity, it's not about having to lock more people up. Yes, some people will have to go to jail and have to be in prison, and public safety is absolutely an utterly paramount. However, I agree with his general sentiment that if we can rehabilitate more people and community sentences more effective in doing so, then yes, I would expect that shift. In the past, the presumption against short sentences would be a demonstration, I would hope, of that. Again, to start by agreeing with you, you're never going to do away with the need for prison, especially for the most heinous crimes, and not least because there's a need to guarantee public safety, which sometimes only prison can do. However, in order for community justice orders and provisions to be effective, they also need to be robust and they need to be trusted, and therefore that needs a level of investment. Given that, if you delve into that £35 million figure, it's only £12 million that's actually spent on those provisions. Do you agree with me that in order to have that trust, there needs to be robust investment and consistent investment, which again touches very much on the point that some of the points that Liam McArthur was raising about having the consistency of programmes, but also the rigor and robustness that ultimately costs money? Yes, I would agree with that. It's fair to say, though, I mean that it's not of any surprise to anybody that, of course, the cost of giving somebody in prison versus the cost of a community sentence and effective community sentence, obviously, is very stark, and people would understand that. Therefore, it's not right to just compare the figure for community sentences versus the figure for prisons. I don't understand the reason why I make this comparison. I don't disagree with his general point that he's trying to make. Some of it also goes back to the nature of cases, and Lord Advocate will undoubtedly keep me right, but when it comes to high court cases, I think that the last time I spoke to Lord President it was in around 80 per cent were sexual offences and rape cases. Therefore, the nature of cases are such. Then, undoubtedly, there may be a need for those people to be in prison. That does not take away rehabilitation or the hope of rehabilitation, but that for public safety it may be the right place. The nature of the crimes and the offences also play a part in all of this. Again, I don't think that there's too much disagreement between myself and Daniel Johnson. As I say, I would hope to see a shift away from prison spending in the future and more towards rehabilitation efforts that we know work and work well. On that public trust point, what's critically important is not just that we have these options but that they're understood by the general public, that they know what the content of those orders are and what happens. Therefore, do you think that there needs to be some investment in public perception and public awareness of what community justice means rather than just doing it in and of itself? That's a really good point. I think that the vast majority of people's perceptions of community sentences have got off with it. It's not a harsh enough sentence. Without understanding the ethos behind it, the potential to rehabilitation and what that means for then, hopefully, having fewer victims of crime in the future. It's a very good point and it's something for us to reflect on. Do we need to look at how we work on the public narrative now? Some of that is Government's responsibility, I'm sure, and we'll look at that and reflect on that. However, some of that is all of our responsibilities around this table. It's important that all of us, based on the data, based on the facts that we have, the justice analytics, stick to those facts and talk about what actually works in terms of rehabilitation and don't dismiss it as a soft option or a soft touch option and so on and so forth. It's really important that the Government reflects on that and we do some of that narrative work. Equally, we've all got responsibility on that. If we can move back to the Lord Advocate on the issue of the disparity in pay, the FDF has produced very good information on the table specifically that shows, for example, even starting a legal trainee in the Crown and Procurator of Fiscal Service, that is paid 27 per cent less than a legal trainee in the Scottish Government. That has a knock-on effect. I believe that, some years ago, there was an agreement with the then Solicitor General. It was the Deputy Chief Executive of the COPF that there would be an equivalent kind of grading to the Government's payments for qualified solicitors. However, the knock-on effect sees, for example, a Procurator Fiscal Depute being paid 39,780 and the equivalent in the Scottish Government 46,889. At various points, because of the disparity, it can be a 27 per cent, a 50 per cent and a 15 per cent always in the wrong direction. Could you address that? Yes. I suppose that it goes back to the point that I made in response to Daniel Johnson, that the starting point is the autonomy that the service has had in relation to paying grading since the 1990s and the position that we are in reflects decisions made by the service and no doubt also by the Scottish Government over a long period of time. I will come back to deal specifically with that in a moment, if I may. It is true to say, and the Crown Agent would be able to give more specifics on that, that the service continues to attract large numbers of applicants for both legal and administrative jobs. I suspect that that is because being a public prosecutor is an immensely rewarding professional experience. I would like to think that it is an exciting time for people to be working in the service. There is a lot happening in the justice system. The service is full of immensely skilled, dedicated people. That is part of the context. If one broadens out the comparisons, the average salaries for solicitors and private practice, according to the law society. While they are dedicated, we did hear that morale was down and that people were leaving the service, and if that disparity continues, it is not sustainable that the procurated fiscal service is going to retain the level of skill that it requires to function properly. I was going to come in a minute and deal directly with that, but perhaps I can do that. I think that the figures are that the service has lost 59 staff to other Government departments since January 2014. It is correct to say that the rate of departure has increased over the last 18 months. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, there is a loss of staff to the bench, which is perhaps a reflection of the skill that you have identified. There are no range of reasons for that, but there have always been staff who have moved on from the service for a variety of reasons, but the pay differential is there. Undoubtedly, the service would like to reduce that differential, but that, of course, has resource implications if that were to be done. I suppose that one does have to look at it in the context in which service continues to attract applicants. Generally speaking, the rate of turnover is at a historic low. That is not to say that, suddenly, I view with any equanimity the loss of skilled staff from the service. I am concerned that the FTA and other unions were at pains to point out the committee. Very briefly, Liam Kerr is supplementary. Just very briefly on that point, Lord Advocate, you would presumably concede that that pay differential that the convener has highlighted does make entry into the profession and, indeed, transfer into the profession somewhat unattractive for particularly younger lawyers entering the profession. It strikes me that there are two separate questions looking at at least the information that I have, which is that the service continues to attract a high number of applicants for entry into the profession of prosecutor. That may reflect the fact that, if one looks at the law society's figures for the profession as a whole, the median average salary for a solicitor is £35,000 in private practice on the figures from the law society's data. That is a broader context. I think that the job of being a prosecutor is an immensely attractive and rewarding one. That is at the level of entry. It is true to say that staff from the prosecution service, for a variety of reasons, have always moved on. We have seen an increase in the number of staff who are going to other parts of the public service. I would not dispute for a moment that part of the context for that is the pay differential that has been identified. Is there any analysis done of why people are moving? A crown agent will be able to give the detail, but, as I understand it, people are asked why they move on. There are exit interviews. Just to contextualise, Lord Advocate mentioned 59 to other government departments since 2014. 11 of them are lawyers. The vast majority are non-lawyers, but that perhaps helps to contextualise. During that same period, we lost 14 to the bench, somebody sheriff, sheriff etc. That again just contextualises for want of a better phrase the markets in which we are competing in terms of our more experienced staff. Do you analyse the reason that people move? Is it possible to provide the committee with data to say the pay differential was the reason that people transferred? Whether it is statistically significant, I can certainly indicate that pay is mentioned in a significant proportion of those who have their departure interviews. Any further information that you could give on the reasons why you think people are leaving the service would be helpful to the committee? There is just one final question for the cabinet secretary. What conversations, cabinet secretary, have you had with Police Scotland about its call for what it considered an absolutely crucial amount of funding £298 million for its IT project? Police Scotland, the chief constable and a couple of his colleagues presented the business case to me. From my perspective, I completely and principally understand the reasons for that. I do not think that I have to go over the issues around the I6 previously, the legacy issues etc. Caveatolus, I should say, is that we do invest and give money to Police Scotland, for example, through the reform budget to upgrade ICT. However, that is a huge substantial change that is being asked for with quite a hefty price tag. In principle, I support the reasons why, I understand the reasons why, but clearly they will be subject to budget negotiations, budget discussions and so on. To answer your question directly, the chief constable and his colleagues have presented that case directly to me. You are considering it? Well, from my colleague, I'd imagine, to the cabinet secretary for finance, undoubtedly to his part of budget discussions that he and I undoubtedly have, but that is very much subject to affordability. That £298 million is not a small number. I think that the chief constable has suggested that even to stand still would cost a considerable amount of money, £90 million perhaps? I think that doing nothing is not an option. Hence why I'm mentioning the money that we've spent through the reform budget or allocated through the reform budget to ICT intervention, so doing nothing is not an option. However, certainly, as I say, the full boon of the digital data and ICT transformation that's been talked about, in principle, is supportive of proposals but clearly subject to affordability. Thank you all very much. That concludes our line of questioning. Can we suspend for one minute just to allow the Lord Advocate and the Crown Agent to leave? I was very remiss and not introducing at the very beginning, and the cabinet secretary is remaining for our next agenda item. The next agenda item is consideration of a legislative consent memorandum relating to the Offensive Weapons Bill, currently before the UK Government, which touches upon devolved matters and to which the Scottish Government is recommending that the Parliament gives our consent to the UK Parliament to the relevant provisions in the bill. I refer members to paper 4, which is not by the clerk, and I invite the cabinet secretary to make a very brief opening statement. I've got the emphasis. The Offensive Weapons Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, as you said, by the UK Government in June this year. It contains a wide number of provisions that apply all across the UK, with many provisions extending to Scotland. Some of those provisions, such as the new offence banning the sale of corrosive products to under-18s fallen reserved areas, but many are devolved. Some of the following fall in devolved areas is the new offence of possession of a corrosive substance in a public place, new controls of the sale of knives and other bladed articles when bought remotely, and indeed the banning outright of the possession of certain dangerous knives and other offensive weapons. There are a number of other technical minor provisions that also fall into devolved competencies. As the Scottish Government's legislative consent memorandum explains, the area of law is a complex mix of both reserved and devolved. I could give you some examples of that, but your need for brevity, I don't think I will. One option would have been to obviously legislate through devolved areas through a Bill in the Scottish Parliament, but I think it's preferable to have a UK-wide framework on that. The desire to have consistent laws operating across the UK is sensible in this case. The Scottish Government and the UK Government agree that it makes policy sense to ensure that those types of restrictions operate as much as possible consistently across the United Kingdom. I can advise the Scottish Government and the UK Government have worked constructively together and devolved areas contained within the Bill, including in particular in relation to new restrictions on the sale of knives and other bladed articles. I do have some concern to conclude. Convener, on what is being reported as a delay in the process of the UK Government through the House of Commons, in fact, some of the reported reasons for the delay in that, but we will continue to work collaboratively with the UK Government. I am happy to answer any questions. Just on the last point there, the cabinet secretary mentioned that the Bill was delayed again in Westminster. Do you know anything that is surrounding the details of that, and will it affect our LCM? Only largely what is being reported, I have to say. We have been working very collaboratively with the UK Government, and I should caveat what I am about to say with those remarks, but if what is being reported is true, then it is frankly a disgrace. The reason that this legislation is being postponed is because it might make life difficult for the UK Government because of the Tory rebels and other rebels around the Brexit issue might just look to cause a defeat for the UK Government. If that, which is being reported, is true, then it is an utter disgrace. We have a particular interest in Scotland on this legislation. Every single member around this table will remember the tragic case of Baillie Gwyn. Of course, this legislation looks to put further enforcement in place to prevent that kind of situation from happening again when it comes to the sale of knives online, purchased online, and no longer being able to be delivered to somebody's house or residence, but they have to collect it, show ID, further enforcement of who is picking up that weapon. Frankly, the fact that this legislation could be delayed because of politics and party politics does not do justice to the memory of Baillie Gwyn. Thank you, cabinet secretary. You have outlined exactly why it is important that we get on with this now, and that is helpful. Shona, and... I was usually concerned to hear about the potential delay, and I wonder if you could expand on what the impact of that may be and whether you will be making representations to the UK Government about that delay and what they are going to do about it. If you could keep the committee informed about the progress of those discussions, I think that the fact that it covers really important things such as acid attacks and the huge public concern about that, and on-line knife sales, I think that any delay would be extremely unforgivable. If you could perhaps expand on what communications you are going to have around this. Yes, I will write to the UK Government on that. I am hoping that the reasons that are being reported in the press are not the reasons, and there are other good reasons. However, it is the second time that this delay has occurred, so it is extremely worrying. I understand that there are legislative pressures with Brexit. Everybody understands that, but the day job cannot be ignored. That is not just any piece of legislation, but it is a hugely important piece of legislation, not just for Scotland, but Shona Robison is absolutely right with some of the increases that we have seen with the use of corrosive substances, particularly in the London metropolitan area. That is an important piece of legislation from the entire United Kingdom. Restricting access to and therefore the sale of offensive weapons is hugely important. However, what the legislation will do is increase the number or category of items that we are asking retail workers to enforce the law around and therefore act as agents of the law. We also know that enforcing age restrictions can be a source of abuse and violence. The cabinet secretary may know that I am drafting a member's bill concerning that. I am just wondering if the cabinet secretary thinks that there is a need to reflect on what we are asking retail workers to do and maybe have some sort of thought around the protection that retail workers need, or in certainly look at the elements of the law that we are asking them to uphold in the round? Yes, I will reflect on that. I do not think that Daniel Johnson and I have had an in-depth discussion about the member's bill that he is taking forward. However, if he would find it helpful to do so, I would be more than happy to commit to doing that. I still need some persuading, I have to say on it, but I am more than happy to enter into the discussion. I am open minded to understand the member's bill that he was taking forward. However, as a good point, I will probably be lost in much of the discussion around the offences weapons legislation that is looking to be brought forward. It is important to put on the record. I would share with the cabinet secretary's concern at delays in taking forward this legislation at Westminster. You have talked about the consensual approach to taking forward this legislation to date. I am slightly surprised that this is the second delay that has taken place. Why are we talking about writing to your equivalent to seek clarification on the basis for that delay, rather than an urgent phone call having been set up already to establish that, to impress upon on your counterpart why this legislation needs to be taken forward now? Nobody wants to see it taken forward at a UK level and defeated for whatever reason. I think that we all appreciate that the management of legislation through Parliament can be a precarious business, but it seems to me beyond understanding how this would fall into that category. Therefore, as I say, I am slightly surprised that that conversation has not already happened between yourself and your counterpart. I will say to Liam McArthur that, again, my various ministerial roles can be sometimes quicker than getting a letter sent by email than trying to wait for diaries to match up. Now, I would be available for a phone call today with relevant UK Government ministers to discuss this issue and reflect on what he says. I do not doubt— At an official level, either there is a precursor— I will bring my officials in to their conversations with UK Government officials. The point that I was going to make was that I do not doubt that there are some legitimate issues that need to be discussed. For example, there are some points of contention around high-caliber rifles—for example, that idea that is reserved, I should say—but I know that there are some discussions around that as being a point of contention. Therefore, I do not doubt that there are some issues that need to be worked through but to continually pull legislation for it to be delayed. If it is for the reasons that are being reported, then it is extremely worrying, but I am happy to bring in Philip to give more detail on the official discussions that I have taken. I can confirm that we did not have an advance notice of the delay. We found out in live time that it was due to go through the third reading last Monday—it did not happen on the day and the same yesterday. We did not get an advance notice that the UK Government had made that decision. What efforts have you made to establish at an official level what their action hall is at the moment that we are relying on reports? We can certainly ask at an official level, at an ministerial level, certainly the information that we have received is due to parliamentary scheduling without any further detail. I think that you are really impressed in the need to move on with this. Any way that we can get the information that we need in the best manner possible and the most efficient and fastest manner for this would be in the interests of all concerned. Are there any more questions? If not, then do members agree that we give our consent and that you delegate the publication of a short factual report to me to work with the clerks and publish? Agreed. Thank you for that. Agenda item 5 is legislative consent memorandum on crime overseas production orders. Cabinet Secretary, do you need a change of officials? Yes. In which case I shall suspend for about 30 seconds until that takes place. Right. This agenda item is consideration of legislative consent memorandum relating to the crime and overseas production orders bill currently before the UK Parliament which touches upon devolved matters and to which the Scottish Government is recommending that this parliament gives our consent to the UK Parliament to the relevant provisions in the bill. I refer members to paper 5, which is a note from the clerk and invite the cabinet secretary again to make a brief opening statement. Thank you, convener, for the opportunity to speak in support of the LCM for the Crime Overseas Production Orders bill, which was introduced in the House of Lords on 27 June. The purpose of the bill is to enable law enforcement officials and prosecutors to apply for a court order that would enable them to obtain electronic data for the purposes of investigating and prosecuting serious crimes directly from persons who are based or operated overseas. A present of data that may constitute evidence is located outside the UK. Then UK courts can generally only access data through the current mutual legal assistance of the known as AMLA process. This process requires a domestic order and the engagement of domestic law enforcement from the territory in which the data is held. It can therefore be a slow and very cumbersome process, taking on average 10 months to complete. The bill seeks to create a more efficient process for obtaining data from overseas, meaning that evidence can be recovered more quickly. The default position is within seven days, beginning with the day in which the order is served, supporting swifter investigations and prosecutions. The new process will sit alongside the current AMLA arrangements. The main elements of the bill are to allow a judge to make an overseas production order, to define data that is exempt from such orders, for example medical records, to set out what a person must do if they are served with an order and to allow a judge to vary or revoke an order. LCM is required as it provides a means for devolved law enforcement officials to seek electronic data evidence in relation to a wider range of serious offences, many of which are not reserved. The bill also confers new functions on the law advocate, who is to serve orders made in Scotland, thereby altering the executive competence of the Scottish ministers. I ask the committee to support the draft LCM. My officials and I are more than happy to take questions that you may have. The cabinet secretary has covered the point that I was going to raise. That is fine. Are there any other questions for members? If not, do members agree that we give our consent and that you delegate the publication of a short factual report to me to work with the clerks and publish? Are we all agreed? I suspend briefly to let the cabinet secretary to leave. Due to the clock ticking on, we will continue now. Agenda item 6, the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018. Agenda item 6 is consideration of a proposal by the Scottish Government consent to the UK Government legislating using the powers under the European Union Withdrawal Act in relation to a UK statutory instrument, the law enforcement and security amendment EU expert regulations 2018. I refer members to paper 6, which is a note by the clerk. Do members have any questions? Thank you, convener. I'll be brief. The papers we've got, as you say, cover a range of issues, and they repeat a number of stock phrases in regard to it, namely that a lot of, for instance, given the UK, as the members state that the UK Government are leading negotiations, it needs to be considered on a UK-wide basis. The Scottish Government shares the UK's Government's aim. I have no difficulty with that. If any legislation is considered necessary to plug gaps, it will most likely need to be progressed at UK-wide basis. There is also an undertaking that the Justice Committee would be kept informed of that. However, I think that it would be helpful to callify the term likely and what capability or opportunity exists for the Scottish criminal justice system to address the issues on its own. That would cover the situation where, as we've heard—not the previous item, but the one before that—for any reason, because those are very, very important matters—child pornography and other pressing issues. Could we clarify that, please? Would you be content, then, for us to seek that further information and to receive that, but to be able to go on and approve the... Very happy that we go on and approve it. I think it would be helpful to understand that. I think that that's an important point. Thank you very much for making it, John. Is the committee therefore content to recommend that the Scottish Parliament gives its consent to the UK Government to pass the statutory instrument? You are agreed. The clerks will produce a paper. A short report is committee happy to delegate the authority to me to publish this report, as we do with SSIs. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Agenda item number seven is feedback from the justice sub-committee on policing on its meeting of 4 October 2018. Following the verbal report, there will be an opportunity for brief comments or questions, and I refer members to paper seven, which is a note by the clerk, and I invite John Finnie to provide this feedback. Thank you, convener. As you said, the justice sub-committee on policing met in the fourth of October, and we took pre-budget evidence on Police Scotland's digital data and ICT strategy ahead of the Scottish Government's publication of its draft budget. We heard from senior officials of Police Scotland and the Police Authority, and we also heard that lessons had been learned from the failed I6 project and measures had been taken to avoid those being repeated. That's primarily around an incremental approach to the implementation and selection of technology that's been previously tested and used elsewhere, rather than the whole innovation that is associated with I6. We heard of the importance of the issue, and as we've touched on earlier in our meeting here, we heard that the ICT strategy would require 298 million funding from the Scottish Government, but there would be implications for a standstill budget. We were also told that the capital budget for Police Scotland is insufficient to meet its needs and can this consider the impact and policing of the reduction of police support staff and the proposed reduction of 300 officers from 1920? We'll next meet in the 20th of 5 October, and I'm happy to take any questions. Members of any questions? No. I thought that that was a useful meeting and it emphasised this process of a pre-budget scrutiny, how effective that was. I think it's been a very welcome introduction. That concludes the public part of today's meeting. Our next meeting will be the 30th of October, where we will continue with our post-legislative scrutiny of the Police and Fire Reform Scotland Act 2012. I now move into private session.