 Wait. Welcome to the 27th meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee in 2023. We got no apologies this morning and Pauline McNeill is just running a little bit late and will be joining us soon. Our first item of business today is the continuation of evidence on the victims, witnesses and Justice Reform Scotland bill. As a reminder we are still at phase one of our scrutiny of the bill, and today's evidence will focus on part two of the bill on embedding trauma-informed practice in the justice system. We're joined today by two witnesses who have expertise in the area of trauma-informed practice, so a warm welcome to Dr Caroline Bruce, head of programme with transforming psychological trauma with NHS education for Scotland, and Professor Thanos Caratius, Professor of Mental Health at Edinburgh Napier University and clinical and health psychologist at the Rivers Centre for Traumatic Stress. Welcome to you both and I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I intend to allow up to 45 minutes for this session and before we get underway, as usual, I'd like to ask members to be succinct in your questions and panel members to be succinct in your responses. If I may, I'll begin with a very general open question and I'll perhaps come to Caroline first and then Thanos. What do we understand by trauma informed practice and why is it important in the justice sector? I work for NHS education for Scotland and so as an education and training organisation we have been a key partner in the national trauma training programme as part of that. We've been working with a number of different partners in terms of the implementation of trauma-informed practices, so as part of that we've done a lot of work around looking at the international evidence and literature around what do we actually mean by trauma informed practice. I think it's a really good question because it can be bandied around quite a lot. I think the national trauma training programme offers basically the same definition as there is worldwide around recognising the prevalence of trauma, recognising its impact and different ways it impacts on people responding in ways that support recovery and that adapt in order to do your job better and resisting re-traumatisation. I think that those last two ones are the ones that can take a little bit more definition. Resisting re-traumatisation can often be interpreted in some places as meaning being a bit nicer or reducing distress, whereas I think resisting re-traumatisation is very specifically about the ways in which processes, practices and elements of any kind of process can mirror traumatic events. We know that trauma most often happens in relationships that lack choice and control that are disempowering, that are unsafe and that breach trust. Trauma-informed principles in terms of resisting re-traumatisation are about embedding those things, but on top of that, we also have that third R, which is responding in ways that support recovery and an adjust to setting in ways that help people to do the job better. The job better is supporting witnesses to effectively participate in the process. That would be a relatively brief definition. In terms of why we need it, coming from the national trauma training programme, which is the broader overarching principles that we use there, trauma affects people in many and varied ways that can affect how they access basic life chances, such as education, dentistry and anything that you can imagine. The impact of trauma can create barriers to accessing that through the potential for re-traumatisation and the avoidance of those systems and services. One of the reasons why we need trauma-informed systems is to make sure that trauma does not create a barrier to accessing those universal life chances. In adjust to setting, in part, it means making sure that we adapt principles and practices so that people affected by trauma can access and effectively participate in processes that are involved in either the prosecution of offences that may have been committed against them or for the accused, who often have their own experiences of trauma, who are taking trauma-informed approaches for them so that they can effectively participate. I'll bring in Thanos and then I'll maybe just ask a couple of supplementary follow-up questions. Thank you very much for that. I do agree with everything that has been said already. The trauma-informed practice describes a set of principles, including safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment. It has been introduced in the literature more than 20 years ago and is a framework that is applied effectively, as everything that Caroline said already. But most importantly, I think that by understanding the impact of trauma on people's behaviour, that allows us to understand when they are behaving in certain ways, in certain contexts, for example, in the court or in the prison. That is why that makes it incredibly important. Everything else has been covered by Caroline. Thank you very much. That is a really helpful sort of opening overview. One of the things that I think we grapple with is that within the justice system, in any legislature, there are different subsectors, courts, police, prisons. How important is it that, if we are looking at improving trauma practice, trauma-informed or trauma-responsive practice, how important is it that that happens across the system as a whole system change, if you like, rather than individual organisations? That is an excellent question. Actually, in preparation for this meeting, this is what I had in mind, because the criminal justice system comprises of different components there. The prison, police, all these different organisations might have a different remit. The principles of trauma-informed care are actually quite general, which can be a positive thing, as well as a negative thing. It is a positive thing from the point of view that can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the needs of individual organisations. For example, for courts or the police, certain principles like safety, choice or collaboration might be more important. Whereas, in the prison service, the principle of recovery, for example, more focus on recovery might be more important. I would say that we would need to look at these principles, how they apply separately in all these different parts of the criminal justice system. Sometimes interpretation might be slightly different. When Nez was researching the knowledge and skills framework, we interviewed 12 victims and witnesses and looked at the literature widely. They told us clearly that productivity was really important. I think that there is a lovely quote from somebody who says, sometimes I do not know whether it is a policeman or a member of the Crown Office or another organisation in front of me. I just know what they are doing with me and what they are asking of me. There is a really key thing about everybody singing from the same hym sheet and understanding the same things. There is also a sense of predictability that this person, that this part of the process, can tell a witness what is going to happen at that part of the process because they know from working together with and having a joint understanding of what a trauma-informed system looks like with all the other justice organisations. There is another point to make. There is one part of the framework that talks about leadership and leadership of systems. There are many things that cannot be resolved without multi-different organisations working together to resolve them. It is not about individual practices, it is about the system as a whole. That is another reason for thinking about it, not individually but as a system. As Thanos says, individualising it where it needs to be done, where there are different things going on. In the framework, we have resolved that by saying, what does everybody need to know, informed and skilled levels? At the enhanced level, what do people who are providing advocacy and support need to know and do? What do people who are collecting evidence need to know and do separate from that? What do people who are in courts overseeing the evidence presentation need to know and do? What do leaders of systems need to know and do? There are similarities, the generic, what everybody needs to know and do, and then there are specifics in different settings. You have mentioned the framework, and I am sure that members will have some questions about the framework during the session. I will open it up to members now, if anybody would like to come in. I am interested in the last comment that Dr Bruce has made about everybody in all different elements of the system needing to know what to do. That feels to me easier said than done. I suppose that what I am interested in is that I am wholly supportive of the focus on trauma informed practice, but I am not naive about the scale of the challenge in turning it into a practical experience that individuals will face. I wonder what witnesses can help us with in terms of good practice as to how we might see that turned into effects. It is all very well for Parliament to legislate for this. It has then got to happen in practical reality if it is to have any particular effect. I wonder if witnesses could help us on that point. It is a really helpful question, and there are many different answers that I could give to that. I absolutely agree that we need to be clear about what does good look like and how do we know when we have got there. As an education and training provider, Nez's approach to that is to say that it is not good enough to say that we have delivered training. That is an output, and it is not an outcome. We need to look at what is the impact that we are trying to achieve and are we achieving it. That necessarily involves feedback loops from victims and witnesses. In the leadership section of the framework, we talk about feedback loops being a really intrinsic part. What are victims and witnesses saying about their experience? It is not in a tokenistic way, but it is routinely regularly given the choice to be able to give feedback on their experience. The other end of the picture is training in and of itself. As an education and training provider, that is an odd thing for me to say, but training in and of itself is nearly useless at bringing about systemic change in practice. We need training and then we need implementation supports. We need to be able to support people, in other words, to be able to take what they have been trained in and implement that in practice and demonstrate it in practice and give them feedback on it. It is not as simple as delivering training. I hope, with 210 pages, that we have given some detail as to what it could and should look like in a bit of a road map to get there. I agree 100 per cent, but I think that training is quite important in general, but training not only to those who are working on the ground. We need to think of training at all different levels, at organisation level, from the people who are working directly with survivors or victims up to the leadership, because if the leadership understands the importance of that, that can cascade all the way down a bottom down approach. Do I understand correctly from that point that culture in the organisation is also fundamental? 100 per cent. The cultural changes are incredibly important and it is not just about someone who is doing work on the ground to understand the importance of that and trying to implement the principles of trauma-informed care. The overall culture, aspiring to become a trauma-informed organisation, is incredibly important for everybody to be involved in this process and deliver and action those principles. Dr Bruce also said earlier on that we have to be clear what good it looks like. I suppose that my question is, does good exist anywhere today? That is a very difficult question for an education and training provider. That is probably not my job to respond to. When we were doing the research for the knowledge and skills framework, we certainly, if you look through it, will see quotes from many victims and witnesses saying what good looked like for them and that they received it. You will see many also saying what good did not look like and the impact that it had, but there was certainly evidence from it that there were pockets of good practice for sure. There is a narrative review that has been published in 2021 in Ireland and I am happy to send the reference, if that would be helpful. There are 17 studies that have been included in that review. The quality of the evidence is not that great and unfortunately there is very little from the UK. Most of these studies are international and they come from the US. The other really important caveat to that evidence is that most of this work has been conducted with women and young people, whereas work on men has been neglected so far. Nevertheless, I think it is quite important. There are two important findings there to mention for the purposes of this meeting. What they found is that recognising a trauma in the criminal justice system can prevent re-traumatisation and gender responsive programmes also could prevent re-offending. Going back to your question, there is some evidence. We have just started to know what good looks like. There is no much evidence, but there is some evidence to suggest that that can deliver on the criminal justice system and trauma-informed care. It can be a positive thing overall. Go back to something that you had said, Dr Bruce, a wee bit earlier. I totally agree with when you talked about trauma-informed practice being around and being as important for those who are accused of offences or later convicted of offences. Of course, that is something that has been following up in previous sessions. Of course, the bill is about the victims and witnesses. Do you feel or observe that there is already a difference in how trauma-informed practice is implemented in the criminal justice system between those who are accused and convicted quite rightly so? Do you feel that the bill is perhaps trying to level up that playing field for one of a better expression? That is a really hard question for an education and training provider to answer. The role of now is to provide education and training to the organisations that have invited us thus far, so it is very hard to comment on that. The minute you started to answer that, you realised that it was probably an unfair question. If I could reframe it a wee bit, the organisations that get you in to do a training, do they tend to focus on those who have been convicted or are in the convicted offenders line or victims and witnesses? Do you tend what sort of practitioners do you tend to get? I can answer that, but it will not necessarily clarify what you are looking for, which is that we specifically have been commissioned to do work with victims and witnesses but have not. There is no implication that that happens to be what Nez is doing a particular piece of round. I am aware that there are good colleagues elsewhere in criminal justice and in social work who are doing lots of very good training around working with offenders. It is very hard to answer that, because our shop window is victims' witness by nature of the fact that we are the authors on this framework. It is too hard for me to answer. I apologise. It is not something that I would, but perhaps can I just say that we have certainly seen that things have been moving on significantly the last few years and people are becoming more aware of the roaming form practice and care across all the different organisations here in Scotland. However, to what level I do not think that this has been evaluated as yet. I am just wondering if either of you believe that there are any points or places within the justice system where there could be conflict between roaming form practice and perhaps the goals or outcomes that are desired such as efficient running of court business, ensuring that the defence can effectively challenge prosecution and such things. Do you feel that there is any conflict there or do you think that it is something that needs to be more integrated and embedded? Perhaps come to yourself Professor first. I think that it is a challenge. I do not think it is a conflict, but I can see that it can be a challenge to apply the principles of the Roma informed care in certain aspects of this. I would say that, for example, one thing that is quite common, what we see, I am a clinical psychologist and I am working clinically with people who have experienced the Roma. People who have experienced the Roma, they find it incredibly hard to narrate or tell the stories of what happened to them. This is what might be required in certain aspects of that work, and people find it incredibly difficult. That can be misinterpreted as there might be lying or they are not telling the truth or trying to hide things, so that can be quite an issue. I think that understanding that can perhaps allow for more appropriate questioning in terms of content and tone, so you could get the information that you need from people. There are many things that I could say about that, but going into the framework and backing up what Thanos has just said, we had witnesses absolutely telling us that. I quote from one of them, she talks about, your mind gets muddled, you cannot always give a black and white answer, and that is why it is difficult when you give a statement for something like this kind of offence. Coming out of abuse, I must have got attacked well over 100 times, I think five of which she got charged with, but they blend into one. They really need to give you time and space and not be forceful to get this done quick. The reason why I use that quote is because we might think that there is a contrast between making sure that the right to a fair trial is upheld on the one hand and making sure that this person gets to be able to give their evidence in such a way that allows them to tell their story. Sometimes those two things do conflict, but that was one of the things that we had to resolve within this knowledge and skills framework. I am very clear at the outset that that is why we probably needed this knowledge and skills framework specific to justice is to be able to bring those two things together. The other part of your question was around some of the bigger systemic issues. Again, I come back to the framework in terms of the leadership section, that I come back to those trauma informed principles about predictability, about knowing what is going to happen and when, a sense of safety, a sense of choice, and, if at least leaders can know what is likely to be adaptable to help victims and witnesses, have that sense of predictability when they are scheduling court dates, for example, that will help to the end of a wider trauma informed system. However, there are balances to be struck. Trauma informed does not trump absolutely everything, it does not trump the right to a fair trial nor should it. That is the level of sophistication and nuance that there is in balancing trauma informed with those other competing demands. Thank you for sharing that very powerful quote and that was good to have on the record. Dr Bruce, I wanted to go back to something that you said earlier about the whole system and all the agencies working together, generically but also individually. Can you tell me, do you think that that can work? How far away are we from that happening? Is this a long-term aspiration? I can answer your second question from the justice system, because I am an education and training provider. What I can answer from is from the national trauma training programme. So part of my job is around working with victims and witnesses and part of it is operationally leading the national trauma training programme, where we are doing exactly this. We are thinking about leadership systemically and we have a number of education and training resources. One of them is about to be published. I am just trying to work out what the date is. It is going to get published in the next few days, which is exactly this. Because I am an author on both of them, I have aligned them both together, so the leadership table is here. It is very much about culture, about leadership, about organisational wellbeing. If you bring those three together, then it is about education and training, feedback loops, participation and power sharing with people with lived experience, processes and systems. I think that it is possible and I have seen it happen, but it takes top-down leadership as well as bottom-up. There are three key things that we have found from the national trauma training programme that have to be in place to a certain degree before everything else follows. That is the culture of the organisation, the leadership by and the basic wellbeing of its workforce. Those three are critical before we start trying to make changes elsewhere. That is interesting. In your submission, you say that the definition in the bill of trauma-informed practice should be amended to include supporting recovery and minimising barriers to effective participation. Could you maybe explain what that means? Minimising barriers? We did not say amended. I am hoping that we said aligned with, but if we did, then apologies, because it is not for us to say how that might come about. Can you repeat the last part of your question? What do you mean by minimising barriers to effective participation? It comes back to something that Thanos was saying earlier about the ways that trauma... For example, there are multiple ways in which trauma can affect effective participation. One small but really significant one is that we know that trauma affects people's memory for traumatic events and their ability to tell about them. If we interview them in certain ways, we will get more evidence, and if we interview them in other ways, we will get less evidence. That is a very crude, simple, black and white example, and there are multiple other ones. I think that resisting re-traumatisation will get us halfway there, but you can be doing an interview or a process in a very warm, empathic, non-re-traumatising way but still not ask questions in a way that gets the best evidence that you possibly could. There is another part to that, which I think that Thanos referred to, which we referred to in the framework as well, which is the ways in which different people respond to traumatic events in terms of behaviourally, in terms of emotion regulation, in terms of their sense of self, which are all highfalut and psychological terms that we tend to use, but what it means is that people can come across as less credible and less our system understands the ways that trauma is impacting on people, and we have written that into the framework as well. Everybody will respond to traumatic events in different ways, and some people will not be affected at all, and some people will be very strongly affected, and that is what makes the subtle nuance and the complexity of this. It is not a one-size-fits-all. I come to that as well. I think that this is an incredibly important point about trauma and what trauma is. When we say trauma, we expect to see certain things, for example, certain conditions, like PTSD or complex PTSD, but trauma goes beyond all these mental health conditions. In fact, from a mental health perspective, it is depression that is the most common condition that is associated with psychological trauma. I think we should move away from this notion if someone is traumatised, that is how they will display their distress. We need to start appreciating that traumatic responses are quite idiosyncratic, and I think there is plenty there in this framework to explain this, but there has been something else that you said in your question earlier on Caroline about recovery. Recovery from trauma is incredibly important, and it is not one of the key principles of trauma-informed care formally. It is an additional one. I was very pleased to see that they have mentioned that in their framework, and I do appreciate that it cannot apply to all different parts of the system. However, in certain parts, like the prison service, I think it provides an opportunity for people to receive the help that they need to move on from their difficulties. I am aware that there are programmes in many of our prisons here in Scotland where people receive that, but perhaps we need to formalise that a little bit more through legislation or pay a little bit more attention to that. It is an opportunity to help people to move on with their lives. Thank you for mentioning the legislation part. Obviously, that is what we are most interested in and how the bill is going to change things as well. Thank you, convener. I wonder if I can pick up on that and maybe ask a question about the intention of the bill, as Rona Mackay is saying, effectively to make trauma-informed practice a statutory duty. I am interested in your commentary on where legislation has been used previously as a way of embedding trauma-informed practice. Do you consider that setting out trauma-informed practice as a statutory obligation is important? I feel like I am saying this an awful lot today. I have to caveat what I am saying with that. As an education and training provider, it is very hard to comment on that. I am not naive, but I suspect that that would probably be a question. What I can comment on is, from an education and training perspective, what leads to effective implementation and what does not. Mandatory training does not necessarily lead to the most effective implementation, so however one uses a tool to make training mandatory, we would not necessarily see that as being the most effective way of making change. I refer back to my earlier comments that, where we see effective changes because there is training in combination with culture, in combination with implementation supports in terms of observation and coaching and practice, in combination with feedback loops. All of those things, however they may be brought into play, I think, are really critical in bringing about changes in practice or the training to practice to systems change. Professor, do you want to comment on that? Yes, absolutely. I am delighted personally that we are talking about trauma-informed care in this context. The reason for that is that I had prepared some stats from my work that perhaps I can share with you in terms of how widespread trauma is. Did you want me to give you that information very quickly? From some work that we did in 2018, we found that more than 90 per cent of females had experienced trauma in adulthood or in childhood, and that is in a female prison service here in Scotland. We also found that multiple traumatisation in childhood and adulthood, which seems to be the norm, is associated with the seriousness of offence. We measured the seriousness of offences number of years in prison. That was a simple way of measuring how serious an offence is. That tells us that the more traumatic life events someone has experienced, the more likely they are to commit a very serious offence. That makes trauma-informed care quite important. With males, some recent work from 2022, this is down in England, we found in a prison down there, 7.7 per cent presented with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, 17 per cent, nearly 17 per cent, with complex PTSD. Finally, another piece of work completed in 2019 with forensic inpatients here in Scotland, we found that 80 per cent of those had experienced childhood adversity in multiple forms, and presence of childhood adversity in this group was associated with increased number of convictions. That possibly answers your question and directly highlights how important that is for trauma-informed care to be embedded across all different parts of the system. Thank you, that's really helpful and an interesting overview. I've got Katie Clark and then Sharon Dewey. Probably my questions for Dr Bruce. Traumatic Informed Care is an issue across the justice system, but I know that Dr Bruce has said that more of her work is associated with victims and witnesses. You've already said that the way that the prosecution takes evidence from a witness can have a big impact on the quality of the evidence that's given. Can you expand on that? What implications has that got in terms of cross-examination by the defence? Witness preparation isn't a major feature of our justice system. In terms of the work that you've done, have you got any comments in relation to that when you are speaking with and working with those who do work with victims and witnesses? I think that I'll probably base my answer on the framework, because the framework delineates if we were to be doing that work and in some places we are, what would be the key elements of it. This knowledge and skills framework is based on interviews with victims and witnesses, justice leaders, 16 justice leaders and then a huge amount of international literature review. What we found was that there was some consistency around—I know that this is a clinician as well—the way in which people are able to give a narrative about traumatic events. For example, the question that involves, can you start at the beginning and take me all the way through, versus where would you like to begin? That second question is likely to get more information, because the impact of trauma in memory cannot always, but it can be to scramble it, to have very clear details from some parts, very vague details from others, to be in a different order, to change order over time as the memory is processed. All of those things mean that there are definitely evidence-based guidelines around how to get best evidence. We've seen that, for example, implemented in the new Scottish child interview model for parents who are interviewing children at the joint investigative interview. I've been involved in the delivery of that training and have seen some of the outcomes of the research from that, intimating that understanding the way that trauma affects children has changed—interviewers tell us that it's changed—the way that they interview children and they can help children, for example, to stay within what we call the window of tolerance to be able to give better evidence, as well as do it in such a way that takes the evidence from a child in the way that they can and wish to give it. So there's a lot in the framework about that. There's an entire section within the taking evidence and it applies to police equally as it does to prosecutors. What was the second part of your question? Cross-examination. Not just if you like the crown or the prosecution, the procreate fiscal taking evidence from a witness, but the cross-examination is a major issue both for the complainers and for witnesses, and what your work means in relation to how the courts deal with that. What I'll say is that trauma informed is one small part of that, and actually there's an awful lot of legislation and common law out there covering what good practice looks like, and I think that if we were meeting that good practice or assuming that we are meeting that good practice, then the resisting retraumatisation and the getting evidence in a trauma informed way is the same principle as whether you're cross-examining or examining in chief. You understand the way that trauma can impact someone's memory, someone's responses after a traumatic event, and you ask questions in such a way that's likely to get better, more coherent evidence. Now this is when I was talking earlier about the balance between the right to a fair trial and trauma informed practice. That's where the subtle nuance comes into play, I think. Is an adversarial system able to actually deliver on some of the principles that you're setting out? I think that as an education and training provider, that's hugely difficult for me to answer. I'm not having had huge amounts of experience observing cross-examination and I am very much a scientist practitioner who doesn't like to comment on anything that I don't have significant experience of. I don't think that's one that I can answer explicitly. Perhaps how people the ability to give accurate evidence would be strongly determined by the level of recovery that someone is in. For example, there are people who have experienced a number of things in their lives. They had treatment in the past and they are accustomed to talk about what happened to them. I think this group of people would be in a good position to give evidence, wouldn't be very problematic for them. But there are others who didn't have any help, they didn't have a chance to process what happened to them. If that group of people found themselves in that setting that you just described, or whatever you want to call it, I think they would react quite negatively. The quality of evidence that they're giving would clearly be compromised because of that. You're saying that it's not just what happens in court, it's what's happened all the way to that. Exactly. Whether people had the chance to recover, they had any help for what happened to them. Again, there is so much variation there. There are people who had some help and support. Other people whose event is quite recent, they didn't have the chance to seek any help as yet. But in general, as a rule of thumb, if you had some help in the past, you had the chance to process what happened to them, you would be more able to give accurate evidence, more likely to give accurate evidence. As we said earlier, there is no one size fitting all. I think that the point you raised is a really good one around one of the key trauma-informed principles is predictability. If we do have an adversarial system, what the framework says is someone needs to know what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. We've got a really strong quote from one of the witnesses who said, do you know what the advocate sat down with me? He said, I'll be sitting there. No, the clerk sat down with me. I'll be sitting there. You won't see my face. You'll see the back of my head. But if you get distressed, just look at my head. That'll be me there. Person will be there. That person will be there. We'll go to that person. Then we'll go to that person. Because she knew what was going to happen, she was absolutely prepared for it. Contrasting with just not knowing what's going on in the room on top of everything else, so predictability is really key. Shardin Daryll, Pauline McNeill. It's to Dr Bruce. In the submission, you've said that you suggest the definition of trauma-informed practice in the bill should be more fully aligned with the agreed consensus definition contained in the framework. Do you think that if we don't get the definition of trauma-informed right in the bill that there are risks with that? What I would say is that we put a lot of work into thinking about the definition within the Knowledge and Skills framework. I think that it's incredibly helpful that re-traumatisation is part of the definition. I think that that takes us part of the way. If we were not going to implement some of the framework, particularly the bits around supporting recovery or not getting the way of recovery and supporting effective participation, then the risks to that might be that we are having people drop out of the system earlier and that we are affecting people's recovery negatively in ways that aren't necessary. I think that there are some risks if we are not implementing all of the framework. The reason why they are written into the framework is partly because it was what victims and witnesses told us they needed and wanted, as well as what the wider evidence base told us were the integral parts of a trauma-informed justice system. However, let's bear in mind that the framework is groundbreaking and there are advantages and disadvantages to that. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Every bit of it is taken from pieces of evidence that do exist. All of it is evidence-based, and you will see that from the bibliography, but in terms of an attempt at an entirely trauma-informed justice system for victims and witnesses, it's new. Can I quickly come to that as well? I think that it is quite important to say that there is not just one trauma-informed care or practice model. There are quite a few out there and they describe slightly different sets of principles, but I was not involved in developing this framework so I can speak more freely. I think it is a fantastic piece of work. It is very well thought through and considered the literature quite widely in the evidence out there. In my view, it got it right for this. I think that my concern was that if it wasn't a good enough definition within the bill, some organisations might stick to that definition within the bill, as opposed to having made comments about adapting processes and practices. That would be an on-going thing, so if they just stuck exactly to what was in the bill, it would stop them continuing that progress. I think that there is a huge amount that the definition in the bill will achieve in terms of resisting re-traumatisation is actually not a simple thing to do. It will be a huge step forward to be resisting re-traumatisation. There is an awful lot in this framework that talks about that. It does apply across a whole range of different settings, but there are additional elements that we would like to see aligned, given that the knowledge and skills framework is here. What changes have followed in relation to trauma-informed practice since NHS Education Scotland published their guidance on it? What changes have you seen? In terms of this knowledge and skills framework or the previous 2017 one, that is a hard question given that it was only published in May of this year. Also, we are not tasked with observing the changes in practice. The training that we have been involved in has been primarily in partnership with the judicial institute and with judges across the judicial institute. We have been working on that before the knowledge and skills framework came out, because they were keen to be ahead of it. It is very hard, because in order to be able to answer that question, I would have to be sitting in court watching and seeing what is happening in practice. It is very hard to answer that as an education and training provider. As you said, you are not tasked with monitoring it. Is anybody tasked with monitoring it? It is incredibly early doors for the knowledge and skills framework. Although I would not try to answer that question, what we say in the last leadership section is that effective evaluation comes back to the point that Mr Swinney made right at the beginning, which is how do we know when we have got to good, how do we know what successful looks like, and everyone should be tasked with, for each of the organisations and across the organisations, what does good look like and what are our feedback loops that are telling us whether we are there or not. I do not think that that can sit necessarily with any one-setting or organisation potentially. At least that is what the framework would say, is that everybody has to be involved in that process. One last question. You mentioned earlier that you interviewed 12 people. You have obviously got a lot of different examples. Do you think that the bill addresses the issues that were raised by the people that you interviewed? Sorry, there are a lot of practices and procedures. We have heard before that there has been a lot of change in other organisations and they have managed to do that without legislation. I was just wondering with the examples that you have got, is the bill going to address it or could the other organisations do it through changes to their contracts? That is almost impossible for me to answer. Partly that is because of the link to something that Dhanol said earlier. There were so many and very different trauma-informed elements that everybody brought up. We wrote this knowledge and skills framework to align with what they told us in terms of the trauma-related bits. Bear in mind that when you are interviewing somebody about trauma-informed practices, they are also going to tell you about all sorts of other things that are not relevant for trauma-informed practices that we did not include in our analyses. That is almost impossible for me to answer. I certainly think that avoiding re-traumatisation, which is in the bill definition, would absolutely align with what many of the victims and witnesses told us. Finally, Pauline McLeol. Thank you. Good morning. Apologies for being late to your session. I will follow on from Katie Clark's line of questioning. I am trying to apply that to what is an adversarial court system. What you said about the preparation of witnesses and victims makes perfect sense, because you need a system that brings out what they have to see. That is what you hear from victims all the time. I did not feel I had the voice, but when it gets to court, that is what I am interested in trying to apply to what you are saying to the committee. You have practitioners, prosecution, defence and the judge who shall be trauma-informed. My first question is, would it be your expectation that everyone would treat every witness when it comes to court in the same way? The prosecutor would not know if he had adverse childhood experiences, and some people would not. Is it your view that you just apply this regardless of...? Sorry. Trauma-informed practice, the universal principle of it, is that it is almost like a universal protective mechanism, no matter whether it is injustice or elsewhere. You absolutely assume, given the high prevalences that Thanos has talked about on elsewhere, that the people in front of you may well have experienced significant amounts of trauma and adversity in their lives, and you go from that. There are the basic principles of trauma-informed practice, choice control, collaboration, trust and safety. You then move up where, if you are observing indicators that if you understand the ways that trauma affects people and you are observing different things that tell you that this person may well be affected by trauma, well then there are additional things that you may put in place. For example, if you are examining or cross-examining thinking about the ways that memory might have been affected by trauma, it is a universal principle. It should apply, and that is why I use the word witness all the way throughout this framework. We do not use victim, we do not use complainer. We use witness because many people who are affected by trauma might be witnesses in court cases as well. It might not be the trauma from the offence that they are in the court case for, but it might be the earlier offences that have been committed against them. I would also say this as principles of good practice across the board, so it would make sense to apply them across all the different parts of the system and for all witnesses in the courts. I would agree with Caroline 100 per cent. Anyone who has ever appeared in court as a witness will probably find it quite traumatic anyway. I mean that what you describe, nothing is black and white, questions can be confusing. Is there a way of drawing the distinction then between the—to me, as a layperson, there are people who have had trauma in their life. Then there is the trauma of any what would be a victim actually in this case, the trauma of what that person experienced, which has to come out. Then there is the court experience itself, which can be traumatic. Do you agree or not that there are different elements to be considered or not? This is an incredibly tricky question to answer. I think that someone who comes to the courts and the whole system has been organised in a way that the purpose is to try to elicit the truth. The questioning, the style, everything is around that. I personally think by trying to apply the principles of trauma-informed care it would make more humane the practices of how people, for example, are doing the questioning and how they are trying to elicit those answers. I think it would help. I'm not quite sure whether it would resolve completely the issue for many, so, for example, many people who would go to give evidence eventually, they won't find the experience unpleasant because by nature of what it is, but certainly trauma-informed care would make things better in that respect. It won't resolve the problem exclusively, but it will make things better in my opinion. You probably weren't able to answer this, but just cross my mind that so up until now, where we haven't had that embedded in the system, juries still have to, if it's a jury, have to make a determination of what they're seeing in court. Is there any evidence at all that you've come across that you probably wouldn't have spoken to jurors, but you would you agree it's maybe quite an important thing to maybe try and establish? Ordinary people in juries are watching and they can see from body language I would have thought, would you really need to be trained, you could see for yourself? I just wondered if you considered the reaction of juries. I'm not aware of any evidence from the top of my head, but I would imagine some of the stories that are being described there or some of the events or the evidence in how it's being presented that can be difficult or traumatising for people, but I'm not quite sure about that, there is some preparation in the courts about what might, I mean that can be helpful. Dr Buster, do you want to answer that? I don't necessarily want to answer a question around juries. We do have a table in here which talks about people who make decisions and it has been pointed out to me that in effect that does include juries. We didn't consider them for lots of obvious reasons. I think it is incredibly important that we talk about in the framework the counterintuitive ways in which trauma can impact on victims and witnesses and how do we ensure that in the courtroom there is an understanding that means that the impact of trauma is not misinterpreted and that is kind of peppered throughout the framework, but ultimately it does boil down to how do we create a courtroom which is doing what it's sitting out to do, which is to get the evidence in front of the decision makers most effectively for them to be able to make the most effective decision. That is a combination of making sure that we're examining and cross-examining and we've got all the good evidence that we need and we're doing it in such a way that keeps a witness within what we call their window of tolerance, which is keeping their brain in a place where they can actively give evidence in the best possible way. The trauma informed principles that are written in the framework are designed to do that and with that in mind. They're designed to prevent the re-traumatisation, keep it a humane process and get best evidence. Would you see a contradiction? Let's talk about the fact that in the court system there are thousands and thousands of witnesses, so there's going to be a diversity there, but in the court system, as Katie Clark said, it's adversarial, but the stories of all witnesses have to be tested in court and if they contradict themselves or that it doesn't sound like they're telling the truth to be controversial. You would have to accept that it's part, whether we like the court system or not, that there has to be a way of balancing trauma informed training with not interfering with the actual natural course of justice to make sure that any contradictions and evidence are also picked up. So the framework is really clear about that, that trauma informed practice does not and should not interfere with all of those fundamental rights, for sure. I am going to have to draw a line under our session. Thank you very much to our witnesses for coming along today and we'll have a short suspension just to allow for a change over of panel members. Thank you very much. We're now going to move on to our second panel for today and our panel members represent the five justice agencies who will be required under the bill to have regard to trauma informed practice. I welcome Laura Buchan, Procurator of Fiscal Policy and Engagement at Crenofis and Procurator Fiscal Service, Sue Brooks, Interim Director for Strategy and Stakeholder Engagement with the Scottish Prison Service, Chief Superintendent Derek Frew from Police Scotland, John Watt, Chairperson of the Parole Board for Scotland and David Fraser, Executive Director of Court Operations at the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. I warm welcome to you all for your written submissions and I intend to allow 90 minutes for this session. Given the size of our panel this morning, I'd request that both members and panel members keep your questions and responses as focused and succinct as possible. I'd also request that we keep our discussion focused on the specific provisions in the bill, since that's our purpose of our scrutiny today, and I expect that the bulk of questions will focus on part 2 of the bill, but I appreciate that members may have questions on parts 1 and 3, and we'll try and if I can just ask if members can perhaps keep them to the end of the session. I'm going to, as usual, start with a general opening question and I'm just going to work my way from my left, so Mr Fraser, across to Ms Buchan. My question is really just in broad terms, are you supportive of the provisions in the bill aimed at encouraging the use of trauma informed practice? Why and what difference to your current practice will the bill make? David Fraser, I'll start with you. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service are very supportive. If I may, I mean this really originated for me as part of Lady Dorian's review, and it was designed that that would be very much part of that new court, which is part of the legislation. I think it's now become wider and I think that's a good thing. The preparations that we are making as an organisation is very much geared at changing the culture within our organisation. I think that Dr Bruce has already alluded that a lot of work has already taken place with judicial members and the work that we are doing with staff that will actually interact with witnesses who are at courts or are evidenced by commission suites have the best sort of experience they possibly can. It's very supportive of it and we are putting in place a three-stage implementation that's designed to come from leaders down. It ranges from being trauma-informed, trauma-inskilled and trauma-enhanced, depending on the levels of interaction that you would have with witnesses. However, it is our intention that about 67 per cent of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service are front-line staff who may, at some point, interact with witnesses. We have a big programme to install and I think it will be positive. The Pro Board is very supportive. In parole hearings, our witnesses tend to be professional witnesses, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, prison officers and that kind of thing. Where victims come into the scheme of things is where they observe and where they submit written submissions. In the absence of any change in any of that, we will be more alert to the position of victims who are observing in the conduct of the process. In the one question that we are asking ourselves just now is where prisoners fit into the scheme of things. Does trauma-informed practice apply to prisoners also, depending on background, age, offence, a whole range of things? I may say that we haven't come up with an answer yet. We may, well, won't have to at some point, I suppose. We are supportive, but there are a number of points of detail that take us away from the court service, for example, because our proceedings are not adversarial. If there is anything, they are inquisitorial. However, we are supportive in whatever way we interact with victims and our victims team, or rather the Parole Scotland victims team, works very closely with them. They have all had trauma-informed practice training, as have the staff generally in Parole Scotland. The members have not yet had that, but it is under preparation and we are looking at March, probably, for a whole day on that. Likewise, Police Scotland is totally supportive of the principles of trauma-informed practice and already embedded in some of the aspects that we are doing, working with Dr Bruce's team to get some training and how we are going to develop that going forward. We have already seen that as was referenced in the first panel of the Scottish child interview model as an example of how we take that forward. However, I completely agree that we need to look at the culture leadership in our workforce wellbeing in terms of how we deliver that, and that is something that we are going to take forward in terms of internal working group to see how we embed that, because it is about getting into the corporate muscle memory and the mainstreaming of it, which is more important, as we have said. Trauma-informed is okay, but how do you take it to that next stage of being skilled and enhanced and actually making the difference to the people that we engage with? Because, just within the nature of the business, the people that we deal with are in crisis or experiencing trauma, often when we are engaging with them, so we just need to make sure that that gets embedded in more training from probationers, which we are looking at how we develop the probationary training portfolio and how then we get that embedded through repeated training and reinforcement, because doing it once in a 30-plus year police career is not enough, so how do we get that embedded? However, that comes with investment, and we need to get the balance of getting that right for the victims of witnesses, but what does it mean practically for Police Scotland? Thank you very much. I am interested in your comment on wellbeing in the workforce and how important that is in terms of the delivery of good trauma-informed practice. We are absolutely committed to trauma-informed practice. We are keen to make sure that it is properly embedded, and hopefully the written submission that we gave demonstrates that, because we are starting with our senior leadership group. We obviously look after nearly 8,000 people in custody now, many of whom are men who have suffered trauma in their lives, so, as well as being perpetrators, they are often victims of crime in various different ways. Our view would be that, if they are in a context such as parole where they are witnesses, then the same principles should apply. The view that we are taking is that we need to apply trauma-informed practice at a corporate level, as well as at an individual level in working with people in our care, because it ought to impact on everything that we do, our senior leadership style, including the executive group, the values that we put in place. You will have seen the statement of purpose in the corporate plan about being person-centred and trauma-informed. Everything from how we design our buildings, where we invest our money, the training that we offer our staff, our wellbeing supports, all of those things that are impacted, and it is important to look at it not just in terms of interventions that are applied, but in terms of organisational style based on the best possible evidence. Part of what you have spoken about perhaps speaks to trauma-informed environments, just as well as practice, which has come up in previous sessions. It is interesting to hear your comments on that. Laura Buchan Thank you, convener. Much like my fellow Patanol members, we are absolutely supportive and committed as an organisation to embedding trauma-informed practice. The Lord Advocate and the COBF have worked with Dr Bruce and again are committed to implementing the recently launched framework. In 2022, we developed trauma-informed training for our staff, and that has now been undertaken by 2,000 employees of the COBF and 70 advocate deputies. Why is that important? Much of what we do already is based on trauma-informed approach, but we know now that in terms of the business within our High Court, which has almost 70 per cent sexual offences with an increase in domestic aggravators by 7 per cent from 2021 to 2022, that the vast majority of cases that we are going to deal with in the future will deal with violence against women and children, sexual offences and domestic cases. Our staff recognise and we know how important it is that we identify trauma. We understand what impact trauma may have on a victim and witness in a case. How do we respond to that trauma in terms of mitigating or minimising any potential re-traumatisation in not just a court process because the work that we do is a whole breadth of work in relation to investigation of deaths or cases that ultimately do not come to court? It is about embedding trauma-informed practice across all of that work. We are absolutely committed and we will continue to work with our partner agencies. I suppose that the point of the question is about being a justice system and for the justice system, a system-led approach in terms of that being across the whole system. We certainly brought that into our discussion in the first panel, because the challenges of a whole system approach in terms of trauma-informed practice. Thank you for your opening comments. I am now just going to open it up and I am going to bring in John Swinney. Thank you, convener. I wonder if I could start with Ms Birkin just on one point in relation to part 1 on the victims commissioner, because I am interested in the observations from the COPFS about having concerns over the proposed provision set out in sections 16 and 17, and the potential for that to have an impact on the Lord Advocate's retained functions. I think that the committee has looked at issues about the victims commissioner, about what scope and what role it could actually have, and I think that what we would benefit from is hearing what the concerns of the Crown would potentially be about the role of a victims commissioner and how those issues might have an impact on the statutory functions specified in section 48.5 of the Scotland Act, which obviously protects the independence of the Lord Advocate. It may be best that I respond to some of those questions in writing, including that I will do my utmost to answer those today. I suppose that we could start by saying that the COPFS again are supportive of the aims of the legislation to improve the experience of victims and witness and the establishment of a victims commissioner. We would of course engage and work collaboratively with a victims commissioner if established. In terms of clarification of the points that we made, and we can follow this up in writing, we are clear that the victims commissioner in terms of the bill would not have the power to interfere with the Lord Advocate's independence in terms of prosecution decisions. It is about the clarity, that clarity being within the bill. We are working with our Scottish Government colleagues on that. We do not consider the bill as incompatible with the Lord Advocate's independence, but we are in discussions with our Scottish Government colleagues to ensure that clarity is there for all in terms of the Lord Advocate's independence and her role in terms of prosecutorial decisions and other areas of policy and guidance. That is very helpful. It might be that the committee would benefit from seeing some further correspondence in which it would help us to formulate a view on that point. I certainly do not want to see legislation emerging, which is not effective for its purpose. If we do not get the foundations of it correct, then we are better to hear that now rather than later on. We will follow up those submissions, hopefully in a more eloquent and informed form. It is absolutely not that we want to avoid the victims commissioner, we just want clarity around what. We hope that that will provide clarity to any victims commissioner in post to in relation to recommendations and required responses. That would be very helpful. Thank you for that. If I could move on to the issue of trauma-informed practice. If I might say so, Mr Fraser, the way that you articulated your own personal commitment to embedding this in a sense answered one of the questions that I put to Dr Bruce earlier on, which is where is culture in all of this? I wonder if you could develop some of the points about what is necessary to make sure that an organisational culture is able to accommodate and deliver a trauma-informed approach in all of its practice. I will try. When this first came before our executive team within the Scottish Courts and Tribunal service, it was potentially right that we need to ensure that all staff have trauma-informed training and that will take the box and we can move on. But that became clear and especially the work that has been done with collaboration and the team that have developed this with Dr Bruce is much deeper in terms of that. It is about getting the senior team actually embedded and being a party to actually this is how this organisation now works. So it is a change, it is a fundamental change in terms of the thinking of the senior management team and actually leading how the organisation will operate in the future through a trauma-informed lens. It is about having that instilled at the top and then working it to be down through all within the organisation, right down to the members of staff at the coalface and having that knowledge and having the skillset. Depending on where you are in the organisation, the level of knowledge and skill that you have. It is really about getting moving to a place where, when people are interacting with our organisation, the experience that they are having is the best it possibly can be under the circumstances. How long has that taken you to get from that starting point to where you are today? I would say that we were still very much at the early stages. I mean changing a culture in an organ. I am going to come on to that in a second. It is how long has it taken you to get where you are today from the recognition of the point that you started off with that this has got to be a big cultural change in the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service and we have got to own this and we have got to lead it? How long has it taken from that moment to where we are today? I am not sure I understand where you are coming from Mr Smith. What I am trying to get at is I am trying to understand how long it is taking you to get from realising and accepting that the organisations got to change to where we are today. How long has that been? Is it a year, two years, three years? If I can talk from a personal perspective, I was the senior executive support that supported Lady Dorian in terms of the reviews that she did on sexual offending and that is when trauma informed first became on my radar. I think that listening and being part of that process actually convinced me at that point and now that is a number of years back from the time that I recognised that actually this is important and it needs to be part of what we do. It was very much one of the recommendations that that court should be trauma informed. I think that it has gone beyond that now. I think that we have recognised that actually it is not just the specialist court that requires the trauma informed training, it is the whole justice system which I think is why we are here today. So it has been a number of years from the point of recognition that this is something that we need to where we are today. Is that process resulting in changes to operational practice and procedure within the courts and tribunal service of a tangible practical nature? There is the recognition and we will always try to ensure that the experience witnesses and complainers that come into the court, for example, have been recognised a long time. The last thing you want them to do is to see the accused and we do everything that we possibly do to try and avoid that situation. But we are starting to look now at the things, I suppose it is about having an understanding of what trauma informed actually means and the principles behind it that actually start to make you look at things through a slightly different lens. So you do start to look at our policies that we have within the organisation and how consistent are they in terms of a trauma informed interaction. We are looking at our buildings and how we interact with people in our buildings. We have limitations, I have to be honest. The court of state is very historic and protected in some areas but that does not mean that we can look at any dimension that we can to try and improve the experience for witnesses and complainers. In terms of the management of that process, it does not sound to me that there will be an element of this, which is about project planning and all that sort of stuff, but there is a deeper element of cultural attitude and all change. How do you manage and drive those two distinct elements of the practical project plan and the cultural and attitudinal change? We are absolutely investing in this. We have invested in a specialist members of staff who are in specifically in relation to the trauma informed training and embedding the culture in the organisation. We have got an implementation officer who is additional to our compliment and we have also got support. They are in specifically in order to take us from where we are now to being to a point where we are a trauma informed organisation and it is embedded in our culture. We also have staff in, we have got the implementation team that is supporting and looking at the lady door review implementation and in fact there is a bill in terms of how we will then implement that. We have dedicated resources in place already in order to make sure that the mechanics to get us to where we need to be are there. To answer the second point, a cultural change has to be driven from the top. It has to be at chief executive and executive team level. It has to be embedded and believed and lived at that level for it then to go down into our senior managers and then down throughout the organisation. A culture change is not something that happens overnight and sometimes you do find in my experience in different things we have tried to do is occasionally you do get a little bit of resistance or it might be slow in some parts and you just have to work with it and continue to work with it and it will take time for us to actually move to a position where we are and we can come back here and say yes, I can say to you that the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service is a truly trauma informed organisation and it is embedded in our culture but it is a journey that we are making. My last question was going to be to you on the question of resistance and whether I can imagine that there will be 101 practical reasons why some of this is difficult. Is that what you are encountering or are you encountering almost philosophical resistance to the type of approach that is being taken? I shall let me clarify. We are not encountering any resistance at this point. I am just making the observation that in any culture change that I have been part of or experienced there are occasionally things that come up that you did not expect that you have to deal with. There will be challenges and maybe the resistance is the wrong word. I mean the challenges, one of them, is the buildings that we have in terms of actually how can you truly change the physical buildings. That becomes a challenge, but you then look at what else is involved, the interaction that our staff have with the people and things that we can change to make that experience better. One of the key things for me is acknowledging the limitations of the buildings evidenced by commission, where we actually managed to get the evidence a much earlier stage in a much better environment. With total separation, there is a much better solution in the longer term. I would say that, again, it is probably for discussion at other parts of this world. That is a very interesting observation about the fact that there are very practical procedural approaches that can be taken. I was interested in Mr Wat's point about the nature of the parole board hearings being more of an inquisitorial nature, which relates to some of the issues that the committee has considered about whether trauma-informed practice is incompatible with an adversarial court system. I do not take that view because of solutions such as evidence by commission, but it opens up the necessity to think about what is the process of interrogation and scrutiny that goes on within the court system. I would agree 100 per cent. It is important that whoever we are interacting with as an organisation, we do it through this trauma-informed lens. I think that it is important that we ensure that the justice system in Scotland is a fair justice system. I honestly believe that the improvements that we can make and what we are talking about here will make those improvements. I do not see it as removing anything in terms of the justice process that we have. That is a personal observation. My very last point, convener, for me, is to say that it was to ask that the other members of the panel to follow on from the last point that Mr Fraser has made, which is that trauma-informed practice has been around for quite a while. It has been part of the thinking of a system that has been a lot of good work undertaken on that, but it still seems to be slow to get embedded. Is there an acceptance that there has to be a level of priority attached to that to change culture and attitude and to turn legislation into practice to make sure that that can be realised? I think that that is an interesting question. I would say that, although the legislation provides fresh impetus for prison service to continue to be motivated to make progress in this direction, that was not why we started. We have always, obviously, worked with people who are very traumatised and vulnerable and have my own experience in polemont. It has been a journey that we have been on for many years and it is good that that has now become part of the kind of corporate entity. I was just listening to David talking earlier about how you implement that in an organisation. For me, it is about taking the principles of trauma-informed practice, such as choice, control, empowerment, safety and trust, and applying them to how you implement that in an organisational setting. That is at least in part because we are running out quite detailed training at the minute with our senior leadership group to promote changes in practice and thinking. However, at any given time in those sessions, we do not know how many of our senior leaders have experienced trauma themselves. We do not know in this room how many people have their own experience of trauma. You have to be sensitive to the way in which that is implemented. Some of the things that we need to do—we have already got changes in practice around things such as the implementation of non-pain-inducing restraint, for example—is very much trauma-informed. That is a policy that we were looking at just this week on a refreshed approach to alcohol and drugs, which is recovery-based. One of the things that we are thinking about is whether we need to change the rules about disciplinary procedures to reflect changes in trauma-informed practice in order to support a recovery model. All our policy areas are now starting to be impacted. However, we also need major shifts in, for example, how we deploy our staff group. One of the things that is critical for trauma-informed practice is to have appropriate staff supervision and support. That means that staff have to have time when they are not directly looking after the folk in our care to be able to reflect on practice. That is a major, major shift. I am reflecting on that. It is very much a journey. It is about getting your senior leadership team on board. It is starting to make changes in practice, but it is also recognising that we need some quite big operational shifts that take time to embed. I will bring in Pauline McNeill in a moment, but I want to come back to John Watt. In the parole board submission, you questioned the categorisation of the board as a criminal justice agency. I was just interested in why that was and how should trauma-informed practice be applied to the parole board. I do more than question it. I challenge it. The parole board for Scotland is fundamentally misunderstood and widely fundamentally misunderstood. It exists as a judicial body. Its only function is to make judicial decisions on release and recall of prisoners. It is not an agency. It has no executive functions. It has no budget, no staff, no premises, no hierarchy, no management structure, no employment structure, no governance structure. None of those things. It sets in a peculiar, unique position. All it does is make judicial decisions. I have no management authority over members of the board. Indeed, the only way they can be taken to task, if you like, is for Scottish ministers to refer them to a judicial disciplinary tribunal, especially assembled for the purpose. It also sits in a bit of a vacuum. It is what I have explained. It is not an agency in any sense of the word. It may be a court—well, it is a court, we know that—but it is a unique court because it is inquisitorial, not adversarial. It is a key part of the system. In the present context, we know that victims are traumatised before we ever see them. That is usually because a letter drops onto their doormat saying that the person who murdered your husband is due up for parole soon, and by the time we get to talk to them, they are in bits. It is really a question of fitting all those bits of the jigsaw into a system that actually works, from the point of prosecution, to conviction, to sentence, and how it is that we can keep victims informed throughout the process so that nothing comes as a surprise. They come to us, and we have to try to stabilise the position, if you like—I mean, it is not our victim team, because Parole Scotland, which provides administrative support for the board, comes under the auspices of Scottish ministers—not the board. They are not answerable to us in any way, shape or form. It is they who have to talk to the witnesses and deal with them and undo the damage that has been inadvertently done already. At the other end of the system, if you like, is when prisoners are released, for example, and they are recalled, victims will tell us that they have been re-traumatised by the fact that they get no support in the community. They say, this man is out of the all the support that he can get, and I am sitting there in my house terrified just waiting for him to come and get me. The board makes judicial decisions and judicial decisions only. It has to do with the grounds of fairness, and if that means some revisiting of trauma, then that is just the way it has to be, because there is no way around that. We have to be fair to everybody. Any court appearance that is going to be traumatic, you can minimise it, with best will in the world. I have taken evidence and I have given it, and taking it is a lot easier than giving it. I do not quite know what you do. For my part, I am not unconvinced that we need a complete review of the system. From the ground right up, how do we work with each other? How do we deal with victims as a system to echo the crime officer's position? I do not know the answer to that, except that we have to. There has to be some continuum for victims as far as the board is concerned, some continuum from conviction, and no long gap of, say, 20 years, while a prisoner serves his punishment part in 20 years down the line, somebody who is 20 years older and frail, perhaps, gets the shock of her life. That is what is necessary, but the board is not an agency. He has got nothing in common with the Lord Advocate, the Scottish ministers, the chief constable, or the Scottish courts and tribunal service. If any part of the parole system should go in there, it would be parole Scotland, but then that comes under the auspices of Scottish ministers, so it is probably not necessary. To finalise my argument, there is no reference to sheriffs or senators in there. The parole board consists of judges for the very narrow purpose of parole, but judges none the less. If the parole board is in there, then sheriffs and senators of the college are just as should be in there also. I rest my case, madam convener. A case very well made, thank you very much. I am going to bring in Pauline McNeill, then Russell Findlay. You certainly convinced me. Actually, I thought that you answered a lot of practical questions for me. That is where my line of questioning comes from. I am trying to apply all that to a system that you said is not the same. All of you do different things, and we have to apply differently. My first question is to Laura Bucking from the crowd. David Fraser said that we have a court system with limited capacity to prevent what victims always complain about, which is the trauma of bumping into the person whom you have accused. I share with you that I have had this conversation with a Lord Advocate at least once. The trauma of victims trying to find out where their cases are is a significant factor. I support all that is being said, but I am a bit concerned that we do not fix the things that are causing lots of trauma. What I said earlier is a layperson trying to understand that there are people who have a trauma in their lives before they were offended against. Then there are those who have been offended against and the trauma of that. Then there is the trauma of the system. What is the system doing to it? That was my first question. Laura, can anything be done to make the information from the Crown easier to access? I will try to take that question in part from Smith-Mail. We know from the work that we do and the work that our victims' information advice team and our specialist prosecutors do that in order to get best evidence from witnesses in relation to effective engagement and, as Dr Bruce referred to earlier, effective participation. We know that the key to that is more regular engagement, meaningful engagement and then allowing victims and witnesses to make informed decisions about how they may wish to give their evidence. As was elegantly put this morning, setting out who is in the courtroom and what will the system look like. We do that in relation to our victims' information advice. We have a service that provides information to victims in certain categories of offences. We know that in order to do more of that and we want to do more of that, including meeting victims always meeting a prosecutor in advance of a sexual offence case. Perhaps we would like that meeting to take place more than once. That requires investment, that requires, referring to Sue's point, we can deploy our staff in a certain way and at the moment we require to deploy our staff conducting courts, managing witness information and dealing with witnesses in serious significant cases. We know therefore that we have improvements to make more widely. We are looking at that, there is a victim in information, there is a via modernisation programme where we are looking to improve the information, the way that we communicate, that is in relation to children specifically. We are looking at the way that we write to children and provide information to them. That work is under way. The Lord Advocate instructed the sexual offences review, which is almost near completion and we will be awaiting the report and recommendations from that review. There is significant investment from the Scottish Government in terms of our IT solutions and we are looking at a witness gateway where victims and witnesses will have more ready access to the information. As you quite rightly raise, it is often really frustrating for witnesses, which would appear to be straightforward in terms of what is happening with my case, when will my case call, how long might I be in court. There are lots of things that we are looking to do already to improve the service that we offer to victims and witnesses and would hope in the embedding of the legislation and trauma informed practice across the system that will continue to improve. I wonder what that means. In simple terms, if you are a victim of crime or even a witness that you have been called, shouldn't you just be able to phone someone easily, get through and say, where is my case in the pipeline or where is it likely to be? Is that fair? That is absolutely fair. You should be able to do that. If you are a victim or witness who falls into category of victim information advice, there is a more proactive service in terms of what information will be provided, but that does not prevent anybody who is a victim or a witness in a case from simply phoning COPFS. That is the problem. Ask anyone how easy it is to get through, and it is not as the problem. I have responsibility in my role as policy and engagement for our national inquiry point team too, so that is something that we can certainly take away and I appreciate that you have raised it with the Lord Advocate. We understand the frustrations and the improvements that we require to make. My second question is about what we are hearing from the previous panel of experts that dealing trauma-informed practices is kind of a universal application. I am trying to think about that for prosecutors in court. Is it really practical to treat every single victim or witness if they had a trauma, or what trauma are we looking at? Is it the trauma of being in court? How will you train your procurators, then procurators, fiscal and advisory ADs in relation to court practices? I know that you cannot answer that today, but I think that that is what I would like to answer in the long run. How are we going to balance that with fair justice to ask robust questions in court of all witnesses? I think that the important point is that it is not about treating every victim or witness in the same way. It is about having the skill set to identify trauma and how that might have impacted. It is more difficult because trauma affects and impacts different people in different ways at different times. Quite properly, if we set out our submissions as prosecutors, we work within the rules of evidence. We work within the prosecutorial legal system. That enshrines the right to a fair trial. As part of that, as proving the case, we require to take evidence. Defence requires to cross-examine a witness. They are entitled to do that, and inevitably taking of evidence and re-examination will often lead to people having to recount trauma. That does sit within the adversarial system, but as that goes, there are already many things that we are doing. David Fraser spoke about evidence and commission, about really trying. The starting point is to mitigate against people having to come to court at all. We can talk about early resolution of cases to prevent that from ever happening, evidence of commission, special measures. There are already rules of evidence that should protect complainers in relation to the line of questioning in terms of inappropriate questioning. Again, the bill should go. We would hope some way to enhance those powers and enhance complainers in those situations. We agree that there is probably a better understanding required for courtroom advocacy, but again, we would hope in relation to the trauma informed training that we have already rolled out across a huge amount of staff within our organisation, including high court prosecutors, that we are embedding that further. We cannot sit still on that. We need to continue to refresh that training, and we need to ensure that we are ensuring that our core values, which are being professional and showing respect, are reflected in everybody that sits within COPFS. Thank you. Thank you, Gavira. Thank you very much. I am going to bring in Russell Findlay, then Rona Mackay. Thank you, convener. I only intend to ask one question, but I feel it's important to provide some details about a specific case in relation to trauma informed practice. I've been working with Leslie Jones, who's— Can I just stop you there? Is this a live case, or is it— No. No, okay. I've been working on it. I've been working on it. Yeah. Can you make sure that this is relevant to the provisions of the bill? Absolutely, yes, yes. I've been working with Leslie Jones whose brother Tony was murdered when she attended the killer's parole hearing. She was told to sit in silence. She objected to his release in writing, fearing for the safety of others. He was subsequently released. She was required to sign a gagging order not to discuss the hearing. Her brother's killer was then recalled to prison, but Leslie was not told this nor allowed to know why. She only found out because he has another parole hearing, and she's consumed by concern not knowing if he's harmed somebody else. She's had letters calling her brother Anthony. That's not his name. She's had letters addressed to her dead father. She describes the parole process as secretive, and she said that she's, and I'm quoting, climbing the walls. The process is tormenting me. Now, Leslie's experiences are quite shocking, but actually all too typical in some respects, and seriously calling to question the issue of trauma-informed practice. I suppose my question is, are you confident that this bill will result in victims and their families being treated with dignity, compassion and respect? Or perhaps, as John Watts already suggested, a ground-up review of practices across the criminal justice agencies would be a better starting point. I would have to differ with you on one point. That's an atypical case. It's not typical at all. I mean, have you read the daily record? So last week and a week before, there was a very positive article about how the victims' team works, but that's a unique case. It's a very difficult one. I responded to you in writing, if I remember rightly, so you've got the answers to most of these questions already, I think. I'm not going to sort of go back over it again. Can I be confident that this bill will change any of that? The answer to that is no, because we have limited control over how matters work around the parole board, if you like, because some of the issues you raised weren't directly raised at the parole board, I don't think, because part of the problem, if I remember rightly, arose from a series of adjournments, did it not, or deferrals? In response to the first point, after myself and another MSP and SNP MSP wrote to various agencies on behalf of Leslie, the parole board sought a meeting with her and asked why she'd not made representation to them first, and her response to that was that she had, and in respect to this being maybe atypical, it may be extreme in its longevity and complexity, but I don't think it's that unusual in some respects. I'm not sure I can answer that question here and now, because it relates to a specific case, and I'd have to go back, I can't remember the details now, I would have to go back and look at that specific case, and to describe the form which she signed as a gagging order is, I have to say, a bit extreme, it's not a gagging order, it's simply a reflection of the legal position in relation to disclosure of information in terms of the rules. She can't disclose information unless the chair of the hearing allows it, and that's basically what that form says, understand this, because if you go out and do it, there could be consequences for you. Now, the other thing I'd like to say is- Can I just interject, is that like the odds with the principle of open justice and transparency? Hi, those are the rules, Mr Finlay, I didn't make the rules, Parliament made the rules, I applied them. Can I perhaps just bring this back to the provisions of the bill, if there's anything further that you'd like to add? I'd like to ask if Mr Finlay wants to write to me requesting more detail, very happy to provide it for him. The only reason I went into detail was because it was required in order to illustrate how difficult it is for many victims and families, but the more general point was whether the legislation in the bill, as drafted, will actually, materially, practically fix a lot of these problems, and I think families like this one have their doubts. Well, I can understand that, and I accept that, and it may well be that some aspects of the rules will have to be revisited, but if you do that, it can lead to further unintended consequences, which is why my personal view is that we need to look at the linkages between the various bodies involved in the process, which leads up to apparel hearing and potentially after that, and ground up, yes, I would go for that. I think that we really need to start talking to each other a bit more effectively and to look at the powers the board has and the duties imposed on it by Parliament, and if Parliament wishes to change those, then I will do my level best to do what Parliament wants me to do. I don't know if anyone else has got a view on that. Certainly from a local policing context in working within a community planning partnership structure when you've got community justice partners and your criminal justice managers that work in that context, I don't think—what I have read in the bill, and I'm not an expert on the draft bill by any manner of means—I don't think that it will solve that systematic issue. I've seen it myself, I won't go into any specifics, but when there's people getting out, the trauma that has in the family and that miscommunication and that joint upness probably isn't there, and the support mechanism for the victims probably isn't there, so my experience is that disconnect will not be fixed by what's in the bill, but by my observation. Much enough, anyone else has got a view on this. It's a general question, but no, thank you. Thank you. Mr Sonny, do you want to come in? If you would allow me to just ask one question of Chief Superintendent through and like what's just been said there. I was struck by how you articulated that point, that the question of somebody being released through the parole system. However much you engage with people, that is going to be a traumatic event. A lot of what we're talking about is about trying to reduce the effect of that trauma. Is that a fair representation of the point that you've just made? Yes, I think that it's a fair representation. Is that element of individuals who are that victim's own witness but are a complainer? They may not be able to rationalise the outcome of the parole board hearing ever, and regardless of how much support that they'll get will create an issue for them in revisiting that trauma, but it's about what support there is in terms of services, whether it's victim support, rape crisis or whatever the necessary bodies that wrap around it. What is that, probably a third sector on many occasions? What is that support mechanism that's in place? It's probably a bit of a gap with that itself. I'm not sure that this would be for David or Laura, just for context. Can you give us an idea of how much it all about evidence by commission? How much of that is being done percentage-wise at the moment? I can follow that up. We do have the figures. I don't have them with me just now, but I can certainly send them to the committee in terms of the amount of evidence of commission that's currently on-going. Since we started, I think the first year we did about 74. Subsequently, it's almost doubled year upon year. Last year's figures from memory, and again, I can give you the exact figures, but it was about 600 that we dealt with. Again, this year we're on track to more or less do slightly more than that, so it is a significant number. It's a growth since we introduced it after the bill that allows us to do that. Okay, that's just what you're supposed to know. The other point to make to Laura, my colleague Philip McGregor and I were in the Justice Committee in the last session. One of the first things that we did in 2016 was an inquiry into the Crown Office. At that time, going back to my colleague Pauline McNeill's line of questioning, the key point that came out of it was communication, lack of communication to victims and witnesses. It seems to me that that was a long time ago and it's not improved that much. From what you're saying, you're now addressing this and taking it very seriously, is that going to happen sooner than eight years? It was a key thing that came out that just people have been left in the dark and that caused great trauma. No, and I can understand that. I suppose that I would disagree with you that there's been no improvement in that. We recognise that, as any organisation, we're always looking to improve. The Lord Advocate, in particular, will speak about how the importance of effective engagement, about compassion and about listening. I understand your point. I think that we have made significant improvements in the way that we communicate and work with victims and witnesses than we have done previously in terms of the time of your review and, hopefully, some of the work that I've outlined today in relation to Ms McNeill, will support what we are doing in terms of on-going. In relation to solemn cases, in all solemn cases now, we have victim strategies in relation to contact and engagement with victims. In relation to victims where there are children and vulnerable witnesses, we have plans in place in relation to engagement with those victims. Previously, there were not the same things there, so we know that that's a frustration. I suppose that what I can note though, as I indicated earlier, is that the type of business that we deal with now has changed, and it has changed since you carried out that review, when we are dealing with significant, serious sexual offences, and that makes up a large part of our business. That involves more effective communication, more meaningful engagement. I take your point. As a committee, we will be able to judge that, because we speak to victims and victims organisations who, at the minute, are not telling us that it's a lot improved. We will obviously be able to monitor how effective all that is being. In your submission, chief superintendent, you say that the training required for trauma-informed practice would require significant investment, and it raises significant concerns now. You have said, and everyone has said that you are well down the road of all doing that, so why would it require significant investment? I am not just to give me an idea of why that was raised. I hope that I do not give the impression that Police Scotland is well down the road. We are on the journey, but I would not say that we were well down the road. I can give an example of 2018. I personally was part of the First Division within Police Scotland that had been trauma-informed. It was in Ayrshire, for those that remember Paul Mayne, who was the commander at that time. That was an investment of face-to-face training, resilience video, getting trauma-informed training. It was really impactful training. That was five years ago. The opportunity cost to do that and the ability to abstract that, to maintain that level just to get to trauma-informed. At that point, it did not go across Scotland because of that. The ability to do that was really challenging. We go to where we are just now in the landscape that we are operating in with the legislative changes that are coming from different aspects to the resource challenges that we have. To take that forward and do that, trauma-informed, trauma-skilled and trauma-enhanced, we will probably have to take a tiered view on that and work out how we can deliver it. It will be a Moodle package of some description going forward, working with Dr Bruce's team. There are two packages there. Dr Bruce will hopefully keep me right after this committee, if I'm wrong, but there are two there that are available for public sector organisations that you can get that take you to trauma-informed. To then take us to trauma-skilled, which is where you really want to be to make that impactful change, we're going to have to develop further training packages. That training package, again, is the resource development of that. How we then get that on to our Moodle system, which normally sounds simple for me to say that, but we really want it linked on to a system in Police Scotland where it's accredited. We get an auditable position of the number of officers that have completed that so that they're skilled so that, from an evidence base, I can come back to a committee in however months time and say that we have got an excellent amount of operational officers and these are the ones that have completed the training. To embed that and develop that training and put it in place is expensive. In terms of to get to trauma-enhanced, there's clearly going to be certain roles that we need bespoke training for because we need to take it to that next level. Now, whether that's sexual offence liaison officers, family liaison officers, scene investigation officers, there'll be a whole list of people that are working with the most vulnerable victims and witnesses, so we have to develop that bespoke work started in doing that, but we don't have a finished product. But it's the time, the cost and what those packages look like within the myriad of other demands and that demand, and it's a well rehearsed position where Police Scotland feel we are with our budget and where we will be getting into the next financial year and it just seems to be getting tighter on us all the time. So it's not to say, woe is us and we're not doing it, we're committed to doing it, but that cultural leadership and actually embedding it, I'm just giving you an example of my personal experience of my journey for 2018, five years and we're still on that journey, so that's the challenge I see. That and just briefly Laura, your submission set a similar thing, but you sound like you are well down the road to trauma informed practice, so why would it need lots of more investment? Exactly the same situation in terms of training and the input and the culture, we're working towards that, we're on a journey, but in terms of the spectrum of what that might look like in terms of more regular, we spoke about more regular engagement with victims of witnesses, that requires investment, refreshment training, development of other training, changes that are policy and guidance, these are all things that require additional resource and that can't simply be absorbed by the budget that we already have, so we can make small changes, we can continue to develop the training, we can continue to train our staff, but in terms of significant big changes, particularly around that engagement with victims and witnesses, that's not something that we can currently absorb at this time. I'm just going back to points made earlier that culture change comes from leadership, I'm not understanding why that would be expensive. No, no, no, that's not the expensive part, we've already undertaken that training, we've undertaken the leadership training and that's not the part that would require resource, it's about the much bigger issue in relation to the caseload that we have in terms of individual contact with victims and witnesses that require resource. I think that we do have in our submissions the cost of a one-day training for all our staff, but that's the only really quantifiable expense and cost that we can put on those submissions at that time. Thank you, that's great. I wonder if we can just stay on the theme of resource implications. I can maybe bring in some of the other panel members just for any comments that you wish to make on that. Maybe David Tracer to start. In the memorandum we have identified costs in terms of that part of those costs are for the development of the actual training to be delivered and then an on-going annual cost to train new staff as attrition happens and we get new staff in. So there is an element built into that. I think I said earlier as well, I mean the training that we intend to do is quite, it is much of a larger scale than we would do normally and for example in leaders training it's up to about five different separate sessions to actually get full understanding, it's not a simple days training that is spread about all the whole organisation, it is very much targeted. The costs are in relation to us being able to do that in terms of the one way we could do it is close the courts for a day or the six days in terms of which the costs are for a single day not for the six days that we're actually doing. So I suppose you could say that we are absorbing a number of the costs but it is involved in terms of getting the 67 per cent of the organisation, as I said, who are front line away from doing their day job and actually getting this knowledge transfer and getting to the level of skill that we need them to be at. Thank you. John Watt, is there anything you want to maybe comment on? I have no specific figures but any new, well it's not a new area of work, it's an area of work which we're looking at more closely now, we'll bring with it a cost. But there will be other costs, so for example one of the things that the whole system should avoid is churn because if a victim is teed up to come along and give evidence or to view a hearing it's a demoralising and traumatising experience if it goes off. So then we're looking at trying to improve the quality of the material that we get, improving the quality of dossier and there's training involved and that's sometimes out with the parole board or parole Scotland. Equally granting deferrals, there's a whole area of training I'm going to have to look at and how members look at that. Now I can't tell them what to do but I can advise, I can persuade, I can train, I can't direct. So we don't just look at this trauma informed practice in isolation, there are a whole range of other things which, if you don't get them right, will create a set of circumstances where you end up with trauma that you could have avoided further down the line if you put the effort in and got your quality control in at the start of the process rather than at the end. So it's not simply parole board training, it will be other aspects and other parts of the system as well. I don't know if there's anything else that you want to add in Chief Superintendent? Our vision and our aspiration is to get all front-line officers at trauma-skilled level and that's where the investment comes in because that's where there'll be the opportunity cost, there'll be the development of the IT, which I would be an indicative figure, I would give you today which probably would be meaningless but it's probably going to be in the low millions in terms of opportunity cost and IT development but we are with a restricted budget just now, anything that even the word thousands get mentioned is a lot of these days but I know it will be in the millions to actually deliver it in terms of cost. Thank you, I'm Sue Brooks. So I think there's a number of dimensions to the resource issue I think and as I explained earlier we're starting with our leadership cohort across prisons which is a relatively small group. Even that though at the minute is caused in difficulties because we're very limited in our own internal forensic psychology resource but we're working in partnership with the health boards and the clinical psychologists across that are associated with prisons to try and support that roll out. So I think there are things that we can do both to use our own existing resources more wisely but also to work in partnership across different agencies to try and make that happen. I think in terms of the wider issue about training roll out to our staff group in a way the idea that you could throw lots of money at that and it would all happen much more quickly is probably not necessarily a wise way to go. We started in our journey by engaging with a number of experts in Scottish Government and also in NES and their advice very clearly was to take this slowly and gradually and work carefully with the staff group and that certainly I think in prisons down south they have rolled out quite a lot of training and there are some research reports around that which suggest it's not very successful and can actually be quite damaging if you don't have the right infrastructure in place and that's particularly around things like staff supervision and the criticality of that. We've been advised to start with the basic information level for our staff group which is why we're putting e-learning packages from NES on our e-learning system and probably also why we will target specific members of staff and establishment in key roles who can then act as a kind of a coach or facilitator for a broader staff group so at the same time as we've got the leadership group really engaging in problem solving and kind of system change across the organisation you're starting to get that kind of bubbling up of general awareness without putting your staff at this stage anyway in a position where they're being asked to engage in trauma-informed practice without the right supports in place. Now as I explained earlier there are opportunities, the government is also asking us to reduce the working week and look at our staff deployment structures and so if we make really significant changes around that we can move our resources around to be able to deploy that more wisely and achieve hopefully those kinds of objectives as well as being able to reallocate resources to do this kind of thing and my last point and apologies for going on but I think in many respects we are in a quite a unique position as system leaders because we are at the tail end of a process where people who have been very severely traumatised in childhood end up with us and inflicting damage on others and there's been some talk about the kind of evidence and research base but I think it's really really important that as we go through our individual and system organisational journeys that we get the right kind of research and evaluation to be able to reflect back in a preventive sense, how would we have prevented people getting into this position in the first place and I hear people talking about domestic abuse, sexual offending, we have 8,000 men in custody that is a real issue for me about what that experience has been in childhood for boys particularly in houses where there is domestic or sexual abuse and what our experience of dealing with trauma is telling us about what we need to do upfront to reduce system costs both in personal terms and also in resourcing terms. I just suggest that. No that thank you, it's really comprehensive. I don't know if Laura if you want to add anything in at all. I'm thinking my question was more about broad resource implications. Obviously training is one of those but if there are other areas where you see there being in particular a resource implication I'm sure there will be. I think nothing further than I've previously added in relation to that engagement with victims and witnesses and I suppose the points that David makes in relation to how we then deploy our staff to that training and how regularly that training takes place. A couple more members are looking to come in. Fulton McGregor, then Sharon Dowie. Thanks very much convener and good morning to the panel. I've enjoyed your evidence so far. I think that as committee closes in on this part 1 to 3 of the bill it does feel like we remain a wee bit unclear on what the need for part 2 is or what it will do. I have to say I do say that with some surprise from myself because even in my own experience as a justice social worker trauma informed practice has been around for a long time I think as everybody has referred to. I think what I'm gathering and I can not speak for anybody else here is that it's not the principle or the understanding of it that I think we are grappling with but rather the different evidence that we're getting from organisations including the five today but where organizations are with it and what it feels like is that there's good examples across the board about places where things could improve and I think one of the things I want to go back to chief and then through I think that when you spoke earlier about the interviews of children and you know including that would be the joint investigative interviews I think they are a very clear and robust good example of trauma informed practice and so what I wanted to ask you firstly before I go widen it out was that is something that's well established I mean that's joint investigative interviews have been going on for you know well over 20 years now. Is that an area where the police are looking at taking the practice there to other areas and can I just be a devil's advocate and ask why don't we do a similar model with almost all interviews? So the joint investigative interview model has been there for a while the new Scottish child investigating model takes that a step further multi agency as you'll be aware with social workers and and really looking at the whole trauma round about that that child to make sure that everything's done really properly. We're actually not fully rolled out across Scotland yet and my understanding is it's probably June 2024 before the scheme model as it's known is going to be fully in place so I hope I'm quoting that date correct but you're right that's one element there's the relationship we've got is corporate parenting working with children's homes they're not a home policy so that we're not there those children that are in those homes treat it like a home and they're not reported missing just because they've just not returned at four o'clock but there might be going to come in at six o'clock that night so that real compassionate understanding working with partners. In terms of the wider how we do it investigations there's an investigation strategy put in for for most significant serious investigations particularly where there's going to be significant trauma and how we deal with witnesses where it's going to be the preparation and the notification what support they're going to get is all part of that strategy that we've put in place. So I would like to think that although we're saying I didn't say what that far down the line I think when we actually take a step back set like a police Scotland and we'll look at what we do is and I don't mean to be too tweed to go back to our values of fairness, integrity, respect, human rights that actually in practicality now is taking us on that trauma informed journey with the trauma informed information we've had and that is that is the lens we put through everything that we do so I would like to think that we probably agree with you that we're going down that journey and it does get applied to a whole lot more even if we've not given it that label or managed to crystallise that that description. Don't move it out to the rest of the panel I won't give specific examples of practice you maybe mentioned today but not everybody needs to answer in the interest of time but based on the question there I've just asked is there anything that you're doing just now which is a really good example of trauma informed practice and are you or are you considering using that to widen out the areas where you've all said that you maybe need to improve on? I think that that's a good example and you're absolutely right there are certain areas within the justice system that I'd said that we are more trauma informed in terms of how we deal with people than others but I would say it's scratching around the edges. I mean another example and I've touched on that earlier is the evidence by commission and I think I said about 608 cases last year that was evidenced by commissions not potentially a number of witnesses that we dealt with because there might be multiple witnesses within a single evidence by commission so I would use that as an example. I would also say I mean we've got a strategy for that expansion we've got four bespoke sites already we've got plans to expand that in Dundee with plans for beyond that depending on how much and how quickly we can actually expand that environment so I'd offer that as another example but I would say it is dealing with a very small proportion if you look at what comes through the criminal justice system and that there is a need for everyone else who doesn't actually go through that to be treated in a way that allows them to get their best evidence out. I agree in relation to the evidence by commission and there is still a significant amount of work required in relation to evidence by commission in terms of preparation. There's also work that we're doing in relation to summary case management pilots and that's where prosecutors are engaging directly with victims of domestic abuse at a very early stage and again with Police Scotland and SCTS we're trying to front load disclosure to ensure early resolution to again prevent witnesses and victims ever having to come to court so that's something the pilots already running we're looking to expand that pilot pilot. Just to add another point I think it's probably a relevant point is we're probably in a unique situation here because we're all working around the same framework and one of the things that we recognised in terms of we're looking at domestic abuse at courts and GHNI and actually we recognised that those involved in designing and actually drawing that forward needed to be informed so that what they were designing as we go forward actually is looked to a trauma informed lens so I would suggest that we are and that involved not just Scottish court service but actually everyone involved that would be in that design process so that at the very start of the process we're actually looking at through that lens as opposed to traditionally where people like myself from different organisations say well this is what you need and actually removing ourselves from that and saying well actually looking through the trauma informed lens what should the end product look like so I my apologies in terms of John Swinney you want to come in very quickly just one one brief follow-up point to what Mr McGregor has been raising I think it's possibly for Laura Bucking have we exhaust and maybe Mr Fraser as well have we exhausted all opportunities for reforms in the style of evidence by commission as alternatives to let me call it existing practice have we exhausted all opportunities or is there more that could be done in the style of evidence by commission that would be consistent with delivering the aspirations of trauma informed practice I think evidence by commission is you know has come on and is really significant there is work on going specifically in relation to children relation to bairns hoose which takes that concept even further in terms of the hope of you know evidence being given in terms of the scheme or the GII that that could be used and recorded and used in place of evidence by commission so I suppose that's the only thing that can come to mind at this time Mr Swinney and if I think of anything else about how much further we can go I suppose from a crown perspective yes there's evidence by commission but the important point is a victim being properly informed about what all the different means of way that they can give evidence and they have a choices to which means of giving evidence they feel will support them again through that trauma informed lens we have heard from some victims who have said I would have wanted to have given evidence so we have to ensure that there's the ability for them to have that choice so I think evidence by commission has done a significant amount of taking children and victims out of a court process and there's certainly more that we can look to do and look to work on to expand and is that part of the thinking of the crown in trying to work out what the crown contributes towards delivering trauma informed practice we must be constantly looking for ways in which we can adapt or reform the whole process of preparing for prosecution to try to minimise that effect I suppose it's taking our role in ensuring that we are conducting ourselves and in the professional manner in which we need to do in acting in the public interest but meantime having that consideration and engagement with the victims and witnesses sometimes they don't always align but I suppose the important part is having the engagement and discussion and knowing what the victims views are before taking any decisions I've still got a number of members looking to come in and we'll we've got about 15 minutes left so if I can ask for succinct questions and answers so Sharon Dowie followed by Katie Clark thank you I think a lot of my points have actually already been covered now but I was looking more at the kind of financial side is there a risk if you don't get the finances to implement the bill that there's a risk that you won't be able to implement it properly I can ask that to Laura Bucking first I think I'll probably simply repeat what I've said earlier I'm sorry in that that we are committed to trauma informed practice we will continue to roll out the training and do the work that we want to do in terms of compassion choice you know all those parts in terms of more widely to enable us to do more of what we do in terms of witness engagement victims with visits to courts more time for victims and witnesses would require investment and more resource that can't be absorbed so we're committed to it how far we can go with this is dependent on resource time scales and managing to implement it if you were given the correct resources would you be able to do some of the work just now rather than having to wait for legislation I think we've already but so we're already on a journey with the work we've already begun it without the resource so I think we will continue to do that work how far we can go with it in terms of expansion will be dependent upon what resource was provided I'll give you one specific example just for the Crown Office the Crown Office's victim information advice service for victims still does not always inform them of the outcomes of their case in some instances which leaves them feeling as if the justice systems let them down an example it was found an analysis of the victims right to review scheme that some victims who wish to review prosecution decisions were not told of their case outcomes in time to ask for a review so is that not just a case of change in your processes just now that doesn't seem to me as if that would cost any money to go and implement that so are there some things just now if you listen to the victims organizations that we could implement straight away absolutely as I say the lord advocate chairs the victim task force we have regular meetings with our third sector and really good positive relationship with those groups I think that perhaps is from the inspectorate report and that already is part of our via modernisation project is one of the programme strands in relation to ensuring that those decisions are provided to victims of witnesses when VRR may be appropriate so that there is already work on going and absolutely that doesn't require additional resource that is work that we should be doing already so what are the barriers to implementing something like that just now I'll try and be succinct it's about identifying those cases within the vast amount of caseload that we have identifying the cases that may be subject to victim right to review and ensuring that that contact is made because currently the resource we have relates to only certain categories of victims which will be given proactive information if that assists so via does not cover all victims and witnesses via all and we are all only funded for the the sections of victims and witnesses that currently sit within via so the the issue is identifying other victims and witnesses who may not sit within that criteria who have a case that may also want to have a victims right to review so we're looking about how we can improve that and looking at system changes which will allow us to identify that I understand last question listening to the opening remarks I think everybody's supportive of change the comments were very supportive totally supportive absolutely committed one of the comments that came from John Watt he's mentioned about a complete review of the system which I think I would be totally in favour of I agreed with your comments you also said about keeping victims informed so nothing comes as a surprise which is one of the main things that seem to cause trauma so again to me it seems more like processes and procedures maybe rather than legislation but do you think bringing in the legislation will hinder a review of the system or will it help it shouldn't hinder it shouldn't hinder it at all it's not I say it's not complicated but it's amazing how reviews can take on arms and legs and end up like three or four octopuses in one place everyone's got a complication they want to bring into it if we can keep it tight view it through the lens of trauma informed practice primarily and ensuring that everybody who needs to know knows in good time and that we can reduce the amount of human error which is inevitable so for example I was listening to some of those comments about people while getting informed and I think if you have a tight budget and running on a minimum level of staff that's going to happen if you don't want that to happen then you add a few more bodies and you're going to reduce the human error introduce to that an effective IT system something that will work for you something like Shell or BP or ICI have which will do things for you which will produce programs or throw up information will prompt people to do things may even do it themselves I don't want to be actually critical of the government IT but I'm about to be critical of government IT it's been cut back and cut back and the support's not there I mean I get breakdowns all the time and I phone the help desk and I get a call back three or four days later now in that time a victim might not have been informed or something so let's look at the the information systems that we have and the people that we have eliminate the waste I mean I can give you loads of examples this is my hobby horse if for example dossiers pro dossiers are better in the first place you wouldn't have all the additional work to do you'd have a predictable flow of work predictably informed victims and have a predictable time when it's going to be heard and it will be heard at the first time of asking much more often than it is just now if you can't get that kind of quality then you're going to end up with a disjointed system in the sense that you're constantly asking for information then it's coming back in then you're asking for more and it's not quite what you wanted so it's getting the quality right in the first place and then you can spend a bit of money at the start of the process to save it at the end of the process but I get an impression that that's not an argument that finds much favour just at the moment if you said for example we'd like to invest £50,000 getting it ready at the start to save £100,000 at the end it's a bit like the British Leyland parts department now Mr Swinney might remember that but nobody else here will when you went there they said they would say the answers no now what's the question that's what they said so I mean it's really complex but you have to get the all the bits on tracks so that they act with each other and you don't have the the bumps the delays the lumps in the road that cause problems of the sort Mr Finlay spoke of I would agree with your comments get it right at the beginning so that you get the result at the end so thank you okay I'm going to bring in Katie Clark and then we'll have to look to just wind things up if he can be as brief and succinct in questions and answers as possible I will try and be as brief as possible I've got two questions in relation to trauma-informed training for key players in the courts so my first question is probably for Laura Buckan and it relates to defence agents now my understanding is that whilst it is trauma-informed training available from organisations such as the law society no doubt it's for other organisations as well it's not mandatory it's a voluntary course that's available as an option for continuous to professional development do you think it would be helpful if there was compulsory mandatory training for defence agents that appear in the criminal courts and my second question is probably more to David Fraser and relates to the judges so whether that's cherished judges in the high courts and what would you say is the quality of trauma-informed training that's available to judges whether whatever judge that is whichever criminal court that is and do you think there is a requirement to significantly enhance that would it be fair to say that probably more judges have an understanding of trauma a better understanding of trauma-informed practices than others and how do we if you like improve their overall standard because they must be if you like the gatekeeper in the courts they're in charge of the court they're the only people really that are in a position to insist on how courts are conducted so if i might be asked Laura I think it's very difficult for me to answer on behalf of my colleagues and bar associations and I did see the evidence from the law society in eba last week what I can say that is for COPFS the trauma-informed training is mandatory for all our staff because of the importance that we feel that for every single member of our staff they see that training how that impacts in terms of court and the same will be said in relation we've got a shush time it really was a question about defence agents you've explained in great detail what your organisation does but the other side of it obviously is the defence agents if you don't feel you can respond or it's not politic for you to respond I don't think it's politic for me to respond I suppose my second point was that ensuring our staff have training it ensures that when in court if there isn't what we feel an inappropriate line of questioning or anyone within that court as an officer of the court our staff are suitably skilled with the training to know when they should interject and when they should seek assistance from the court to ensure that anything that is not trauma-informed is being halted thank you we just pick up on that the original vision that lady dorian had was that everyone within that courtroom would be trauma-informed and that would include the defence agents I know that what we're currently talking about here is expanded beyond the specialist sexual offences court but that was the original vision this is we're not just talking about that we're talking about all criminal cases so do you think could you maybe look at it in the context of all criminal cases extensive experience this is a personal view my view is I agreed with that I've been very much part of that why would you actually trauma-informed some part of the system but not all the part of the system the question whether that should be in legislation for ourselves including the defence I think is not a question for me to answer but there is most my view is actually why would you do it with someone not all because the impact from one part of the system for example if we were to do it with form training now for all the all of those who sit in judgment in the criminal courts whether that's justice to the peace courts so you know just a brief answer in terms of I'll come right and I'm sorry you might find this unhelpful but I cannot speak for the judiciary what I can tell you is that I do know that maybe you're the nearest person okay I certainly have an understanding to answer your question in terms of the quality of training I think it's the best possible quality of training that we possibly could have we have got you know dr bruce who has been highly involved working with our people in our judicial institute to develop that training and then to roll it out to the judiciary I agree with you it is the the the person who is sitting on the bench that has control of what happens within that courtroom and it is absolutely essential that they have that empathy and understand what's happening and can detect detect detect again this is my view you know when a situation is developing which they can anticipate that this is creating trauma and it's up to then of how that court is managed and I've probably overstepped what I should have done there but you asked for a view so I've given you it okay but thank you I wonder if I can maybe just come in we're just coming to the end of this session and I'm going to come in with a question for David Fraser and it's actually on part three of the the bill which we haven't touched on this morning which is special measures in civil cases I'm just interested in what in your view would be the resource implications of implementing part three I know that you did set that out in your submission as it's currently drafted but also in relation to the potential for part three to include more ambitious proposals which some victims organisations have indicated that they would like the Scottish government to to do within the criminal side on the one hand you could say actually it's not a massive sea change if you're doing this in the criminal dimension to moving at civil dimension we have a lot of staff that work in both areas once they're up skilled absolutely the issue in relation to the cost is we've got about 26 remote sites we often have witnesses who link in from that so it's really a bit just getting our technology in our civil courts up to the same level of technology we have in our criminal courts to allow us to have that uniform approach irrespective of whether it's civil or criminal business thank you and in the context of potentially the proposals being a little bit more ambitious is that feasible for one thing so in terms of part three the proposal around extending special measures to civil cases obviously what you've just outlined is around in particular the implications for it systems should the proposals be expanded from what they are at the moment within the bill would that necessarily have any impact I think is what I'm saying right my view on that is providing we have got the technology upgraded in terms of these courts then no I think it's something that we can act we we could do and you could argue actually why would you separate the different jurisdictions if you have got trauma in one sphere why would you not deal with it in any sphere okay and just to clarify the organisations that I should have said that the organizations that have highlighted this are Scottish women's aid rape crisis Scotland and Victim support Scotland think that's when they were in previously giving evidence so thank you for that response and I've got one very final question the shortest question today question ever I promise you it's towards mr Fraser the scts submission warns that the possible costs of the bill could be substantially higher than stated in the financial memorandum so much so that you've written to the finance committee I wonder first of all whether that letter includes any projected likely cost and or whether the letter could be shared with this committee can I give you a very short answer and say I'll come back to you on that one I don't have the details of the letter but I will I will take that question away and I will maybe the clerks can tell us the answer thank you thank you very much indeed that's been a very comprehensive session thank you to all our panel members for your time this morning and we'll just have a short suspension to allow a change over all panel members thank you okay thank you members our next item of business is to continue our pre-budget scrutiny of the Scottish Government's 2024 to 25 budget and I'm pleased welcome to our meeting this morning Karen McCluskey chief executive of community justice Scotland Chris McCulley and Bill Fitzpatrick also of community justice Scotland so a warm welcome to you all and thank you for your comprehensive written submission so we have around about 45 minutes or so for this session and given just the range of questions and responses we had this morning and time is slightly caught up with us so I wonder if we can just propose to members that we will drop items three and four from our agenda which is just our private discussions following our public session are members content with that thank you okay so I wonder if I can just open up questioning as usual with a very general question I'll come to Karen first of all and then bring in Bill and Chris so I wonder if you can just outline for us the main challenges for spending in relation to either your own budget or the sums allocated for community justice more generally most of this will be self-evident to the committee members you will have heard it almost from every other person who's presenting evidence the community justice and we are a broad you know we are a broad church we are still experiencing huge difficulties after the pandemic you know you will obviously be aware of the challenges around remand around the people who are getting released into the community the high costs that are occurring just now we rely hugely on third sector they are often the lowest paid they work on year to year funding every january people will be getting notice that they may lose their jobs and yet we rely on them absolutely essentially for the delivery of this they are the unsung heroes in lots of the work that we do around community every community in scotland and they're having real terms cuts in their funding members will be aware of the recent work you know media around the 218 service we only have 68 bail accommodation accommodation places in the community for the whole of scotland it is vastly challenging and you would expect me to say that but community justice and the services that we provide are some of the solutions to what we're experiencing right now in the prison service around the custodial sentences that women get and it can and has achieved a great deal with very limited resources but we are going to have to fund it differently that that thanks very much I don't know from either Chris or Bill do you want to just come in on any of that yeah and just on a specific issue talking about the cjs budget which is currently sitting about the core budget a shade under 3.5 3.4 million which funds our activities and in the current environment we are being encouraged and in fact directed towards realising efficiency our total budget is actually just a shade over 4 million and that's because we carry on activities caledonian system central team and restorative justice which are funded from other ends or other parts of the scotland's government it's really difficult to drive efficiencies across an organisation when your budget sits in three separate parts and recently was more than that so we think a measure that would assist us driving those casual efficiencies through the budget would be to consolidate that budget and make it simpler that efficiency could be driven across the line and and that would be helpful because the bits of activity that our organisation take care of is where maximum demand is being applied at the moment within the sector so training being one of the areas of that where the demand is almost endless and our ability to meet that demand and fully satisfy the sector requirements is proven increasingly difficult our efficiency measures have been we've committed to have been to collaborate further with other organisations and we've been talking to other sector partners including rma we have scotland's government involved in those conversations and in the child services organisations to see if we can establish what the actual quantum for the training resources is amongst the organisations and across the organisations but it's difficult for us to fully contribute to that effort to do what the government is asking us to do without having full control and full sight of the total budget we have available so it's quite a minor thing but I think a very important thing for us to play our part in driving efficiency through the system particularly the bit of the system that we are responsible for thank you for that Chris McCulley is there anything you want to just add into that yeah certainly I think in line with with bill's comments the opportunities I suppose that could be provided through additional resource for community justice scotland would support us to do a range of activities I think that through those efficiencies or through being at so close to capacity we have not been able to progress over recent years so things around about changing the diversity of that training offer broadening the number of the training outputs in terms of different courses that were offered so things like for example training for working with people who have sexual evidences convictions obviously that's an area of considerable growth in terms of court business and sentences so that's an increasingly prevalent area that the training is required for so new products I do a work like that I think would be would be beneficial but also I think some of the things that we've highlighted in our submission in terms of why justice could be done better in terms of different interventions disposals ways of working in the justice system additional funding to support some of the those sort of piloting approaches innovation development work that that requires I think could could be could be very beneficial as well that thank you for that and just by way of follow-up to to your comments in your submission you set out the impact of result of reduced resources in particular due to the sort of increase in some of the statutory functions that you have so for example expansion of arrest referral services increases in the number of diversion from prosecution cases and that there's a number of others areas so if that is the case and I'm sure that there's no reason that that won't happen you know that that's one end of the system if you like what are your concerns around the impact that that will have on the preventative work that we want to see develop and you know it's well set out in the vision for justice and some of that really contemporary effective work what are your concerns about how that may well be impacted that we need to think about so my concern is that we will retreat into you know the statutory functions so what is what we are required to do statutorily and not the other preventative aspects so things like arrest referral I mean there are some spectacular work going on I mean we talked about some of the work around diversion from prosecution some of the expansion of electronic monitoring we've got obviously the bail and release from custody bill coming ahead which will put additional resources and none of it is low cost and no cost options the third sector again they are you know obviously we've got some of the work around homelessness we have around 55 percent of people released from prison unplanned from remand at the moment they are released often with no place to stay without a liberation grant without even you know some of the medication that they may require they land in our homelessness services you know and it's almost a cliff edge they're almost urgent cases and the capacity of organisations to be able to deal with that as an emergency is is severely restricted so it is I mean it's it's a whole area that's under real pressure right now okay i'm just going to open it up to members and i'm going to bring in Russell Finlay to kick off thanks very much thank you the the submission is extremely helpful and detailed not really is and I think the most striking and perhaps shocking statistic in it is the fact relating to funding of criminal justice social work with what the government appeared to have decided to not increase the budget by a single penny for three consecutive years which of course means a substantial real terms cut and the money that takes everything that you might want to do as you've already told us and we've got the new edition of the bail bill coming into force quite soon so given the Scottish government does talk place a great deal of emphasis on greater use of community disposals and moving away from imprisonment and so on that seems to be odds with that statistic and I just wonder whether you're confident that that will change and what you can do to persuade the government to effectively put their money where their mouth is that is a big question so you're right if it matters to us it's going to need to matter when the budgets are set we are in a way not visible you can't see and feel in touches like a prison service and you know and I think sometimes we lose out by this because we're quite hidden sometimes it's really long-term work and if you talk about things like caledonian which is delivered by justice social work really complicated really skilled services and each of the people who are on it it takes two years to get them through the programme they need to be funded to do that and funded so that they've not over you know they've not got other cases that are coming on and you're bringing them to their knees because they are a really stressed service as are our third sector services there's never going to be enough money to deliver this you know and I understand that I'm a realist but we need to look at it I mean 40 I mean I think it's something like in fact I was just looking at it earlier on it's 2.5 percent of the overall budget justice budget goes to social work and 1.47 goes to community justice it is minuscule on the overall scheme of things and we are on a burning platform at present in relation to the prison service in terms of the numbers of people who get into prison if we want something different we will need to fund it going back to the caledonian system I noticed that 19 of the 32 local authorities are able to provide this training 13 or not purely because of money what difference would it make if all local authorities could do this well so I slightly love Caledonian service so I could go on for the rest hour about this it is the only accredited programme in Scotland so it goes through what's called SAPOR which accredits it it's really detailed but you need skilled women's workers you need skilled children's workers because obviously domestic abuse affects you know affects whole families and indeed communities and and you need extra social workers to be able to do it now it's 4.1 million pounds a year that comes from Scottish Government to to fund Caledonian it's in 19 local authorities other local authorities have bought in their own you know their own programmes six local authorities have nothing that's not to say that they don't do anything with with those who are convicted of domestic abuse but they don't have any full-time programmes nor get anything extra and some of those local authorities are actually areas where domestic abuse is incredibly prevalent where there's there's big challenges six local authorities is a matter of public record who they are are they large populations for example they are some of them are a large would you like me to read them out hang on Argyll and Bute, I'm going to mispronounce this alien sir, is that how you say it? So we did also have Westin Bartonshire but Westin Bartonshire we are funding right now have I pronounced that wrongly I do apologise Westin Bartonshire but we and Westin Bartonshire are actually funding it herself and we are in the process of training them right now. Fulton MacGregor. Thank you very much and it is just a follow-up from where Russell Findlay was asking there because in the submissions that we've had from Caws on Social Work they have expressed concern that there's no increase in funding and they've talked about they would have to be an increased focus on core functions at the expense of more targeted preventative services. What is it that you're understanding that's meant by that? Of course it would just be what they need to deliver so lots I mean you will understand that lots of the functions that that social work they go beyond what is statutory that is you know the cpo's the supervision etc they do a huge amount of of other services like some of the bail support services they extend you know into you know into some of the diversionary work but when it comes to priority they're going to focus on cpo's and what is statutory so bail supervision which is obviously is provided by almost every local authority in the country but these are hugely resource intensive and what just as social work and I can't speak solely for them because I'm really for the broader community justice we have increasingly complex people 41 for thousand people who came into police custody last year had designated mental health issues and that is translating into the groups that we're looking at and so many of the people who we've got in there require hugely additional services and you know and just the social work I'm not going to be able to do that the reason why I asked about that question the reason why I asked that question was because I'm not sure it's quite a stark statement when I seen it myself I thought you know as and obviously it's a cry for help to the committee in some respects but I'm not really sure how it would pan out if that makes sense and I'm looking at my own experience here and saying well you know part of the work would would still carry on you wouldn't people wouldn't just you know hang up the phone or not going to do that so would it would have been better if the submission and I know it's not for you fully to answer I do understand that in it's really just for a view on it would have been better if the submission was more looking at where actually what how much extra money could we do with and where would we put it in order to support all these functions? In terms of I think what it means in practice I think is that we we already see things like statutory through care of voluntary through care that's provided by justice social work services and we've seen that decreasing over recent years the point where it's nice for the most recent figures was 1800 cases a year down from maximum now in terms of the statutory functions we're referring to in that context I think that's something where the social work act gives just social work a general duty to provide advice and assistance but there is no statutory definition of what through care is so it's in the space for things like that and things like diversion and supervised bail where there's not a strict statutory definition of what their duties are in relation to that I think that you start to see the biggest impact in a reduction on those if other workloads and resources if workloads increase and resources don't increase commensurately because we can see already those things that are resource intensive that are good things to have that make a real positive effect they can't be prioritised anymore and we also see it passed on to the voluntary sector so in COSLA and social work Scotland submission and as you'll see from the criminal justice voluntary sector forum the justice social work budgets are frequently used the section 27 money they receive to fund the voluntary sector and that's externally commissioned services across a range of different areas but those services are now having to be cut consistently because they have to prioritise in-house delivery because of those statutory responsibilities so I think those effects are not just sort of concerns for the future but they're things that are happening now and in terms of justice social work having to reduce the focus of their work we're seeing that through obviously the submission from COSLA and social work Scotland but recent research from social work Scotland setting the bar report and various follow-up ones have shown that people are social workers are having to focus on those core functions away from some of the more in-depth rehabilitative person-centred work that they might be doing that would actually in their opinion make more of a difference to people's lives and in terms of the COSLA and social work Scotland position I can't comment on what they should have written but I think it's certainly their experience and what they're saying about the difficulties in delivering services in the current financial environment are backed up by what we're hearing from local community justice partnerships in areas that is a challenging environment to deliver justice services and partly because justice is the final funnel if you look at research like the hard edges Scotland report it's the bit that all the other failures and all the different systems and health and housing and employability all those things bring people into the justice system so the people we are working with in terms of community justice face a whole range of issues that are are compounded and multiplied and so there are people that need frequently a lot of help a lot of support and having a lack of resources to allow you to do that in a flexible and long-term way instead have to focus on delivering an order or delivering certain hours or delivering court reports I think is is is bound to have an impact John Swinney Thank you, convener. I tend to steer clear of an awful lot of budget discussing for obvious reasons of history but I'm struck by two things about the submission and what you've said. The first thing is obviously your area of the pie is very small even without the share of the justice pie is very small but what you are doing has the potential to avoid much greater cost. The previous panel that we're just in Sue Brooks who was here from the Scottish Prison Service was making the point that the Scottish Prison Service ultimately is the destination for all failure but it's an expensive destination for all failure and you offer a much cheaper alternative to that failure so that's my first observation. My second is money is incredibly tight across everywhere there's nowhere in the Scottish public finances that is doing fine everywhere is under pressure so that takes me to the challenge for reform so where is the are the conversations taking place with your other justice in the justice family because you know yes I accept you've got a very small part of the pie but there's others that have got big resources they would also say they are under pressure so is there a reform conversation going on within the justice family about shifting the balance in favour of preventative forgive my cuteness but lower cost interventions and conversations with the wider public sector because you just made the point a moment ago that you know a large proportion of the prison population has got mental health challenges so where is the health service in amongst all of us are the conversations given how tough things are for everybody across the public sector are the conversations happening that would enable some of that tilting of the balance which might end up with I would contend would end up with better outcomes being achieved for everybody are they actually happening oh you don't have to persuade me about the you know the importance of prevention I absolutely agree with you are the conversations happening yes they are is there been enough space for them to translate into action plans no I don't think there are I think people are so busy just now the capacity for people to to get that space and and thinking time to think well what else could this look like we put in our submission around the human and economic costing you're right we only get a very small slice of the pie and you know but are the people that we are supporting touch the NHS touch you know touch family support they touch everything education is it's the whole gamut of the sort of of the public services that are out there we did put in that we we would really like to do some human and economic costing I know that was done within the promise that less than 1% of young people go into care and yet they are 40 30 to 40% of the prison population is a statistic that we should not be proud of I mean it's you know and that really tells you that actually we need to be thinking about more prevention how do we stop people getting into the system getting people onto sustainable jobs paying tax looking after their families family support and there is much more that we could be doing around that when you say that the conversations are happening but people don't have the thinking space to to think differently I have to say I'm not persuaded by that argument I know people people will always be busy what I'm trying to probe at is whether there's actually serious heavy thinking going on about changing the model but and this is not just about yourselves because I am a huge admirer of what you do and the emphasis and the focus on prevention but I accept that without tilting the balance more in favour of prevention you'll not get more prevention and I'm also not going to sit here and say there's a pot of money somewhere else because I know full well there ain't so I'm interested in how that focused hard discussion can happen to realign budgets and approaches to shift the focus of our system away from what in a lot of the cases we are doing of picking up the pieces rather than to avoiding the person being broken in the first place. This is my personal view we need a long-term policy and plan not something that is delivered within four years because that doesn't work it's not worked anywhere really even internationally you need a long-term plan about how we're going to reduce the prison population and shift money into prevention and we don't have that yet I don't have a clear idea about what the direction of travel is how many people is too many people in our prison service what is it we want for the people who are entering the justice system and what that looks like for Scotland I think with a clearer long-term plan and Christy started this off you know so many years ago and we've had iterative reports that have told us about the direction of travel you know from James Heckman who came here who was a Nobel laureate economist who said every pound that you invest early years you will have to invest around 15 to 16 pounds to get a different outcome now he talked about dollars and not pounds but I'm I'm showing that sort of equivocation oh we have not managed to do that in any meaningful way that's going to stop people coming into the system although I would say on a positive note I think if you look around what has happened in youth justice and the numbers of people in the system just now that is a huge you know I mean it's an amazing you know transformation in the system I mean in 2009 we had 921 16 and 17 year olds in the prison system in 1920 we had 149 and this year it's even lower that will eventually translate through the system you know as we prevent more people coming in but there is much more that we need to do and we need a coherent long-term plan without I'll stop speaking after this because I'm going to end up sounding very defensive here I don't think that's been for the lack of policy focus from or attention from ministers and I've been one of them so I'm sounding super defensive here and I think what gives me hope is what is the experience you've recounted there about youth justice which I think is an incredible transformation of performance and long long overdue but I'm interested in why we've not been able to get the necessary focus on shifting that balance across the wider public sector is it because there are too many players involved is it because we're too stuck in the groove of what we've done all of the above perhaps mr swinney I think you know I'll just give you my perspective on it your question implied was there any serious discussion about effectively rewiring the justice budget and well there's not that's not happening in any substantial sense so the police get funded they've got 1.4 billion just over just over any serious discussion we're injustice come out with the police justice board with the police and the other big but any indication that they would be willing to surrender some of that over to community justice no or that was a cheap cost well I wouldn't be doing it either but well you see look now let me just stop you there mr Fitzpatrick because I think that's a really interesting observation so you're sitting on a justice board with all these players and there is no serious discussion of that point which makes my point that somewhere there has to be an impetus and a priority to realise that we you know the model has to change and ultimately I appreciate there'll be others that will say you know the police budget cannot possibly ever ever be less than this plus and you know this committee hears those representations but ultimately there has to be some degree of conversation if we're not going to if we're going to shift that balance I agree with you mr swinney not only by your direct question by the implication that flow from it so there has to be a discussion at some point about what we want the justice budget to do and if we place as much faith as we do in things like the vision for justice for Scotland which was published last year the national strategy for community justice if an uninformed reader of those things would think oh my goodness the government are putting full strength behind community justice and then you look at the budget the budget the whole community justice not the back we control the whole community justice element the justice and versions budget is four percent 96 percent of it's spent on preventing crime and patrolling the streets prosecuting people and locking them up in jail and I think the famous joe biden once said you show me your budget and I'll tell you what your values are and that's where we are at the moment so I don't see this with any animus towards it I was a police officer 30 years I was a senior police officer and and I know the pressures are under but my sense in the justice sector and across you've alluded to it yourself everybody is it whether they are or not is in the position they're holding the line it's the reason why we get a retreat to statutory duties that holds the line I have to do that so that's what I'm going to prioritise and do we're not moving forward on it and I would say I'm currently disagree with me to probably my row after this but the serious discussions that you thought were happening or thought might be happening or not that's very helpful thank you thank you my questions are going to be very similar to John Swinney's so I will take that forward and it is about this disconnect between stated policy and reality on the ground now if we look at the budgets according to SPICE the community justice budget is flat in real terms you'll know this committee spent a considerable amount of the last year looking at the bill legislation that's coming through and it's quite clear that from Angela Constance that the long-term strategy of the Scottish Government is to shift towards more community justice disposals as an attempt to try and reduce prison numbers or even just to keep prison numbers where they are because the direction of travel as we know is up so surely the people that drive change are the politicians it's the government who else can possibly drive change if it's not the politicians that are put there to do it who else in the system is in a position to do that and what discussions have you had as an organisation with ministers about what they expect from you if the money that the sector is getting isn't increasing are you being asked to do more is it being made explicit to you because surely the courts will only dispose using community justice disposals if they're actually there isn't that the major factor that's determining the fact that our prison numbers are continuing to go up and we just the sector is actually shrinking rather than the expanding from what you're saying is that fair it is fair so i'm just i would just the sentence commission last year put out a paragraph and it said one of the greatest challenges to judicial confidence in community disposals concerns limitations of resources to support their management and delivery a more consistent approach to the development and funding of these disposals to support a more consistent provision robust management and successful completion would enhance judicial confidence and would be expected to support an increase in the use of community-based disposals i have been involved in judicial training over the last number of weeks i must have spoken to around 100 sheriffs and what they say to me is i'll ask them because we still have about 5100 short term sentences and i know people you know talk about you know really difficult people and i say to sheriffs why are you still using them under general and i can't speak for them but i'll paraphrase so 20 won't comply with community sentences and we all know who they are i mean i've dealt with them when i was in place in vial deduction unit but 80 can't comply with the guys that you know you tell them we've got to be two o'clock at you know drug services and then they've got to be at homelessness and then i've got to be here they don't have a diary you know they're chaotic and we need something different so i mean in the submission we said we need to look at other types of community sentences because things have changed people are more complicated we need to think about how we manage them in communities this is primarily about reducing victimisation so are you saying that sheriffs and others are not making community-based disposals because they don't think the offender will comply with them or that they're not available they're not available i think it's they're not available it's not that they won't comply because i think that in the majority of cases we do get so you're saying the scottish government needs to put its money where its mouth is well we need to have consistent provision i mean in fact that is in the community justice you know plan that we're doing that we need to have consistent provision across scotland so we mentioned caladonia in there only available in certain places and it shouldn't be right that for example you might get a different sentence in verness and a different sentence in eastern bartonshire there should be the same parity of services although what is there already is really really very good you know 74 percent of people complete their orders you know so do you think if that those alternatives were available in every part of the country they would be used by the courts yes i think they would be used by the courts thank you i think i think also underlying that question i mean it's easy something really easy to sort of point and finger the government or nod your head as you say but we have a role in that we're an advisory body we're meant to advise ministers we're meant to contribute to the conversation we need to be better at that so i mean this submission here is one of the first times we've done a detailed analysis on this level but we need to convert that because part of our mission is to inform not only advise ministers is to inform the public we need to make sure that this sort of information the stuff that's compelling actually is in the public discourse in the political discourse so actually part of the problem is as we've still got a way to go to be convincing around about that because as things stand we know what decisions policy makers think are their priorities and most they may be right but we need to be a better part of that conversation and more active at it okay john swiney no surprise you've got to come back in without the risk of becoming of appearing which is difficult as the spokesman for the government i think that the point is important here is about the political discourse because it's not just all about the government i'm not you know colleagues no i'm not in any way personalising this but you know there is a limitation on the amount of money available and in that context how do we try to reshape outcomes by the better use of money and by doing the same you know let's say the look for simplicity sake it's 96 four if we just keep on 96 four forever chances are we're going to get roughly the same outcomes or perhaps as Katie Clarke has rightly said worse outcomes because the numbers in incarcerated incarcerated are rising exponentially so that 96 four might inevitably become 97 three or 98 two because we're going to worse outcomes as swiney can also say around the prison service i have worked in the prison service my colleagues in the prison service working incredibly hard there are still a need for prison places in Scotland much fewer but the prison staff and the people who work there need the latitude and you know and ability to be able to intervene with people to you know to get them on programs you know and to work to try and rehabilitate them they can't do that if there's 8 000 and so we we have to be the solution for the problems in Scotland we must be the solutions and so we're going to have to have some very hard conversations i think with everybody including members of the committee around what it is we want and how we're going to pay for it in the future and i think the other thing about it is is we obviously are part of the community justice sector we're the only national body for community justice don't have line authority but if i was the government i wouldn't give us a penny more till we justified why you would spend that penny in community justice why it would deliver the benefits you think it's going to deliver we need to be much more convincing about what that change that needs to happen will deliver for scotland will it make it a safer place will people rehabilitate will people stop reoffending you know why would that be good because if in the absence of that convincing case i'm going to steep on keep on spending money in the police keep on spending money in the courts and keep on spending money in the in the prison service because that have no alternative thank you i think sharon dowey is next one by rona mckay sharon thank you i think bill's actually just touched on my point there i was going to come up with outcomes so one of that again going back into john swinney's last question you'd mentioned figures for the youth justice in the lower number of youths in custody but one of the things that i'm certainly getting in my inbox is a lot more complaints about the rise in antisocial behaviour in crime on the streets and it seems to be that the police are saying that their hands are tied in action that can take it so what role would community justice have in there and what action needs to be taken and where is it we're failing in that respect because we're saying that we've got good measurements because we've got less youths in custody but crime out in the street seems to be on the rise so as far as outcomes go but it's not a good outcome so if you look at i mean if you look at the stats crime is coming down i mean crime is coming down but that's because it's not been reported but well listen absolutely i mean you know i've got family that have been affected by online crime and i don't think they've probably reported it either so we can you know but generally in terms of recorded crime it is coming down i don't have anything to do with antisocial behaviour on the streets that would be a question for the for the chief constable but in terms of in terms of so for those who are bailed the majority of people do not commit crime whilst they're on bail but there are those who need supported whilst they're on bail and the challenge for us right now and in fact for the whole of the justice system is the fact because court cases are taking much longer to be you know to be arranged et cetera people are on bail for really substantial amounts of time and of course there is an increasing risk that they may then you know re-offend or breach the bail conditions and that is you know that's just what we're dealing with right now but in terms of delivering a change only the reconviction rate for people who are on cpo's is 25% generally but for a if you're in a short term sentence for a reconviction rates if your sentence to under three months is 61% reconviction 36 months 54% and six months to a year 41% so it's not working we have 10,500 people going to jail every year and 8,600 come back within the year we are much more effective at preventing reoffending than short term sentences i think if you enhance some of the work that was around in communities i think we could we could drive that even lower i don't think that's quite answered your question but it's it's basically the focus in the the real sources that you've got in the right areas absolutely and and people need wraparound services we deal with really complicated people often who've committed you know numerous sort of low level crimes but they are complicated they're often you know enslaved in substances you know we need to try and get them into you know substance misuse services and the recovery that takes quite a long time that takes a long time it's very technical work okay and i'd probably go back to Bill Fitzpatrick's point on i think some of the organizations we need to give us more evidence on what the outcomes are going to be because yes so data so i trained as an intelligence analyst so data is everything when i've been in front of the committee before they've said that they really lack some of the data around community justice i would agree i would agree i would have a data hub in my organization in a heartbeat i'd be trying to get the stats that tell you what's actually happening there where improvement is happening because you can't take my word all your things are getting better i can give you some broad stats but there's detail underneath that that i need to give to the committee and to the government and to the Scottish government and we don't have that right now because we have prioritized other data sources and i heard the previous committee talking about some of the data that they need around victim for the victims and witnesses bill and i would say it's probably one of the biggest gaps that we have if we want to look at some of the criminal issues around as a public health issue the first part of that is surveillance what is it you know about the issue and how do we know whether we're getting better and not worse and so we don't have that miss downey i think just on the point of outcomes i'm going to say this it'll sound fflappant and it's not meant to be fflappant it's real from experience but we're always complaining about lanes they've always done it for the whole of history every generation of lanes has been a problem they're running riot they're uncontrollable they're not like us but there is a serious issue about that as is i think the vast majority is not a criminal justice issue it's about children feeling secure children feeling supported children being in the positive influence of education children being in family or care groups it's about that but it recurs all the time when i was a divisional commander back a million years ago the most letters i ever received not about murders not about rapes not about him was wanes causing water and gang fights it wasn't to be ignored i think the direction of youth justice in the country is the best example that we've got take children out of the criminal justice system mainly except in the extreme cases which are very very obvious and treat them in the care system make sure they're supported and make sure that that's available for them so we're tangentially involved in that youth justice issues isn't a particular specific responsibility we've got but we're on the youth justice board or i'm represented don't have been for the last five years and that rights approach to youth justice is the correct route in my view to go and we'll help but it's a typical wicked problem children will always present every day an issue okay thank you a couple more members would like to come in and then i think we'll have to pull the session to close so rona mcae then pulling me in thanks again i will be brief i think this is a really really interesting discussion we're having a really interesting session and what we're learning is if we keep doing the same thing budget wise things are not going to get better in fact they'll get worse and it goes back to the point i think that that john swinney made and that you more or less made the case for it as well mr foots magic is about the sector getting together to discuss how we can do things differently because you know if we cut the Scottish prison budget and the next budget there'd be an outrage because that preparatory work has not been done so my question to you is do you think it's possible for yourselves and government to affect change in the way that we need to do it do you think it's possible but as you say mr foots magic quite rightly you know it hasn't happened and people are protecting their own area so that needs to change so that i mean i guess being a bit simplistic about it if we're putting more less people in prison which we aim to do that there shouldn't be that need for such a huge budget that might be simplistic and that money could be put into community justice but those are things that would need to be i mean i'm certainly no economist so those are things that would need to be but until we start having the conversation about change nothing's going to happen am i right would you no you're absolutely right and it's not just a simple you know taking money from the prison service input in the community justice no absolutely because obviously health and homelessness etc you know is all impacted so it's a broader government cake we don't actually have that many people i know we've got a lot of people in prison right now there are not that many people in community justice so if you're talking about 15 or 20 000 you can almost imagine them you know you can start to think who are high need who need extra services who are the ones who you know maybe come in once but won't come back in and i actually think that we could start to cost that out and i think we need to look at costing outcomes how much it's going to cost us to the other and then you need to look at us a bit like a sort of start-up company we need start-up money to be able to affect that change and i think absolutely we can do it i'm incredibly optimistic about it i you know i'm buying on about preventative services about preventing people to come in you know all the time i just think we need to set the direction of travel and that is about long-term change and politicians will need to do that i can't make up the strategy or the policy we need to you know set the set the set the direction of travel and then go forward relentlessly to try and achieve that and it has it has been done in other countries i think it is it is possible mean if you look at finland and you look at um a lot of other scandinavian countries belgium netherlands they decided in the 60s and 70s to have a fundamental shift in how they approach justice much more focus on community interventions and keeping people out of prison and supporting their reintegration and they did it and i think we can do it as well through through that kind of discussions and i think in some sense is the the discussion around different justice partners budgets being cut i think is is not necessarily the right one because part of this is about how the resources that are deployed to police prison service courts crime office are used differently and i think there are levers for that and how we shift that in terms of i think the community justice scotland act puts a duty of collaboration on the part of those national partners to be engaged in community justice and to be thinking about how they can be doing it differently but what we have is a very complex system with lots of different um lots of different levers for change and lots of different bits that interact with another that can produce all kinds of different outcomes so i think the the the evidence on how you shift a system like that is that you first agree a clear direction of travel you get a sense of shared values across those partners and you try and drive it and i think that is something that i think is is is happening to a degree there are discussions there's clear ideas through the justice vision and the national strategy for community justice but how that translates into practice i think is the is the big gap it's that implementation that's the challenge and so i think additional money will help that if you can target it at specific things but it's much more about how we use how we use the resources we have to do the things we know that make the difference and my colleagues in police line i'm going to give a shout out to police scotland to you have been hugely thoughtful around arrest you know diversion about trying to get people in the custody cells to try and support people when they bring in the mint to custody i always used to say to my police and colleagues that the most important paleon principle is i think it's number eight which is the absence of crime and disorder is a litmus tested group police line and that is fundamentally moving into that preventative space i know that we always focus on detection and how quickly we can get people to court but it is solely it is about prevention and we seem to have slightly forgotten that you know as things have become more challenging but i do think it is completely possible i think the whole thing i was excuse me just just to say there is a cost to change but there's also a time lag for effect to take take place and and there needs to be patience about that the thing that we need to prevent we as an organisation not you guys you know but it's not a competitive sport we don't have to be first across the line and people lose i still feel we probably got the best police force in the world we've probably got the best prison service in the world we've probably got the best prosecution service in the world if not the best they'll be in the top echelon that's a hard place to be in and say we need we need more money to do what we're doing and we shouldn't cut those budgets because those are excellent services what we need to do is make space for something else to be happening and we need to be patient enough to let it take the effects we think it's going to produce okay thank you and very finally Pauline McNeill thank you so it struck me that if we're being honest successive governments and successive parliaments have tried to get the shift into community justice so that's my view of it we don't have time for you to get to answer my question i wonder if you could follow up with the committee and the first is and i think it would be helpful for a report given the very good evidence you've given is one what are the numbers exactly that you're dealing with because i don't think we've got any sense of that and secondly so to wrap it up if you like what i'm hearing is if you had even a quarter of a million pounds more or half a million pounds more you could do something with that and to quote bill if it's Patrick you know don't give me a penny more until you can justify it i agree with that because that is public confidence and judiciary confidence are essential to move it forward so i just wondered maybe you could follow up with the committee on the numbers and also give us some indication with it if you did have additional budget can you hit the ground running with the types of things that would give public confidence and judiciary confidence that instead of sending people to prison you can sentence them to community services yeah i'm happy to i'm happy to sort of we've got lots of numbers here we could be here for the next hour if i started to go through them all around around what that looks like and yes i do i don't think it's just quarter of a million when we are talking about services right the way over scotland it's a bit more significant than that i have to say i mean we obviously at the moment we are commissioning through care in scotland and the budget has been about 3.8 million for the last five years and yet we have many more people coming through and we have to support them and if we adjust that for inflation you could probably say that's around five million pounds and we've not adjusted it for inflation so we're actually trying to do more with less so there are whole areas of that justice journey where community justice services are involved that we need to look at in funding and that's part of the the evidence submission when we're talking about some of the economic costing and where we should perhaps put our money for greater you know for greater effect but we'll get back to you on the numbers thank you thank you very much thank you very much okay i am going to have to bring the session to a close i'm sure we could have spent at least another hour on this so thank you very much to our panel members for your time this morning at our next meeting next week on the 8th of November we'll continue our pre-budget scrutiny when we hear from the scotish prison service and then the cabinet secretary for justice and home affairs so that concludes our meeting and i close this meeting thank you