 Welcome to the sixth meeting of the Justice Committee of 2023. There are no apologies this morning. Our first item of business today is consideration of the Scottish Prison Service's urgent case review and the housing of transgender prisoners. I refer members to paper 1. I want to allow around 45 minutes for the session after any opening statements. I welcome to the meeting this morning Keith Brown, cabinet secretary for justice and veterans, Mr Neil Renwick, director for justice at the Scottish Government and Ms Theresa Medhurst, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service. I will now invite Ms Medhurst, followed by the cabinet secretary, to make some brief opening remarks. Good morning, committee members. If you wouldn't mind, excuse me, I've got a bit of a cold, so I'll try and work through that as we go through the session this morning. Thank you for inviting me this morning. I hope this session will allow me the opportunity to provide you all with greater clarity and understanding about how the Scottish Prison Service manages all people in our care. Whilst I know the focus today is on the management of transgender individuals, my priority remains the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone who visits, lives and works in our prisons, some of whom as well as the most marginalised and vulnerable in our society. The Scottish Prison Service has a proven track record of managing complex people. Society in general is subject to constant change and these changes in time impact in our own prison communities and affect how we manage those in our care. This requires us to evolve and adapt our operations to make new challenges and changing dynamics. Every single person sent to us by the courts comes with their own history and life circumstances that define them as individuals. That is why an individualised, person-centred approach is fundamental to our role as custodians and our position within the widest justice sector as a modern prison service. On a daily basis, prison officers have to manage a range of often conflicting demands and risks presented to them by the individuals that we care for. Those can range from an individual that is a known, serious and organised crime group to a first-time offender of whom we have little or no knowledge. Decisions on the management and placement of individuals, including transgender individuals, are made on an individual basis, informed by a multidisciplinary assessment of both risk and need. Such decisions seek to protect the wellbeing and rights of the individual as well as that of those around them, including staff, in order to achieve an outcome that balances risks and promotes the safety of all people who live and work in prisons. As part of our approach to operational risk assessment, proportionate management controls such as removing an individual from contact with the wider population or additional security measures will be introduced where new information suggests that it is necessary. Such decisions are not taken lightly and, when required, the key consideration is always safety and not punishment. That balanced approach helps to manage a perceived risk or threat whilst continuing to support the wellbeing of the individual with the aim of integrating the person into an appropriate mainstream location as soon as practicable. The population dynamic that is constantly shifting and changing can be affected by both internal and external factors. That requires a responsiveness through well-established and well-practised operating systems in managing intelligence, profiling risks, tactical interventions and applying individualised case management approach through managing our policies and practice, with the foundation of the approach being the relationships that exist and are developed between our staff and those in our care. Those relationships are key in building a solid foundation to deliver effective services. They support people through difficult times, guiding them through their journey whilst in custody and preparing them for an eventual return to society. I have over 30 years' operational experience working in prisons. They are unique environments in comparison to other parts of the public sector. I have been the governor in charge in both male and the female estate and have managed both trans women and trans men in custody. I also led the development of our transformative women's strategy in response to the Dame Elish Angiolini report in 2012, which is delivering a step change in how we manage women in our care. Our trauma-informed and innovative strategy is supporting women to regain the independence and learn skills that will support a best possible chance of a successful return to their communities. The SPS remains committed to providing person-centred care to our entire population, including managing identified risks that are not exclusive to transgender people in custody. That is supported by our staff, who themselves continue to demonstrate their long-standing expertise and a strong track record in the management and care of an increasingly complex prison population. Finally, I reiterate the point that I made at the start of my statement, which is that my priority remains the health, safety and wellbeing of our staff and everyone in our care. Cabinet Secretary, I will hand over straight to you. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to answer questions regarding the management of transgender prisoners and the recommendations of the urgent case review. There have of course been concerns expressed about this, and it is important to provide assurance around the safety of all people in the care of SPS. In a democracy, of course, it is perfectly legitimate to raise questions and seek reassurance. However, the wider discussion around gender identity has risks, in my view, stigmatising transgender people. That will have a real and direct impact on both transgender people and the broader community of which they are part. As MSPs, it falls on us, in my view, to provide responsible, rational and compassionate leadership. I hope that the committee will agree that it would be abhorrent if any legitimate scrutiny of this matter is allowed to fuel the view that transwomen somehow pose an inherent risk to women. That is clearly not the case, and I remain concerned that this view is even further marginalising trans individuals. As in any discussion involving the criminal justice system, we must also never forget that the victims who will be affected by these instances are also affected by the things that we say. That is true too of the specific case to which the lesson learned review relates and I pay tribute to those women for their bravery. As I said in Parliament, I am keen at the discussion on this issue and the lessons learned review are calm and founded on fact. I am confident that, approached in this way, you will be reassured around both the lessons learned and the wider management of individuals within the care of the Scottish Prison Service. Again, I commend the MSPs' expertise—you have just heard some of the bona fides of people involved in that process—and their track record of managing the risks posed by individuals in their care. There have already been a number of high-profile individuals that have been discussed in the media and mentioned in Parliament. I am also aware that there are other transgender individuals within the prison estate who have been living within their allocated establishment for lengthy periods of time without any issue or concern. It remains a long-standing principle of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service that we do not comment on individual cases. While this approach has been particularly challenging in this instance, I do not consider it appropriate to friendsily examine the details of every individual case in a public forum. The current SPS policy around the management of transgender individuals has been in place from 2014. On 29 January this year, as a result of the specific circumstances of the case that has been mentioned, I announced that a number of interim measures had been decided by the SPS, and those were that, first of all, no transgender person already in custody with a history of violence against women, which includes essential offences against women, would be moved from the male to the female estate. In addition, no newly convicted or remanded transgender prisoner with any history of violence against women would be placed in the female estate. Any case that required such a move would be in exceptional circumstances and would require to be approved by ministers. A lessons learned review into the circumstances of the Islay Bryson case was also conducted by the SPS, and I am very grateful to the prison service for doing this work and for the conclusions and the recommendations that they have made. While a full report will not be published due to the significant amount of personal data of both the individual and the SPS staff, I wrote to the committee on 9 February regarding this and published a letter and key recommendations from SPS, and it may be helpful to mention briefly some of the key points in that. I have just heard Theresa Meathhurst has confirmed that SPS policy was followed during each decision-making process and risk assessment. Most significantly, she has also confirmed that at no time during this period were any women in SPS care at risk of harm as a consequence of the management of the individual. I am mindful that this assurance points to the effective operation of SPS practice and the existing policy. She has also confirmed that after the initial risk assessment procedure and multi-disciplinary case conference undertaken in terms of that policy, the individual concern was transferred to and remains in the male estate. As additional assurance, full multi-disciplinary reviews are also currently underway for each transgender person in custody. The Scottish prison service has indicated that the protective measures originally put in place would be amended to take account of the lessons learned review and developing operational experience. Critically, it remains the case that any transgender person currently in custody and who has any history of violence against women, including sexual offences, will not be relocated from the male to the female estate. However, SPS has decided that any newly convicted or remandied transgender prisoner, not just those with a history of violence against women, will initially be placed in an establishment commensurate with her birth gender. This wider measure reflects operational practicalities that I am sure Theresa will be able to talk to if you require. However, in light of the lessons learned review, highlighting the lack of available information sharing at the pre, custody and post admission stage, this is a precautionary approach that I commend. Again, in exceptional circumstances, where a move contrary to the measures that are required, ministerial approval will be required and sought. A key area for improvement from the lessons learned review is for improved information sharing and communication between justice partners to SPS to allow advanced alert to ensure that there is a clearer approach to the transfer of transgender individuals from the court to SPS custody. The review also supported the current approach to individualised risk assessments and the balancing of rights, but highlighted the need to consider improvements to the admissions process, particularly around the weight attached to an individual's offending history. Theresa has indicated that she has accepted the recommendations and SPS has started work to action them. The SPS has confirmed that the lessons learned will also feed into their on-going review of their policy for the management of transgender prisons. As you have heard, the management of any group of prisoners will involve an element of risk. Clearly, that is not unique to prisoners who are transgender. The approach that the SPS takes must be based on its legal obligations, on the human rights and trauma-informed approach that it takes to all those in its care and, crucially, to protecting the safety of all prisoners and staff. Along with Achievement Secretary, I am happy to answer any questions that the committee has on those issues. We are now going to move to questions. I intend to allow 45 minutes for members to ask questions. With that, I will hand straight over to Russell Finlay and then bring in Rona Mackay. I would like to echo what the cabinet secretary said about not being about suggesting transwomen are inherently post some kind of threat. That has always been about predatory men exploiting gender, self-id, which is indeed why we are here today to talk about this particular case. A victim of this male-bodied double-rapist and his wife says claim to be trans is a sham. You have told the BBC that in this case you need to accept people identify as women. Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly been unable to answer this particular question in relation to this individual. Kate Forbes has said that no rapist can be a woman. Isla Bryson is a man, so who is right? I am not yet to discuss other people's reasons. I am here as a justice secretary to answer questions about the policy that we have in the prison service. I would like to give this my point. If you have asked a question, you won't have to finish my answer. If I can come in, we are here to discuss the specifics of the lessons learned review. I would be grateful if you could find your questions to the review. The reason I think that the question is relevant is because this goes to the heart of where we are now. The prison service is conducting a review. If senior politicians in the governing party all give different answers to a very basic question about this particular offender, that is germane to it. If you are not prepared to answer that, that is fine. I will move on, but I can give you another opportunity if you like. My answer just wouldn't allow me to answer. That was the point that I was trying to make. I will try to answer it now. Who is right then in terms of definition? Again, you are asking the same question, so I would ask you to ask another question. The convener, I am happy to answer the question, but I would like to try to get through the answer before being interrupted if possible. I think that the responsibilities I have as justice secretary and the responsibilities I have for the prison state in my view are what are germane here. Just to mention that the prison rules, and it goes to the point that Mr Finlay has made, are able to self-declare that they are transgender and are supported to express the gender or non-gender with which they identify, with staff using correct pronouns. I think that that is important to mention, because that is the rules in England and Wales. That is underpinned by UK legislation over many years, and that is a process that we follow in the prisons in Scotland. When did you find out that this particular prisoner had been sent to Obam's prison? When it became evident in the media, I would not normally uniformly be told of every prisoner that was being sent to prison. Even though it was quite a high profile, long-going high court case, where people were aware of this issue, nobody had informed you? I have just answered that question. Once the transfer did become known about you initially defended the decision, the following day the First Minister announced that the prisoner was being removed, do you now regret defending that decision initially? I think that I have said at the time to Parliament that I had faith in the basis on which the Scottish Prison Service deals with prisoners who are transgender. They have an extremely strong track record in doing that. They have managed to protect women, they have managed to protect other prisoners and they have managed to protect their staff. I express that support for the prison service at the time, and I am happy to express it again now. In January 31, you told the Parliament that the SPS was, of course, aware of ministers' views. It would be frankly bizarre if the SPS had not been aware of ministers' views, and that was in respect of the decision to remove this prisoner from the female estate. So how exactly were those views made known? Well, I think that you have just mentioned that there was a substantial degree of publicity around that, and obviously ministers have discussions with officials and the agencies for which they have responsibility. As I say, the process that was followed in this case was the process that is always followed. I had faith in that process, and, of course, there is very little evidence to suggest that the way that this individual prisoner was dealt with would have been different in any other circumstances. I repeat the point. I have faith in the Scottish Prison Service's ability to deal with it. The changes that were announced—I have just mentioned those in the opening statement—were to provide further reassurance, and I think that that was the right thing to do. How were the views made known to the prison service? I have just explained that, convener. I am not entirely sure. We know how the Government communicated to the prison service dissatisfaction with the prisoner being in the female estate. Given that we have a partial review in front of it, it does not explain that. It is a perfectly reasonable question. Maybe the prison service can tell us how the Government made its views known. There was a conversation during which I was asked about where we were in the case management of that individual, because the case management process obviously applies almost immediately, particularly where somebody is held in segregation. It was during that conversation with officials that I was made aware of ministers' views on that, but I will make it very clear that the placement of prisoners, unless it is a policy matter, is an operational matter for the SPS. That decision was taken by operational people in respect of the initial placement of the individual and the subsequent decision to move the individual. It was, in no way, a ministerial decision. It was for SPS and for operational people. So come back to the contact. Was it a conversation instigated by Government officials? They contacted you? It was a telephone call to me, yes. From the justice director or from... From the justice secretary and the First Minister of Concerns? It was explained that there were ministerial concerns within Government. There was a requirement to understand where we were in the process. That is why I was asked to check where we were in the process. However, as I say, the decisions that were taken in respect of an individual case, which should not be discussing, any decision on the operational placement of an individual is for the prison service. So the representation that was made to you was more general, as in we have these concerns, not any suggestion that you should act in a certain way? No, there was no suggestion that I should act. It was general concerns. It was general concerns about the individual and a request to better understand where we were in the process. If I can maybe just move things on so that other members have got an opportunity to ask questions, and if we have time, I will come back. I will bring in Rona Mackay and Pauline McNeill. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. I would like to ask Ms Medhurst just for clarity, how long have the prison service been managing transgender prisoners in Scotland? To the best of my knowledge, for at least 15 years. That has included both trans men and transwomen. I have experience of managing both in the male estate and in the female estate. In the lessons learned review, you have said that newly convicted or remanded transgender prisoners will initially be placed in an establishment commensurate with their birth gender. Is there a timescale on that? How long do you expect that to be? Does the individual have to appeal themselves to be moved to a different prison? The intent that was set out by the cabinet secretary in his statement on 29 January gave a clear indication of the types of individuals and the types of offences that should be debarred from that initial placement within the female estate. In order for me to affect that operationally, I need to develop a standing operating procedure. That takes time because it needs to consider a range of factors around both the admission process and a detailed piece of work with our partners on the information that we receive on admissions. That will inform that standard operating procedure. Once I have that standard operating procedure developed, we will implement that. That should give a more nuanced position with regard to affecting the intention of the cabinet secretary's full statement as opposed to the blanket approach that we have to take, which is a preventative measure. The other thing is that each individual will undergo a case conference as immediately as we can. Normally, we try and pull a multidisciplinary case conference together on an individual, both at the point of admission, where we know that they are a transgender individual, but also the following day to try and gather as much information as possible. Clearly, where there are circumstances that arise where we think are considered that that individual does not fall within that threshold, we can assess again using all of the information available to us the best location for that individual, given the needs of the individual and the risks to themselves and others. Does the individual have the right to appeal where they have been sent? In any decision that is taken on an individual in custody, there are always rights of appeal, so we have a complaints process that can go to the complaint's oddnessment. Clearly, there is the opportunity for judicial review as well, so there are a number of different avenues as well as writing to their local MSP whereby they can appeal it. There are mechanisms in place that will allow people to challenge the decisions that we take. Just finally, for clarification, you talked about setting up the operating procedure to do this. In the interim period, what would happen to a newly remanded or convicted transgender prisoner or would they go to the establishment of their birth gender or would they do in that period? I suppose that the key question is how we move forward, but I want to try to understand how we got to this point. I think that it is important, because I think that a lot of things went wrong. I want to start with the cabinet secretary. I have raised this directly with you, but I have raised it with other ministers and with the SPS. I expressed my concern when the case that Keity Dielotowsky was live. I am wondering why the ministers did not raise it with the SPS before now, given that we have heard in answer to Russell Findlay that the phone was lifted by your officials to the Scottish Prison Service. I ask you that question because, as cabinet secretary, I am sure that you are aware of the profile of women offenders. The Macmillan research, just to pull it once, says that 85 per cent of women have reported adult sexual physical abuse. I am sure that you know all that. My first question is why the ministers did not raise it before now. When this policy has been in since 2014, it has been into the current day. Just to quote Rowna Hodgkis for completion, she has been vocal well before these decisions in saying that it is always an issue to have trans women with female prisoners. The presence of a male body person among vulnerable women causes them distress and consternation. Given what you have said, do you think that it is time to change the balance, then, of the policy? Were you aware that women's groups were not consulted in the design of this policy? The design of the policy, obviously, was in 2014. It remains relatively uncontentious for most of that period. I, as I have said already, have confidence in the system that is there, and that is notwithstanding the changes that I announced. I think that those changes, those policies, were ones that were pretty consistent with what the prison service does already, so I do have confidence in them. With respect to that, I am not asking, I know that you have confidence. I am asking you directly. Were you aware that, in the development of... Does anyone tell you that, when the policy was developed, women's groups were not consulted? I think that I was not in post at that time. Theresa Meathers will know far better than me. However, he mentioned a governor in particular, and her concerns have talked to other governors, not least the current chief executive of the prison service, who do not share the same views as that governor that you mentioned. You have got lengthy experience of dealing with transgender prisoners. I do tend to rely on the advice that they provide, because I think that they are the experts in this area. Sorry, sorry. I am not trying to be difficult with you, but I know that you keep relying on the same... I am really trying to get to the bottom of this. As a cabinet secretary for justice, I mean, would it concern you if you thought we had a policy in place since 2014, and women have been raising concerns, women's groups have been, that they weren't consulted? Does Jess or No does that concern you? Would you want going forward to make sure that that changes? I do know that the policy which I can speak to, because I am involved in this current process, at least as a cabinet secretary, the review that is taking place is consulting with people. It is consulting in particular with female prisoners, which is very important, and other interest groups. I can't speak to that. I wasn't in this post in 2014. I do think that it is important to... So you weren't aware then? I am not trying to give you a trick question. You weren't aware that women's groups were not consulted? I think that it has actually been said in the chamber before. Yes, I was aware of that. What I am concerned about, because I am now in post, is that the current review, the policy, does take into account the most important groups, and I think that in that relation, the views of women prisoners in particular are very important. I have to say that the prison service is undertaking that review, including the consultations, and it may be that you want to hear from the person in charge of that review. I do in a minute. Sorry, I am really just trying to get some clarity, but that is all I am trying to do. But would you agree, cabinet secretary, that in balancing the rights of everyone here, and I do note what you said, and the importance of balancing the rights of trans people too, that what Rona Hodge is talking about isn't that women might be at risk. What she is talking about is the privacy and dignity of women in prison. It is also important. I wonder if you would just agree with that. I have heard other Governors say otherwise, that they think that the privacy and dignity of women in prison can be accommodated within the way that they deal with transgender prisoners. I have confidence in that view, but of course it is something that is subject to the current review. I am trying to get to the bottom. I know that you weren't Governor for the whole of the period. You probably heard the interview of a former prisoner who said that, my whole time in prison, I was in constant high alert, my nerves were frazzled with fear in the incredibly violent memory walking around, the communal shower, area naked and sometimes, sorry, for the language, clearly aroused. Myself and other women wearing cubicles, but with only a curtain to protect us, I was shaking with fear now. I did raise this with the Deputy Governor. I have to confess that I was shocked at the defence of the policy at the time, so if there is going to be change, I have to say a whole welcome that. What is your view about this? I was told that this is not true. First of all, I was told that women are not at any risk and that there are separate showering arrangements, but that does not seem to bear out the testimony of women prisoners. If I can just say that in all our prisons across the estate and clearly we have a range of different types of high-risk individuals who are in our custody, in any prison on any day, there are always protocols around how people are dressed when they come out of their cellular areas. How they are dressed has got to be of a standard that is acceptable because we have mixed gender staff groups across all our prisons. It is not appropriate for people to be wondering about in a communal area either partially or fully enclosed, which is probably why there was some surprise at the claims that were made. I am not saying that that person did not experience that, but I would be surprised as well. The other thing is that our communal areas also have cameras, so we have CCTVs and we have access to CCTVs. I would have to say that for someone to be in that state of fear for the length of time would be very shocking to me and I would be very concerned about that, but what I would be again also surprised about is that staff were not aware of that because staff are incredibly experienced in the relationships that they have, particularly with women. They are always looking out for vulnerabilities, for changes in behaviour, for changes in relationships. There is a very well-established protocol that ensures that, where there are issues arising that require to be dealt with or challenged, staff will do so and they will do so in a very firm manner. You seem to be questioning this and I just point to the statement that Rona Hodge has made. She also said that we have a former governor of Cordenvale who says that it is always the initiative to have trans women with female prisoners and the presence of male-bodied persons, so it is not just one prisoner. Do you accept what Rona Hodge has said? I have governed the same establishments that Rona has governed. In my experience, what happens is that, particularly when we have an individual who is in custody for the first time, there are very clear protocols and restrictions placed around that individual and there is very clear testing around how the relationships are developed between that and trans women. That is not true. This is the problem that I am finding every time. Is the same with your deputy. Every time I ask a question, I get this management speak. I am trying to get some clarity. Rona Hodge, who has been the governor of Cordenvale, is it a fair assessment of— That is not yours. If that is Rona's assessment, then clearly, and if she has evidence to back that up, then of course I would want and welcome her input. It is not your experience. It was not my experience. It was my experience. We had a trans woman and the women were incredibly supportive of her. They were very curious about her and they were incredibly understanding. My experience is different. I am going to move on to Collette Stevenson and then I will bring in Katie Clark. I want to look at the lessons learned review that is currently under way at the moment. Have you considered at all looking at other countries out with the UK in terms of good practice when it comes to the treatment of transgender prisoners as well as other vulnerable prisoners in the prison states? As part of the current review, there has been extensive consideration of other jurisdictions, obviously HMPPS, which are closest to us, but also from Canada and from New Zealand. We have also considered research and evidence that is available from across the globe so that that does inform good practice. What is also important is that there are cultural differences between ourselves and other jurisdictions. It is really important that we pay attention to the views and perspectives of interest groups, as Ms Mackay mentioned earlier, and Ms McNeill. There has also been a public consultation as part of that review, so we have pulled together all that evidence, as well as the voices of our staff and those in our care, both non-transgender individuals and transgender people. See the policy in its current format. Does it meet with the standards of OPCAT as well? I am afraid that I am not sure that I have got the answer to that question. The prisoners inspectorate are part of the NPM, which is responsible for overseeing the implementation of OPCAT. They do inspection and monitoring of our prisons in line with OPCAT. Are they fairly comfortable with the current policy and its current format at the moment? The inspectorate has obviously access to all our policies. They visit all our prisons and can do so at any time. A number of our prisons now have transgender individuals in their care. There has been nothing that has been raised with us around the current policy or practice. They would raise that on a regular basis with each prison estate if there was an issue there. That would come through the independent prison monitors that are allocated to each prison, if they considered that there was any practice or issue that required to be raised. Equally, it comes through the inspection reports, which are published a few months after each inspection. I will use my consultant with the inspectorate in each of the monitors that are coming into the prisons on the review and seeking feedback from them. The review has sought the views of a wide range of not only public sector organisations, but third sector organisations and interest groups, which would include the inspectorate. I can go back to the lessons learned review and what actually happened on the 24th and 25th of January. The facts, as we understand it, are that, when the individual was initially charged, when the offences took place, they were a man, but, thereafter, they had not self-defined as a woman at that point, but, thereafter, they self-defined as a woman. That is our understanding of the position. You say that, in terms of the review, the 2014 policy was adhered to. That is the outcome of the review. We have obviously not seen the full lessons learned review, we have just seen the summary, but that is the summary that the policy was adhered to. You are also saying that the multi-disciplinary assessment has not taken place as of 24th January or 25th January. Is that correct? That is our understanding of the position. We do not understand why the individual was not transferred to Barlinnie and held in segregation there, pending the multi-disciplinary risk assessment. Cabinet Secretary made reference in his introduction about our inability to discuss individual cases, and that would apply in this case. What I would say to you is that, with any— Can I interject? You are an experienced witness. You have appeared in front of this committee on many occasions. We do need answers. I am not asking you to talk about individuals. You are saying that the policy was adhered to. Given the facts, as we understand them—I think that you have agreed to the facts—we all agree the facts. Given the facts as they were, as on the 24th and 25th January, given that situation, we do not need to talk about the individual. Why was that person not transferred into the male estate and held in segregation there, pending the multi-disciplinary risk assessment? When an individual is—a decision or an outcome is made at court, that individual is then passed on to GOA mate. GOA mate, as our contractor, will try and ensure that we are possible. All relevant information is provided to us as a prison service, and the prison service is then required to make a judgment based on that information. If you look at the policy, what the policy says is that, where an individual identifies in a social gender, then consideration is given to where that individual is located. Our processes and the way that we manage individuals mean that we have to assess and determine where best to undertake those assessments on this occasion. That safest place to undertake those assessments is an operational decision, and an operational decision was taken on the placement of that individual. Are you telling us that the policy from 2014 has been irrespective of whether a multi-disciplinary risk assessment has taken place? An operational decision is taken on the basis of how the individual defines themselves at that point? The factors that we look at are not just about, and that comes through all the information that we provide. It is not just about that individual. That individual identifies in whichever social gender they choose to do so. It is one factor, but, as it states in the policy, it is something that needs to be considered. There, we also have to look at safety. We have a range of different measures that we can put in place, which include special security measures, so protecting people by putting in limitations over what they can and cannot do. The other way that we can do that is by placing them in segregation and identifying the most suitable segregation point for that individual. Those are decisions that we take on a day and daily basis. They will always have to be taken in advance of a multi-disciplinary case conference because, at the time of admission, there is no time for that case conference to take place. What you require to have, you require to have medical input, you require to have individual, if there are social work representatives that require to be there, if they are transgender, have been working, for example, with medical experts such as the Sandifer Clinic, you might ask for representation. All of that takes time. At the point of admission, we will not have, and we always have, extremely limited information. What people do at that point is a best case decision based on the information that they have. What factors would be taken into account? We know that, on this occasion, it was not somebody who had lived as a woman for many years because, at the time of the offence, they had not self-defined. At some point, during the legal process, did their status change? Did you know that? Was that a fact that was available at the time? And was the offence taken into account and the conviction taken into account in the operational decision that was taken? I am not asking you to focus on the individual. I am asking you to focus on how those issues are dealt with and what factors would be taken into account. Given that you have not got all the facts, you have not had the multidisciplinary assessment. Absolutely. What would be taken into account would be any information that we would have from the court. Again, that information would be limited and any information that we had on the individual would be factored into the decision that is made. However, it is almost an immediate decision. People weigh up the different elements of the—it is not an algorithmic approach—but they weigh up every element of information that they have and reach what they consider to be the best decision given the circumstances. I am not asking you to refer to individuals, but at what level would that decision be taken? Who would it be taken by? What level would it be taken within the service? Sometimes decisions will be taken by individual establishments and senior leaders within those establishments. On occasions, they may ask for support from headquarters and from more senior people, and that might also include input from others who have expertise. I am not asking you to identify individuals, but at what level was that decision taken? That was the decision that was taken in conjunction with headquarters. In terms of the lesson learned review, I know that this policy has been under review, the 2014 policy, for a number of years. You have gone through a very quick lesson learned review in relation to this particular incident. Are there recommendations that have been identified in the lessons learned review that were not identified in all the review work that has been happening all over the past few years in relation to the 2014 policy? The review for the 2014 policy was committed in 2019, and there was some early scoping work undertaken at that time. However, then the pandemic hit, and it was only in 2021 that we were able to create the capacity to commence the review. I know that there have been concerns raised about how long the review has taken, but there have been… We have not got a lot of time. Maybe you could answer the question whether the recommendations identified in the lessons learned review that were not recognised in that very long process. The formulation of the recommendations from the review is still under way, and the work that we have undertaken as part of it will be used to inform that process. Given that the witnesses have said that they are not aware of the concerns that have been raised before, can I just briefly ask whether they are aware of some concerns that are currently being raised? There are three issues that I would like to put to you that there are concerns being raised. The first is that in relation to individuals that are currently in the estate, we understand that individuals are no longer going to be moved. Will there be fresh charges if those fresh charges are of violent or sexual nature, whether that is against boys, men, girls or women? What approach will be taken? We are having concerns as politicians raised with us in relation to surches. For example, women prison officers are being asked to conduct surches on individuals with male genitalia and male prison officers are being asked to conduct surches on men with female genitalia. We are also having concerns about the safety of trans men on the estate and the duties of care that you have when trans men are being kept in the male estate. Are you aware of those concerns? Will you, either today or after, get back to us on the issues given that you are saying that you are not aware? It is people within the system that are raising those concerns with us. Are those concerns that you are aware of? There are some of those concerns that I am aware of, but I am more than happy for those concerns for us to respond back to you on them. I am not aware of some of them. I will open my line of questioning with some consensus from what the cabinet secretary said that we need to be careful not to stigmatise the entire community for the actions of a small group within that community. We are perfectly entitled and it is entirely appropriate to ask specific questions about what has happened given the very understandable public interest in it. I might be a little bit more just simple and direct to my line of questions in the hope that we get through these more easily. Can I just ask quite straightforwardly who made the decision to house Isla Bryson in the female estate? That decision, as I said earlier, was taken by headquarters. Who is headquarters? Is that a person or is it a gen of command? I am really not at liberty to say. It is normally, there are processes locally and processes nationally and people will seek advice through their channels into headquarters and that is what was done on this occasion. Somebody must have signed this decision off. Ultimately, Mr Greene's position is that I am accountable for all decisions within the organisation so you can see me. The buck rests at the top. I understand that. Given the current policy in any future changes, that individual is no longer in that location. We know that. Were you effectively overruled by Scottish ministers on the decision that you ultimately were in charge of? No, absolutely not. Can I ask at what point in that decision making process did it ever seem appropriate to house a rapist in the women's estate and has that ever happened before? If I come to the second point first, to be honest with you, I am not aware of a similar case but I would need to check that and I would need to come back to you. On the first point, sorry, could you reiterate the first point again? Just as a wider point, as we look to move forward and offer some clarity to the public around this, at what point did it ever feel or be deemed appropriate to house someone who had been convicted of the crime of rape to house them at any stage in the proceedings in the women's prison estate? Why, in any one's logical thinking, would that ever be appropriate? I understand the public concerns and I understand why you have raised that question. In my last response to Ms Clark, I think what I tried to set out was that there are a really complex set of issues that are required to be considered both in relation to the risks that someone may pose, the risks to themselves, the needs of individuals, the needs of others and the rights of individuals and the rights of others. It is not a simple process. At the point of time when someone is making a decision on the location of an individual, they will have extremely limited information and make the best decision at that time, given both the circumstances and our policy position. That in itself is a problem. What do you mean by limited information? Surely you should have access to fill some quantities of information about that individual. First of all, that person has gone through quite a lengthy court case, undoubtedly with an element of public interest in it. At what point does the nature of the crime itself for which they have been convicted become a primary factor in that decision making? Clearly it sounds in this case that it was not. There are circumstances, if I can talk generally, whereby people are charged with offences, where they may be convicted of offences, where they can be bailed for offences, and where, at the point that they then come to court, they come to us with little or no information. It is not a case of that there is a lot of information that is available to the SPS, and that has been recognised in the lessons learned. That is why we are undertaking a review and speaking to our colleagues in Police Scotland, Crown Prosecution Service and the Court Service, because there may be more information that they have, but it does not come through to us at the time. There is something around the sharing of information, and that is why we are developing a memorandum of understanding, but also the way that is communicated that could be improved on. That is why we are in discussions with partners. The current situation is that no transgender offender who has been convicted of a crime of violence or sexual violence against women or girls, I presume other types of violence and domestic abuse, will currently or ever be held in the female estate. Is that something that you can give assurances of, or is this just a temporary measure? So, the definition that the cabinet secretary, the intent that the cabinet secretary announced on 29 January, has been that we have taken a more precautionary measure at the moment. That is his directive, though, under ministerial directive. Yes, under ministerial directive. No one who is convicted of violence against women, and that is in the broadest sense, will be admitted to a female prison when they are newly convicted. At the moment, the measures that I have taken until we develop a stand-on operating procedure is that anyone who comes into custody from now on will be allocated to an establishment that is commensurate with their birth gender, as opposed to their social gender. Yes, I understand that. I do not think that that answers the question. I may ask the cabinet secretary directly then, is this just a temporary measure or will this become a permanent feature of how the process works? I think you have heard that this is a lessons learned review on the particular case that has been mentioned and that is going to feed into the larger reviews, so the larger review will determine how we go forward, but just to restate the fact that what was carried out, the policy carried out by the prison service was first and foremost to ensure the safety of all prisoners. They had a very good track record of making sure that that is the case. If somebody was admitted to an otherwise female prison, it is worth bearing in mind that we have both women and men in many of our prisons. If they were admitted to that prison, they were held in segregation, so they minimised the risk to other prisoners and to staff. On top of that, we provided the additional direction that you just mentioned to ensure that, in the first instance, people go to a part of the male estate. I should say that there is an exception to that, which we stipulated to the prison service, which was any case where they felt that it was imperative that that was not the case. They had to get ministerial approval, which is exactly the same situation as is provided in other jurisdictions, such as England and Wales. That is the current situation, but there is the overarching review that will take those things forward. Are there currently any transwomen prisoners in the women's state who have been convicted of crimes of violence against women? I am sorry, but I am struggling at the moment. My answer would be not the case. I am looking at Neil for some help here, because I have been through a number of… Obviously, we are going through the reviews at the moment, so my answer would be no. There are only five in total, so you must know. I understand that there are no transwomen in the female estate who have lied convictions for violence against women. What effect does the position of a GRC have on your decision making? I think that there is still a little bit of ambiguity as to what that decision making process looks and feels like. I know that you spoke about it. I understand much of the rationale that you go through. I know that you have been doing this for a very long time. The actions of prison staff are to be commended for the way that they handle sensitive issues. That is all a matter of public record, but it is still unclear as to how you go about those decisions. I am quite intrigued as to what effect the position of a legal document such as the GRC would have on your decision making versus someone who simply declares in a different way without perhaps that legal recognition that others may have. That also includes those who have perhaps gone through some form of transition. The position with regard to a gender recognition certificate is that that would be considered as an important factor, but it would be considered as a factor during the multidisciplinary case conference and taken into account when a decision is reached both on the management plan for the individual as well as the location. However, it would not necessarily override other risk factors that were more compelling. I think that you may have a supplementary question. I just wondered if the newly remanded prisoners who go to the establishment of their birth gender would be segregated as a matter of course, or could they be segregated if they requested it? I am thinking in terms of their human rights and they have not been convicted of anything. That is something that is of concern because clearly we do not want to disproportionately segregate people who are trans individuals, either women, trans women or trans men. We are trying to develop a standard operating procedure looking at the memorandum of understanding with other justice partners to gather as much information as we can. We will help to inform that decision, but equally, we need to take on board the wishes of the individual and assess how comfortable they feel in their environment and whether or not there are additional protections that we need to provide, both in respect of the location. For example, somebody going to somewhere like Edinburgh Prison, which is a large establishment with varying parts of the estate held over for remand prisoners, sex offenders for short-term prisoners, there may be a decision taken not to put them in with other remand prisoners if it is felt that they would be safe for somewhere else. Each establishment will need to operationalise the standard operating procedure and look at each individual case on its own merits. Their wishes would be taken into account if they requested something. I was actually going to ask about the effect of a GRC, but you have covered that in your response to Jamie Greene. I have only got one other question in that. You will obviously be aware that the gender recognition bill passed through Parliament weeks before this situation came to light. I know that the bill has not come into law because of the current situation with the UK Government, but did the process of that bill and the passage of that bill have any impact on the decisions around the situation that is led us here today? My understanding is that, in the work that we have been conducting in relation to both the review and the progress of the bill, the gender recognition certificate would not substantially change and there would be no effect on us. Therefore, we could still fulfil our obligations in the way that we have been doing in looking at each individual case and assessing that as one element in relation to balancing risk needs and rights. Is there any further consideration that needs to be taken into account, given the position that the Cabinet Secretary has stipulated around those individuals who have convictions of violence against women? We still need to work that through. We are just about coming up to time, but I think that, in recognition of the importance and interest in this issue, I am happy to bring in a couple more final questions. I will start with Russell Finlay and then I will bring in Pauline McLean. I know that you have a question that you would like to ask. Thank you, convener. I would like to ask about the SPS review, which is a work in progress initially, I think, due to what was published last summer. It is a two-pronged question. Would there be any value, or are you considering perhaps publishing this as a draft document initially in order to give various bodies the chance to feedback and respond to it, or whether it will be published as a final work? Finally, given that it has already been delayed, will it be further delayed until the new First Minister is in place? Will that have any bearing on it? Certainly, I had not anticipated there being a delay because of a change in the First Minister. There is likely to be a further delay because of the additional work that we are now having to apply because of the lessons learned and the additional measures that we are now putting in place. With regard to the process for publication, there have been no final decisions given the nature of the public interest. Although we have tried as far as possible to undertake an extensive consultation, I clearly understand that there is a high degree of interest in our new policy, so we will still need to work through what that looks like and how best to present it. That will include understanding how the Cabinet Secretary wants that process to be applied. What is your latest estimate of when it might be published? To be honest, it is really difficult to give you anything that is definitive. I would like it to be done as soon as it is practicable, but even the standard operating procedure that we have been working on is not going to be developed as quickly as I would have hoped, and that is because there are other partners involved in processing that. Is this year likely? I would be very disappointed, Mr Finlay, if it was not definitely this year. I hope that this is a straightforward question. It is just a follow-up question from Katie Clark. It is about who made the decision and all that. I am not trying to get you to say who made it, but what I did not understand was that I have a segregated unit in Berlin for sex offenders. I have been in the sales where there is an individual. It is surely a solid confinement. Why did the decision maker not just hold them in the segregated units within the estate for assessment as a really important question to answer now or to commit at some point? It is the problem. The 2014 policy is a self-id policy, so you did not have a choice. This is really important to get to the bottom of, because if we want to move on from it and are to be genuine lessons learned, we need to know why. That seems to be an obvious sensible question. Any member probably would ask that. Why did that prisoner need to go to Caught in Vale for assessment to be segregated? We have heard that there was no risk to women, but it could have been segregated somewhere else. My question is a clear question. Why did the decision maker not hold Isla Bryson in another part of the male estate until a decision, albeit a decision that I might not have liked, but albeit a decision? Why not? Given the circumstances and the information, segregation was clearly a factor in the decision, but the segregation unit that was used was the segregation unit at Caught in Vale, and that was given all the information that was known at that time. If you mean the information because they had self-id, that information, can we be clear about that? Please do not give me any more. The policy is very clear, Ms McNeill, about social gender and identification. That is the reason. Although it is not an automatic right to be in the female estate, it is one factor that will be considered. On the basis of the information— I am sorry, that does not make any sense. If it is one factor, is it fair to say that the decision maker could have said, okay, I have looked at that, this person has self-identified as a woman. The decision maker could then have, under the policy, said, I am going to segregate that person in Berlin until we decide where the person is going to go. Could that have been a decision then or not? That could have been a decision. The decision maker chose not to do that. Do you know why? Because the decision maker, as with all decisions that are operational, looks at the information that they have, the information that they do not have, and they make the best decision, given the information that they have. Right, and they check that with headquarters. To protect both other people and the individual, they make the best decision that they can, based on either the information that they have, but also knowing and understanding the information that they don't have. I know what you are saying, but given headquarters signed that off, what would have been the risk if they had been segregated? Where is the risk? There is no risk. Surely there is no risk. I do not know if there is a segregated unit in Greenock, but I know that there is in Berlin. What would have been the risk? I think that it is very difficult, from an operational perspective, to second guess, a decision that somebody has taken. Sorry, I am sorry, I am not accepting that. Sorry, a second guess. You have already told the committee that it was signed off by headquarters, so nobody has second guessed. Which is it? As you said, you gave evidence to this committee saying that it was signed off by headquarters. Am I right? So how is it second guessed? You make a decision, what I am saying is that, us sitting here today, several weeks down the line, clearly knowing and understanding more about the individual, more about the case. You are saying in hindsight, that is what I mean. Sorry, okay. I just thought the three second guess that you obviously put. You are saying in hindsight, knowing what we all know now. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. On that note, I am going to bring this session to a close. Thank you very much to all our witnesses for attending this morning's meeting. We will now have a short suspension to allow for a change over of officials. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. So our next agenda item is oral evidence on a motion to annull the following negative instrument, the Parole Board Scotland rules of 2022, SSI 2022 number 385. And I refer members to paper 2. And I welcome back to the meeting, cabinet secretary, for justice and veterans and his officials, Ms Sandra Wallace, Parole Policy Manager, and Mr Nicholas Duffey, senior principal legal officer who is joining us online. So I'd like to just invite Jamie Greene to speak to and move his motion. Thank you, convener. Can I also thank the clerks of the committee for scheduling this into today's meeting? I know we have a very busy agenda today as proceedings have already shown. Can I also thank the cabinet secretary and his officials for attending? What would have hitherto been an unnecessary appearance, but nonetheless an important one? I will be honest that a lot of what I have already said around the issues is a matter of public record and is in the official report. So I won't repeat all of that. I did give some serious consideration to my motion today to annul the SSI that we were presented with prior to the recess. It wasn't a decision I took lightly. In fact, it's the first time I've done it in my seven and a half years in this Parliament. But I did feel on this issue it was entirely appropriate and would be beneficial to the committee. There is very little in the original SSI with regards to pro-board rules that I disagree with. There are some very sensible changes in the SSI. But there are two reasons why I wanted to bring it back to the committee for debate and I'm looking forward to hearing members' contributions on it. The first is that I personally believe that it is a missed opportunity by the Government to change pro-board rules to the benefit of the victims of crime and the way that some practices are managed. And the second reason is that it was my only method of bringing this back to the chamber. Apologies. I'll just carry on. Okay. Letting light into the room finally. Maybe just pause the meeting for a moment just to... Thank you. Back to you, Jamie. I know the cabinet secretary has a panic button under the desk there, but I didn't realise it did that. So I want to get into the main detail of my motion to annul. I think what it also has done, and I'm grateful to the pro-board themselves for writing to the committee, with quite a robust and informative response. Can I thank John Watt, the chairperson of the pro-board for that commentary? Had I not actually raised this motion, we would not have received that communication. So by its very nature, I believe that vindicates my position in bringing this back to the committee. I won't go through all of the elements of the pro-board Scotland rules 2022 SSI, but I would like to make the point that because it was presented to us as a negative instrument, the only option available to me was to put forward a motion to annul. There was no opportunity, as is the case of other pieces of secondary legislation, to have a proper debate ahead of making that decision, or indeed to amend it in any way. There is no such mechanism available too. On the issues that we are looking at today, it is as important as they are. The Parliament and the way in which the Government brings forward secondary legislation might want to reflect on that. We are often passing primary legislation in this place with promises that secondary legislation is very well scrutinised. It is not. The fact that I have to go through this process to scrutinise it and to take evidence on it and get more information on it and hear what the cabinet secretary and the director has to say, I think, is evidence that the current process is not always fit for purpose. I only want to look at a few specific issues that I raised in my comments at the last meeting and therefore reflect on the responses given by the pro-board. The first is around that of what we call Suzanne's law. I should declare an interest in that members and the cabinet secretary will be aware that I have completed a consultation on a proposal for a member's bill. It is very relevant to the discussion because much of the content of the pro-board rules that the Government is seeking to amend through the statutory instrument would have a direct effect on what the potential content of my bill would look like or indeed the admissibility of some of the elements of my own bill. I have a declared interest and that is why it is important to me to get to the root of some of those issues. I raised the issue of the so-called Suzanne's law. As we may know, Suzanne's law is effectively a process by which an individual cannot be released from custody or imprisonment if they have failed to disclose where a victim's remains have been disposed of prior to that release. We all know the tragic incident to which that eponymous law relates and of course, as always, our thoughts are with the victim's family in this case. Like many of the so-called laws, there is a victim and it is often a female victim of violence or abuse. We understand that the historic position of the Scottish Government was that they would be sympathetic to the introduction of some form of Suzanne's law where technically possible. That is something that I welcomed in other victims and victims organisations welcomed at the time. It seems to be that the changes made in the SSI that was presented to us seem to offer a version of that. However, it is quite clear from the response that we had last week from the Pro Board that that is not the case. The Pro Board state that they, although they are black and white, might take into account the failure to reveal the whereabouts of a victim, will be a factor in that decision making. However, I presume that that is something that they would have done anyway, or the question that I pose is that a new factor. Therefore, is this a substantive change in the decision making process? However, they then refer to the point that it is almost irrelevant anyway, because the primary test of whether someone should be released is related to the prisoner in criminal proceedings Scotland Act 1993, which states that the test is, if the board is satisfied and I quote, if the board is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined. If the answer to that question is that it is no longer necessary, then the prisoner is released. That is the prime consideration. All other factors are certainly part of that decision making process, but they do make it clear that the failure to disclose the whereabouts of a body can only be considered in the context of that overall assessment of risk, i.e. risk to the public. There is an argument that it would be virtually impossible to implement Susanne's law meaningfully in any shape or form under these regulations without a substantive change to the 1993 act. The Pro-Board themselves believe that this would require amendment of the 1993 act to bring this policy change into force. Therefore, although it does not form part of this instrument, the question that I would pose to the Cabinet Secretary could respond to is whether the Government is willing to review the 1993 act and respond to this respect. If such a change could be made and if they are not minded to do so, why not? I understand that the Pro-Board also makes reference to their role in all of this. If a scenario in which a prisoner refuses to reveal the location of a victim, the automatic barring of release would in some way negate the role of the Pro-Board in any decision making, because that would be a primary factor first and everything else second. They also observe that this may not be ECHR compliant, and I am sure that that will be used as a defence of such a change. However, I guess what I am trying to appropriate is what is the Government's current position, because I do not know. I know that historic justice secretaries were a little bit more forthcoming with this. I hope that the Government will understand why I think that this is an important change. If it becomes apparent that the Government is not willing to or unable to, for legal reasons, progress a policy change like this, then naturally it will remain as a part of my forthcoming bill as I go on to drafting stage. However, if I think that the Government or the Government is willing to work with me on any changes, then it could easily be removed from that proposition. I want to move on to another issue, and that is the victim notification scheme. One of the changes in the regulation that we were asked to look at is around information that is given to those who sign up to the scheme. The Pro-Board makes a valid claim about the issue of informing those who signed up to part 1 of the VNS not receiving certain types of information that they do not necessarily want. We have had evidence from victim support organisations who have been quite explicit that not all victims want information about what is coming next. However, there are many who do and feel that they are being let down by the current process, and I think that it is important to get that on the record. I do not necessarily disagree with the board and the change that it is making. I understand that wider changes to the VNS are outside the remit of the instrument, but I would like an update from the Government as to what potential changes to the VNS would make it a much more compassionate, informative and trauma-informed service than it is at the moment, because clearly it is failing many victims of crime. The other substantive issue that was raised in proceedings and responded to by the Pro-Board is that of victim observations and parole hearings. Yesterday's excellent debate in the chamber that my colleague Russell Finlay brought around Victim's Awareness Week and the issue around the BBC programme that was broadcast around parole, which was a fascinating insight into decision making in other parts of the UK. One of the things that we do often here is that lack of transparency in the pro-system here in Scotland. The victims that certainly we spoke into as a committee, but also individually as members, feel that they are very much excluded from the process. Even when they are able to observe the process, since many have had difficulties in observing the process, they feel that they are afforded little to no opportunity to have any meaningful participation. It is important that I understand some of the defence comments made by the Pro-Board around, if you start inferring rights on a victim to not just observe but participate in a parole hearing, that does change the game somewhat. I understand that. I think that the court is that the board operates as a court. If a victim was to present a statement to the tribunal, then that would dictate that the prisoner would be able to cross-examine the victim. I do not know how legally robust that assertion is, but it is something that I would like to test. There is a wider point, and that is simply that many victims do tell us whether we like it or not. They do not feel that their needs and views are taken properly into account when parole hearings and decisions are being made. That is a valid criticism, and I think that that is something that we should be mindful of. I am not necessarily stating that victims should be able to give oral statements in live proceedings at a parole hearing. That may not be suitable for all victims of crime, but certainly some form of meaningful participation that informs the decision making and the board's decision would be a step ahead of where we are than simply observing. Observing gives you absolutely no rights other than to sit there and listen and not participate. I still think that there is work to be done there. There are some other minor technical issues that were raised by the Pro-Board, of which I have no problem whatsoever. As I said, there are other parts of the SSI that I do not have a problem with around the risk management plan. Other members talked about prison of preparation and other issues that the Pro-Board responds to. I understand that the V&S issue is that of a wider governmental review, not necessarily the remit of the Pro-Board. I want to sum up by saying that I am not trying to be difficult by raising these issues today. There is nothing in the real changes that I disagree with. I put that on the record, but what I hope the debate has done is giving the opportunity to air some of these issues, something that we should have been able to have done before having to be asked to make a decision on the instrument itself. I thank the members for their forebearance. Thank you, convener. Can I just confirm if you can move your motion? Would it be possible to let the members contribute first before I make that decision? If you want to move it, I will ask you later if you are going to press or withdraw it. Okay, I will move it for now then. Thank you. On that note, I will invite the cabinet secretary to respond. Thank you very much, convener, and thanks for the chance to make a contribution in support of the Pro-Board Scotland rules 2022 and to debate the motion that has been moved by Jamie Greene. I understand that the committee had some concerns referred to that expressed, I think, by Jamie Greene, about the amount of time they have had to consider the rules. Before starting, it is important to be clear that this SSI was laid in December. It comes into force in April and therefore allows the full 40 days required by the Parliament for parliamentary consideration as to whether the committee wanted to consider this prior to that. That is not, obviously, an issue that I have a say on. I am sure that the committee will appreciate the need to provide the new rules of procedure for the Pro-Board. The previous rules date from 2001, meaning they are over 20 years old, and they have, in that time, undergone multiple amendments, which has led to them becoming more complex and inaccessible. They are in need of change and to make them as clear and understandable as they can be seems to be a sensible thing to do. The 2022 rules under discussion bring a new and simplified structure to the Pro-Board's rules and align some common processes. For example, all oral hearings on parole cases will now follow the same procedure. They also introduce procedures to clarify existing practice and improve processes. They aim to provide the Pro-Board with effective and transparent procedures that help with the smooth running of the Pro-Board business. If we were to annull those rules, as proposed, that would mean that we would lose all the benefits included in them, such as avoiding re-traumatising victims—for example, the new rules rule 9 in brackets 2—illaw a victim's statement to be withheld from the dossier given to the prisoner should they wish their views to remain private and the Pro-Board consider it should be treated as non-disclosure. That would be lost if that were to be annulled. The rules also ensure that victims are given only the information that they are signed up to receive when they are registered with the victim notification scheme. They also improve the process for prisoners, ensure that they are better prepared for a hearing and provide a new procedure to allow the Pro-Board to appoint a representative for prisoners if they lack the capacity to appoint one themselves. It is important to note that the rules have been developed with the Pro-Board to ensure that they were workable and fit for purpose. They also build on the consultation with the public card out last year and they reflect their engagement with other stakeholders, including, importantly, Victim Support Scotland, the Risk Management Authority and the Law Society for Scotland. Just to cover a couple of the points that were raised by Mr Greene, first of all, in relation to the victim's body, the victim of the fence, where somebody has been murdered, not being revealed. Within that, Jamie Greene also asked whether we had any current proposals to change the law in that regard. Importantly, criminal law already permits failure to disclose a body to be taken into account when sentencing. Existing criminal law contains an offence of defeating the ends of justice, and this canon has been used in cases where a murderer has failed to disclose the location of their victim, as it was in the Suzanne Pilly case when sentencing David Gilroy. The court can take into account all charges when sentencing to ensure a suitable sentence is imposed to account for all criminal conduct. The role of the Pro-Board is to assess when a prisoner, having served the sentence handed down by the court, may be released without posing a risk to the community. I think that it is right that decisions on risk and release are made on a case-by-case basis by the independent Pro-Board, who may take all relevant information into account. Denying parole to someone solely on the grounds of their not revealing the location of a victim's body, and Jamie Greene mentioned this, may also create ACHR issues. For example, a proposal that required a prisoner to be held indefinitely until they provided certain information, notwithstanding that they may not know or remember the information in question, may not be capital compatible with the ACHR rights under article 3. This is as the prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment provided in article 3 requires a life sentence to include safeguards against indefinite detention without possibility of release. The proposal also appears to be inconsistent with existing safeguards for human rights, which form part of the sentencing and parole processes. It suggests that prisoners would be detailed for longer than the punishment part imposed by the court, with no possibility of parole due to the lack of co-operation. This may cause issues of arbitrary detention. Contrary to article 5 ACHR, I may interfere with the right to silence, which is protected by article 6 ACHR, so it does touch on some fundamental human rights. Just to answer directly the point raised by Jamie Greene, the Government has no plans to change legislation in the way that he has suggested. He has also mentioned, of course, his own Victim's Bill. As I have said before, I am more than happy to discuss this and other issues as part of that process. Finally, I think that perhaps I covered the issues in relation to victim notification earlier on in the statement, but there are pro-words indicated that they will prepare guidance for their members on the new rules before they come to force on 1 April 2023 unless, of course, Parliament votes down all the rules. However, for the reasons that I mentioned and a number of other reasons for which time prevents me from mentioning, I think that it is important that these rules are passed and I would therefore urge Mr Greene to withdraw his motion to annul those rules. If that is not the case, I would urge the members of the committee to oppose the motion and, with that, to convene out my officials. I am happy to answer any questions that the committee may have. Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. I am now going to open it up for questions and I am going to officially bring in Katie Clark, followed by Russell Finlay. Thank you, convener. I will keep my contribution relatively short. I do not have any objection to the rules that are being put forward by the Cabinet Secretary, but I welcome the motion to annul that has been put down by Jamie Greene as the committee discussed on the previous occasions. A number of us do feel that this is a missed opportunity. We would have liked the committee to have been involved in the discussion perhaps at an earlier stage and we felt that we were coming to this quite late. Of course, the process and the procedure is that the rules are not something that we are able to amend as a Parliament. I welcome that the motion to annul has been submitted because I do not have any objection to any of the rules that are being put before us. I do not think that I would be minded to vote for Jamie Greene's motion, but I do think that it has given us the opportunity to highlight some of the issues. Indeed, as Jamie Greene has said, we have, as a committee, been furnished with quite considerable further information, which is very useful. I think that there is a far wider debate that needs to take place about the role of victims, not just the meaningful role in the way that Jamie Greene suggests but also the experience that victims have had for generations of lack of information and feeling excluded from the process and finding out issues, perhaps accidentally, and at a far later stage than they would have wished. I think that, collectively, as a Parliament, we are aware of that. There was a debate yesterday in Parliament in relation to victims' rights. Therefore, as I say, I probably would not be minded to vote for Jamie Greene's motion. I think that the fact that it has been put down is welcome. As Jamie Greene says, often the committee is looking at enabling legislation, often the Parliament is looking at enabling legislation. We are asked to vote for legislation effectively on trust that the regulations that come thereafter will be acceptable, but there is not a proper process for scrutiny of that subordinate legislation. I do not want to give the impression that time has been wasted by putting down the motion, because, even if there are not significant problems with the rules that are being presented, there is a missed opportunity. It is important that the committee puts on record that we would want more done in relation to the issues that have been raised. I support Jamie Greene's motion and I agree with his comment and Katie Clark's comments about the missed opportunity in relation to victim involvement, contribution and parole board hearings, but I have nothing particular to add about that. My interest lies in Suzanne's law. It is something that I have had an interest in for a number of years. I happen to have been a witness in a murder trial of Margaret Fleming, whose remains have never been recovered and whose two convicted killers have shown no signs of disclosing where they are, so it is something that I believe is such an appalling situation for families to live with, where killers exercise this on-going power, if you like, and relentless re-traumatisation of families who would desperately like to have closure. In December last year, I was aware of a BBC news report and other news reports about apparently Scottish Government bringing in Suzanne's law and the BBC report. I will quote this said, a change to Scotland's parole rules could mean that killers are denied release if they do not say where and how they dispose of victims' remains. Frankly, I was delighted that it seemed like good news. It sounded like what all those families and Venus campaigners have been calling for was coming to pass. However, when we saw the SSI, it became apparent that the content of the SSI fell significantly short of the publicity that had been generated by it. That is no criticism of the BBC or other media. I think that they were presented in a certain way. When I saw the SSI, I had been in contact with the family of Arlene Fraser. Arlene Fraser was murdered in 1998. Her killer is in custody. Her remains have never been found and her family understandably support Suzanne's law. When I pointed out to them that the headlines of December weren't indeed the reality of the SSI, I received a response back from Arlene's sister who said, to be quite honest, that I was quite disappointed. That was a direct quote and a rather understated quote. However, what is worth pointing out is that when the headlines of these are generated perhaps through Scottish Government PR, it can give false hope to families. Further retraumatism might give the impression that Suzanne's law is indeed coming into being when, in fact, it's not. I thank Jamie Greene for lodging the amendment, because in so doing, John Watt has provided the committee with a very detailed and honest take on what that means. He says that, essentially, for this to be a, quote, determinative factor in consideration of release, it would require a change to the 1993 legislation. I'm disappointed to hear the cabinet secretary say that he's going to intend to pass an actual Suzanne's law by revisiting that 1993 legislation, but I do look forward to working with Jamie Greene to see if there's a way to find something that's ECHR compliant that can be brought forward, because we've seen this in the other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. There's Suzanne's law in Scotland, and there's various other laws elsewhere, all of which have taken the name of female victims, because in almost all of these cases it is female victims. On that basis, Jamie Greene's motion has been absolutely fantastic in flushing out the truth of the matter. I'm perhaps not minded to vote for it, because it's been a useful exercise in gathering it. I'm not sure if he's intending to push it, but that's obviously up to him, because we're not wanting to throw the baby out of the bathwater. It's been a useful exercise in finding out the truth of the matter. I'll shortly invite the cabinet secretary just to make any further comment that you wish. I stay with the issue of revealing the whereabouts of a victim's body. The cabinet secretary referred specifically to some of the circumstances where there is consideration around ECHR factors. Would it be the case that that might include a situation where an individual who has been convicted of a murder is unable to disclose whereabouts of a body, whether that might be through a health condition that they have, or, as I think you mentioned, they can't remember. It might be broadly in an area, but they cannot be specific because of the passage of time. Essentially, including revealing the whereabouts of a body as part of the parole hearing process is almost two bites of the cherry, given that that refusal to reveal the whereabouts prior to sentencing would have already been taken into account in terms of the sentence imposed. I think that you raised two very important points, convener. I think that I mentioned that in the opening statement. How can we be sure that somebody genuinely cannot pass on that information? I think that's one of the reasons why it butts up against ECHR law. More profoundly for me, I think that we're all as well to explain our rationale for these things, I think that the court is the right place to do that. When they're handing down a sentence, if they think it's a willful refusal to reveal, which I agree is, for the victim's family, a vitally important piece of information for all the reasons that we're familiar with. I think that it's a reprehensible thing to do. However, the court can take that into account. What we're asking to do really is for the parole board to take on the functions almost of sentencing, because you could continually put the sentence beyond that which the court had handed down, and not least the punishment part of it. That's my view. I'm happy, as I've said, to listen to other points of view. If people are unhappy, then of course they can annul this measure, or they can bring forward legislation that would change the 1993 act. I've given the reasons why I think that that would be I don't mean to be definitive on it, but to me it seems to butt right up against those provisions of the ECHR. That's my position. That's the Government's position, as I've ever tried to be open-minded, if others have a point of view, just to make a couple of clarifications so that they don't have Suzanne's law or its counterpart in England of Wales, as has been suggested. There is no provision to do that. The parole board have to take it into account, but they don't have it in the way that's been suggested by those that would propose Suzanne's law. I can't really be held responsible for BBC stories. Generally in the media there's a story that I had misled Parliament last year, which was completely fallacious. It was reported in all the media, virtually no corrections to that. I can't quite rightly govern the media in relation to that. I do though think that the review of, and some of the points that have been made, I accept in relation to improvements to the victim notification scheme. That's why we're having the review, and it is an independent review, but of course it can receive representations, and I would encourage those. I know that Jamie Greene in particular has that interest with his bill to make those representations, and those will be taken into account subsequently. I generally think that we can do more to improve that scheme. Although we do have to be mindful, as those proposed rules are, not to overstep the mark, such as that we re-traumatise people who do not want to have that for their information, for perfectly understandable reasons. I'll leave it there for me now. Okay. Thank you very much indeed, cabinet secretary. If I can just also express my thanks to John Watt of the parole board for the briefing that he provided committee members with, I think that it was very helpful in informing today's debate. So we'll now move to the formal consideration. There's just a small point of worth putting on the record. I think that in relation to similar legislation elsewhere in the UK, the prisoner's disclosure of information about victims act 2022 was enacted in England and Wales, and indeed has been put into use in specific cases. Our next agenda item is formal consideration of a motion to annul the following negative interest instrument, which is the Parole Board Scotland rules of 2022, and that's SSI number 385 of 2022. I refer members to paper 2, and I invite Jamie Greene to comment on whether he wishes to press his motion or withdraw. Thank you, convener. Would I be able to just briefly thank the members for their contribution? And thank you. I don't want to stretch this out too long, but can I thank those who have contributed and the cabinet secretary's officials for attending today and offering their point of view? I did want to just comment on two brief things, and that's that it—one is the issue that this change to rule 11 on matters that the board may consider, where on the face of it it says that the board may take into account, amongst other matters, any failure to reveal the location of victims' worry. This matter may be considered where relevant, but does not change the underlying test for release applied by the board. To me, it still doesn't make sense, and I wonder if somebody may provide some further, and it could be in writing after today's event, but I still can't see how it can meaningfully be taken into account or be a consideration factor if the overall test is not changing. Essentially, even if somebody refuses to reveal the location of a victim's body and it is evident that they are doing so willingly, as opposed to through inability, will that make any material difference in the decision-making around whether Pro is granted or not? It seems to me that the answer to that is no. I do question how meaningful this change is, which is why I think that people are disappointed. I just want to park that there, because I think that it is a false sense of hope that we have given perhaps some of those victims' families through this change. I can't see any meaningful application where it would change the status quo, unfortunately. My views are on the record. Based on the feedback that I've had, including from my colleague, I won't be pushing the matter to a vote, convener. Can you confirm your withdrawing? Are members content to agree to the motion to annul this instrument? Thank you in that case. We thank you to the witnesses for attending this morning, and we'll pause momentarily just to allow the cabinet secretary to leave. Thank you, everyone. Our next item of business is to consider the committee's action plan, and I refer members to paper 3. I intend to go through the paper section by section just to confirm if members have any comments or wish to make any amendments or, in fact, disagree with the assessments of progress to date. If I can start at the first section, which is the impact of Covid and recovery—if any members have got anything that they wish to flag—we're just at the first section, just on the impact of Covid and recovery. The prisons and prison reform section is next. I wonder if it might just be worth mentioning or including reference to the promise, particularly in the section on women and children. In March 2022, there was an update on that. Given that it refers to—or it's supporting young people who are care-experienced and, ultimately, it's seeking to reduce the number of young people in care, it might just be worth including that for reference. I don't disagree with any of that. There was a further point on the it's an update on the issue of young people being held in adult institutions. I'm not sure what the current numbers are. I know that they're always quite low, but it would be helpful to maybe get an up-to-date number on that. I also recall that there was, I believe, a commitment made, which I think I raised in the chamber around some more analysis on the future of the Barnhouse model and the volume or capacity that may be required, which would kick off perhaps some capital investment projects quite early on, given the timescales of them. My understanding is that there was a piece of work being done that would do some forecasting around that. It would inform the decision-making. It's obviously at the moment that we have one, but I don't know whether that's one of three, five, twelve or that set. It's not necessarily relevant to this year's cash flow, but it is quite relevant to the future. I think that it's quite valid to raise the issue of secure care, secure accommodation. I've had some local casework on that recently, where there still seems to be disparity around places available who is fulfilling those places and where the funding for that is coming from. I know, anecdotally, of providers of services such as that, who claim that there is capacity in the system and they don't understand why there are young people in the adult prison system. It seems to be a funding issue in the follow-of-the-money situation, which is causing the issue, so much so that they're actually taking people from south of the border to keep their head above water financially. That doesn't seem to make much sense. When we're doing an overall writing to the Government, we could chuck that in. That's fine. Thanks, Jamie. We've taken a note of that, so we can follow that up. It's quite clear that there's been considerable investment in the women's estate with the opening of the new two community custody units but also the new prison at Stirling that we're yet to see. Given what we know about women's offending patterns and the different nature of the women's population compared with the male estate, whether we need to assess whether those new facilities in reality are providing more appropriate facilities for women, given their specific needs, the healthcare issues that we're aware of, their parental responsibilities and medical needs, and whether that's something that we might want to incorporate, particularly when Stirling is open to review whether we feel it delivers in terms of the objectives that have been set over many decades. I think that those are all relevant updates. I think that there's support across members in relation to perhaps facilitating a visit to Cortonvale once it's ready to receive visiting groups, so we'll pick that up. I think that this might not be totally relevant to this section but it is relevant to the action plan. I recently attended the CPG on health inequalities at which Wendy Gibbons-Sinkler provided an update on prisons and the work around addressing health inequalities in prisons. One of the points that she made was that, in relation to some of the inspection work that she undertakes, her desire that at some point there's an opportunity to undertake a review of this healthcare model within prisons, which I think that members would agree is highly relevant to women, so it's maybe just something to note. Just one point in relation to recovery cafes. There's been quite a bit of work, obviously, courtesy of the National Drugs Death Task Force report and the work coming out of that, but I'm not seeing an awful lot of specific reference to recovery cafes. I think that it's just one for us to monitor in terms of progress on that particular action. It was more a comment rather than a request for further information, but just on observing that report, I think that it's a good news story about the progress that's been made in terms of in-cell telephony and how that's commenced and taken forward. Obviously, we'll be getting regular updates as to how that's being rolled out and the benefits and any feedback at all. We'd be very much welcome, but it's a very good thing. I just wanted to congratulate SPS on taking that forward. We'll just move through the action plan. We're possibly at around page 10. I'll bring in Russell and then I'll come back to Colette. I suppose this relates to the point that starts in page 7, where you have residential rehabilitation and ends in page 9. Let's talk about various funding. Audit Scotland have talked about this quite recently, essentially saying that there is a lack of clarity around how this money has been spent. With that lack of clarity, there's a lack of ability to then evaluate its effectiveness. I don't know if that's the place for it or if there's somewhere further on that that would be more relevant, but I'm just starting to go with me in the point. We can note that and then we can maybe insert that, just the relevant part of the action plan. I think so. Thanks for that, Russell. That's it last year from recollection, and then they did a follow-up one, I think, in October. I think that just one other final addition perhaps is, again, the end of page 7 under residential rehabilitation. It was a recent statement on residential rehab by the Drugs Policy Minister. I think that was back in January this year, and that provided an update of an £18 million commitment to develop stabilisation and crisis care services and align them with detox and rehabilitation, but we could get more information on that in the official report. There's no more specific issues around prisons and prison reform, Jamie. When I briefly popped out, did you cover recovery cafes? Recovery cafes, yes. Yes, as in, there wasn't much of an update on that. Yes, on funding and whether there would be a feature of every institution. So, if we move on to misuse of drugs and the criminal justice system, which is at page 17. I thought more about it page by page, my mistake. It was just on page 12 under 18 secure care, just to say that I welcome that the Justice Committee will be looking at that aspect of the bill. I know the rest of the bill will be going probably to the Education Committee, I imagine, but I just wanted to say as well at this stage that I had a meeting and I think that other members might have been contacted by them as well, but I had a meeting with Hope instead of handcuffs, a good organisation, and they're doing work around the way that young people are treated in their transport secure. So, it might be worthwhile thinking about them for an evidence session around about the time of that bill, I know we'd talk about that at another stage, but I just wanted to raise that. I would encourage members to meet with this organisation if they so want to. Okay, no, I agree, I think that's probably a helpful suggestion, Jamie. I should declare an interest, I also had a meeting with them and others have as well, so they're very effective lobbying. I do understand that there is a commercial interest behind the campaign and I think that it's entirely appropriate that we know that, but nonetheless I think giving them the benefit of the doubt they have a genuine interest in the issue of transportation. It's certainly not the first time this committee has raised the issue of the contractors involved in that service and some reservations have been expressed about it. To be fair, I did have some questions to them about the scenarios where it would be entirely appropriate to restrain a young person for their safety or the safety of staff and others around them, and I think that there's an acceptance that that should remain the case. It needs to be evidence-based and I think that if there is genuine evidence of inappropriate behaviour then that should come to our attention, but it also should be a matter of public record and not just hearsay and gossip. If there are genuine examples of where young people have been misappropriately managed then I think that people should be forthcoming with those and the Government can address those issues directly rather than just become a hearsay issue then we've no idea that the truth of the matter is otherwise. Certainly they made some valid points and it's important to raise those. A very small point on page 13 in relation to the reference to the Scottish Sentencing Council's recently published guidelines for sentencing young people. I just think that it might benefit from being a bit more specific, so maybe even a link, but certainly the date of when these were published and when they came into effect, because I'm not entirely sure when that was. Yes, I mean just to pick up on the issue that Fulton raised in terms of the use of handcuffs, and I suspect that he knows far more about the issue than myself in relation to the rules and guidelines that exist in terms of residential care like children's homes etc. The issue, as I understood it, was that the regulation that exists in some settings doesn't exist in the transportation settings, so it would be useful if we could get some detail on that before we start looking at it as an issue, if we could actually have a proper briefing before we take any evidence because I don't have that background and I think that that would be useful for the committee rather than to take it from witnesses to actually be given copies of all the regulations that exist in different settings. I was going to raise an issue in relation to page 13 remand, I don't know if that's appropriate, and it relates to some of the evidence that we've seen in relation to the bail bill. I mean the women's remand rate is even higher than the men's, the men's rate is approaching 30% of the prison population. The women's rate was between 35% to 40% of the population, which was actually unconvicted prisoners, which I was quite alarmed by. I know that we've had real difficulty as a committee getting data in terms of offending patterns and I just think that it might be useful to incorporate that as work going forward, that we need to have a better understanding of who's in the prison population, both on remand and indeed in the general population, but in relation to remand and to try and see the differences that have happened over time and that are happening. My impression is that there's more violent prisoners and more prisoners who have been charged or indeed convicted of very serious sexual offences, including rape and child sexual abuse, including historic cases, but I think that we need to have a better understanding of that and I don't know if that could be incorporated in the work programme because it has been like pulling teeth, trying to get that information as a committee and I know that Spice have endeavored and have tried to provide what's available, but I do think that it's actually very difficult for us to scrutinise without that data, so I think that it would be helpful and also to highlight the differences between the male estate and the female estate. I think that we need to have an understanding of both. I think that probably in relation to the second point about just monitoring the remand population, I think that your impression is probably correct. I'm certainly happy to consider some work around monitoring remand populations outwith the scope of bail and release, which will conclude shortly. I'm happy to look at that. It's clearly a pressing issue that we've been grappling with. Sorry, it's the same box that Katie refers to at a slightly different point, SOP's 13 on remand. It begins by saying that remand numbers are not falling significantly and ends by saying that remand has dropped by 9 per cent within 12 months, so that arguably is significant. I wonder if there will be a rewording, an opening thing to be a bit less subjective. Yeah, that's a fair point to raise. I think that... It remains steady or something. Yeah, and I think that the action plan is almost a chronology of development, so I'm not overly worried about the fact that that doesn't seem to fit things fluctuating change as time goes on, but happy if you would prefer an update, that's absolutely fine. At that point, yes, there is a contradiction reading this by saying that remand numbers are not yet falling, but then saying that we just 10 per cent appreciate their fluctuations. Tim Sint is quite, quite meaty, and I don't know if the Government were using that statistic, they would hail it as a success, so they wouldn't say it was a constant. But the point, the wider point that Katie Clark thinks making is that this needs to be contextual, and that's around the issue of not just the numbers falling, but the perceived percentage of the overall population in monitoring that is a measurement, rather than just the numbers itself. But it doesn't really take into account two factors, and that's the crime profile, the profile of those being held on remand, given that the lion's share of them are being remanded from charges that would follow solemn proceedings, therefore, by default, more serious. But it also doesn't take into account, and this goes back to how many of those people, out of that 25 to 29 per cent, as the numbers fluctuate, are there because of delays to trials, because I don't know if that's 10 per cent, or all of them, or some of them, or half of them. There may be a cohort of people who are held on remand who otherwise would not be had their trial come to pass. I think that's something that we need to be cognisant about in this, as well. Okay, thank you very much. I'm just conscious of the time. We've still got a number of agenda items to work through. If I can circle back to the section on misuse of drugs, which starts at page 17. If there are no particular updates or additions to that, can I move us swiftly on to the next section, which is on violence against women and girls? Page 23 is the section relating to violence against women and girls, and then there's nothing that members wish to highlight. The next section is on victims' rights and victim support, which is at page 28. In the last column, the committee could ask the Scottish Government to, or the Scottish Government could be asked to, or the committee could ask COSLA to, or third sector to. I agree with all of those suggestions, because we're skipping past pages. It's important that we give consent to the clerks to carry on with that work. I totally agree with that. I think that there's quite a lot coming out of our discussion today, so certainly the clerks will, on our behalf, update the action plan accordingly. If members feel that there may be technical additions that they want to add to the action plan, I'm very happy for members to contact the clerks directly with those updates. Victims' rights and victim support starts at page 28. The next section is reducing youth offending, and that is at page 32. I know that we are heavily skipping pages here now, but I wanted to raise the issue of access to court transcripts. I don't know where that fits in or which page that fits in. Yes, it was on the youth offending and community justice solutions. When we were looking at the budgets, there seemed to be—and it's a point that I think we'll probably be discussing in more detail when we talk about the bail bill. It's quite clear what the intention is in terms of the bail bill legislation, in terms of a shift towards community justice, but definitely in terms of the budgets for the coming year, starting in April, it's actually those budgets are getting cut. I just think, as a committee, that's something that we may be a lead to look at in terms of how that money is spent, but how maybe even a relatively modest increase might actually reap rewards. I just wonder if that's something the committee would want to consider incorporating, because if that legislation goes through, which it's likely to do, then there's a risk and actually nothing's going to change unless there's a structural shift in terms of where the money goes. I just wonder if that's something we want to incorporate and to monitor that, maybe more heavily than other areas that we're looking at, particularly given that we spent so much time scrutinising the legislation. Okay, thanks, Katie. I'm happy with that. We've taken a note of that suggestion. Okay, where did we get to? Page 32. And then the final section, yes, sorry, I've skipped over, is legal aid on page 36. We're skipping. Page 36 for deaths in custody. Are we content, as a committee, that that's an issue that's been followed up by a note from the analysis as well as the Scottish Government agreed with our recommendation. The Government pushed back and said it had no intention to create an online centralised system where delivery of recommendations can be tracked if we were content with that response, so we wanted to push the Government further on it, because it's still a very live issue, unfortunately, and tragically. Okay, that's noted, and we can follow that up just to get an up-to-date position on that. Okay. And if there's nothing else, we'll bring this to a close. Obviously, members are very welcome if there are additional comments that you want to make on the action plan. I'm happy for you to link directly with the clerks if it's a more of a technical update, so thank you for that, and I do appreciate that we've worked through that quite quickly. We'll return to our action plan later in the year just to see what further progress is being made to deliver on the recommendations and actions that we've set out. So thank you very much. Okay, so our next agenda item is consideration of the correspondence from Police Scotland, the SPA, the Scottish Police Federation and the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents on Policing and Mental Health. I refer members to paper 4, and I invite members to comment on the correspondence and any suggested follow-up that you wish to see, and also the proposed actions at paragraphs 24 and 25. If I can maybe just before members come in for the record, I'm very pleased that we've had the opportunity to consider this issue. It is an important issue and that there is support for this work around policing and mental health and support for that to continue and develop. So, as such, I think that the proposed actions in the paper I feel are a way of ensuring that the work continues, and indeed I know that the SPA is keen to have a role in that. So, with that, I'm happy to open it up to members for your comments and thoughts. Yeah, absolutely. Welcome, the fact that this is being talked about. However, I think that the Scottish Police Federation makes some quite worrying points about the position of Police Scotland being what they describe as defensive in denial and suggests nothing to see here, which I think change with my experience of having tried to raise a number of suicide cases of police officers where we've established none or subject of fatal accident inquiries. Police Scotland do not record the numbers of deaths, let alone is there any form of inquiry into them, and still Police Scotland and the SPA in their responses don't seem to be addressing that. I know that it's uncomfortable, but the amount of officers and former officers who've come forward to me who have either considered to take their own lives, attempted to take their own lives or the families of those who indeed have taken their own lives, all drawing direct links to the officers' experience of either the lack of support from the police due to what they've experienced as police officers or, even worse, due to protracted regulatory disciplinary processes that they feel were unfair and unjust to the point where they were in such dire straits and such desperate mental state that they believed suicide was the only option. As bad and as shocking as that is in many of those cases, those individuals made those feelings known to Police Scotland. If you think back to when this first arose in the committee, it was actually, I think it was a year or two ago, and the responses from Police Scotland and the SPA set alarm bells ringing. For all that they're appearing to say all the right things about consideration of officers' wellbeing, which is great, I think that they're falling well short of acknowledging the scale of the damage that has been done and could yet cause serious problems. On action plans, we've got a response from the Crown Office explaining that none of these cases have been subject of a fatal accident inquiry. Is there any mechanism that we can explore us to give an officer who's died from suicide the same rights as someone who's died in custody who automatically is subject of a fatal accident inquiry? Because in the cases I'm aware of, it would absolutely highlight serious issues about these officers, the pressure they were under, and not to point fingers, not to lay blame, but to realise how serious the situation is and learn from it. I think that if it's a superficial exercise, nothing will change. Thank you very much for taking seven notes on that, so we'll come back to that, Jamie. Thank you. I want to start with a section on Police Scotland. I think that this is a great summary and I thank the clerks for it. I then kind of jump to page four, which is the actions. The actions seem to be that we ask the SPA to do some work. I think that we need to take a step back first and go straight back to Police Scotland, because I presume that this is a matter of public record. If you look at points five, six, seven and eight of the papers, we, as a committee, and have now put it on record, are clearly unhappy with the response from Police Scotland, and I think that we have more than enough opportunity to go back to them. We state in point five that the response does not include an explanation as to why officers that we spoke to did not receive the standard of advice and support required. In point six, we complain that the response from the Police Scotland does not address key issues raised by the committee. In point seven, we also say that the issue is not addressed and the response, that being the inadequacy of the Employee Assistance Line. In point eight, the committee requests details of when the court scheduling system redesign will be in place and that information has also not been provided. So there are very specific things that we think they have not responded to and I would invite them to respond to it. It has given us a second chance to respond to that before we escalate it. We are very happy to include the SPI in our correspondence, of course, but let's go straight to Police Scotland with that information explaining that we are unhappy with the response. Let's be up front about it as uncomfortable as that may be. Going on to the SPF, we could include in that, of course, the challenges made by the SPF. I know that Police Scotland will read this themselves, but if they are not asked to answer to it then they don't have to and probably won't. I would like them to directly respond to the concerns raised by the SPF. The concerns raised is, for example, in point 16 that the SPA bases its oversight on evidence provided by Police Scotland but not necessarily by officers directly. That's a really key point, actually. In other words, the SPA seems to be marking its own homework by only responding to evidence given to it by Police Scotland, which, of course, is accountable to it, but not necessarily by going directly to staff associations or organisations to get feedback and to really just sanity check whether what it's hearing from Police Scotland marries up with the truth on the ground. That's maybe a criticism of the SPA. Again, equally in point 17, there are specific complaints made about the strategic commitment to wellbeing from Police Scotland and the mainstreaming of that policy. The SPF believes that this is a failure to either operationalise the programme or a failure to operationalise the right programme. Again, we could invite Police Scotland or the SPA to respond to that. I don't disagree with what we are asking the SPA to do around data collection and how they could better engage with officers and their representatives from the union or otherwise and whether that data collection could be beefed up. I think that those are valid things, but I think that they are not necessarily the main criticisms that we want to pose to them. I feel like this is actually, what was quite a short paper, is clearly one where we express unhappiness of what we've heard in response from Police Scotland. I think that we need to challenge that, which is my only plea. I agree with Jamie, particularly on point 16 about the SPF raising the concern that the SPA raises oversight on evidence provided by Police Scotland, that they don't have much input. I agree that we should take that point up. I'm not really in agreement so much with Jamie on the first point, which is to go back to Police Scotland. I think that we've been there. They know that we're not happy with the response, the SPA know that we're not happy with the response. They are the authority that governs Police Scotland, so I think that the onus is on them to get this right for the Police and for us and to give us the information. Paragraph 11 says, in response to the committee's request, that the SPA undertook an urgent review of the number of cases where officers and staff retire due to mental health, etc. The SPA confirms that, in the response, additional resources have been assigned and are having a positive impact on reducing the number of officers awaiting approval, but we don't know, we have no update on that, so the urgent review, what was the outcome of all that, and it says the committee is going to consider the outcomes of the route. It's meeting of 28 February, so that might be timely for us to contact them and say, okay, what was the outcome of that. I'm not sure of the value of going back to Police Scotland because I think we'll just get the same response. Okay, thank you very much. Anybody else want to come in very quickly? Just very quickly on point 16, which Jamie and Ron have both referred to. I think that this perhaps is a more fundamental issue about the creation of Police Scotland, which is coming up for its 10th birthday and the fact that SPAs, that the short history of both the SPA and Police Scotland has been tumultuous to say the least, and at the very beginning there were serious questions about both the ability or willingness of SPAs to hold Police Scotland sufficiently to account, and indeed in the early days political meddling, which has now been pretty much acknowledged. I think that going back to the specific issue, in May 2021 we raised the issue of officer suicides in the committee. Then we have a letter on September 2021, and in that letter the SPA wrote to us to say that, based on the information available at the time, there was nothing to suggest that any of the recent cases were caused directly by the pressure of work. They took that information from Police Scotland, they took Police Scotland at their word, and I think that it's disingenuous to say the least, because in some of these cases these officers had made known their difficulties with the on-going processes that they were being put through. That, I think, in one brief letter highlights the problem of the SPA showing perhaps a lack of curiosity or robustness in respect of holding Police Scotland to account and asking difficult questions about difficult subjects. I think that the key issues that have been raised from Russell are around the commentary on Police suicides and some of the previous responses that we've had, including the correspondence from the Crown Office on Police suicides. We've got Jamie's proposal on going back to Police Scotland and asking further questions, including on the comments made by the Scottish Police Federation. Correct me if I'm picking this up wrongly, because I've been trying to scribble some notes. There are some other issues that have also been raised. I think that part of the reason for the actions that we set out was to try and get into a chain of correspondence. However, in view of the comments that have been raised and the points that have been made, I would open it up to members to indicate if they are happy for us to go back to Police Scotland on the specific issues that have been highlighted. Are members happy for that to be an action for us to take away? Could the letter perhaps ask for some more data around when we had a police witness in here? We asked about the number of officer suicides that he said he'd come back to us and he hasn't done so. We've corresponded with him since. They've shown no sign of providing this information, so we asked specifically for that and also for how many of those officers were subject to on-going internal processes. In light of the fact that we have raised this now publicly and in writing with both the SPA and Police Scotland whether they've revisited this acceptance by the SPA that there's nothing to see here when, in fact, there clearly is. Thank you for your proposal and I think that that's a good move. I agree that I don't think that there's any merit in getting into letter tennis with them, but if it gets to the point where we're expressing unhappiness about the response that we're getting, then we can't just park it there. I think that that's the point that I'm probably making. I also think that there is maybe one other thing that we could ask for a more regular update on. That's something that I've struggled to get information on is officer retirement and churn. I appreciate they do their own analysis on those who are exiting and there'll be exit interviews and so on. I've tried to chuck some questions into the system on that and it's been very difficult to get data. I think that data is quite important so that we get below the skin of why people are retiring. Is it just simply early retirement? Is it changed to rules around that or is it genuine mental health or other health, physical health, what are the reasons that are being given and are we keeping a watch and track on the churn rates relative to the number of officers in the system and the average ages and so on? I think that there needs to be a proactive effort either by the police themselves or from the Government to keep the committee informed of that data. It doesn't matter what it's telling us, but we need to know what picture it's painting because that will have a massive effect on the number of officers available. I agree that, alongside whatever we're doing, it's important that we support clear arrangements around data collection, because that's absolutely fundamental to tracking progress on the range of issues that we've highlighted. I agree with you about data collection. That's crucial. I have no objection to going back to Police Scotland. I just question the worth of that. I definitely think that we should go back to the SPA about their review that they're doing, et cetera, just for an update on that more than anything else, but also to ask them about this point 16 and why the SPA doesn't really have a voice at their meetings and why they just take the evidence from Police Scotland as read. In other words, ask them how robust they've been with their governance. That's what I would like to do, just to see if we can get anywhere. I'm happy with that suggestion. I can just move on to Russell. Can I just ask members for an indication of their view on going back to Police Scotland to ask some further questions? Are members agreed on that? Yes, that's fine. Are members agreed to the actions that are in the paper in relation to the SPA? I think that they have an important role, despite the comments that we have made on some of our views on the SPA in scrutiny. Are we nonetheless happy to accept the actions proposed? Is there anything else that I've missed that I don't think there is? No, I think that we're fairly clear in terms of a letter to Police Scotland on the various issues that have been raised, plus taking forward the actions in paragraphs 24 and 25. His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constability Scotland has just issued its terms of reference for a thematic review into policing medwalth in Scotland and are due to publish according to their initial report in July. Presumably they are asking the very same questions that we are asking and perhaps have greater access to a lot of the stuff that we do. To put that in the context of all this, it's vital. That's a helpful update. Just before we conclude this item, I would like to place on record the committee's thanks to David Hamilton, the chair of the Scottish Police Federation for bringing this issue to our attention. As we know, David is moving on from his role as chair of the Scottish Police Federation and so, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to wish him well in his future endeavours and whatever challenges he's going to move on to next. Thank you very much. Our next item is consideration of correspondence from the Lord Justice General, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government on Virtual Trials. I refer members to paper 5 and I'll open up to members for comments. Katie? Yes, I think that this is really interesting. I think that with the exception of the issues of juries and cinemas, which has been pointed out by Lady Dorian, which I hadn't always really thought of as virtual trials but it obviously is, I think that the main thing that comes through to me is actually how few virtual trials are taking place. I thought Lady Dorian's comment that there being no appreciable difference in the figures for conviction acquittal or plea rates in relation to the cases where there were juries and cinemas was really interesting. I suspect we've probably seen that data in a different way in a different place but we hadn't necessarily thought about where the juries were. In terms of the more, the sort of, the mainly, some of the issues, I think it just is striking how few trials have taken place and I just think that the point really I'd want to make is that if there was any more long term proposals being made I think we need a far more substantial evidence base and just as a committee I think that actually you know the position we should take if there are any proposals to come through forward with something more substantial in legislation which may happen. I think you know it's quite important to put down the marker that it should be evidence led and at the moment the sample is just too small. Thank you. Anybody else want to come in? Jamie? Thank you. Just give me a sec. So I don't know what some of the comments in the letter from the SCTS to is, which I just wanted to flag. On the first page, it's page 3, the third paragraph down. Despite the increasing numbers of domestic abuse cases across our courts, they're currently making up 23 per cent of all summary complaints at Aberdeen, for example. There are currently no further virtual summary trials scheduled at this point. It then sort of explains the reason why and that's, it seems to be a problem with solicitor participation but it doesn't really explain what that challenge is. Is it that solicitors aren't available or are willing to participate or are expressing opposition to it or just simply there aren't any available, it's really unclear actually. I appreciate that it also then does talk about the generality, sorry, I'm about halfway down the page, that we are moving to a more face-to-face world again from doing things virtually. It actually says, as people return to more day-to-day physical interaction as we recover from the pandemic, momentum is waning. So that kind of says to me that we gave it a try, it was okay, but the world's sorted back to normal, no one really wants to continue with this. That kind of flags whatever your view on virtual trials and I segregate that from virtual evidence giving or virtual juries for example, which is a different application of technology but for me it seems like SCTS aren't really 100 per cent behind doing much more of this and there seems to be an unwillingness in the sector to see benefits to it. I think they quoted the number 58 as being the total number of motions for a fully virtual trial but of which not very many actually went through to be a virtual trial. In fact, about half of them were converted to an in-person trial so that the request wasn't granted or indeed the decision was made not to. I just really want to question, as Katie Clark says, that it's quite limited information but it was only a limited trial anyway but certainly this doesn't reek to me of a very positive outcome or a very positive feedback about it. Okay, thank you very much. Anybody else want to come in? It's quite interesting but yeah, it's almost like we've tried it out but yeah, let's move on. The thing is, when we're looking at budget cuts and all the rest of it, there's huge efficiencies to be made here particularly when you look at prisoners attending court. They could be doing it virtually rather than having to use the likes of G.O.A.M.I. to attend court and there seem to be pushback as well. That was an observation I made at Glasgow Sheriff Court that there would seem to be some pushback for having virtual trials as well and again, for a variety of reasons, even for the police as well. Having to use up their rest days, they could be attending virtually and that way they're not having to get replaced or you know depending on obviously how long the trial lasts and whatnot as well but you know they could be attending virtually so there's a huge amount of efficiencies to be made here for carrying on with virtual trials notwithstanding the issue over you know the actual complainers and the impact it has on them as well. Yeah, thanks very much. Pauline? Yeah, I mean it's probably quite important to get to the bottom of that but I mean just can my observations around the points that Collette has made is that so not all custody cases not everybody's held in the same place so that's one of the practical things for the lawyers so you're right to see your lawyer but if they're not in the same court as maybe they used to be so they're practical issues. Also there's a quality of the I'm not in favour of proceeding to virtual arrangements unless I'm be satisfied that the quality of the connection is good enough so I think we need to see what investment are the Scottish Courts and Tribunal terms prepared to make. I mentioned this previously one of the custody hearings that I sat in they've found the quality really poor and also I guess you'd need to run some pilots even in a high quality arrangement just to see well what if you're running a full trial like that what does that feel like for a jury if they're not in the room so it's interesting to know that there's not been a change apparently in the overall conviction rates so it's a good premise to work on. Lastly in relation to the appearance of police officers and I take Clits Point could that be an area it got to be an area whether we use virtual trials or other ways to reduce police time in court but I'd like to put on making one of the reasons that we introduced preliminary trials was for that reason the purpose of preliminary proceedings was that witnesses were not required so we please prior to that would be sitting in court so all the all the disruption and delays in the court system right now are impacting on police officers using their resdates and so on so I think that's an important point maybe to have turned to about police time being really important given the other budget discussions that we would be having around the importance of maintaining police numbers so I just thought I'd can add that in for the record I'm not against using more virtual to wear that I mean the commissioning of evidence and quite impressed with that because I've seen the facilities that mentioned this in the debate yesterday that the Victim Support Scotland have it looks high quality arrangement it looks quite satisfactory there's other requirements to check there's no one else in the room it looks pretty solid but I think in moving forward to a different well not physical arrangement I think we need to be satisfied that all these things are present thank you thank you Pauline and I'll just mention I think that the issue that you raise about police officer abstractions for courts is a it's a really important one albeit I know that for example in northeast division recently I think on a Monday morning there were 150 officers cited for court now I know obviously that that will reduce with trials going off that's a lot for that's a got huge implications for operational policing Russell yeah thank you I don't want to sound negative for us like I'm always complaining but we've got witnesses in here who we've asked these basic questions of as in how many of these trials have taken place what was the nature of the crimes what was the disposal rate how did that compare to disposal rates in the in the non virtual courts and so on and it's taken now to finally get something like what we're looking for and some data and it's slightly underwhelming and perhaps reveals what we suspected which is that there's a kind of half-hearted attempt here and I think what's worth bearing in mind is that SCTS could spend millions of pounds creating all the bespoke centres and all the best technology available but if the judiciary and the defence lawyers don't like it it's not going to happen and I think that is the very point being made in the paragraph Jamie Greene identified at the outset it may be that I'm wrong maybe that they are all for it and there's just been technical difficulties but I think it's been a reluctance probably judicial and defence lawyer and that frankly is where the power lies it's I don't really think the SCTS can force anyone to you know embrace this so I would agree 100% with those comments I think it is I think it is the reasons that you've just set out and I think you're right that this cannot be mandated practice obviously we referred earlier to the practice note that informs the practice that is expected but it cannot man it doesn't have the a role of mandating practice so that makes it more difficult sorry Jamie I think you were going to simply asking if we if it is there I know you always get to that what you plan to do next at the end of the discussion so I may be preempting that but um you know I do feel given what we've heard it's entirely appropriate to go back to the SCTS I don't see the point in writing to the cabinet secretary because his very short response says it's an operational matter it's not for me to comment on so let's talk to you know straight to the heart of the matter here from the horses mouth you know what are the difficulties what is their general feeling you know I'd like to hear more of their opinion rather than just the facts as well but equally I'm not convinced we got the outcomes of these trials and already we're limited in numbers but you know if you were if you were a data research data analyst trying to work out whether fertile trials produced different outcomes pretty sure you wouldn't be able to come to conclusion off of what we've received so from an academic point of view it's impossible to say whether they've been successful or not okay I'm gonna just pull things together hopefully um I think there's been some really relevant points raised um there's been very few trials undertaken despite the um support for the notion of virtual trials and members have highlighted some very relevant points we do need a much more substantial evidence base um it is concerning that the momentum is waning if that is the case but the fact is the reality seems to be at odds with the with what is happening in our court system I think it's good points to raise about budget implications for virtual trials quality connections things like that are all practical but they're nonetheless important and it is good to see better use of a virtual option for taking evidence on commission I think that was highlighted in some of the correspondence that we received my proposal is not sure members will all agree but for next steps I would propose that we note the discussion that we've had today and um that this matter will be the subject of further consideration in the forthcoming criminal justice reform bill um however Jamie your last comments there suggest that you would prefer to go back to scts with some further questions only if members are minded to again we go back to ping pong scenario but I think we you know they've tried to to respond to us with a lot of information but I don't think they've fully answered maybe more of the question of perception of whether the trials have been successful or not and the sorts of challenges that they think they faced in trying to implement them and I think again you know as others have mentioned we don't really know what what other parts of the judiciary their experiences of it were and whether whether they were positive or otherwise so that's what I want to unearth thanks for that Jamie I so on that I my proposal would still be that we note the discussion today and that we we await the next bill coming forward noted your comments and your preference but if committee members are in agreement my proposal would be that we note the discussion this morning okay we don't need to write to them thank you very much for that permission okay moving swiftly on to our next agenda item which is access to court transcripts and consideration of the Scottish Government response to court at the issue of court transcripts that we have raised recently and I refer members to paper six so once again I'd like to invite members for any views on the correspondence Russell and then Jamie sure thank you so the the ellie wilson is a rape victim who has been very vocal on this and has been campaigning on this and to declare an interest she used to work for me and she just in the past couple of days made it be known that she had now acquired some of the transcripts that she'd been seeking but had to resort to a crowdfunding to make that affordable I don't know the costs but I think from what we learned before they were quite significant it looks like in the response from Keith Brown that there's at least some acknowledgement of this being an important and serious issue I mean he could to be cynical and say that putting a web page and explaining that there is a process is not great progress but it's progress it's showing that indeed that people have somewhere to begin and he also talks I think about potential route of subject access review as opposed to seeking a full transcript I don't know how that would work in practice and he also talks about exploring new technology I'm assuming what he perhaps means is software that transcribes automatically which I've used and perhaps isn't as good as it will ultimately be so it's being talked about it's being considered but where we go next I'm not entirely sure okay thank you for that thank you yeah I did want to resist and thanks for allowing me the chance to again do so and I put on record my thanks to Ellie to contact me also in the matter and for the republic work that she's doing it can't be easy there's a survivor of the niche of the crime that she is to to talk about this in the public domain in the media but it's really important because when people do that people listen and I think the issue I have with this letter is well jumping to the end is it says in a proactive effort to improve transparency we will publish information including the costs on what type of transcript is required and so on the only thing that's becoming more transparent is how clearly owner is inexpensive the process is if nothing else they've fulfilled that ambition I have a question though that I don't think this letter answers and that's around the contract and the tender I take real issue actually the second paragraph of this letter so we've been raising this for since since this committee started after it was set up after the last election and this was one of those issues that came on the agenda quite early and we've raised it numerous times how on earth we could get to a situation now where the current contract is I quote due for renewal imminently and whilst procurement timescales do not allow for adjustments to be made to the tender on this occasion blah blah blah how did we get in that scenario we've been flagging this with the cabinet secretary for over a year so we've now discovered that the contract actually is being renewed presumably on the same terms at the same costs nobody knows what these costs are and we don't know what the tender is is valued at we don't know who operates the tender we don't know what procurement process went through but had that been identified or two as a year ago perhaps we could have asked the government to change the criteria of the tender or to be a little bit more transparent about that process what we've been discussed all all all this says to me is that either the contract's been extended or renewed without any due tender process or there has been a tender process it's been the same terms as the last one which is completely unacceptable this product of work will be reflected when the contract is next due out for tender well when is that how long is the contract is that a one-year contract a two a three a five are we now looking at the next session of parliament to revisit this issue that we've been banging on about simply because the government has shrewd through another contract with no questions answered i find this really unacceptable a scenario and i this raises more questions than answers i'm afraid so we have to it's a shame the cabinet secretary isn't here like he was earlier to answer these questions i would like some answers about how on earth we're in a situation where this contract's been renewed exactly the same onerous cost so we're back into square one and we've kicked this back into the long grass that's all we're going to get anytime we raise this issue again it's unacceptable okay thanks very much anybody else want to come in very quickly i will be brief i actually find this quite bizarre that we have discussed this so many times and i feel like we are none the wiser in terms of what the issues are i suspect as i've said before is that the issues are of substantial cost and i say that as someone that used to work in the courts and i know that getting transcripts was really really expensive and that was a long time ago so i suspect there's very substantial costs involved in this issue and that's why the you know it's been difficult to get progress i just don't understand why the cabinet secretary and the scottish government aren't just sharing that information with us so that we could have an informed discussion and debate about the issue so i just don't really understand why there isn't a bit more straight talking and transparency on the issue because i'm guessing what the issues are it's not being provided to us and we're getting meaningless correspondence from the scottish government okay thank you for so final point yeah i was come back to the point jamie made i wonder if we're unpicking or asking for details about the tender my presumption would be that there wouldn't be a huge amount of people probably seeking transcripts so would it have really made a significant difference to the cost of the contract it's maybe a bit of an academic question but if we're offering to them anyway it's worth perhaps including questions of that nature okay thank you and finally rona i think you want to come in disagreeing with with what's been said and we do need to ask questions i just i mean just if there's any light to shine on it the second last paragraph you know they're going to make the information available on their web pages and it'll include costs and information and how to get it etc i think is a you know is a move forward that doesn't mean to say i don't think there's questions you need to be asked here okay thank you very much thanks for that and i would concur with the the comments that members have made so i think on just to pull things together can i propose then that we write to the cabinet secretary just to ask for more detail on the scope of the contract the new contract and why this couldn't have perhaps been provided earlier as you pointed out jamie i think there's scope for us to maybe build a bit more of a case around the provision of transcripts for for those that are seeking copies it might also be helpful if we were to ask for example scotish women's aid and rape crisis scotland who will be and will be very interested in and will be following this matter perhaps for an update on how easy or challenging it is currently for individuals to obtain copies of transcripts is there still a significant cost has anything changed in that regard i think it would be perhaps helpful for us to get a bit of insight on to that so are members happy with that proposal jamie thank you i don't want to carry on too long on this but if it transpires yeah you're right we should ask those questions and you can copy paste my comments from the official report and stick it in a letter to the cabinet secretary but i know the clerks will recover all those issues and the questions that we do ask to get the answers that i think we need whether or not we get response is another matter but if we are where we are and it does transpire the status quo remains for a period of time because the contract has been renewed or extended or wherever the situation is for a period of time i presume that's going to be in the years not the months is there anything the government can do in the meantime and i'm quite keen to probe this and perhaps in the same letter is there an interim solution whereby the government and i don't think the numbers are huge here so i'm not asking for millions of pounds but is is there a mechanism the government could provide for victims who do require access to transcripts that funds could be made available to them to support them in that that could be delivered or administered by a third party such as one of the charitable organisations or or other publicly funded organisations who work with victims who may manage the fund that it could come out for example the proceeds of crime money which we know is often hotly disputed that would be a perfect way to spend that kind of money so no one should have to crowd fund in future to do this and it you know we're talking peanuts i know it's still thousands of pounds but to support those individuals and what are quite stressful situations surely the government could find a few bob somewhere to create a fund if we're stuck where we are with the contract that we have in the future if all that comes down it becomes more more cheap and then super that's great and the government will have done a good job in changing that but in the meantime we still need to do something and i'm happy for us to incorporate that into correspondence to the cabinet secretary and obviously we've got the bill coming forward and in terms of the new contract and and i suppose the process around that that may be something that will be incorporated i'd be very surprised if it wasn't okay are members happy with that proposal okay thank you very much indeed so that concludes our public session for this morning and we'll now move into private session thank you