 I welcome everyone to the Justice Committee's sixth meeting of 2015. Can I ask everyone to sit show mobile phones on other electronic devices as they interfere with broadcasting even when they're switched to silent? Alison McInnes has submitted her apologies. Item one, subordinate legislation. It's a consideration of an affirmative instrument, the draft European protection order Scotland regulations 2015. I welcome to meeting Paul Wheelhouse, Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, Neil Watt, head of EU implementation team, Neil Robertson, EU policy manager and Craig McGuffey, directorate of legal services, Scottish Government. The minister will give evidence in advance of the debate on the instrument. Can I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement, please, minister? Thank you very much, convener, and thank you indeed for allowing me to appear for you today. I know you're very busy and it's much appreciated. The regulations in part transpose into domestic law the terms of directive 2011, 99 EU, which is part of a suite of measures designed to support and protect victims across the EU. The general objective of the directive, as outlined in the policy note, is to provide mutual recognition across the EU of criminal protection orders, for example, non-harassment orders. Practically, that means that protection measures issued in one EU country will have to be recognised across the entire EU in this way that protection will travel with the individual. We have liais closely with the UK Government throughout the development of our own legislation to try and ensure consistency of approach where possible. For example, in relation to incoming European protection orders or EPOs, Scottish courts will have the power to impose non-harassment orders and English courts will have the power to impose restraining orders, which are broadly equivalent. Whilst the regulations transpose most of the directive, there is also a requirement for court rules. We have therefore liais closely with the Lord President's office to discuss the likely requirements, and the Criminal Court Rules Council is currently considering this matter. Areas to be covered by court rules will include practical and administrative arrangements around the application process for an EPO, notifications, modifications of EPOs and translation of forms. We expect an act of a journal to be laid in Parliament shortly. Those regulations were initially laid in December 2014. There was a question as to whether the regulations as laid made adequate provision in the drafting for the definition of protective measure. Obviously, that question could not be allowed to remain. As a result, the regulations were withdrawn so that this matter could be resolved. During reconsideration of the regulations, a question also arose as to the criminal penalty that could be applied using section two-two of the European Communities Act. After due consideration, the regulations were amended to provide for a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment to ensure that they were within various. The administrative and procedural aspects of the new EPO regime will fall, for the most part, to the Scottish Court Service, and we have therefore worked closely with them to ensure that the relevant arrangements are in place prior to this new regime coming into force. As the committee will appreciate, it is difficult to ascertain the likely volumes of incoming and outgoing EPOs, given that we are establishing a completely new process, however we anticipate that the numbers will be low and we do not foresee any significant financial implications of the regulations. We will, however, continue to lay closely with the Scottish Court Service and other key stakeholders to monitor the operation of EPOs once introduced and any practical or financial impact. We have also written to victim support organisations, advising them not only of the new regime but indicating that, as always, we are open to comments in due course about how the new system is working in practice. It goes without saying that the Scottish Government is fully committed to strengthening the rights and protection of victims and we believe that those regulations, along with the associated court rules, will enhance those rights and that protection. I think that you have probably covered it with a comment you made there. In the consultation, it will be referred to the liaison on the technical side of things, the court side. In the equality impact assessment, it says that the main impact is expected to be around domestic abuse. When you talk about victims groups, can you explicitly include Scottish Women's Aid? The paper that we have here talks about how it operates in practice, but it is not specifically mentioned. It was all in-house groups, so can you confirm that they would be? I certainly give an undertaking that. We will consult with Scottish Women's Aid to see if they have any concerns about that and to keep them informed of the work as it unfolds and make sure that any evaluation evidence we do consult with the likes of Scottish Women's Aid. I agree with Mr Finney that they are a very important group that protect the interests of victims of such crimes. Many thanks. It is just to clarify this, of course, that there would not be criminal proceedings following domestic abuse, but there might be, but there is also, I believe, a civil order that parallels this. Is it in the same time frame? Is it just a matter of interest? Just to double-check with colleagues if that is—I believe that it is, yes, that is correct. Elaine Margarit? I think that the civil one already enforces it. It came into force on the 11th of January. I was interested in the equality impact assessment as well as that the sorts of crimes that this would particularly apply to would be crimes of domestic abuse, and therefore obviously anything that prevents perpetrators from being able to get away with that by moving elsewhere is to be desired. You also mentioned that we didn't think that there would be significant financial implications for the Scottish court service. If that proves not to be the case, are measures in place or will measures be in place in order to try and—because what we've heard already about financial pressures on the court service, will there be the ability to compensate the court service if it doesn't turn out to be the case? It's certainly something that we're aware of. As I said in my opening statement, it's very difficult to predict the exact volumes, but I might be asking Neil Robertson to come in very briefly about European supervision orders because we think that the volumes will be similar to that, but we can obviously come back to the committee with further detail to justify this position. I understand that the numbers are very low in the case of European supervision orders, and therefore we don't anticipate there would be a huge number of cases that would potentially impact on the Scottish courts. Obviously, we'll keep that under review. If it turns out that the volumes are higher than anticipated, then obviously we would speak to the Scottish court service if there are particular resource issues. We can take that into account, but if it may be, could we just invite Neil Robertson to explain the European supervision order position as well? Yes, the committee, what we call—we spoke to you last year about the European supervision order, and at the time we anticipated the numbers to be about seven to ten a year. We think that the European protection order will have similar numbers, but as with any new European measure, it is very hard to predict from the outset. We have also given an undertaking with the ESO to monitor a friendly adverse financial impact, and that would be the same with the European protection order as well. You referred to the delay due to drafting and clarifying the criminal penalty. Is there likely to be any consequence of that only being introduced and implemented now? We are conscious of the delay and the transposition deadline issue. We have not to date had any applications that have affected us, so we are hopeful that, given the timing of today's committee meeting, indeed, if Parliament agrees with the measure, we can get it implemented quickly, but we do not have any immediate difficulties. We could understand if necessary to take out a civil interdict, if necessary to take steps in the meantime, if there was something that emerged immediately. We can discuss that if required, but we are confident that we can get it up and running quickly if the committee agrees with the measure. I would like to ask if there is a breach of a protection order. Let us say that somebody coming from a European country is here breaching the protection order. Who enforces the penalties and what penalties and to which country do those penalties get enforced? Someone from another EU member state is in Scotland. Or vice versa. If they breach a protection order, presumably criminal penalties are following from that. Under which legislative procedure—let's say that somebody from Scotland who breaches it by following somebody to Germany or whatever—is it Scottish law that would prevail there because they have breached an order in Scotland? I just want to know how it is done. I suppose that the key thing is to say that it is about us respecting an order that has been issued in another country. Similarly, it would apply if somebody was in Spain, for example, and breaching an order that had been set in Scotland, they would be committing an offence effectively in Spain. That would be recognised, in fact, if it had been issued. I will just double-check whether Craig can clarify the legal position, if I may bring in Craig on this one. If the European protection order is made in Spain, that European protection order is passed to the 30s in Scotland, the Scottish authorities will impose a breach of that non-harassment order in Scotland. There is a crime in Scotland, and it will be punishable under the… I will just let you know about where the jurisdiction would fall if there was a breach. The same vice versa. If somebody in Scotland has an EPO, that transfers to Spain, it is enforced in Spain through a Spanish restraining order. Breach of it there would fall under Spanish law. That is clear from me. Thank you very much. I have no other questions. I therefore now move on to item 2, which is the formal debate on the motion to approve the instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S4M-12361, that justice committee recommends the draft European protection order of the Scotland regulations 2015 be approved. Do any members wish to speak in the debate in the motion? No. The question is that motion S4M-12361 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? As members are aware, we are required to report on all the formative instruments. Are you content to delegate responsibility from me to sign off this report? Thank you very much minister for your officials. I will suspend for a couple of minutes to allow the name plates to be changed for the next item. The next item of business is a one-off round table evidence session on agricultural crime. I welcome the witnesses to the session. Each of you should have a copy of the table plan and your desk. I will go round the table anti-clockwise and write each member a participant to introduce myself and start with myself. Before I do that, you are not all done around table discussion before. It simply is that if you indicate to me that there is more interaction between your witnesses with the occasional permissible intervention by members of the committee, what you do is just indicate to me if you want to come in. I will automatically go on with the speak light lit up and this will light up. You just indicate to me and I will call you out for a list. I will call you out the order on the list that I am going to call people and feel free. It is supposed to be an easier way to gain evidence within a short period of time. We will see how it works. I am Christine Grair and I chair the justice committee. I am the MSP for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale, which is a rural community in the main. I am the head of policy from the Crine Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. I am afraid that I am a last minute stand-in because Mr Dysart, who was due to be here, is unfortunately not well today. I am sorry, I am going out clockwise instead of anti-clockwise. It has been that kind of a day for me, by the way. It is going to disintegrate further. Yes, next please. Hi everyone, I am Jamie Smart, NFU Scotland. I have just taken over the legal and technical chair and I farm in West Lothian. My name is Mark Malone, I am a regional manager for the NFU Meats and Insurance for Scotland in Ireland. Good morning, Christian Ladd, north-east MSP. Good morning, I am Robbie Allen, Detective Chief Superintendent from Police Scotland. I have responsibility for local crime within Police Scotland. Is it me or you? It is Gil. I am looking at you. I just do not want to get into trouble. Gil Paterson MSP for Clydeback Mwgai. I am Dr Robert Smith, I am a Professor of Enterprise and Innovation at the University of West of Scotland. I am an academic and former policeman with an interest in agricultural crime. I am Roderick Campbell MSP for a Significantly Rural, North-East Fife. I am Douglas Scott. I am Senior Policy Advisor with Scottish Borders Council. I administer the Scottish Borders Police Plan Rescue and Safer Communities Board and I work very closely with the integrated safer communities service within Scottish Borders Council. Margaret Mitchell MSP, Central Scotland. Good morning, Teresa Diggle, regional manager with Scottish Land and the States. I am Elaine Murray MSP for Dumfriesia and Vice-Convina. I am interested to hear what we say today because I just heard on the radio this morning about £20,000 worth of forestry equipment being stolen from the Barronne College in my constituency just yesterday. I think that the point that you have also made before we start is that many of us represent all of us practically sitting around this table, rural communities or substantially rural communities, which belies the central belt stigma that is attached to the Parliament, which is somehow urban. Many of us have these and that is why we thought it very important on the suggestion of Margaret Mitchell because she came up with the suggestion that we have this round table. I think that it is very, very useful and I hope that we can pursue it further, subject to what comes out. I would just like to start. Anybody want to start asking—we had a bit about what is agricultural crime or rural crime, and maybe I do not want an academic treatise on it, given the idea of the topics of Dr Smith that we might be looking at. Agricultural crime or farm crime is a category of crimes that are mainly theft of various types, but it is part of rural crime and it could be subsumed with other things such as green criminology or wildlife crime or waste crime. It is very location-based and specific to particular areas. What forms agricultural crime is different in the UK to other countries, but that is quite a short version of what it is. We are not going to focus much on the environmental today rather than on artefacts, equipment, cattle and things like that. Could we possibly have somebody pitch in and indicate that they want to say something? Surely, Mr Smart, you will get something to say. You are a working farmer, so let us hear. It takes in everything from the wee bits of scrap that we all have lying around our yards that will disappear one day right out through to the £1.5 million piece of machinery. It also brings in the irresponsible access taking and sheep worrying. It is absolutely everything, and it is everything from the very low level right up to virtually millions of pounds worth of equipment. What about your experience and your members? Give us some examples that you can pluck for us. There is one that has been in the press just last week. The member had 70 sheep killed by dogs. The reason that it was in the press was that it went to court and the owner of the dogs had a £400 pound fine. Our member has had £20,000 worth of damage and costs, which he has not even been able to make acclaim on his insurance because there has been a criminal case going on. That is just one instance that is affecting a member in West Llorian. I had a meeting yesterday with one of our members, who is in the Borders, but over the hill we have South Lanarkshire. He was saying that one of the main issues that they have been hit hard for is theft of livestock. I have a list of five farms in the area. They are saying that even from the one farm, on a typical year, they are losing anything from 30 upwards use. They said that they would try and give a cost to that. They would say that for each use that they lose, they could be looking at what they would pay for a new quad bike. It is not just the loss of the use, it is the lamb and subsequent followers thereon. Certainly from the research that we have done on rural climb, it is mainly theft, but there is also vandalism and also loss of livestock as well, and also livestock injury as well. We have had incidents with regard to horses and so on. That is the range of things that we are looking at, but theft is the main thing. Theft of equipment could be generators, power tools, quad bikes, and so on. Theft of equipment is one of the largest rural insurers across the UK. We have ensured roughly 65 per cent of farming in Scotland. The main items that are stolen are quad bikes, tools and fuel, and the top three items that have been stolen. Catlin-Ruslin is also a major issue. In 2013, we had 26 incidents costing £127,800, and last year we had £25 incidents costing £82,000, so it is a significant cost implication as well. The other side then is that what we would see is more organised crime, where we have larger items of equipment stolen, such as large-value tractors and harvesters. That is not likely to be opportunist. It is more likely to be more for an organised crime, and we have recovered some of these items as far away as Poland, with a very significant cost. Total cost last year was about £2 million. We do have a recovery unit, and we do work very closely with the police across the whole of the UK, and we have a dedicated unit that is looking at recovery of stolen vehicles and items. When we started looking at this, we do not have a specific category of rural crime or farm crime, but it is an acquisitive crime, which is what we were looking at. When we started looking at it, it basically went by location, and it is very much crimes recorded that we have related to the theft of equipment, vehicles and livestock. A small proportion of vandalisms and fire raisins was another one that we looked at as well, as it is coming under this category that we are looking at today. When we did look at a livestock, it was mainly sheep cattle, small proportion of chickens as well within that. From Police Scotland's point of view, we started to look at it as rural farm crime was concerned. It was interesting that you mentioned fire raisin, because one at Borthwick farm in my constituency was just reported, which surprised me. Why would somebody do fire raisin in a farm? We don't understand vandalism, presumably, of something. Do members want to come in and feel that they want Margaret? You mentioned more local policing, I would term it. How do you address the organised side? From our point of view, like any type of criminality, we base it on whatever evidence we are getting. The people who are arresting the intelligence that we are obtaining helps us to paint the picture as to whether we have a group that we can target as an organised crime group. There is little doubt for individuals to manage to steal high-value equipment and get it as far as Poland. If we use that example, there is a significant amount of organisation involved in that. However, for us to target the group that is potentially involved in that, we need to identify who that group is in the first instance, how they are operating as a group and what they enable us in place to allow them to undertake that criminality. That is very much intelligence-driven from us. That is why those links into local community and those different ways that we gather intelligence are so important to us to try to build that picture. We would then utilise the same tactics that we would use against any other organised crime, be they involved in money laundering or drugs, but it does not matter if they are organised and they are undertaking criminality. There are certain tactics that we can then deploy to dismantle that organised crime group and stop them from undertaking what they are doing. There is no doubt that, for the higher value stuff that they need to do, there is no need to say that there is not some in relation to some of the lower-level crime, some organisation involved in that. I would also say about organised crime is that they are involved in significant criminality across their communities and that they will also take the opportunity wherever it presents itself. They will not restrict themselves just to rural crime or they will just take the opportunity where they can make money wherever it is. If that means that they can see something that they are going to do in an opportunity within a rural environment, they will take that as well, but it might be that their day-to-day business is something else, but they will branch out as in when they see the opportunity. Dr Smith, you said that you knew who the perpetrator was. In the NFU document that came in quite late to the committee, it said that there was a kind of frustration that, although the perpetrators were known, the police did not have resources to pursue that, and that was a frustration. Would you like to comment on that aspect when it is still with the police and the resources? I would need to say that there can be a sense of frustration for us as well, where you may know or may have an idea of who is involved in that criminality, but proving that is a completely different problem for us. I am sorry, that is my phone. I am on calling for Police Scotland today. I will not, not my committee. No, I know that. I absolutely. I will not tell you what dire fear is. I will wait you if you are electrocuted. Everybody else, you better check. Only pacemakers are allowed to see on. What we do if the inquiry is a local inquiry will remain within the division to undertake that inquiry, if we create these links or establish these links to a more organised footing, then that division will then get support from more central-based resources from within specialist crime division. That is when I was talking earlier on about the tactics that you would use to tackle an organised crime group. If there are specific instances where we do not think that the police have responded in a manner that we would want, I would like to know about that because obviously I have got responsibility for local crime and I would like to think that there is an appropriate response to every crime and there is a robust and thorough investigation. What we do is we have a process in place where a crime has been established and reported to us. Once it is recorded, it is then monitored as it goes through the lifetime of that inquiry, so it needs to be an audit trail as to what inquiry has been undertaken in relation to that crime. We will not complete or finish or finalise an inquiry until everything has been exploited that should have been exploited. Whether that is CCTV, door-to-door inquiry, forensic evidence, everything needs to be done. I would be really disappointed if members are saying that there has been an insufficient response to what is a serious crime. I am just hoping that it was not a report about agricultural crime and that I have stopped you on your tracks and that will be the headline. One of the problems is in relation to intelligence gathering and the fact that, from my research into the theft of tractors in the UK, there seems to be organised crime groups centred around various urban areas. One that was identified was Carlyle. There was North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Manchester Coventry. A lot of those organised crime groups travel once they are targeted in an area, so there may be an element of cross-border. Police Scotland possibly simply does not have the intelligence on it until you know that someone is travelling to a particular area. It is hard to keep track on groups that move around the country. I would say that that is an area that Police Scotland has afforded us a much better opportunity to establish those cross-border links. Particularly in the past, maybe we had eight different forces trying to tie all of that up. It is much easier now when you have one force. We already have very good links into both the north-east and the north-west in England, so that we have that cross-border coverage. There is no doubt that our criminals, whatever they are involved in, are travelling up and down between Scotland and England. We need to be very aware of that exact point that you are making there. It is an area that we are improving greatly in, because we have now got that linkage that would help us with that. The next point that NFU Scotland makes is that they thought that the problem had been exacerbated by the centralisation of Police Scotland very often because the local knowledge is not there, leading to a slow response time, which seems to be the opposite of what you are saying. Absolutely. I would refute that quite clearly. Police Scotland has not taken police officers away from the local areas. They are still within the communities. The officers who would be the first responders are still the first responders, whether they were a legacy force or whether they are a division within Police Scotland. What there is now is that there is a much more co-ordinated central support for the enquiries as they escalate and they become more organised or that the value increases. We need to put more support in behind it. The local response still needs to be the most effective one, because that is where you will get that initial evidence grab. That is where you have the opportunity of getting some sort of quick evidence that takes us down the line of a detection. That is still going to be the most important. That is not changed, whether it is Police Scotland, Lothian and Borders, Northern and Strathclyde. Those officers are still within the communities. I am going to take on these issues. We take witnesses first. I have got Mr Smart, Mr Scott and Theresa Dougal on my member's list. I have got John, Elaine, Roderick and Christian. If you want to come in and supplement if somebody is answering, just let me know, but that is the system just now. Mr Smart, you are obviously NFU. Just to respond to D.C.S. Allen's comments there, what we find when we are trying to report crime is getting the call handler in the control room to understand where we are. To let you understand, when you are in a rural area, you give a postcode, my postcode covers a mile radius, so even to find the farm can be difficult. Then, to say that the sheep have been stolen from the hawk, it means nothing to a control room person who might be in the middle of Edinburgh, and that is where we feel that we have lost local contact. Once we get to the local police person, it is a lot better, but the control room quite often just does not know where we are. That is a good point. I have had difficulty finding some farms in my lifetime. Three-point turns and funny retracts in different places in most unsuitable vehicles. Mr Scott. The Scottish Forbors were very lucky because we have an integrated safer committee unit, which is the place that heavily involved in that. They lead it with council staff and antysocial behaviour team. We have a drugs and alcohol unit. We have our fire and rescue people all working together, focusing on communities. We are in the middle of a campaign at the moment trying to prevent crime on farms. We are sending information packs to 1,100 farms across the Scottish borders through this, in terms of giving farmers advice about what they should do to protect their equipment and their outbuildings, etc. We have also encouraged farmers to take partner Scottish Borders alert scheme, whereby we can email or phone people about crimes and everything that is happening in that particular area. Overall, in Scottish Borders, it is for the whole of the borders, but more than 2,000 people signed up to that. We feel that it is a powerful thing for the farming community. We are also supporting farm watch. Everything is about evidence and prevention and early intervention. We feel that, through our integrated unit, we are taking a very preventive approach and it involves police right in the heart of that. We feel that we have a lot of strength in that from the Scottish Borders point of view. Has it had an impact? Has it made a difference? You can have all that. Certainly, crimes of theft are down in the Scottish Borders in 2014-15. I know that one of the issues that we have is the price and the cost of the equipment that is going up, because it seems to be a higher value type crime that is taking place. Our actual crime in theft is going down. There is some evidence, but it is still early days yet. I concur, as well, with what Jamie said about the geographic area. The other thing that we have been working with members on and police in several areas is to try and raise awareness of the impact of the crimes on rural business. A lot of our members are asking for greater clarity on how the report crime was reported to 101 or to 999, because they feel that, while they completely understand that there are resourcing issues, they understand the difficulty faced by the police and where the resources should go to. What they are saying is that they would like more guidance on the best approach when reporting the crimes. One of the suggestions that has been made and that we are looking into, and we have a meeting set up down in Stranraer next month with the area commander, is to look at the possibility of providing what would class and more or less as awareness raising events for the officers to get them out on to the farms and estates to look at the business so that they can gain a better understanding of what happens on the farms and estates and to have that joined up approach and communications going both ways of what the rural crimes are, what the issues are, the difficulties being faced by the farmers, land managers and the police. The only way that we can actually look to improve the situation is to work better together. I am going to take the members now. John Lennon, please. A point that Mr Smart made, and while everyone's knowledge is time limited, it is a question for Mr Rymple about compensation orders. Certainly, in my time as a police officer, I recall dealing with a significant incident of sheep worrying. This is not a couple of sheep being chased around the field, but it is a field full of sheep slaughtered, and you can imagine the cost for the farmer. Is it not a matter of routine that, in a circumstance like Mr Smart, outlined that a compensation order would be applied for us? It depends entirely on the circumstances of the offence. Obviously, the fiscal themselves have up to £5,000 power in terms of compensation order that can be given without the case going to court. I cannot comment on the sentencing of the courts. I am sure that the convener is very aware of my limitations in respect of that, but the court could impose compensation. What the court needs to have available to them is all the information in terms of the impact. That is the one thing that I picked up this morning, is that a lot of the information that we have in terms of our report is the financial impact of the value, but what I am taking from this session already is that there is a wider impact. It is a wider impact for the future and moving forward for the businesses, which is something that we need to take back and learn from. Is there a protocol in which, if the direct measures refused a compensation order, it would still form farther the representation that the fiscal would make at any subsequent trial? We cannot ask the court to impose a compensation order. We can ask the court and make the court available of the financial loss and the impact, and then it is a matter for the court as to whether it will impose a compensation order. We are not allowed to advise the court in terms of sentencing the very limited circumstances that we can do that. Is there something that would be related by the fiscal in, for instance, case? From the police report, yes, but that is what I am saying. I am going back to my original point, that often we will have the financial loss just in a value, whereas it would probably be more helpful to have the on-going impact, etc., for the business going forward. Yes, that is certainly information that if we have, we can make sure that the court is aware of that information. It is insurers. Surely, when someone is claiming for loss, they are not just claiming for their 30 use, and they are not claiming for concomitant losses that are reasonably attached to it. On the basis of use that we are maybe in lamb, it would just be for the use, the loss of the use. Oh, I see. That would not be helpful then in compensation. It is quite interesting on the worrying one. The numbers of worrying over the last two years have remained the same, but the cost has almost doubled. Would it have been a assistance to compensation orders, but obviously not. John Swinney? No, but I think that it would be helpful if that could be picked up, if someone has some clarity around that. Financial compensation will always be welcomed, sure, by victims, but almost it is a recognition sometimes. People, as we know throughout the court system, feel sometimes that their full circumstances have not been taken cognisance of. It would be helpful if that could be picked up on, please. Whos job is it to provide that information? We will go from the information that is normally contained with the standard police report, but we will have liaison with the police in terms of if we require any further information, and the police are ordinarily very helpful in establishing any further information that we require. For compensation? For the purposes of offering compensation, certainly in terms of if we were offering a compensation order in terms of our fiscal direct measure powers. No, I am talking about the court. Whos job is it to provide that information to the court? The fiscal will provide the information to the court, and we will rely on the police to help us to obtain that information. If a yw is in lamb, that lamb would be covered within a compensation payment, but not the consistent loss of that would be brought through to production. No, we do get too remote, yes, I appreciate that. Elaine McLean In terms of the theft of livestock or specialist equipment, like the forestry equipment, but the barony, how much evidence is that people are actually stealing for a market and that a purchaser has already been identified? Because I would imagine that livestock are not going to be taken down in the car boot sale or whatever that is being stolen with somebody in mind who already knows that you are going to purchase or going to steal something for them. And how much, therefore, is there the prosecution or how often is the person who is in receipt of the stolen goods prosecuted? Because actually some highlighting of that might actually help to dampen the enthusiasm for allowing people to steal these types of goods. Who wants to take this up? Yes, thank you. I think we need to understand no matter what it is that is stolen, the person that is stealing it has an outlet for a market, for that, whatever it is that they are stealing, so there's no... But what you will find is, in relation to rural or agricultural crime, that there will still be some opportunist within that where they absolutely will know roughly how they can get rid of something and it might not just be exactly what it was that they wanted to stole, but if there's an opportunity to steal something, they will steal it. But yes, you're dead right that particularly around the bit of livestock etc, I would expect her to be before anyone goes and steals anything some method by which they know they can just get rid of that and make their money from it. So that's why we need to probably target a bit more upstream in relation to the criminal activity. The person actually going on to farm and stealing the properties, one person, it's who's actually involved in facilitating that the stolen property from being basically sold on or doing whatever they want to do with it. That's the real ones, that's the ones that we really want, the good intelligence on and that's the ones that we should, if we may be focused on knows if and when we can get that opportunity, that will help further down the chain. In relation to the theft of livestock, particularly sheep, I think a lot of it would be destined and it's linked with food fraud. So there is an ongoing market all the time for sheep, particularly sheep for the halal market and it's a well documented phenomena. So there is an outlet continually for that and in relation to the theft of tractors and machinery, there is a lot of evidence that the turn-up in Poland, the turn-up in Africa, Afghanistan, so in one documented, well documented case in England, it was a Turkish businessman who had arranged through a local crime group who stole it and it was then shipped to Southampton and then shipped to Turkey and it was all done through semi-legal, even the people transporting it didn't know it was a stolen tractor to them. So there is a high degree of, so there's organisation of mafias and things but you know until such an instance is reported it's difficult to know and until there are a number more cases it's difficult to profile and find out if there's thefts in the area where the connections are because the local police might just not know and it's you know I mean if you don't know you can't marshal and direct your resources so you know there is there is different elements of it, there is opportunists, there is organised crime and sorry you say that there should be more liaison with local police at what we might have called and I don't mean it's low level but in Verticoma it's low level theft of one let's say one track though devastating for the for the farmer landowner that there should be more liaison with police at serious organised crime so they can see there's a an actual pattern that is attractive here and there and something and is that not happening? Sorry I think that in I think that with Police Scotland being formed there is would be a greater level of intelligence sharing than there possibly was before but within Scotland there are a number of intelligence systems you take it into England and Wales and practically every force has a different intelligence system so it's quite labour intensive and time consuming to follow up and make sure that every instance is known everywhere because if it's a travelling crime group and they're coming up from Manchester or Birmingham they may have no known connection to the area so yes there is a need for it but I think in Scotland as well the Scottish councils and the Scottish police have a very good level of co-operation probably more than is the case in some of the English and Welsh forces but there's more could be done so there is there is a need for it but more could be done such as? More could be done such as in Lincolnshire police and some of the other rural constabularies they have rural intelligence officers, farm intelligence officers, they have local special constables with links to the farming community and things so there are a number of various things that can be done but there are time and cost elements and particularly when you're going through a period of organisation and you have other high level crimes it is about putting your resources where you know they're most effective and I think that farm crime is something that is becoming more prevalent than it was before. I'm more comfortable with the local arrangements in place and the sort of ones that have been described. The real challenge for us is that tractor that's stolen in one locality and the local officer turning up and doing that initial bit investigation may be understanding that the car that we've seen to facilitate that was also seen 150 miles away in the theft of a bale or it was seen somewhere else. We're much better at creating those linkages now within Police Scotland than we'll win for so that's easier for us to do so I think that it is a challenge for us but I think that's where we make the most impact on the organised aspect of it. The locals take the opportunity to theft within the local area, I think that the local cops are well placed to deal with that. It's just when it breaks out of that and it starts to cut across border, across wider areas of Scotland, I think that we're good now at being able to create that blue BMW that was seen at such and such a faram acting suspiciously and then three days later we can see another faram and you can link that, we're getting better at that I would need to say. If tractors are being stolen to go to Poland or Turkey or whatever, I mean they're not just going to take one tractor that presumably there will be some sort of a variety of different pieces of equipment being taken over at the same time so is it maybe you know trying to link up not just what's happened 150 miles away but there's maybe been one stolen on Cornwall, there's maybe been one stolen up in the hands of Scotland and they're all being brought together so it's actually you know how easy is it to link those right across the UK? Again it's getting easier because when they come to Scotland to deal with one police force so what we know is a much more co-ordinated picture of what's happening in Scotland our linkage into forces down south is not as easy because they do have still a lot more forces down there, some different sizes, different intel systems etc so getting that sort of information can be a bit more problematic but it's not insurmountable and we can do that and as you say it sounds a bit simplistic but they're probably at that stage where they're looking to get as much equipment of whatever sort it is on a boat going out to a location so again that's what I keep talking about going back up the chain a bit up to that level so that it's very important that person is going on to farm and steal the actual equipment but if we can get further up the chain to actually who's facilitating that and who's actually directing those individuals to go on to farms that's we need to target that as well but we do absolutely need to get that investigation right at the time when the cops turn up at that location make sure that we are absolutely identifying any eyewitnesses we are identifying any opportunities for CCTV I know they're rural locations but they're all everybody's got their own private space now everybody's got there's an opportunity for that forensically we need to do the right things forensically because people do leave traces where they've been so we need to get that sort of thing right at the time and then create and make sure that we understand the linkages that sit above that dealers and so on that you're looking further up to get them absolutely that's a Roderick in terms of kind of high-spec farm equipment tractors is the technology as robust as it might be in terms of protecting those vehicles I mentioned that because I was talking to someone yesterday about this very issue suggested that high-spec tractors if you have one high-spec tractor then it's quite easy to use the kind of the keys for that one high-spec tractor to to kind of acquire another high-spec tractor because the technology is not as unique as it might be I think the machinery manufacturers have we've been working very closely with them to try and encourage them to vary the fact that in some cases one key will switch on a number of different machines and they are slowly moving so there is some work that's being done that way I mean from an insurance point of view we would encourage anybody with any sort of high-value item to have tracker and seizure attached that so that it can track it and that can and seizure marking effectively will do that and we give fairly substantive discounts to do that and I think the industry is moving closer there because there's an encouragement from us to our farming community and our clients to to ensure the vehicle but also to mitigate the fact that it could be stolen and then for the recovered and certainly there is work that is going on there and there's a I suppose it's like if you look at a car industry you know if you buy a hundred thousand pound vehicle the likelihood is it'll have an immobiliser and a little security alarms etc etc that has not been the case within agricultural machinery but but that trend is slowly changing what there's still work to be done within that. Sorry I've got mr scott first then yourself mr scott reinforce what Martin said I mean my colleagues they're advising farmers about tracking devices and data tracking chips as well and because that's absolutely crucial also keeping an inventory of machinery etc as well on the farm and keeping things locked up as well you know so it's some basic things that we're advising on that would be important in securing your farm and that's the advice that's going out from our my colleagues. Thank you daughter Smith. I just sorry to enter up to Andrew you know like crime prevention measures as a former crime prevention officer I mean you know there is things like smart water that can put a unique on a you know on a sort of high value piece of equipment smart water it's like a chemical solution that you can quote something with. Well there you are smart water. So there is a lot of measures that could be done in areas where you suspect it they are being targeted. Farmers not doing it if it's. I think to be fair they are doing it just not enough of them and I think you know there's certainly whenever you're buying larger value equipment there's a greater incentive to to have a tract and to have Caesar and to have tracking devices on them and there's a financial reward to do it in terms of the premium on the insurance policy but I still think that historically in Scotland in particular I mean I can compare to Ireland very specifically but in Scotland it's been a reasonably low level of this but the trend has been increasing and therefore that's whenever you know do the thieves move with with the crime for want of a better word so if they see an opportunity is it easier to do it here than maybe in somewhere else and that might be part of it as well but certainly as they begin to lose equipment and the impact hits them then there's a greater trend towards using the other devices to mitigate the loss. Yes, I think as well actually just to again agree with what's been said but the one thing we're seeing especially as well over the last year has been more members actually coming to us as an organisation and saying as well that they want to be involved in what's happening out there they realise that this is not a problem that's going to go away but what they want to do is actually work more together to actually raise awareness of it and to actually try and look at solutions. I mean one of the things that we're seeing more of is some of these local they're being called rural watch but it tends to be groups of farmers who are coming together I've got another one within Renfrewshire which was actually set up by Eldersley States and I mean more or less what they where they what happened with them was they came to me and said we are being hit hard in the area and we want to actually be able to do something about this ourselves to share information to try and actually stop it happening and look further down the road so if they do see a vehicle that they don't think should be there they actually then contact their neighbours so it's like trying to knock on effect and the other one as well that we're seeing a huge uptake in is we've been running as well a series of rural security walk and talk events and these very much are aimed at getting the farmers and land managers out onto a farm to actually have a walk around really simple have a walk around look at what's being done look at the problem areas we have the police along and what they tend to do as well is actually try and point out where the potential problems are and then come up with potential solutions and it also allows as well the farmers to actually get together to talk through what's been happening on the ground and share what they actually are doing and share information as well in the types of security systems cameras what's working and what's not working so we are seeing a huge increase in that type of localised activity just in a slightly different topic the kind of oh well we'll take DCS Alan on the same thing first reinforce the message that's coming across clear about the target hardening for which is the expression we use about making it more difficult for people to steal from the farm so that does inventories are really important because a lot of what we find as well which makes investigations difficult is there can be a considerable time lag in when it's actually identified that the property has gone missing farmer maybe doesn't use it for a period of weeks or months and then goes back so that that inventory and that continual checking just to make sure property is where it should be affords us a better opportunity to recover it and detect a crime security marking whether that's through smart water or whatever it is very important as well and basically just the basic security measures and I know the pack that went out in the borders has been we're probably going to roll that out across Scotland it's a very good clear pack as to what sort of what farmers should be should be doing that the other bit on top of some of the farm watches or rural watches that there have been a number of them across scotland legacy force areas had their own ones in place we're basically in the process of trying to work out which is the best options for us and which is the best fit for what what area the one that probably at the moment that we're looking very strongly at is a farm watch name division which is an award winning one they've got I think they've got an NFU award for that and it's a textile error one where any crime that's committed everybody who's a member of that scheme gets a text straight away to say within your area you get that so that's the sort of area but I think we need to maybe broaden those out a fair bit and basically get that sort of engagement that we've been talking about here that awareness and engagement for everybody that's potential victims of this type of crime so they understand is it a suspicious car has there been a farm that's lost equipment three was stuck in my mind because I don't have one thankfully that's what I think so that the text alert one as I say that that's that's running up in the highlands division at the moment that seems to be quite a good one that we've got a plaintive luke's market I can't help him so Rodriq still doesn't his grid she's we'll come to it market don't slip it in just we'll come of course I've got a lot of people waiting Rodriq then I've got Christian and Gil and then Jane I mean very patient and then I'll let you in market can have you no that's fine right I shouldn't have liked Rodriq could I just switch the topic slightly as to kind of reasons why there seems to be such a substantial increase in livestock theft does someone care to speculate about that compared to kind of other criminality in society in general why is it wise livestock theft increasing so much we just kick it off and this is speculation I think I think when we've seen red meat prices rise in the last number of years there's certainly been some evidence that that is in there's been an increase in cattle rustling as well and I think Robert indicated around some of the meat plants and think there's a wee bit of so it's about circumstantial evidence that's saying that some going through back doors into different environments into different restaurants and possibly being sold directly at markets and things like that so there's maybe been part of that as well which has influenced that um so that might be some of the reasons but certainly I suppose it's like from an insurance point of view we see things that if something rises in value then there becomes a market for it and you see it with scrap metal whenever scrap metal rows in value we've seen that theft of that increase red meat prices increased and we've seen the corresponding rise in the cost of or the increase in livestock rustling Jane, you wanted us to mention your question. Dr Smith mentioned earlier food fraud and just following on from what Roderick said I mean the food industry is so regulated if there's a lot of livestock going missing then it must it seems to me there must be some elicit means of processing that those that livestock before it turns up at the restaurant and I was just wondered if there was any evidence of that infrastructure that shadow infrastructure that would support that sort of activity. Abattoir's springs to mind. I think we should have a meat inspection here as well. Yes Mr Smart. Just to go on from that I think that there's a perception that there's over the last few years with the downturn there's possibly been a lot of people who've been working in the industry before who may have a bit of spare time on their hand. The animal disappears and they've got the expertise to kill and butcher it. Animal welfare and I think food safety. Is that connected up in any way by the police or do you liaise with these other agencies food safety and so on? Food safety, trading standards and I know a couple of investigations are on-going just now in relation to cattle fraud specifically for it to come out of that environment to the police that it does need to be very much at the criminal fraud side of it. The stolen meat however it meets getting back into the food chain would be more down to the food agencies I would say but if we can create those links as to the stolen livestock going in that way then yeah we would be very much involved in that. Just say if we can create those links you don't have them then. Personally no I am not aware of that at the moment and as I say I think everybody that's spoken about that so far has been speculating as to that being a method by which the disposal of the stolen livestock has been. Christiane. Thank you very much convener but my question comes a bit of what has been talked about about food crime to a certain extent organized crimes have always been very good at getting involved in the food industry and particularly I would like to know because the clarification today it seems to me that apart from some isolated incident that organized crimes are the main reason why we've got an increase on on the rule crimes just now what I would like to know it's if it's the case why can we do better on regulations we talked about manufacturers but there may be a responsibility for this parliament maybe responsibility for some organization to to working differently I remember being myself victim of food crime what was to do with number plates now we know that in this country number plates of traders haven't got a distinct number plates should we change maybe that rules in Aberdynshire I know that a lot of of these very expensive machineries have been very well protected but the organized thief now are going after the hydraulic arms I know there is a bigger big search on on stealing part of the of the of the expensive machinery so is there a way we could maybe having a number put on them or making sure that they can be resold so I would like to to have some ideas how we can help on number plates on hydraulic arms or anything else I think yes there is already a national plant register and but as to whether specific parts of a machine are numbered separately I very much doubt it but you know any plant stolen in the UK should be reported to the national plant register who tries to share this just like that other water you were talking about smart war what what goes on the national plant register is it going when the vehicles first it's new like registering your ownership of a vehicle how does that work I think there's I think you can register it prior to that but I mean a lot of it thefts of tractors and plant would be reported to I think it's PNIU panu what stands for I've forgotten but so there is a scheme where and I mean they work with the NFU and with the police and pass on intelligence regarding things but you know if somebody's taking part of a machine you know it would probably not be stamped with a chassis number or a so explain about this national plant register are all vehicles on it or what are stolen vehicles what we would do and it's a way of if we do have a suspicion about a vehicle we can very quickly check whatever identifying marks are on that vehicle against the register to establish whether they're stolen or not what's right now is the problem would be as if the whole piece of equipment is not stolen and I've taken a bit off it and none of the identifying marks are on the piece that was stolen now that might be that we need to identify as a specific part of a machinery going just now in which case we do need to look at some form of covert marking on that piece so that when the plant's on the farm it's got the chassis number on it but also certain parts the more expensive parts of it also have this covert marking on it uv smart water whatever we want to put on it so that you've got a chance of getting that back so if it's just one part of it albeit could be a lots of lots of money but if there's no identifying marks on it that's very difficult for us to do but again another option is that when farmers are doing their itinerary of some of their equipment it's not enough just to write down well I've got a plough this is a number of it very individual identifying marks that are on that plough are also good to note down as well so that they're not all pristine in imperfect condition they will all have their mix and their bumps in it and basically what you'd be looking for was even although we recover a part of a part of equipment with no identifying marks on it but it could be that a farmer actually can go and say well actually that that scratch on it there and the bump there and that's the sort of information that we've got as well so you can still marry it up to the piece of equipment to be stolen so the itinerary is real I would really stress that and I've said it a couple of times an itinerary equipment on the farm is really important but we're very very specific details on that which helps for the recovery down the line. I'm just thinking that my plough might get new marks quite regularly which can make it very difficult but we as an industry do have a lot to catch up to do with this but just I'm going to take this back a wee bit I've been looking through my papers during the discussion just to let you all know how serious this is at one of our local branch meetings in December they took a show of hands at the end of it they'd had the rural community officer in giving them a talk and at the end of the meeting by a show of hands between 70 and 75 percent of the people there said they'd been subject to crime in the previous 12 months I don't know but that I would say that's that's quite representative of how widespread this is so but we it is very difficult for us to mark our machinery because it does come to pieces so easily well that's an issue that we can perhaps find out by reason with the manufacturers here to raise with the manufacturing industry right to manufacturers and indeed to other agencies such as the meeting spectres and so on with any of the issues when we look back over the evidence session we can discuss that in another meeting and I'll move on to Gil, please. Can I come from the automotive industry and almost everything in that area almost everything every part of the car has got serial number in it and in trucks and so forth so I'm kind of surprised that a tractor I would imagine that it would be manufactured in a similar way not the kind of branded name but parts would come in and they would all be they would all have numbers on them that would tell you where they were manufactured and when they were manufactured so just for the record but there was two comments made about a CCT in your spot I'm just wondering how extensive it's used in a farm setting an idea that you've got half a million I mean in an urban situation if somebody had half a million quads worth of equipment lying about outside or in an unlocked barn I'm sure they would have some kind of protection so it sounds to me if things like that are getting lifted then you know that would be a way to protect but I just wonder how extensive maybe from Mr Malone he could maybe have information on that. I don't have any specific figures in terms of the numbers of farms that would have CCTV in operation certainly from an insurance perspective it improves the risk let's put it like that so as part of our assessment of the risk that we would be taken on board are we insured the use of CCTV cameras in any other security equipment would be something that we would reflect in terms of the under right and premium we charge the customer but I wouldn't have any figures in terms of the percentages. Does the range of discount you get if you're for example track or for example tracking devices on vehicles it gives up to 27.5% which is quite significant. CTV do you have different rates? There will be different rates off the top of my head I'm not sure what the rate is for CCTV cameras. There's a chance to advertise here you know. We look at all these things slightly differently and there's a range of stuff but certainly we would reflect it. It could be as much as 20% discount for having CCTV cameras on proper security around it. Mr Smart do you want to come in from the farming perspective and use of CCTV in? It can be difficult to fit in a meaningful way yes you can have CCTV but you know where do you put your recording equipment because I know I looked into it for my yard and to get a decent system in would have been a huge job because it's just so far to take the signal back to the house so it can be difficult. We have to look at all these things but there are other maybe simpler ideas out there and it's all about deterrent. Geese? Yeah. Lamas we've read that. Until we steal them. It was just mentioned was broadband coverage and mobile phone coverage. One of the things that we are hearing more from members now is that they are looking at these I think it's called second tier security systems whereby it would be like a remote system that would be set up to allow the farmer access that if somebody is with any stead in when they shouldn't be it would send like a text message or similar to them when they're out working in the fields but if you don't actually have the network coverage to start with I mean there's no even any point in looking at the system at the moment. Right Margaret do you have a question or yes the network coverage was covered but I mean there was an article I think in the Scottish Farm of December 2014 where South Lanarkshire said it was reaching breaking point at the increased levels of crime and they fell under siege so I wonder if there's an issue around the actual recording of crimes themselves and that seems to be suggested from the NFU paper. Eurocrime is such a big area should we be calling it rural crime and then all these different aspects maybe taking the box to get the true extent because I think the feeling was while crime we're told is going down that certainly not what the people in South Lanarkshire were feeling when they were saying they felt it was in this particular farmer in East Kilbrides experience at 31 year high. So is there an issue around that and would a definition of rural crime help to record it better and therefore to assess the true extent and deal with it? Recording a crime my only concern with where we're going with this is if everything's a priority nothing's a priority and if it is a quizative crime there are thieves out there stealing property from industrial estates from farms from everywhere and basically there's a notice in the police to investigate all of those so what I've said to you is at the start what we went in and we can very easily go in and identify what crimes are from what locations and it's easy enough for us to do that and for likes of Lanarkshire between 1314 until 1415 there's an increase between 91 and 107 so that's the sort of numbers that we're talking about within that area to categorise it as a separate crime entity to what end are we then going to do anything different than what we'd be doing just now or is there any expectation that Police Scotland would do something because it's got a rural badge on it now I think we need to make sure that we give that service to everybody within the community and I think we should still be doing that whether it's categorised as rural or not but the current crime recording mechanism does allow us to pick out those that are on farms and as far as the numbers are concerned there is a Scottish crime recording standard that everybody that reports a crime to us it's checked against that standard to ensure a crime has been committed and I'm quite comfortable because I'm in charge of that part of Police Scotland as well that the figures that we've got are reflective of what has been reported to us Christian, you wanted to... I just wanted to bring to you on this one Are we more concerned than about the people who are committing the crimes, the organised crimes that we are concerned about the type of crime because have we already identified with organised groups, organised crimes criminals are targeting not only rurals but of us as well? Yeah and that's what I spoke about earlier on about us taking that step up and looking across an organised crime group will not just steal tractors, an organised crime group will commit significant crime right across the board so we need to target those people as well as doing the initial enquiries correctly as well no matter what that crime is We've already had a session with SEPA and about serious organised crime and environmental agencies having to... Just a small point from the two that were made there as well, I mean we understand as well that today's session was on agricultural crime but that also does take into account as well the crimes that not only are committed on smaller farms but also on larger estates and I mean to add into that I mean you've then you are looking as well at your environmental crime and this is as well including farms but also your fly tipping, your littering, your damage interference to traps and snares That's what we did really in our session with SEPA to some extent we tried to focus on acquisitive for this particular session It was just from the point of view that it would then be very difficult to actually categorise rural crime because it is so wide Well, oh sorry Margaret, yes No, there you are No, don't encourage her Don't encourage her We're hearing that more and more from farmers that they do feel intimidated if they speak out against any aspect of crime, acquisitive etc Mr Smart, let's start with you I have been threatened on the farm and I'm only half a mile from the town and it was a wildlife crime incident when I challenged the person, I was told in no uncertain terms that if I reported it to the police I would probably have a large fire in the shed DCS Allen And it's terrifying when we are out and open, we do have large areas, we can't put a fence around a whole lot and you suddenly think well if I do report this to the police what's going to happen and I must say in that instance I took the mobile phone out and showed the chat me dialing 999 but it was a big worry for the next few weeks and your family DCS Allen I would always advocate that as well as reporting the crime if there's any intimidation on the back of that crime that also requires to be investigated so it needs to be reported to us and if we can not only detect the initial crime but obviously it's a much more serious and a lot of occasions when they go towards intimidation and doing sort of things that we've just heard then absolutely that should be reported to Police Scotland in order that we investigate that thoroughly as well and bring people to the book for that too I'm going to add to what Chief Superintendent Allen has said that although there's no definition of agricultural crime, all the types of situations and crimes that people have been talking about around the table, we will be able to prosecute those where there is sufficient available evidence but it won't be under the banner of agricultural crime, under the banner of theft, there are things that we can do where we have evidence that are linked to serious and organised crime, we can add statutory aggravations so although we don't have clear evidence that it is serious and organised crime, we can add a statutory, we don't have corroborated evidence, we can add the statutory aggravation and there's all sorts of contraventions of lots of statutory offences across all the different types of legislation in terms of food safety in terms of livestock etc so there is a lot of law out there and a lot of criminal offences all of those types of circumstances fall under but they are not badged agricultural or rural crime so to speak. Mr Scott, I think you were... I'll see if a committee's unit had a look at the number of farm thefts you know from the information I've got and they've looked at in comparison with total thefts excluding shopping thefts and basically of the thefts of these thefts farm thefts was 6% in 2012-13 and that's from 1 February to 1 January for each of these years 13.1% for 2013-14 and 6.9% 2014-15 now that's 6.9% for 2014-15 equates to 62 thefts so that's 62 farm thefts and there's 835 other thefts excluding shopping so that gives you a proportion indication of what the proportion is but in saying that the value of thefts has increased because there's been a lot of higher value thefts of equipment so that's an increase over the three years in terms of value of thefts but overall value of thefts but you know that that's the proportions we're talking about in the Scottish Borders but that doesn't mean... but these lower proportions don't in any way reflect the fact in these communities it's such a big thing you know it's obviously affects their business, affects the committee around them and people are very much aware of that but it gives you an idea of what the situation is like in the Borders. You weren't waving at me Gil, were you? No, just wanted. Yes? I'm just wondering about crime in general in the countryside, is it sporadic or is it persistent and the reason I raised that, I live in the countryside and since I've lived there that's now just going on about 17 years there's been incidents where cars, high-end value cars have been targeted but not all the time they come that's about every four years they come and they target the car, they steal it and I don't know of any single car that's been brought they might come and steal three cars, take them away so how difficult is that to detect and I haven't heard of a single car being returned but that's from households I've got to say but in the countryside. There's bits of that relevant given what we're talking about earlier on with tractors I mean that the method by which people steal cars now is completely changed because they need the key so they need to break into the house to get the key to steal the car and that's obviously not where we are with tractors we're the one key doing multiple tractors etc what I would say is crime in general as we've already said is a downward trend that's not to say that at various times there will be spikes I mean that depends who's out at the time who's active what intelligence we've got what we've been able to disrupt what we haven't been able to disrupt there are always going to be spikes within that overall trend that and if and where they are if we knew exactly where that spike was going to be at any one time it would be brilliant would be better than what we are. You talked about liaising south of the border what about with European police forces give us a little bit about that with regard to agricultural theft we have got a police scotland officer embedded within europeal who is our link into them for and they're obviously officers from down south in europeal and there's a UK element to europeal but we've absolutely we've gone to the taking the decision to embed an officer right in there so we've got that direct linkage in when we do start to find some transportation of some of our stolen property turning up in Poland etc you can then start to create the link you need with the local law enforcement in those areas to try and do something at that end and is it being successful? Certainly what I would say is that the processes that are in place now are much better than ever were they're much more streamlined so yeah absolutely right on that point I'm going to end this evidence session can I say thank you very much it's extremely extremely interesting and and I think what we'll do as a committee is when we come to our work programme the couple of weeks decide where we take this forward obviously there's some correspondence we can do and perhaps take further evidence this evidence will be out on the official report the 25th tomorrow so you'll be able to see again the evidence that was given and if there's anything that sitting around the table you now wish that you had said don't feel free to write to me as convener for the distribution to committee members but anything else that you didn't bring to our retention having revised and looked through the evidence that it says well I want to add this bit now it'd be very helpful thank you very much I'm going to suspend for do you want 10 minutes break for the next round table thank you very much that was an okay for market that's an okay for me a suspend for 10 minutes right item four on the agenda team it's another round table evidence session this time the prisoners control release Scotland bill and the purpose of this session is to allow participants many of whom already given evidence to the committee to comment on the cabinet secretary's recent letter indicating the scottish government will bring forward proposals at stage 2 which will potentially significantly alter the bill copies of the letter are circulated with committee papers and I welcome each participant to this session I'm going to wave going around the table because I think we know pretty well the organization should represent each of you have a copy of the plan in your desk and I'm just going to go straight who's not done a round table in parliament before some right it's like school isn't it all the all the really it is a matter for really interaction between yourselves as witnesses with the committee members paying a lesser role in it though they will come in with questions but really it's a more efficient way sometimes to to get evidence so just if you just indicate to me then I'll take your name and I'll call out the list of those who are waiting to participate so can I have in me who wants to start with Professor Tutter convener when you said that that's enough we'll just stop you don't spoil it now when you said that there was a plan in front of each of us and I thought oh this will be the plan for what we're going to do and then of course I see it's the seating plan and just to say that you know this is this would be one of the most far-reaching changes for a good 20 years to the system of release that is not to say there shouldn't be change but I think we really need to think about this much more carefully there needs to be proper consultation and a proper process it's worrying that this would be brought in at stage two my feeling is and I think maybe a feeling of others that it's rather like we need a proper systematic thought about it and proper consultation did anyone else wish to come in yes Professor McNeill mainly just to agree but also to suggest that the timing is important in the sense that most sentencing scholars and most scholars of reintegration would agree that you can't look at release in isolation from sentencing you know if it was hospital management you have to think about discharge and admissions at the same time and given that the it's recently been announced that the sentencing council will be established and operational this year it seems to make sense to me to at least pause and consider the possibility of consultation with the sentencing council in relation to the connection between what we sometimes refer to as front door sentencing the sending in and back door sentencing which refers to the the release arrangements so I think that's the committee appreciates appreciates this very strong connection miss gailie you were nodding there don't nod you's here I come to you it makes you make your targets our perspective and this was from the angle of risk and public protection and for that reason some of the changes that were referred to or alluded to in in the cabinet secretary's letter appeared to be relevant to that but from from that perspective I also think going back to what this title is saying that I think that there is a need to actually understand the particular individuals and cases that are causing the concern behind behind this policy move so I think in addition to there's also need for scoping about the numbers the characteristics the circumstances that lead to concerns so that the resources can be targeted at the right group and I also wish to come at this stage immediately miss mcindrick comments to date and just maybe take both of them because they're slightly separate just in relation to that process of consultation the committee will know that we're currently evaluating mapper and whilst the detail of how we might manage these individuals post release is far from clear it's quite reasonable to assume that will require a multi agency approach to managing those individuals so that mapper evaluation is currently on going and it might be wise to see the lessons learned from that in terms of rolling that practice considerations into how we might manage that these group of offenders so I think that that's also quite important and I just also want to endorse the position around about the focus on risk and risk management and the importance of professionals from a variety of of professional disciplines understanding the requirement to understand individual risk and understand risk management plans that mitigate those risks so my contribution was around about confirming the two statements that have have been made to date when is the mapper in review of whatever you can't you know was good come to some conclusions the date for the annual sorry the date for the national report should be around summer time of the of this year okay that's it well thank you yes that's my professor mckinley mcneil sorry that's okay just on the with the tie when i would assume that you would get the mcneil straight away but never mind on the on the point of risk sorry but that's that you said well my back was dumb it's the it's the ancient mcneil of colonsie or i'm so sorry i'm not okay with the mcneil tartan never mind small but important point well there's a big point you've made a big issue but go ahead professor on the question i don't know this is a bad day go on the question of risk i think it's important to to be clear release arrangements effectively change the extent or the duration for which you choose to to use a crude expression you choose to store the risk but the release arrangement in terms of the timing of the release in and of itself doesn't necessarily do much to mitigate risk so if you want to invest in risk reduction and thereby in public safety that's about the way that you can figure your your prison regimes but it's also about the way that you can figure your post release support and taking a rough estimate of 400 additional prison places to accommodate the numbers in this case and we think that that's a conservative estimate that at 40 000 per place per annum is costing you 16 million pounds you'd have to be pretty sure that that investment was buying you improvements in public safety and i don't think stoning risk for longer buys you improvements in public safety so that's my caution on that thank you mr mckinn say followed by mr white yes i just wants to echo the comments so far i mean that there there are two concerns that we have one is that there was and the law society made this point in their submission that there was no evidence gathering exercise carried out prior to the legislation being mooted early last year in fact they go as far to say there's no solid empirical basis for the proposals and i think we would we would echo that well let's be sure as as as a professor mcneil said i mean don't we owe it to the public to be sureer of our ability to deliver on the policy objectives stated in the initial memorandum if we're going to go ahead with this given the potential increase cost the public person it's not just increasing the number of prison places potentially you might be opening up the increased numbers of legal cases being taken if you have more people in prison who cannot access rehabilitative problems and we know that the offer on that is already not adequate then what you might find is and we made this point in our initial submission people are making claims of arbitrary detention i want to prove that i'm not a risk but i cannot prove i'm not a risk and therefore i'm being detained arbitrarily but also another concern i've had and in our most recent submission the point i made was that we're sitting here today discussing what you've said quite rightly at the beginning something that will potentially significantly alter the bill on the basis of a two-page letter i mean i was struck by going through the submissions that all i have was more unanswered questions have the judiciary been consulted they're a key stakeholder we don't know what impact will be on the prison population sbs says it will need more resources how much money is being set aside that prison is expensive what's the likely cost of public purse in the totality we don't know we don't know about this guaranteed period of supervision will it be tagged onto the end of a full custodial sense will it be incorporated there's so many unanswered questions and in some ways it concerns me that you're sort of moving towards your stage one report without any of that detail in an updated policy memorandum worry about the committee i think these questions were in the committee's heads as well when when you've raised some of them you've added some more but certainly i'm sure other committee members particularly how you can move forward without looking at sentencing as well and what is meant by wind is this period of supervision kick in during the sentencer post this you know the i think we're all aware of those mr white thank you i think that the way the discussion is going so far fits very much with the point of view that we have and i think that the idea of taking time to work this out in a coherent way rather than a piecemeal way would be tremendously helpful and i think that to draw things together and to look at the whole picture right from the point at which somebody is arrested right through to their release and whatever diversions from prosecution and diversions from custody i think it's a huge amount that we can do in there and we tie it all together we can come up with something that will work properly for the individuals involved and also fit with what the SPS seek to do and society yes mrs crombie whilst i recognise and acknowledge the previous comments made then obviously victim support scotland would look at it from a victim's perspective and we actually support the ending of automatic early release and the extension to all long-term prisoners and support the period of post release supervision for prisoners the reason we believe that this works towards greater clarity transparency and for victims and the wider community to actually understand sentencing better from our experiences a lot of victims don't currently understand they don't understand what part is custodial and what part is served in the community and what we'd like to work towards is something that provides more clarity to them as any else want to come in from mr march do you want to come in there i think what we're discussing to some extent are the unknown unknowns but there's also known knowns in terms of of the discussion around the bill on friday last week the scottish prison service had 7,475 people in custody in scotland we had 318 on hdc giving a total of 7,793 in custody we have a current population a current design capacity of around 8,000 and we have housed significantly more so there is some argumentation currently which is not based on on the fact of what we can actually house whilst we're in custody i think the second issue that i'd want to raise is that the scottish prison service is not paid on the basis of cost per prisoner place and that there are additional costs that we are trying to work out those costs are based upon a small proportion of individuals potentially being motivated to take on programmes further to moving through a parole process rather than being liberated that will actually not be a huge number but we're still trying to work our way through what those numbers actually mean for for our organisation i think the final thing i would say is this is actually we've estimated from scottish government figures around 410 at the end of a 12 year process so it would start two years from now and it would conclude in terms of numbers if scottish government figures are right with 410 additional in custody 12 years after that was allocated so those are some of the knowns around the system i'm happy for people to discuss the unknowns Professor McNeill on that i would just say that that it may take 12 years to get to the point of having to spend the extra 16 million but then you have to keep on spending it because your overall increase in the prison population works through the system and you're left with larger capacity needs than existed before because of a legislative change which isn't based on an evidence base around public safety as far as i'm concerned but i wanted to pick up on Sarah's point i agree that there's a problem about clarity and truth in sentencing and that the current arrangements don't sufficiently explain or make clear to the public or to victims of crime or indeed to people who are sentenced for offenses what the effect and meaning of the sentence is so when i when something which is currently called a custodial sentence has passed something much more complicated happens which is that people are required to submit to a range of different forms of penal control some part of which is custodial some part of which is community based and in fact to meet the objectives of sentencing the purposes of sentencing effectively those elements need to be combined it's not possible to to do the rehabilitative and reintegrative part of the punishment effectively unless there is a properly designed and properly resourced community part so i think for that reason i agree with Sarah's point i think that a change in the language a change in the way that these arrangements are described is critically important to enhancing public understanding and public acceptability but that's not the same thing as actually changing the arrangements. Mr White. I think that clarity in sentencing is our Fergus Pete you're all cozy in here i don't know yes mr white thank you miss graham convener i think that the the idea of recalibrating sentencing so that when a sentence is announced or laid down in court when that actually relates to a real time rather than something that has been chopped and changed around i think that would be very helpful indeed i think it'd be helpful for everybody involved from the perpetrator from the person who is being convicted through for the victims as well i think that there's a huge amount of clarity required and we have the potential to join this together and come up with something that is coherent which at the moment it is not. I was just going to say that i also have sympathy with the view that there's a real lack of clarity in transparency in sentencing but that's not how this bill is being advanced it's being advanced on the basis that it's going to improve public safety that one of the stated policy objectives is not to improve clarity in sentencing. No but that's an interesting point to make as well why we're we're considering it. Christian you're next. Thank you miss graham convener. Follow by Elaine. There's been very very interesting points been raised and which have not been raised when people came into first in inquiry. One particular question i will have is regarding the spirit of the bill and how it was put forward in a staged manner to try to end automatically release for all offenders and i think that was welcomed by CERAC from before example but how we changed from the view that we had before which means that we don't accept around this table that a stage approach should be accepted because i don't remember here that that when you came to give us your views we heard a lot about how the stage was maybe too small or maybe not safe enough and now we've got the government is coming maybe a too big a step for some but i just want your views on should we have a step-by-step approach or should we stop the step-by-step approach altogether and consider everything on the whole. Do you want to comment? In an ideal world one would look at the whole thing together i mean i think victim support made the point in its submission that you know why i may be wrong there why i look only at the long-term prisoners i have sympathy for that so yes if you are really looking at this seriously look at the whole thing indeed the sentencing commission back in 2005 produced its report on release which also noted there would need to be recalibration of sentencing and it did that it looked at the whole thing unfortunately the custodial sentences and weapons bill was introduced then kind of made a bit of a hash really of the commission's report then but yes ideally i think one would want that one would want to look at it systematic the problem is of course we just don't know we've got two laudable aims that's all they are and and the big question is how do you combine these two things you're trying to one's trying to square the circle one's just left as miss mckinsey said with more questions and answers is somebody else want to come in you have to indicate to me i yes i'm open minded on the question of reforming arrangements for short-term prisoners there are sort of pragmatic reasons why it kind of makes sense for those to be processed in a slightly more automated way but on the other hand we have a problem in scotland which is that those serving less than four years have no automatic entitlement to or rather they're not subject to forms of post-release support and supervision and they are often at the highest risk of reoffending even if not necessarily at the highest risk of or likely to cause very serious public harm so if you take the 16 million figure which i've used that would roughly triple the budget of the Scottish government's change fund which is a recent initiative to try to enhance support through public social partnerships to that specific population i think that would be a massively more effective investment in public safety than spending 16 million on 400 new prison places i think we were aware of the fact there isn't that mandatory statutory support for since it's less than four years i think it's an issue we've raised regularly in this parliament now who's next and the witnesses before i move on to another committee member of you christ mr white i just wanted to know what mr white wanted and then i'll take christian i want to repeat something i said at the previous committee which is that within this bill there is this part where governors can decide to release prisoners one or two days prior to the end of their sentence and as i've mentioned before it's very important that whatever happens with the rest of this bill that this this move is made available i think we're all happy about that bit i don't think that's really a delighted that you're happy thank you we're content perhaps with i think that's not the issue the other issue of course is the changes that have been made and christian yeah i just wanted to have clarity on this are people around it able to out against automatic early the ending of automatic early release or not i'm not against changing how it's described but i'm absolutely in favour of the fact that when a sentence is passed in the court that should involve both when the judge determines that it's essential that somebody for reasons of justice serves a custodial sentence then they should serve a custodial sentence and they should be supported and supervised on release in order to ensure their reintegration that's both a matter of public safety and it's a matter of rights because they they should be restored to a position where they can contribute as a citizen effectively in the same way that we're all expected to and the experience of imprisonment is and Pete can speak to this better than I can that the release phase is in many respects the most difficult phase and if we don't get it right and give people the support that they need to make a contribution to society then we'll all suffer the consequences so combining a custodial part with a community part where guaranteed support is made available makes very good sense to me how we described that I think it's unhelpful that we've described it historically as automatic release it was even more unhelpful when we called it an automatic unconditional release because it wasn't unconditional and it led to poor um no i was going to be rude about the previous political discussions around this I think there was poor policy making because there was a reaction to political debate about um and our a set of arrangements that were not poorly conceived in the way that they operated but poorly presented to the public and these are two completely separate issues so the truth and sentencing issue is an important issue for public confidence it actually has very little to do with the question of public safety and so the way it's described is really important um but for public safety reasons and for reasons of of reintegration as a as a right it's critical that we have a system which combines um custodial sentences with post release support can I just ask you to if you mentioned part that the sentence should be custodial and a community part so it's all embraced within is it where sentence a sentence of sorts how would you technically put that into legislation so that the courts would and would the courts at that time in in declaring the sentence have to at that time say you will serve x years as custodial and so many as community or would it be more flexible well there's two systems that immediately come to mind you could have a system where I'll roll back in many continental jurisdictions you have a situation where an initial judge a judge at first instance says the punishment that you deserve for this crime is 10 years and then the case is passed to what's called an implementation judge or I'll do my French a huge daplication depend whose job is to say how it's the old alliance the the the jab to use the shorthand then determines what's the best way to execute or to implement this sentence and the that judicial figure has the authority to determine the point of release and the conditions of release so they have what is currently in our system a function fulfilled by the parole board and because they are judicial authorities they have due process protections and they are compliant with the european convention on human rights that's their mechanism for dealing with it so the in that system you don't necessarily specify at first instance how the split in the sentence between the custodial part and the community part will work out that allows you to incentivise the person in prison to cooperate with the regime and to participate in the way that our parole system is intended to but it retains a judicial involvement in determining what the meaning of a judicially imposed sentence is and I think for that reason that that system has merit a parole system parole systems function in many common law jurisdictions and they function relatively well to protect public safety and to help with these deliberations about the correct moment of release but they are bedivelled by the problem that they can't express clearly and simply what the sentence means because what the sentence means changes in response to how the person reacts to it now you've got to then decide do we want a system which is absolutely transparent and explicit but which is blunt in the in the way that it handles individual cases or do we want a system which is actually a little bit complicated where we have to trust discretionary decision makers to exercise professional judgment in the collective best interests of the public that's a political choice miss mckinsey oh well you can't get the staff you can't get the staff uh elene where are you there you are i know i know thank you very much kinvena and although i think in principle i like what is now being suggested better than the previous suggestion i'm uncomfortable about the way this has been done that this originally was an amendment to the criminal justice bill at stage two came back as a bill now it's going to be significantly amended again at stage two and i'm uncomfortable with that process but can i just ask you i mean professor tata referred to the sentencing commission which reported in 2005 and then there was legislation the custodial sentences and weapons bill act class in 2007 but i understand there were quite a number of issues around that some of which were flagged up by the mcleish commission and then that act was amended by another act in 2010 which i think was the licensing and criminal justice act how different is what is being proposed here from what was proposed after the two you know after 2010 you know how different is this now for what exists what was possible after the the second act was passed in 2010 that's a very interesting question you you raise i suppose the answer to that is we don't know because there's no there aren't principles really in what's being proposed there's just two bold intentions that sort of is so one ends up just speculating about what that might look like so one option might be to use one part of the commission's that's the sentencing commission 2005's recommendation which was then followed up with the the 2007 act which was is the combined sentence regime which i think professor mcneil was alluding to there and yes i i also agree that has merit because you're able to name this is the custodial part this is the community part it's part of one overall package i think that is a fairly sensible thing to do but again we're just we're speculating we just don't know what what what what is intended here and perhaps it is an incredibly thorny issue so i have great sympathy with government and officials trying to work out what to do but that's why we need to we need a proper process of reflection review to work that out so i mean the recommendation would still be that the bill's withdrawn and it you know sentencing council considers it and so on rather than we press on with the a preferable of you know amendment to the current bill i would guess i mean obviously if you can keep the bit that mr white is referring to about the you know the two days three days whatever at least that that's very good but the rest of it one's just left scratching one's head about what what's intended so we end up speculating and i'm not sure that's necessarily the best way of going about it but but yes the combined sentence idea i think has real merit and i agree i think we've seen from the evidence submitted this time that um as as witnesses or round table participants whatever we are today we're all in a we're all in a difficult position because we don't actually know what's being proposed so we've got option a and we've got option b and maybe we've tried to interpret the minister's intentions if the intention is that we now have a system where if if the prisoner doesn't satisfy the parole board then they may max out complete the custodial sentence and then be subject to further compulsory supervision that could not be supported and i doubt it's legality so that there's a fundamental problem with that if that's the proposal if the proposal is that we have a period of compulsory supervision that's part of the original sentence then we're back to a variation of what we currently have we're just changing the the moment in the process at which we determine that we must release um so you know neither of these strikes me as being adequate that neither of them will address the truth and sentencing objective or the questions more broadly of retributive justice um and we have we don't have the evidence base presented to us to to make an assessment on their likely effect on public safety but my my sort of general understanding of those issues from criminological research is that there's very little reason to believe that the the lengthening of the time spent in custody is going to have a net positive effect on post release outcomes no reason to believe that that would be the case so um i think it's back to the drawing board to be frank professor turn to just briefly to say in answer to elaine Murray's very interesting question the key difference of course as well with the 2007 act unlike the commission's 2005 report is that the 2007 act failed or chose to ignore front door sentencing and that was the biggest problem of all as well as the fact it tried to push things down to 14 days which was absurd um so that's the other key difference you have to you have to look at front door and back door together as professor mcneill said earlier that's crucial i'm going to ask margaret you next i think there's a danger here that we're missing the point i think as professor mcneill says eight years we've been looking at automatic air and we release we've got a bill in front of us that isn't fit for purpose we're now looking at a stage two amendment that's going to radically improve but still not give total transparency and sentencing if you want that you move to victim support's point of view and just um do away with all automatic early release but the point that's being missed here the whole the whole resonator behind the act was supposed to be public safety and public safety then you have to look at reoffending rates on the revolving door and there's a very real danger we put this to a sentencing commission we put it into the long grass we delay things even further and we don't look at what's happening just now in prisons or even if the prison sentence is being properly looked at as the proper disposal at the time and our all community sentences on the full facts available are the facts full that full facts available at the point of sentencing so i think we're very much in danger at this stage where we are just now of saying yeah it'd be great to have consultation and and yeah that would be good to put it's a sentencing committee but what's that remit going to be how long is it going to report on and what's going to happen to the rehabilitation that we know is not taking place in prison now to give people the chance to be rehabilitated and not to present a threat to to the public so by just narrowly looking at yeah this is what automatic early release or what early release will mean now the automatic part is is out of it here's how we deal with the sub the problem of cold release we're really missing the big picture here i think that would be very very dangerous i don't know whether that was in i think it was an evidence sorry it was evidence you were giving your partners but who am i to challenge you you frighten me sometimes the person right deal only sometimes achievement i think i agree to a certain extent in in that you know at the end of of the submission made with dr barry this time there's a suggestion that really if we want to look at public safety we have to look much more seriously at reintegration but that's that's all clearly a related question to the question of release but the technical arrangements for how you do release don't address the question of reintegration at all i think to be fair to the prison service in their organisational review and in the the resultant reform efforts and in their response to the committee's work on purpose for activities there is energy and effort going into reforming prison regimes in a constructive way but that will take time and it will take resources and if the prison service resources are deflected into absorbing increases in the prison population then it's likely capacity to do the creative and constructive rehabilitative work that we all want will be diminished so we have to hold the prison population down in order to improve the quality of prison regimes and we also have to hold the prison population down so that we can spend the money making the reintegration process effective so that's why we have to do the front door that's why we have to do the front door issue at the same time because if we're not serious about how we control and manage the prison population in the first place then we can forget rehabilitation and reintegration it just won't happen you'll have an overcredited inefficient system which warehouses people and then ejects them back into society in conditions which are dangerous for them and dangerous for others I think that the point being made about long-term sentences and the how long will it take before we can agree what's a good way forward to deal with release I think that's missing the point that long-term prisoners are less likely to reoffend than short-term prisoners and I think that the work that is done to support long-term prisoners is something that we should thank the SPS for because their effectiveness is evident and the idea of glossing over the fact that it's short-term prisoners who go out and come back go out and come back there are over 20,000 liberations from prison a year at the moment and those aren't all long-term prisoners not by a long shot and I think that getting rid of that would be a helpful thing to do but to rush into I'm sorry Mr Watt that I'm perhaps should have done this I want us to focus on the bill I mean that we agree there's all these other issues but this bill apparently was flawed at the start and apparently from what you're saying now it's still flawed yes in that it's big changes are being made they've not been properly consulted on and the impact and there's the sentence in Kansas I want us to focus on that because we have to write a report at stage one for the government about what we obviously you know this from listening to my apologies for the issue no it's not your fault I mean I've let it run a bit but really it's to be very focused we I think we can accept the position about releasing people at different days of the week it's not that's not an issue but there is a there is the issue about is this curable or do we just say no this cannot be amended because remember at stage two you can put as we know from the criminal justice bill stage two can be set forth and let a long time you can take evidence and that's really what we need to look at is can this be in the way the government is suggesting amended or is this so bigger thing notwithstanding the issues that you've raised mark very important it's been a long time getting here that we have to start again and that's really what I seem to be hearing from you and that would be helpful to the committee I think we should start again the policy memorandum the government makes it quite clear that there has been no formal public consultation and this is a manifesto commitment so where does a manifesto commitment come in to say manifesto sorry no no just no you that's fine the interact I think it was a manifesto commitment if I'm not mistaken in the 20 years I mean I know it was a minority government then but it was a 2007 commitment I think most of the parties were had that as a kind of slogan as a headline point as a principle as a principle thank you I mean I mean that's really what we're talking about John you're you're waiting to guess what's your it was about this point and indeed forgive me Professor McNeill because I don't have your initial evidence but you alluded to it there and it is the circumstances in which we as parliamentarians find ourselves discussing things and the extent to which public opinion whatever that might be shapes it because I think in your earlier evidence you talked about the background giving rise to these manifesto commitments so you know you might say well this is very positive word a cabinet secretary who in the short period has listened and looked can you comment on the circumstances in which if you like law has been made and whether this is the best way to do it oh I know it's open to a big discussion like that John well it does relate to very much the circumstances we find that have changed in a short period this is a stage one inquiry and I want us to focus on this particular specifics of this bill which I think we'd accept there were good intentions perhaps in it but because we've had this move in it raised by the previous evidence session that we want to see where we're going with this to do justice to what is I think you know we we seem to agree that you want to end automatic early release I didn't hear dissent round on christian all arts and but this is not perhaps the best way to do it all I would say is that well this is maybe too philosophical you can have populist democracy or you can have deliberative democracy and if we're talking about a yeah well my point would be that in an area of policy making as complicated as this and as important as this in terms of getting it right you need a deliberative process which involves public consultation and public debate and dialogue about these issues but which is not reactive to the misrepresentation of the existing system in media and public discourse that's what happened in 2006-07 when the 2007 act was passed and I was advising the committee at that time the evidence to the deliberative process in the committee was excellent but there was an election looming and stage three went a different way from where I thought the evidence was leading the committee at that time in relation to the custodial sentences in weapons act I understand the realities of that not naive about it but I do think that it's critically important for there to be cross-party political leadership on a deliberative democratic process about how to get this right it's too important to mess with in the populist way I don't think we dispute that on this issue can I i'm interested roddy yes I just wanted to actually ask mr merch for some further evidence beyond what we had now from mr mcconnell about kind of the workings of rehabilitation programmes the one of a better word reducing reoffending in the prison service at the current time how much you know how much of a delays it is there in actually in getting on these programs programs I mean we have we delivered last year around 1400 programs or approved activities to prisoners around the estate there is a waiting list and we based that on critical dates but it's actually more complex again than that because some prisoners will deny that they have a problem until very close to the critical date and then try to move up the list or people are recalled into custody we currently have about six hundred and seventy five I think recalls in the system who we have to mobilise quickly which means that it is it is not reasonable that we can always catch everybody who scores with a lower need the supreme court I have to say in the point was made about potential legal challenge there's no jurisprudence at the moment which would suggest that there was a risk with determinate sentence prisoners so we would have to say that at this juncture I would also say that the Scottish Prison Service and the organisation of view has been been mentioned is looking to turn around another number of its processes including conducting a full psychology and program review in order to ensure that we see the gaps and we're able to mobilise better whereas changing the way our staff operate in order to ensure that they can do brief interventions and do different type of intervention type activity not big programs because this issue isn't just about program delivery prisoners actually change and are rehabilitated in the work that builds their social capital there's the linkages back into society as well as learning skills about thinking in different ways about how they do things so the prison service for the last year and for the next five years will be really concentrating on changing how it does its business and the role of prison officers that's actually quite a big ask it's a big training task for the organisation but it's about changing we do business we've also committed to having 42 currently through care support officers the reason for that is the Scottish Prison Service recognizes the importance of through care and the fact that real rehabilitation actually happens in community and people need support in order to reintegrate back into the community so in other words waking up to the fact that it doesn't stop at the prison gate committees well informed on that yes mrs crumbie i'd like to reiterate that we do actually support the ending of automatic early release to us it does take away from the complexity for victims understanding when the offender is going to be released so many times we will get phone calls saying that they received a letter they don't understand the sentence and at the front end of it front door of it and now they've received a letter to say that the offender is up for release or you know into the community we absolutely recognize the importance and the relevance of supervision and reintegration into the community it really is about making sure though that the victim has their choice and they're aware of that and also they have a choice of any perceived personal safety to themselves so if they wish to know that they don't want to bump into the offender into this area where they know the offender may be it's their choice to avoid that error it's their choice to move their kids from school if they so wish and that's important to the victim to have that awareness and understanding but would you have concerns if this ending whatever we call automatic early release was deferred for a considerable period would you have concerns on the point of view of your organisation I believe we would yes I think that's where we have to have your assistance with this with regard to the letter from the cabinet secretary how if possible it would be possible to move this bill forward rather than I think you in your speech and you know long because a way out the long grass for a long time I can I can see that the problem is the letter here from the cabinet secretary is trying to combine two things which the big question is how do you combine them so both are virtues both we would probably agree with so to that extent it's a good thing but the big question is how do you do that and there's a whole range of questions of principle and practice and logistics but just basic principles that need to be thought about before one can do that so there is the worry about rushing this as you as Margaret Mitchell said we've had eight years perhaps for understandable reasons but now it almost feels like there's a there's a desire suddenly there's a there's an urgency it must be done straight away so even if it's possible for a committee to for example either ask or the government would do it is actually to defer a stage two or even at a stage two for a committee to take further evidence on specific amendments to the bill that's what I'm getting at you know how would one manage this if it's manageable rather than perhaps defer this for years and years and years again because at least if you've got something in front of you there's another there's something you've got to do something you can't just extend it yes professor sorry I'll take professor sorry just briefly I mean absolutely I think the work of the committees to be welcomed but the committee I guess has to respond to those amendments coming from government and the question is how will the government come up with those amendments if it doesn't consult and have time to think that that's what I'm saying it is possible a stage two to you don't have to keep to a short timetable for a stage two you can ask for a stage two the committee can ask for time almost like another stage one in taking evidence and so on on amendments true but we're necessarily then reacting to those amendments brought forward by government my concern is how well thought through will those amendments be how imaginative can the committee be in that Professor MacNeill and then I'll take Ms Mackenzie yes Professor MacNeill to pick up on the point from from Sarah if we persevere if the government and the committee choose to persevere with the bill and it's option two option B so we're not talking about additional supervision we're talking about it within the framework of the existing sentence then to meet victims reports legitimate demand for clarity the bill would have to include provisions to change the way in which sentencing was described the way in which it was explained the way in which it was made clear in the first instance and that isn't currently a purpose or a stated intention of the bill so there's a problem there but maybe that's a remediable problem within the context of parliamentary procedure I'm not expert on that so that's that's one point but then a second point is if you go down that route and you're looking at option B which has a period of compulsory supervision within the existing sentence then the key question would be about what would the evidence base be that you would review at stage two in order to arrive at a determination about the timing issues and you've already kind of identified that in the questions that you that you gave us in advance of this session we haven't really been very able to answer them clearly because we don't know the clear intentions of the bill I've given you a best Monica, Barry and I have given you a best guess on how we would maybe frame that if that was the intent but it's for me it's the fundamental problem here is that we're muddying the waters by talking simultaneously about clarity and sentencing in public safety and these are two related issues and they're both important issues but we can't tackle one by doing something that claims to be about the other so you know victim support's position is completely understandable from the perspective of victims interests legitimate interests in having clarity and understanding of the situation that they're in but I find it hard to see how this bill which is crafted around public safety can address their legitimate interests. I'll take you in, Ms McKenzie. I've just been checking and getting advice so that it might be possible to get that clarity about the sentencing and so on in the criminal justice bill which would get much wider remit. I know I may be clutching at proverbial straws but that that is maybe a possibility. I mean some of these points have already been made by Professor Tatum Professor Neill but I come back to the point that woven into the bill is an assumption that keeping people in jail for longer is what will improve public safety and I think what a lot of us are saying is where's the evidence base for that and if you advance and I said this at the last session if you advance a bill on the platform of improving public safety and the measures you then take you trumpet and you talk about this is wonderful it's going to improve our exhibit and if something happens you then run the risk of increasing public levels of cynicism about the criminal justice system which as we know and victim support have said themselves are also already running quite high they don't understand a lot of sentencing policy and if you advance something on a platform you must deliver on that otherwise you could increase cynicism about the criminal justice system and that's that's not what any of us want. We're content about cold release I think we've taken that. Gil One of the comments made about the committee reacting to the Government and the letter of course we do we need to do that but we also need to react to what we hear in evidence from panels that come before us and my recollection is that we could pretty well around the table concentrated on cold release and it would seem to me that what the Government's letter proposes is that cold release doesn't actually happen and I would like comments if I got that wrong is this not what we're being told by the minister the Cabinet Secretary of State? That's what the letter says but it doesn't tell us how and that's what leaves us in a conundrum about option A or option B. As I've just said the problem with option B is that although option A is not workable from my perspective or from my understanding of the law and the evidence, option B is workable but it doesn't actually address victim support's concern because it effectively creates a new system of automatic release but calls it something else and changes the dates. That's what option B, that's the net effective option B. So I think unless the bill can be amended or some other legislative device can be found so that something is done about clarity in sentencing in the first instance then we can't address victim support's concerns appropriately or deliver what they're requesting. Elaine? I suppose I might invite comment on an alternative, I suppose, in that we know that the 2007 act was passed but not enacted. The amendments of the 2010 act were passed but not enacted. Another possibility would be to pass the legislation but not to enact it until some of the issues had been addressed. Is that another possibility? We've been there. That was 2007 and it's still sitting on the statute book on enacted, which is part of the political pressure that leads to this effort. I don't think it makes sense to personally, I don't think it makes sense to pass an act that you know you're not intending to implement. But you don't enact it until certain other things have taken place, which was what was supposed to be happening. I guess that was in the McLeish commissions. Yeah, you're right about that but we're still a long way off the 5000 that McLeish recommended as the point at which the CISOT act might have been implemented. I agree with that and also I suppose I'm slightly uneasy about passing, I'm not sure that you were suggesting this Elaine Murray at all, but about passing legislation which we think is probably not very good and the hope that then the executive brought the government of the day, even if we might trust this government or whatever, the government of the day will then sort things out. It worries me that another government might be far less responsible. I don't think that's what you meant. I think you're deferring while other mechanisms are in place, for example. But in the meantime we must make sure that any legislation that's passed is the very, very best that it can be. This would be the most radical change for 20 years. That would be the committee's view as well, please understand that. Rodi, yes. I just wanted to take up Ms Mackenzie's point about empirical evidence. What are you suggesting empirical evidence, for example, elsewhere would show in relation to public safety? Is there empirical evidence out there? Well, I'm probably not the best person to answer that, I'm not an academic, but evidence that suggested that holding people in custody for longer rather than releasing them and supervising them for the remainder of their sentence was likely to lead to fewer instances of re-offending and thereby increase public safety, but I might be able to put people on the table first, because that's new. Recently published National Academies of Sciences report from the United States, and a very high-powered commission led by some of the world's leading criminologists under the leadership of Professor Jeremy Travis of John Jay College in New York. The reports on the consequences of the rising imprisonment in the United States, and one of the things that it considers is the effect of that on crime rates. It reaches the conclusion that has been reached before by criminologists that even massive increases in rates of incarceration produce marginal effects on crime rates, and that's a different question from the more specific question that this bill seeks to address in relation to public safety. Obviously not all crime raises major issues of public safety, although all crime is of legitimate public concern, obviously. I'm not aware of any credible evidence that lengthening sentences in and of itself guarantees us the more effective management of risk that the bill seems to be trying to be about. I'm not able to put it more forcefully than that, because I think it's actually very difficult to do the kinds of research that would allow you to experimentally test different release arrangements for obvious reasons of justice. You don't really get to do that kind of experiment in criminology for very good reasons, so I can't put it more strongly than that, but I could say that evidence about desistance from crime, which is more my specialised subject, would suggest that it's not the timing of release, it's the experience of imprisonment, the access to the services that are needed, the manner of release, the support that follows release, and wider issues about public acceptance and reintegration in the community that matter for the medium and long term in terms of somebody's potential risk or otherwise to public safety. I have to laugh because while you're doing that, I have Professor Tata's in, then he's out, then he's in, then he's out, because I've also covered everything. As long as he doesn't... I mean, believe you me, that's a fact. Margaret. I can have false argument here that if we keep somebody longer, then that will improve public safety. It will only improve public safety if on release we are a threat to the public, and surely the sentence and custodial sentence is, first and foremost, does this individual present a threat to public safety? If they do, and there isn't any way to eliminate that other public sentence, it will be a custodial sentence. Now, it seems to me that there should be some clarity and transparency in that custodial sentence, and therefore I agree with victims' support, abolish all automatic early release. But the key point is what do you do with that individual while they're in prison, and that's what we're not focusing on. We've had very good things from Mr March, but the point is that the resources aren't there. I had a meeting with Circle yesterday, and there was an individual short-term sentence, and you're quite right, Mr Allard, that it is short-term sentences for the re-offending more, and they do present a threat to the public, therefore, in terms of the way that that's escalating. But there was no support, all the through care that's supposed to be there, not there. The individual himself was saying, yeah, I'm excited about getting out, but I'm wondering if I'm better here, because I know I don't have any housing to go to. I know that when I get out there, then the temptations will be there. Until we address that fundamental point, then I don't think the bill of where we're going around of this discussion is fit for purpose. Well, you've got that off your chest a lot, which we probably agree, but my point is to get back to this. We're dealing with a bill, and that's where we're back at. To the point of—I have to say that I was quite attractive because it's totally on community, but then that has to be dealt with in the Sentencing Council. It has to be clear for victim support. It maybe doesn't fit into this bill. All I'm looking at is if there is an opportunity, given the procedures of Parliament where we might—I'm sure that the cabinet secretary is listening to this—where we either cease at stage 1 of a really thorough stage 2 pause, while there's some consultation, or the committee can move on to stage 2 with amendments and take evidence and take longer over it and get that time from the bureau, rather than park it, which would park also, by the way, the issues that you've raised regarding different times of the day release. I don't think that we can just go ahead with that, frankly. It's really how we've managed this so that we keep the foot on the accelerator, but not just for the sake of doing that, to deliver good legislation, but to get on with it, rather than again have years of this. That's really what I'm looking at from you with the evidence. We've accepted many of the issues that you've raised, but I suppose that I'm going to go round and ask you about that, and just say what your view would be. I'll start if I may with Ms Cromby. Just come round everybody. We support the ending of automatic early release. However, we do recognise and acknowledge that there may be further evidence that's required to be gathered. Your thing is to go in some manner to continue. Absolutely. Professor Tata. You can end automatic early release, but in order to ensure, as the aim of the letter says, everyone gets a mandatory period of, I assume, conditional supervision, you have to reinvent it maybe by some other name. I think that there are ways of doing that, but I think that you're really asking about the process, I think, convener. To some extent, I'm not sure I feel I'm the best person to answer that. I'm not asking about the process. There are ways of resolving this. I think that we accept issues that you've raised and the complexity in the interaction with the Sentencing Council, interaction with other things, but it is, you know, how do we, as a committee, deal with this issue, an alternative, just say, we throw it out, we start again, or we look at a way of amending this bill to make it fit with the principles that the Government's come forward with, because it can be done, but I just don't know if that's what you want to do. Do you think it's worthwhile? Yes. I mean, what we have from the Government, of course, at the moment, is just a letter with two intentions. That's all we have. And if we take it through, if we don't, if the bill isn't withdrawn, then the question is, what will the bill look like? And when necessary responded to that, my concern isn't so much that the committee clearly is trying to do what it can to look at that, is how will the Government then bring forward its proposals on what basis, how will it consult, will it consult, because necessarily one is reacting to that, one can try to react imaginatively, but one's reacting to what the Government has put forward. So many... We can have the Cabinet Secretary in front of us, for example, and raise these issues and ask for, and as I say, no doubt they'll listen to this evidence, and ask them, well, here are the issues that have been raised in front of the committee, do you have solutions to this? I suppose my concern, convener, is that, as you know, and everyone around this table will know, that this is not only a very technical area, and it's incredibly complex, the law's unbelievably complex, but it's also, as you know, politically charged. And we have obviously two elections coming up, and that obviously makes the option of trying to give it to an impartial body to look at, a little bit more attractive. I don't know what impartial body you're talking about. Such as a sentencing council, for instance. Professor MacNeill. Well, I think minimally, I don't know parliamentary procedure, so I don't know exactly what your latitude is in terms of persevering, but if you were persevering, then I think minimally extending the period of deliberation so that it can involve dialogue with the sentencing council and with others about their plans and their views on the relationship between first instance sentencing and release decision making would be necessarily part of that extended process at stage 2. My fundamental problem, though, is this. When Jack McConnell is first Minister announced in Parliament that automatic early release would end, he did it under pressure on a truth and sentencing point, which I think came from the opposition at that time in 2006-07. When the parties, all except the Scottish Socialists and the committee, voted to let the seesaw custodial sentencing weapons bill go forward to stage 3, they agreed that the principles were good but that there were flaws in the detail, and they did that all under pressure of an imminent election where they were responding to popular opinion about the fact that early release, automatic early release, did not seem to be delivering justice as people understood it. Now again, I think that we are in a similar situation where, for political reasons, a new minister wants to grasp the nettle and address it, which is about saying that justice policy in Scotland is going to be smart and progressive, and it is going to take social justice seriously, but it is also not going to be soft and cuddly. Grasping the nettle makes a certain degree of political sense, but then muddying it up with a whole extended discussion of risk and public safety causes, for me, a fundamental problem with what is before you. To return to a point that I made earlier, I think that a lot depends on whether the committee wants and whether the Government wants clarity, which is, I think, Victim Support's core point, or whether it wants to pursue public safety or better, how it wants to balance those two important objectives. It is feasible to do option B with an extended stage 2 deliberation that involves dialogue with the Sentencing Council and others. If I had my way, I would tear it up and start again and do the thing properly and comprehensively, but if, for other reasons, it is important to persevere, then it would have to be an extensive stage 2 that does that. Fair enough. It is a fine and extensive explanation of position, which is what we want. I think that my comments on your question are less ethical and more around how we manage the process around public protection. For me, there is a question that is outstanding and I referred to the earlier comment that I made about how effective are our current arrangements in terms of the review of MAPA, because whatever the detail will be, we will require a multi-agency response to that. That is important for us, the question around the effectiveness of our current arrangements. The second point in relation to that is that we are in straight and financial times, so the resource that follows that in terms of how we manage those increased individuals and the intensity of service provision that they will require requires some further examination. We are in a process of significant public change in terms of health and social care. We are moving from community justice structures to community planning, how effective and what analysis is done in relation to those changing arrangements, how will that impact on that proposal, how will the proposal to integrate health and social care, how will those policy commitments impact on this set of arrangements. For those much more operational, focused matters, I think that it requires greater deliberation. If those can only complement the more procedural aspects or the more ethically based aspects around the complications of how you make law and how you address facets of law, I think that it leads me to suggest that it requires a further period of reflections, consultations and analysis. That is very important, because there is no point in making law that cannot be implemented for practical reasons. Or, if I may also add, understanding the impact of that law. No, no, absolutely, Mr March. I am not sure that it is for SPS to comment except to say that we will contribute, and if the bill is enacted or when the bill is enacted, we will be ready for it to come into place. I would like to follow up on Mr McKendrick's points to say that if the concern here is in relation to public protection and the management of the risks that are posed by those who have the greatest risk of serious harm, then the point that we want to get to is that the release is carefully considered, the timing of it, the support, the planning and the management of that release requires to be considered. I think that what we need further scoping of, given the resources that would be involved in that for the parole board and for the community services as well, is that we would need to understand the number and the characteristics and the circumstances of the cases that give particular concern at the moment. I think that, in taking this forward, it would be valuable to have more evidence about that. Thank you very much, Mr White. I find myself in a tricky position here because, ideally, I would tear this up and start again, but in the interests partly from Victim Support Scotland but also from the evidence from the academics, I recognise that it is important to be positive and to move forward. If I can be assured, as I feel I can be, that the stage 2 process can embrace the concerns around the table, I will go with it. I agree with Professor Neill that my idea will be to start again and present the empirical base for it going forward. The stage 2 extension is less than ideal, but, in pragmatic terms, maybe that is all that you will feel that you are able to do. I will return to the point about the release period, as stated in the two-page letter. Option A of tagging this on to the end of the sentence, I cannot see that that is workable. Option B, really, is automatic. We are all sort of good, and we do not think that that is a good deal. Option B is automatically released by another name. That is what I mean about public cynicism. It was not about the cold release, it was about a complete agreement with the clarity and sentencing. People say that this is automatic, or at least we are just calling it something different. In which case, why are we doing this? Well, whether the cabinet secretary and the Government thank you for your evidence is quite another matter. I thank you very much for your evidence. We have time to call the cabinet secretary to answer the issues that have been raised in this. I think that that would be what you would wish to go forward in that way. I am looking round for nods from my committee, but I see that Margaret has already got her pencil sharpened. That ends the evidence session. On the general principles of the bill in mid-March, our next meeting will be on 3 March. Some of them do not know when we are meeting because they are talking. We are still in session. Our next meeting will take place on 3 March, when we will begin to take evidence at stage 1 of the human trafficking and exploitation Scotland bill. I hope that, before that, we will get a chance to report on when we went out recently to the various organisations. We will put that factor that in. That ends the session. You may now communicate with each other in an informal fashion.