 Felly, ein fwyiad o'r fwyfyrdd i gyd, Fellsie, ond byddwch gallwch, wrth gwrthion nhw, Gynllen, oes ffyrdd i ddim yn gweithio, mae'r 13-gymhod ein mwy o 2018, mewn ddigon niol LEDs Daniel Johnson. Mae genna item 1 y mae Diolch yn gweithio'r blaennau fliadol yn y fwybeth. Rwyf yn ddajw i llandd Brosnogol, a nhw'r dddangosion nhw, mewn dgylch, a adeg diwyd yng Nghym Gwyl which is a private paper. I welcome Graham O'Neill, policy officer of the Scottish Refugee Council, chief superintendent John McKenzie, head of safer communities, specialist crime division, and sergeant. I do bigger fun, yes. No, we haven't done item one, which is taking discussions on our work programme in private. It helps if you don't strike out things in your note you have in front of you. Are we agreed to take that business in private? Yes, and thank you to the members for the very helpful additional sharing. Welcome, chief superintendent John McKenzie and sergeant Graham Sterling, prevention and interventions DG Division Police Scotland. Thank you for your written submissions, which are always very helpful to the subcommittee. I wish I could convey thanks to the Home Office for their written submission, but notwithstanding them having plenty of time to respond to us, they've done us the discurtersy of not responding, which I think is very disappointing. I'll now move to questions on the issue and what I would be very keen to understand from the panel is, particularly Police Scotland, to comment on the current relationship between Police Scotland and the Home Office with regard to immigration removals and detentions. For example, would it be possible to outline the particular roles and responsibilities for each organisation, chief superintendent? I would probably like to start off by highlighting that the relationship with regard to Police Scotland and the immigration service probably takes a number of different strands, and if I may, I would just like to touch on those if I could. For my ease, when I'm talking about Home Office immigration enforcement, I refer to Home Office immigration, which is the term that I'm referencing. I suppose that there are six strands to our relationship and the parameters on which we work. The first strand is that of our relationship with information sharing and which we share information between ourselves and the Home Office based on an information sharing agreement that was signed back in 2016, which is embedded in the previous day of protection act and meets the criteria of the 2018 act. That information is in relation to ensuring that the activity of sharing information in relation to criminal activity or statute is met. The second component to the relationship is that in which quite a lot of the interest lies. It's an activity in relation to the enforcement activity of Home Office immigration. That relationship, in my view, is quite straightforward and as much as Home Office immigration has primacy over that activity, we have a protocol in which we will share information. That takes the form of an operational notification form that is provided by the Home Office and there's three sections in that document that's required for police completion. That allows the Home Office immigration to ultimately make a determination on the risk that it is in relation to the activity that they intend to undertake. That might be activity that they refer to as an administrative removal or a removal in terms of deportation as a result of identification of somebody of high harm. If that's in respect of each individual, would that be in respect of a location, for instance? That would be in respect of each individual. The form is individual based, but you are correct if there may be a number of individuals within the same location. That form allows police to undertake a community impact assessment to determine what the impact on the wider community would be to allow us to then have a wider discussion with the Home Office immigration to make decisions on the appropriateness of the action that's been undertaken, the impact on the wider community and then allow us to put in measures to minimise or mitigate the risk. I want to be clear at that point that that form is then there is a follow-up process that allows Home Office immigration to ask for police assistance as and when required, based on risk. The general view is that those numbers are quite minimal in terms of police interaction. However, from figures that I have received from Greater Glasgow since May of this year, there has been 68 operational notification forms from Home Office of which 10 of those have resulted in police activity or police assistance. Let me be clear what that police assistance looks like. That police assistance is not activity in relation to the apprehension of individuals that the Home Office has identified. Police activity is purely to ensure that the process is undertaken peacefully and that community reassurance is maintained. As soon as an arrest takes place, normally two officers will remove themselves from that area, but on 10 occasions 68 from May that has been police involvement. Before moving on, could I ask some questions about what you have said today? For instance, a community impact assessment is an excellent idea. Who is engaged in that process? It suggests a long leading time, rather than anything that is spontaneous. Who is involved in the risk assessment? Are the police involved in the risk assessment? Yes, of course they are. The police are involved and the officer to my left is a bit of an expert in community impact assessments. However, the police are involved, the Home Office are involved, wider partnerships would be involved if required. Depending on the circumstances, depending on the location, there would be a partnership discussion about the community impact and the best way to mitigate any risks that have been identified. However, let me be clear again, a community impact assessment may not be deemed to be required for every occasion. It will be dependent upon risk factors identified through the operation notification form, of which there are 12 sections, three of which we complete. Is it possible that you could share, for instance, a blank form or even a sample of a community impact assessment that is suitably anonymised with that might be helpful? Yes, I shall certainly be able to provide that for the committee. If I move on, the third component to the strand is joint initiatives. The committee will have heard of Operation Mighty, which was in the press earlier on this year, in relation to activity in Govan Hill, in which Police Scotland and Home Office have been involved in a joint initiative. However, let me be clear on that. There was a wider partnership involvement. HMRC and other partners were involved. Again, that is activity to potentially identify criminality. On that occasion, it was in relation to serious and organised criminality, but also to identify and support vulnerable members of the community to provide support in case there are actions of human trafficking or forced labour. We are there to try and support and identify those activities. The fourth component to that, and I am sure that it will be raised as we go on the next hour, is the provision of custody facilities. HMICS referred to the custody facility in 2014. We have primacy when Home Office brings an individual to custody. It is Police Scotland's responsibility for the welfare of an individual in custody. Police Scotland has primacy, and we will determine whether there are grounds for that person's continued detention. We will be responsible for ensuring that the rights of that person are achieved, including the provision of legal support and informing a reasonably named person, as we would for anybody else. What criteria would Police Scotland use to determine that the person is being lawfully detained? That would be, and I agree that I may wish to make a comment later on, but that will be dependent on the information that has been provided by the agency that has undertaken that arrest in this occasion, Home Office Immigration Enforcement, as we would if it was military police or HMRC or any other law enforcement agency that used our facility. They would provide information and justification under the statute in which they were undertaken that arrest. The custody officer would ultimately make a determination on whether that arrest was lawful under the statute. Have there been instances where someone has been presented at a charge bar and Police Scotland has said that we do not consider that a lawful arrest? I anticipate that that question may have arisen today. To my knowledge, no. Can I clearly say that that has been the case over a number of years? I cannot, but to my knowledge and the information that I have received has not been the case. The fifth component is the relationship that we have embedded officers in Home Office Immigration Enforcement. We have two embedded officers in the criminal and finance investigation teams, and, likewise, there are two officers based at Cosh to support Operation Nexus, which I am sure will arise, but that is information sharing in relation to foreign national offenders. Lastly, the last component of the relationship is the distinction between the activity that we undertake at ports through Border Force compared to Home Office Immigration. I will not touch on that because I understand that the committee is not investigating that component, but those are the six strands that I would suggest are the main areas of the relationship with ourselves and Home Office Immigration. Thank you very much. That is very comprehensive. I have just got two very brief questions before I move on to colleagues. One of them is that you talked about primacy and that would clearly apply in the situation of determining whether it was a lawful arrest and the person was going to be retained in police custody. Does Police Scotland ever have primacy in any of the operations where it is enforcement simply on immigration issues? No. No, no, okay, thank you. As regards the data, would there be statistics regarding it? I mean, I know that you talked about 68 and 10 of them would be specific where there would be a different type of police involvement. Are there comprehensive statistics kept of this? You mentioned Greater Glasgow, but Scotland lied. Yes, I could get you data and I am more than happy to take that away. I am aware that there have been 88 requests within e-division since January. However, I would have to go to each division because the process that is adopted is that there are sparks within each divisional intelligence unit, and it is the divisional intelligence unit that undertake the checks. I will provide those details. It may take me a period of time, but I will provide those details for the committee. That would be very helpful. There are quite a number of questions that we have got through, and I am conscious of taking up time. On the generality of what you have heard, would you wish to comment, Mr O'Neill, on that? There will be specific questions on other matters, but on what you have heard, please. First, I thank you to the committee for taking time on this issue. There is a significant public interest in shedding more light on the relationship between key devolved institutions, such as Police Scotland, as well as the Scottish Prison Service and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, on the one hand, with the Home Office, particularly through its immigration enforcement, border patrol, visas and immigration functions, on the other hand. I am really welcome what John has said on behalf of Police Scotland. It is getting to precisely the kind of clarity that we think there is that public interest in. I do not know if there is space for me to say a few points. We do think that it relates to what John has said. I think that the first thing that we wanted to say aside from the public interest in why we as a refugee rights agency were raising this issue is that we have been working for a long time at the sharp end of Home Office policies in relation to a very vulnerable population of asylum seekers, particularly in Glasgow, but to a lesser extent elsewhere in smaller parts of Scotland. One of the things that we have picked up is that people have very low awareness of their rights, often have mental health issues, and often they stem or are aggravated by that insecure immigration status that they have. We are looking not too far in the future, and this is in no way a political point. It is more a statement, we think, of immigration fact, that Britain and the UK, once and when it does withdraw from the European Union, will create a higher risk for a higher number of people of insecure immigration status. There will be people who may not be able to satisfy the settled status scheme. That being the case, and we can maybe talk about that a bit later on in terms of why, specifically, we have grave concerns there, is that as a refugee rights charity that has worked in the asylum system, we can see a lot of the risks of destitution and vulnerability, and therefore the involvement of the Home Office through its immigration enforcement activities is also being visited on people who currently have secure immigration status by dint of being in a new member state and therefore in the UK, but they may not have that. We think that there is a higher risk of insecure immigration status affecting a higher number of people. We think that part of that wider context is that people often experience and talk about the hostile environment in relation to persons with insecure immigration status. We see that for people that we are working with seeking refugee protection, and that hostile environment has been with the asylum system for a very long period of time. Some of the things that it comprises that are often not recognised is that there has been a real exponential growth in the number of actions within immigration law that are defined as crimes. That is an area that will impact on Police Scotland's practice in our context as well as the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in practice that will have that impact in the prison service. The second issue is that we have seen a really rapid growth in the use of criminal sanction regimes, particularly recently. For example, the Immigration Act 2016 sets down a criminal sanctions regime in relation to landlords who rent out properties. That is not yet up to people who have not got secure immigration status. That is not currently at effect in Scotland. It is in effect in England, but it is a kind of example of the growth of criminal activities into immigration law. I suppose that one of the other issues that we have picked up in our work is that we are concerned about recent changes within data protection legislation, which will remove rights of access through data protection legislation for individuals who are subject to immigration control. They might not be able to use mechanisms such as subject access requests to get information, which might be quite important for them if they are trying to understand how statutory bodies are passing information about them, and it is very important to inform their work in terms of trying to intervene in relation to prevent removal from the country. I am conscious of a number of questions, Mr Neil. At the end, you feel something that we have not covered likewise, Mr MacKenzie. We can pick up on it with a number of questions, and if we do not pick up, we will hopefully get the opportunity. The first question is from Fulton. Thank you, convener, and good morning, panel. I am just wondering if any of the panel are aware that any information is given to agencies working with migrant communities prior to removal. Those agencies that would be engaging and supporting the communities, are they given before warning, if you like, or notice that removal would be taken place? I would anticipate that what we have is, and again I would suggest that it is for Home Office immigration to answer that question. However, if I was to take it from a purely policing perspective, if it was an operational decision that could have an impact on that operational activity, I would suggest that it is no. However, does that mean that information is in shared post-app point to provide support to assistance? Again, I would think that it would be for the Home Office to answer that question, but from a policing perspective, that would be the point of engagement from a Police Scotland point of view, not under this statute, but if it was a similar, if there was some other activity that we were taking in terms of arrest. Graham, I do not know if there is anything that you want to add on that point. Not to my knowledge, as Chief Superintendent McKenzie says, it would be a matter for the Home Office. We use a policing division to engage with groups that support refugees and asylum seekers on a regular basis, but I certainly have not done any engagement purely based on information that I have or do not have in relation to any upcoming operations. As Mr McKenzie says, that would be an operational matter for them, and I potentially could impact on it. I do appreciate that the question would have been best answered by the Home Office, as the conveners already said, at this point, that they have not responded. I think that you have outlined the reasons why there might be some circumstances where it would not be appropriate to share information, but I imagine that there would also be a lot of other circumstances where you would have third sector organisations and social work departments in such a way of working with families in that position. Can you see any advantages of such approach being widened out so that people can be prepared for what is happening? I suppose that there are two components to that. From a Police Scotland point of view, Graham, the wider safer communities teams across Scotland, work extremely hard with partner agencies third sector groups to ensure that there is an element of confidence in policing, to ensure that we can distinguish between the activities of policing and Home Office immigration to provide confidence in processes undertaken by ourselves as an organisation. Going back to the core component of your question, are there occasions when information could or should be shared with other organisations pre-immigration action? I would probably relay that back to the public protection analogy whereby we would share information if we believed that there was concern in support that was required to be provided at the immediate point of police activity. Your argument in terms of would there be occasions when information should be shared with, for example, health and social care partnerships? I think that absolutely there could be. Does that take place? Again, I cannot answer that question, but from a policing point of view, there are occasions when we take executive action and we do share information with partner agencies and we trust partner agencies with that information because we work collectively for the benefit of individuals and wider communities. Thank you very much for the question. I suppose that a straightforward answer is yes. We think that there is a lot more that can be done in terms of maximising data sharing opportunities around what is a very foreseeable event that is the use by the Home Office of its immigration act powers to apprehend somebody, to detain them and, in some cases, to be used in Police Scotland's custodial facilities on route to a detention centre, be it in Dungavel or in another part of the UK. I think that when I say that to sharing opportunities, we recognise that there may be limitations on what can be shared with the third sector on those issues, but we would certainly hope that there can be some information shared with the third sector, especially when there are pre-existing mandates in place, which very often there is. I would suggest that, in terms of the individual's rights and his relationship with for independent advice, the legal representative is going to be an absolutely pivotal person for that individual as well. We would certainly hope to see that they are centrally involved consistently always. We do not always think that that is the case in terms of the Home Office's activities when they are undertaking immigration detention powers. As John Grayam said, there needs to be the opportunities to be involved in local statutory bodies such as the health and social care partnerships. One of the things that we would like to see in the coming years in relation to this particularly vulnerable group of persons that are subject to immigration powers is that there is a multiagency process that involves Scottish statutory and, to the extent appropriate, Scottish third sector bodies in it, because that is a very important protection factor. One of the things that I want to mention today, and if it is with the chairs forbearance, I will just now, is that the Home Office is not very good at assessing vulnerability. That has been evidenced by the fact that, over the past two years, they have moved to what they call their adults at risk policy, which is to inform whether they put people into detention or not, the Stephen Shaw review, and its iteration at the UK level earlier on this year confirmed that it really is a work in progress about how the Home Office is applying their adults at risk policy. An ancillary to that is that it is not applying consistently what is known as a rule 35 policy in the way they should be. The thread that goes between them is that they are people that have vulnerabilities, particularly around mental health issues that really should not be put into immigration detention in the first place. We see far too often, and it is borne out by the evidence across the UK, that that is the case. That is what concerns us in relation to the Home Office, making those types of life changing, far-reaching adverse decisions affecting individuals' liberty, who should not be put into incarceration at all, because they have not committed any serious crimes at all, often the case. For people in the asylum process, there are no crimes whatsoever that has been done. For people to get routed through Police Scotland facilities, as John very rightly said, police have primacy over the care and wellbeing in the health and access to rights for people at that point. We think that there will be a really important opportunity for Police Scotland in the custodial facilities to ensure that the people that the Home Office is saying are being detained, whether they should be getting detained in the first place. I think that that gets to the heart of one of our concerns in relation to how we know how the Home Office operates in relation to issues around detention. It is not just me who is saying that today, it is backed up by evidence over a number of years. Given that evidential background around that they are not good at assessing vulnerability, including in relation to the use of detention powers, that is why it is really important that in Scotland we maximise all the opportunities that we can get to make sure that the people who are subject to those very far-reaching powers are not. It is only those people who are justified and lawful for that to be the case that they are the ones who are subject to it. Chief Superintendent McKenzie, would you want to confirm presumably, or is it the same criteria that would apply to someone detained following a Home Office operation as their fitness to be detained? Is it the same standard criteria? Exactly the same standard. The 21 question vulnerability assessment that we undertake for any member who comes through custody is the same assessment that we would take for Home Office immigration. Again, I go back to my earlier point. We retain primacy over the wellbeing of an individual who is within our custody environment. I am glad that Graham sort of distinguished between the vulnerability assessment between one agency and another. The vulnerability assessment is a robust assessment process. Again, it is within the Custody Care and Welfare manual. I just want to touch on the component that Graham is about access to legal recourse when an individual is within our custody environment, the same arrest process and SOAP is used, and the same police service of Scotland solicitor access guidance is used. That, ultimately, in simple terms means that an individual who comes through our custody environment will have the same arrest rights of accused as anybody else. They will have the right to have a solicitor informed. They will have the right to have a solicitor accessing them within the custody environment. They will have the right to have all the rights provided in a language that they understand, and they can have access to a solicitor at any time during that period. I go back to your core point. Is it the same? Yes, it is. Mr Neil, without asking you to repeat everything that you have said, I want to highlight that you had suggested that there was an accountability and transparency gap between the Home Office Immigration and Enforcement operations in Scotland. Is that what you said earlier? Is that really what you were referring to, or is there another angle to that that you want to highlight? No, it is at the core. I thank you for asking it. A lot of our concerns are looking to the future to try to make sure that we protect ourselves in Scotland from some of the worst extremes of the hostile environment policy. We fear, as I said in opening remarks, that there will be more people with insecure immigration status who are currently EU citizens who will actually be subject to immigration enforcement activities who have not been in the past. That being the case, we often think about what are the safeguards that we can put in place in Scotland in relation to that. In one of the obvious places that we went to as our various inspectorates in Scotland, we know the prisons, the police service and the application of the prosecution code by Fiscals better than anyone else does. That is why we think that this is something that we would really invite the committee to consider, is that having looked at the legislation for each of the Scottish inspectors in the three areas that I mentioned, we cannot see a barrier that is named within that legislation to those activities that are being undertaken. That being the case, we think that there is definitely potential for, for example, a joint thematic inspection that looks across the three by the three Scottish inspectors. It is looking at the issue of how people with insecure immigration status are treated by the criminal justice organisations in Scotland. That is very much in relation to the Home Office immigration compliance activities for those individuals. There are a number of foreign national offenders in Scottish prisons. It is not high numbers, but we know of cases where people who have served their sentence in the Scottish prison have moved to a remand unit in that Scottish prison. In some cases, people have committed serious criminal offences and are liable to deportation, but that does not happen. People are still in that Scottish prison, they are in a limbo period, and a lot of public funds are being used there. The Home Office is not supporting Scottish bodies, and that is not a sustainable arrangement to have, especially if you have a number of people. We also know of people who are foreign national offenders who have served their sentence and have moved straight into immigration detention facilities. They are left in immigration detention facilities as well. I suppose that what I am trying to get at here is a really invisible, vulnerable population. We really do not properly understand in Scotland what their rights are in terms of how they are feeling, their rights to legal advice, their rights to healthcare, etc. It is a symptom of the deeper issue, which is how much our inspection community, our regulatory community, around those areas, understands what it means to have insecure immigration status in Scotland. One part of that is foreign national offenders. There is a much wider group of people who have insecure immigration status who, at some point, will be subject to immigration activities. That will rub up against Scottish criminal justice agencies in some cases. It is just to try and get a regulatory community to think about how they can build that particular vulnerability that stems from insecure immigration status into their work and mainstream regulatory work. Thank you. That is helpful. Just very briefly, Superintendent, you said in your opening answer to convener's questions about the form that you fill in, the initial form for risk assessment, etc. Who takes the final decision on that? Who makes the decision on the risk assessment? The Home Office. Oh, so it is the Home Office. You do your bit and the Home Office takes it. I really want a very brief answer to this, because I do not want to go down the shrub at all too far. Do we have access to enough interpreters of the right language skills for people for whom English may be very far from being the first language? So the very brief answer to that is my assessment is yes. Police Scotland has just signed off a new contract, which deals with both face-to-face and telephone interpreting services. Obviously, that is continually monitored and falls under my remit. So the feedback that I have is yes with the caveat that it is continually monitored. I could return to the gap issue. Mr Neil, your submission says that this can leave a reduction in public confidence in criminal justice institutions in Scotland in a misperception. I noted in your opening remarks that you referred specifically to the need for criminal sanctions for those who let out properties. It is an issue that has gone on for years and years. I can remember, as a convener, of the Equalities Committee, that there were multiple people being given lets in multiple occupancy promise in dreadful conditions and those rogue-lying lords never really seemed to be picked up. Is that still the case that that is continuing and our laws here may be? That is not necessarily the police. It is maybe that we do not have the sections. I will be interested to hear just where the responsibility lies. In opening remarks, I thank you for the question. I was referring to the criminal sanction regime that was created in the Immigration Act 2016 from the Westminster Parliament, which created criminal sanctions for individuals, often private landlords, who let out accommodation to people, entered the residential tenancy agreement with people, who did not have the requisite leave to remain to enter such an agreement. There needed to be, from a reasonable grounds perspective, for a criminal sanction to be applied some degree of knowledge of the person who was letting out the landlord, who was letting out the property, that there was maybe something that was not completely correct about some of those immigration status. I was using that. That is not enforced in Scotland, that criminal sanction regime, from our perspective, thankfully. It is in existence in England at the moment. I use that more as an example to illustrate the group. I suppose that often people talk about the criminalization. It is like you combine criminal and immigration law together. On how that can have quite an invidious effect on individuals who are subject to that law, but it can also have quite an invidious effect on people who are expected, such as landlords, to act as the factual immigration officers when, really, they are landlords at the end of the day and they are just trying to do their job, but letting out roughly their property. I suppose that I was using that as an example to illustrate the deeper point. There is an increasingly complex area of law and immigration law, and it has within it a real growth in criminal sanctions, and that creates quite significant effects on individuals who are subject to it. The people that we work with in the refugee protection spectrum have, to an extent, been at the sharp end of some of the hostile environment measures over the past 15 years, and we fear that there will be a much greater number of people as a result of EU withdrawal. It is not a political point, but it is more about the statement of immigration facts, that if a person's current immigration status is secure, EU withdrawal will mean that it is not automatically secure again. That means that people then have to satisfy settled status, and if they cannot satisfy the UK Government's settled status regime, what may happen is that they are subject to the fall into insecure immigration status and then can be falling into immigration enforcement activities. That, we think, we fear, could particularly affect individuals who are from the north of central Europe to the south of central Europe in Scotland, people who are concentrated in particular sectors where there is maybe less labour market regulation, lower pay, etc., and who will not be able to satisfy as easily the settled status. We are trying to look not too far to the future to say that we have a problem here. We have a growth in the number of people who are going to have insecure immigration status in Scotland, a growth in the people who will not be able to satisfy the settled status regime, and therefore it will be the Home Office through their immigration enforcement activities, so they will be taking those measures. I understand that you are right to highlight in advance of us not really knowing where Brexit is going, and I take your point about landlords not having to police. That is not their job to police, but equally, the question that I asked you originally was, I think, a very pertinent one, a very vexing one, where you get rogue landlords taking dreadful advantage of people who are vulnerable, who are unsure of their status and are living in dreadful conditions. Has that improved? If it hasn't, how do we address that? Given that a lot of what we are looking at—I know what you call for a wider inquiry into relationships between the Scottish criminal justice and the Home Office, and so much of that is reserved, it seems to me that this particular aspect is devolved and something that we can do something about here and now. People who have insecure immigration status have an extremely vulnerable, and it is precisely that insecure immigration status that makes them vulnerable. That can be and is used as a control method at one extreme end of the spectrum by traffickers and inorganised criminals to control people's movements, to control people what they do and to control the conditions upon which they live. In a previous life, I was involved in working around human trafficking in Scotland, and we worked very closely with the police in relation to that, and we continue to do so at Scottish Refugee Council. We continually make the point about that. On the rogue landlord point specifically, we know it's rife. If we have landlords who are not upholding standards and refer to as rogue landlords, that is something that needs to be subject to the various powers that are available. One would be for local authorities to be able to make sure that people who are acting in those ways should not be acting in those ways. There could be a role particularly against the extreme end of the spectrum for Police Scotland to be involved in terms of indicators of trafficking and exploitation. It gets back to Mr McGregor's point earlier on in a different context about how we need to, in Scotland, take control as much as we possibly can through our statutory bodies working together and bringing the Home Office immigration enforcement round the table into multi-agency decision making, shared decision making around that. Can I stop you there? That particular aspect is devolved. Involving the immigrants is something that we can do something about now. Perhaps, please, Scotland, have you come across this to any large extent? Is it something that you're dealing with quite frequently? Graham, I don't know if you want to make mention from a Glasgow point of view. I'm aware that it does exist. I'm not aware of any specific instances, to my knowledge. That doesn't mean that it hasn't happened. It just doesn't sit within my area of business. The engagement that I have is directly with asylum seekers, refugees and groups that assist those people. However, I do hear adequately of that kind of thing. Yeah, because it's these precise people that are sometimes brought over here in false pretensies. When they get here, their accommodation etc. It's really inhumane. I would hope that something would all welcome my review of it. If I understood you properly, chief superintendent, community impact assessments, you do carry those out and then assess at the end of a process whether you think that there has been an impact on the community. Is that what I understood during one of the six strands to say? I suppose that a community impact assessment is probably seen as a bit of a living document and as much as you try and make a determination of the impact that an action prior to it taking place will have on the community, you monitor whether that action has had an impact on the community and then you will consider the post event. So it is a bit of a living document that goes from the pre to the post activity of that. That answers the question that you're asking. If I may, just on your earlier point, and I'll keep this very brief, the very subject matter that you raised was raised by MSP Christina McKelvie at the Quality and Human Rights Committee last year. There was a response provided by Police Scotland on that very subject in terms of not the issue specifically about landlords but just that issue about when there's vulnerable people, no matter where they're from, people will exploit that vulnerability, including issues such that you've highlighted in terms of whether it's within a landlord basis, but it just highlights some evidence in relation to the exploitation of individuals from vulnerable backgrounds, including asylum-seeking communities. It's five years since I've been the convener of Equal Opportunities Committee, and it was a big issue then, so it may be something that we need to look into more. Thank you. Liam? Yes, good afternoon. Chief Superintendent, I can see earlier on that you were offering some reassurances around the assessment made on vulnerability. You've also, I think, in your written evidence provided figures suggesting for the 2017-18, there were something like more than 530 people detained in police cells, police custody, which is wondering whether you could describe the impact that those sort of numbers have on police custody in general. I think that the significant majority were over a period of 24 hours, but there were a number that exceeded 48 hours. It'd be helpful to understand the time frame that we're talking about, the impact on the custody suiz and indeed whether you believe that that's an appropriate setting for those individuals in any event. So, your referencing information that's came from a Freedom of Information Act request, and then was put publicly into the media in August 2018, which references the numbers, and I think that you're absolutely right that it says 537 individuals within custody breaks down the stations across and up to individuals who were detained up to 24 hours. So that could be an hour to 24 hours, 384, 25 to 48 is 126 persons and over 40 hours is 27. In terms of the numbers, do I believe that that has a significant impact on custody division? Any additional numbers will have an impact, of course they will. Home Office Immigration has a financial liability towards Police Scotland to provide in relation to using our facilities, so the longer somebody is within our facilities, the larger that financial liability is. When you see the breakdown in terms of the breakdown across Scotland, impact, yes, significant impact, my assessment is no. In terms of the second component to your question is do I think that it's an appropriate facility for individuals to be retained within? HMICS, back in 2014, raised concerns about the amount of time and there was a process put in place to ensure that individuals are kept in with the minimal amount of time at all possible. The outlier seems to be the 48 hours 27 individuals. There is a robust process in place using the forced custody manager, which I will not go into within this environment because it will take up a bit of time, but again I will provide that in writing if that pleases the committee. What I would say is that a custody facility with a police environment is a temporary facility to retain somebody safely for the process of justice to take place. Ideally, the ideal position is somebody as in and out as quickly as possible. The reasons for individuals being kept for 48 hours may be a multitude of reasons for that in terms of logistics, distance of travelling and so on, but my position is that a custody facility within place should be kept to the minimum in terms of time frame. Graham previously was a custody sergeant in many moons ago, so I do not know if Graham has a view different from that. I would entirely agree with Mr Mackenzie. I suppose that you could say that it is the responsibility of the custody sergeant to ensure that the criteria that Mr Mackenzie is outlined are adhered to. Certainly, in my experience, albeit it was a number of years ago, I would be quite robust and say that this person will be here for the minimum amount of time that is required. I would make sure that I keep it on top of things and put it that way in terms of that person. If I could just stress a point here, any police officer who came into the committee and asked, are custody division robust in their decision making in relation to people in custody, the answer is absolutely yes, professional, robust. That is why I am confident that the fourth custody officer does all that he possibly can to ensure that that state is as minimal as possible. That will include escalating it up. There is a review process throughout a 24-hour period, it continues to be reviewed, but any police officer would have the same position at Graham. Robustness is key in keeping people in custody. That is helpful. I will be interested in Mr Neal's views on that in a second, but I will touch on the point that you made about the HMICS report in 2014. Obviously, it flagged up concerns, emphasised the need to minimise the time that people were being detained in this way. The figures under the FOI request only relate to 27 2018. I think that there was a suggestion that figures before that would be too costly to compile. Since 2014, what is your impression of the trends in terms of the numbers being detained and indeed the duration of time that they are being detained in police custody? My assessment is that, in terms of the times they are decreasing. I, like you, do not have the figures in front of me for the previous years to make a specific determination on that. I, again, tried to obtain that information before coming here, because I sensed that that would be a question that was raised. My assessment is that the time is decreasing. However, what I can categorically state is that, since HMICS made that recommendation in 2014, the process in terms of monitoring, escalation and reviewing is a robust process. That, in itself, gives me confidence that the minimum amount of time that is possible is used for people in police custody. In terms of actual figures, again, I think that if the challenge existed with the FOI to provide those figures, I think that I would be challenged as well to get those figures. I appreciate that. In fact, I would be highly suspicious if you were able to produce the figures that had not been produced under FOI. That would open up a whole new line of inquiry. It is interesting that the comments that you make in relation to the trend, in terms of specific categories of detainees, whether there is a family involved, what would be the assessment made of the appropriateness of detention in custody, whether there are children involved, what would be the process that custody sergeant would go through in those circumstances? The issue of children in custody is a country, and when you look back at Colbrandon in the 60s in terms of, we do not criminalise children, we do not keep children in custody, children will not be kept in custody. That is the position that Police Scotland has taken. In terms of the parents of those who have children who will be affected by the parent being detained in custody, how is that assessment made by Police Scotland, by custody sergeants? Presumably, you would be seen as a material factor in whether or not it would be appropriate. Would it be a material factor in terms of, is it lawful to retain that person in custody? However, I go back to the point of primacy. Primacy sits with Home Office immigration. We are presented with an individual in custody and a determination is made on the basis of the assessment of risk and vulnerability to that individual, the assessment of whether it is lawful to retain that individual. The wider factors in terms of impact to an individual's family, would it be a factor? I would like to hope that it is a factor for Home Office immigration to make it the determination of how they deal with an individual. In terms of the cold process of a custody environment to facilitate the process to determine what happens to an individual, I am not, I suppose, the answer is, would it be a factor? It is not a great factor, I do not suppose, but, again, a graham and less graham wants to make any wider comment from a custody sergeants' perspective. However, Home Office immigration enforcement would have to take those points into consideration. As Police Scotland would have to take those points into consideration, if we were arresting a parent of a child for another criminal or statutory act. You said that the assessment would essentially be made by Home Office immigration and other Police Scotland. Do you have any observations in terms of what is happening as a trend, but in relation to the specific point about individuals, particularly those with family? Thank you for the question. I think that it is very pertinent for the following reasons. First, in terms of whether there is a trend, I think that the honest answer is that none of us in this room know—we do not know—if there is a trend because there is not proactive public monitoring of this data. I know that that sounds like a criticism. It is not a loose criticism. It is more an example of people who are detained under immigration act powers that are in transit getting put into Police Scotland custodial facilities. As John and Graham rightly say, Police Scotland in that window has primacy over the health and wellbeing. What we think follows from that is that we need to have a clearer set of standards, almost plus the standard operating procedure that we have for this particular situation, which recognises the distinctive vulnerabilities of people with insecure immigration status. There are higher levels of trauma in this population. The fact is that they need, because of the insecure immigration status, access to immigration law advice. As was touched on earlier, they need to have an interpreter so that they can understand everything that is happening around them and remember that this is a stressful point in their lives. We think that that is what we really need to have, your standard operating procedure plus something that recognises the distinctive vulnerabilities that come from the fact that you have insecure immigration status in the way that I have just described. We need to have proactive regular monitoring of this that goes underneath numbers and gets into some of the stuff that you rightly say. We are asking around the demographics in the profile within people who are subject to this. I go back to what I was saying earlier, the home office in our view, and we can say it through evidence, are not good at assessing vulnerability, so we are very skeptical of home office immigration detention decisions, and therefore we see actually Police Scotland's involvement in this as a real opportunity in a Scottish context to make sure that the home office are actually getting vulnerability right and are not detaining people that they should not be detaining, because we know that that happens. I can think of a case that earlier on this year where an individual had significant learning difficulties, had a mental age of a child, but was detained in Police Scotland facilities. That should not have happened, and the reason that happened, we think, is because the way things often happen. The home office made a decision around immigration detention. They are looking for somewhere to put somebody on route to a detention centre in Dungavel or somewhere else in the UK. The actual needs of that individual, in that critical, consistent questioning about whether that person or persons are in detention in the first place, and we often think that the answer will be no, they should not be in detention in the first place. I just started to interrupt you there, but you shouldn't have been, as Superintendent McKenzie described earlier on, the 21 phase assessment of vulnerability. In the example that you've just cited, it would suggest that that assessment hasn't worked. Irrespective of whether the original failures in the assessment process were those of home office immigration, there would then be a subsequent failure, presumably, of Police Scotland's triaging and assessment of vulnerability if it hadn't picked up the concerns that you've identified. On this point, it's important to be honest and straightforward here. Nobody's going to get everything perfect all of the time. We completely recognise that Police Scotland are working at the front line with people who are in extremely stressful situations, situations that we, in some cases, we can't even imagine. We completely recognise that, but what we're saying is that we can do better in relation to a multi-agency approach in Scotland in relation to certain activities that the home office undertake, one of which we're spending a bit of time, I think, very helpfully on, which is around the use of police custodial facilities for people who have been detained under immigration act powers. That's why we suggest one of the recommendations that the committee may want to consider here is looking at some of the key standard operating procedures that Police Scotland have and thinking, okay, what are the ones that we can maybe add the insecure immigration status dimension to recognising the distinctive vulnerabilities that exist for people in that situation? We know that it's not always going to work all the time, but we think that we really don't know, if everybody was honest, but what's actually happening in terms of is legal representation getting given every time, is mental health assessments and the vulnerability indicators getting done every time, we're not confident in the home office doing that. That means we're not confident in the information that the home office is passing to Police Scotland. Because of that, we suggest that it's important to be very sceptical often of the information that the home office pass on those issues to Police Scotland. We're very much partners with Police Scotland in relation to a whole range of work and community engagement, etc., and very much so in relation to that issue as well. There's a supplementary on one of your points from Liam Fulton, and then you come back in. I'm also conscious of the time, so I'll make it quite brief. The panel think that Liam MacArthur previously asked a question about a hypothetical situation where people with caring responsibilities are going to be detained and go back to my earlier question about a need for a bit more joint-up working. I know that it's the responsibility of the home office, but I think that that's pretty crucial. If you can let statutory organisations and third sector organisations know something's happened, even if it's on a confidential basis, they could start preparing for such situations like that. I'll just have any brief response if that's possible. It goes back to your original point, where there is a legal framework to share that information, where there is a purpose for sharing that information, under the example that's been provided in terms of child welfare, child concerns, if you're moving from a parent and then you've got the wider care responsibility, of course there'd be an expectation to have that discussion. That would be a Police Scotland position if we were undertaking an operation. I suppose that there are just two minor points, just conscious of the time. The case that's been referred to by Graham O'Neill, I've got no knowledge of that, I'm more than happy to go away and have a look at that case. It's not came across my radar, my research. The last point that I would say about the Police Scotland SOP section 12A, references individuals who are arrested from an immigration perspective or from, in relation to immigration or wider statutory offences. That aspect of it is embedded in that SOP about the expectation rights of individuals who come through our doors under immigration legislation and it's actually embedded within that SOP under 12A. I was just going to return to the issue of the Home Office policy presumption is in favour of temporary admission or release rather than detention. I was just interested to know what level of discretion there is for Police Scotland to make the determination on an alternative to detention and whether or not there's anything that you can say about the provisions that we've put in place in those circumstances, whether electronic monitoring's evolved, whether there are bail provisions applied. I go back to some of my points at the original point. Home Office immigration have primacy. We have a window in terms of our responsibility for that individual, in terms of our input, in terms of the terms of liberation, that's for Home Office immigration enforcement to deal with and answer. Any decisions around release would effectively be Home Office decisions rather than Police Scotland? In terms of the conditions in which they are released under, whether they are released with leave to stay or whether they are retained and then moved to a detention centre, that's a Home Office immigration enforcement decision. It's a really pertinent point. The Home Office is actively looking, which we welcome pilots around alternatives to detention. That's partly because there's been so much criticism of detention rightly as part of the immigration system in the way that it has been. It's a very costly thing for the Home Office to be doing. As we know, many people are held in detention for periods of time and then subsequently released. Through that release, there was never actually a purpose for them being there in the first place. That's all acknowledged and recognised in the UK. Thankfully, the Home Office seems now to be saying that we need to think about community-based alternatives to detention. The pilot in relation to Yarleswood right now has a start on the pilot in relation to women who would have been put into Yarleswood detention centre in their work with an organisation in Newcastle. There's been some public information that the immigration minister shared with the Joint Committee on Human Rights at Westminster today about precisely that. That's getting done in conjunction with UNHCR, through its UK representative. In Scotland, there is something valuable about alternatives to detention being piloted here. We would very much encourage Police Scotland, potentially as a partner in relation to that, particularly given that we know that Police Scotland has police custodial facilities being used by the Home Office. We think that Police Scotland will definitely have those opportunities, as John rightly said. We think that it is a mindset as well to have a sceptical critical attitude to the quality of the Home Office assessment that has led to the original decision to detain in the first place. There's something there around a Scottish partnership that could be formed in relation to an alternative to detention's pilot, and that's something that we would very much encourage. In terms of that, you talked about it being a costly option, but presumably that needs to be weighed up against the costs of the current approach taken. Have you got any sense as to whether or not we're talking about additional costs or whether, actually, over time, you're talking about a reduced cost, as opposed to the detention approach? I've not got the exact figures, but I'm very confident to say that the detention approach is unbelievably more expensive than a community-based approach. I've just briefly asked you, I'm conscious of time. If you could, Chief Superintendent and Sergeant, tell us what works being done to engage with migrant and ethnic communities just to develop their understanding of how you protect them, et cetera, and engage with them. I work in the safer communities department in Greater Glasgow Police Division, and our remit is to do exactly, as you said, to engage with asylum seekers refugees and the groups and organisations that support them. The main focus of our work is to break down the barriers between Police Scotland and such people and organisations and to hopefully build trust with people who are conscious of attitudes towards authority figures based on experiences from countries of origin. The work that we do is to engage with probably all of the organisations that are there in Glasgow to represent and work with asylum seekers and refugees, and I can give you a couple of specific examples of that. Just in general, how practically does that work then? Do you organise meetings? Yes, so what we do is we attend events that they've organised and we go along. We go to meetings that groups have been set up to committees and such. My experience is that asylum seekers refugees and groups want you to go and support them, they want you to go and listen to them, they want you to understand their experiences, and for me, as a police officer, that's really important because that informs the work that I then do thereafter, in part of my job is to then cascade that to other officers so that they hopefully have a better understanding of the situation that those people find themselves in and the experiences that they've gone through before they come here, which I think is important. Just one other quick question, you indicate that the number of employment applications for ethnic minority communities has increased. Can you maybe say how this has been translated into the police numbers and give us any indication of figures? I think that you are referencing the positive action reference within the submission. Two months ago, I think that I sat in this room and I talked about the sort of positive action approach and the very important component of ensuring that Police Scotland have a representative workforce that represents the communities that we serve. We have been working tremendously hard to try and achieve that. Last year, I highlighted—actually, we are talking about a 10-year journey, probably a 10-year plus journey, but over the last year, I have referenced that new recruits coming through Tulley Island—about 9.4 per cent, if I recall, if my memory serves me right from our submission—just under 10 per cent of new recruits coming through Tulley Island are from BME communities. However, that is just the start of this. It is not just the recruitment component, it is the retention component that is significantly important, the advancement within the organisation, the lateral development of the organisation, so we have representation at every rank, representation in every department within Police Scotland and throughout the organisation in Tulley. As I say, it is a 10-year journey at least, but we are beginning to get there. Are you moving as fast as you would have liked? I think that it is, and as much as I recognise that there is not an easy solution to this. This is about the work that Graham and the team do, about building competence within communities, about engaging and ensuring that the police service is seen as a career that individuals from BME communities want to pursue. I accept that the aim of this is never to have a very quick burst. This is a sustained approach over 10 years to ensure that we get the candidates in and we retain candidates. It is interesting that, when officers across Scotland now from BME communities have a network, they have formed their own network, very positive towards organisations. I think that in 10 years' time we will come back here and we will provide a success story of Police Scotland, which will be the end way of policing across the UK. That is certainly very positive news, Chief Superintendent. You are going to provide us with some information. I wonder if you look at, given that you referred previously, Chief Superintendent, to a charging regime that will exist so that the Home Office will build effectively for the use of facilities, and what information could be gleaned about that? Maybe numbers and duration, for instance, if you could look and see if you could provide any information on that. Due to finishing at 10 past, I wonder if Mr O'Neill raised those concerns. If there is a final brief comment, we have found the evidence helpful. We will discuss that at the conclusion of our meeting. A final brief comment? Just to continue the theme of, we have worked very closely with Police Scotland, especially in Glasgow. They really do take building confidence with communities seriously. I work a lot with Graham on an operational basis, and they are incredibly helpful. That is part of our motivation for raising the issue, as we said in a written submission, is that we really do not want to see all that hard work that takes years to get undermined through misperceptions around Home Office activities being misperceived as Police Scotland activities. We think that that is absolutely critical in maintaining and safeguarding Police Scotland's fundamental, which is to have community confidence, because if it does not have community confidence, especially if communities are vulnerable, then it is not going to get the information, it is not going to get the intelligence, it is not going to be able to do the job that it is there to do, which is to protect people. We are looking at, as I said at the start, in part around a much wider group of people with insecure immigration status, who therefore will be at risk of destitution, who therefore will be at risk of potentially Home Office immigration enforcement activities. If I was doing a risk assessment in this in relation to Police Scotland and other criminal justice bodies, I would be seeing those risks, and I would be thinking, okay, what is the impact that that is going to have on us in terms of our core business, which is protecting the public and that being based upon having community confidence. That is why we think that it is a really serious issue, and we are trying to forward look in that regard. We are really grateful for the committee to take the time. Mr Neil, thank you, Chief Superintendent MacKenzie, Sergeant Sterling. That has been very helpful, both your written evidence, what we have heard today and the further information that you are going to provide us with, Chief Superintendent. That concludes the public session of the meeting.