 Good morning and welcome to the meeting of the Justice Committee. Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking item 7 in private, which is consideration of our forward work programme. Are we all agreed? Yes, we are agreed. That agenda item 2 is consideration of the refermative instrument on human trafficking Ysgrifennu Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Act 2015, support for victims regulations, 2018 draft, and I welcome Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and his officials, Peter Hope-Jones, human trafficking team leader, and Louise Miller, director of legal services with the Scottish Government. I refer members to paper 1, which is note by the clerk. Cabinet Secretary, do you want to make a note the statement? Good morning and thank you, convener. The Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Act 2015, support for victims regulations, 2018, alongside the separate commencement order for section nine of the act, plays support to trafficking victims on a statutory basis. It set the relevant period for support at 90 days and specifies that victims of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour also have a statutory right to the same period and type of support. Scotland is the first part of the UK to make this support a statutory right, and the 90 day period represents a doubling of the current period of support and a longer period than anywhere else in the UK at present. I announced the intention to set this period at 90 days on 13 June 2017 following consultation, and it has been welcomed by the independent anti-slavery commissioner, catch arities that work directly with victims and by all parties in Parliament. The defence of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour is set out in section 4 of the act. Consultation showed strong agreement that the proposal that victims of the crime should have the same level of support as victims of human trafficking. Section 10 of the act empowers Scottish ministers to make provision for support for section 4 offends victims and meet the regulations that specify that support should be in line with that for trafficking victims. Those regulations will bolster the support to victims of these terrible crimes and, alongside the other reforms in the act and the trafficking and exploitation strategy, will help to move towards a Scotland free or the suffering caused by trafficking, slavery and exploitation. Thank you for that. Do members have any comments or questions for the cabinet secretary? John Finnie? A brief comment to welcome this provision, convener. You will recall that we examined this in the last session and all the evidence suggested that there needed to be additional support put in place, so it is very welcome. Any other comments? No, that being the case, agenda item 3 is formal consideration of the motion in relation to their ferment of instrument. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has considered and reported on the instrument and it has no comment on it. The motion will be moved with an opportunity for formal debate if necessary and the motion is motion 10054 that the Justice Committee recommends that the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Scotland Act 2015 support for victims regulations 2018 draft be approved. Cabinet secretary, to move? To move. Thank you. Do members have any comments in which case I put the question, which is that motion 10054, in the name of Michael Matheson, be approved? Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. That concludes our consideration of the form of the affirmative instrument. The committee's report will note and confirm the outcome of the debate. Are members content to delegate authority to me as convener to clear the final draft report? Content. Thank you for that. I thank the cabinet secretary and his officials for attending and suspend briefly to allow a change of witnesses. Agenda item 4 is the round table evidence session on alternative dispute resolution. The purpose of the round table is to explore issues around the use and availability of alternative dispute resolution in Scotland, EDR for short, and any barriers to its use. I welcome all the witnesses and look forward to hearing their evidence at this round table session. By way of an introduction and starting, I will introduce myself and then if we go round the table just saying who you all are and who you represent, then we can take it from there. I am Margaret Mitchell, I am the convener of the justice committee. Fulton, the leader of MSP for Co-Bridge and Crescent. Good morning, Ben Macpherson, MSP for Edinburgh Northern and Leith. I am Andrew Mackenzie, the chief executive of the Scottish Arbitration Centre. I am Anne Vaugh, good morning John Finnie, MSP Highlands and Islands. Good morning. I am Robin Burley and I am the chair of the Scottish Mediation. I am Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney. For the purposes of this morning's discussion, I should also declare that my wife is a mediator with Relationship Scotland, Orkney. I am Angela Graham, QC. I am a practising QC. I am the vice dean of the Faculty of Advocates, but the written submissions have been prepared by one of our special interest groups in the Faculty of Advocates arbitration. They have a special interest in arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution. The faculty obviously also has a strong interest in litigation as a method of resolving disputes, but I am here today to address the issues on the agenda. Good morning. I am Colin Lancaster. I am the chief executive of the Scottish Legal Aid Board. Craig Connell, QC. I am a practising solicitor advocate. I am not here to represent any particular area of ADR, but I am happy to address all of the issues. Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern. I would just like to draw members' attention to the fact that my wife is a practising solicitor at the firm, Vincent Mason, which Craig Connell also works for. I just wanted to make that clear. Rona Mackay, MSP for Strathkelvin and Bair Stenn and deputy convener of the committee. We have chosen the round table format, which is a bit more flexible, a bit more informal, although the evidence is very much still on the record. However, it does allow a free exchange for people who are here as witnesses to be able to engage with each other, but if you could just indicate when you want to speak and then we do that through the chair. You do not have to worry about your microphone. It will automatically come on when you are called to speak. I can also say that it was very helpful to have written submissions, as it always is. In fact, we have been inundated with submissions over the last 24-40 hours, so this morning we will be concentrating on just filling our way with arbitration more generally and then we will be following up with another evidence session, taking in some of the other submissions that look at particular aspects. I said arbitration, I mean alternative dispute resolution. So can I start by asking the panel the different types of alternative dispute resolution and the various advantages and disadvantages in your opinion? Who would like to start? If I could just say something just before I answer the direct question, if I may, I am happy to deal with the different topics and what I might do to assist the discussion is to mention a number of the types of ADR and that might prompt some of the other discussion. I just wanted to say this that while we are here to discuss ADR and I understand why we are here to discuss ADR, I would, speaking personally and without any axe to grind at all, be disappointed if we headed down a route similar to that south of the border, where there is a pretty firm drive to keep people out of the courts, whereas in this jurisdiction, at least so far, the courts have been perceived as part of the provision of a public service to which everybody should have access in an efficient and cost-effective way, so the notion that one should really try to keep everybody out seems to me to be potentially quite... That is an angle that I think we will go on to as the discussion develops, but thank you for pointing that out. In terms of different types of ADR, I am conscious there are a number of people here who are speaking particularly for different areas. The ones that occurred to me when I was asked to appear here whereas follow is arbitration, and we have Andrew Mackenzie in particular, who is a great promoter of arbitration. In other words, the selection by the parties of a decision maker under a statutory scheme. Mediation, and again we have a number of speakers on particularly focusing on mediation, so in effect a chaired negotiation, that is just my term, it is not an official definition. There are others that I perhaps just mentioned in passing because there aren't people here particularly dealing with it. There is a thing called adjudication. Now some of the committee members will be very familiar with this, but in the construction industry the statute imposed a form of dispute resolution outwith the courts some years ago, that is supposed to be quickened cheaper than going through the courts or arbitration. It is not, perhaps arguably, an alternative in the normal sense because if you have a construction contract you must use adjudication at least first, you can then challenge it later. I wanted to mention it so that the committee was aware of it. The other one that occurred to me again, it is not particularly one on the agenda of the speakers today, is a thing called expert determination and that is used in some contractual structures essentially where the parties agree that if a particular type of issue crops up they will send it away to an expert whether it is a surveyor or some other type of expert whose decision will then be final. It is not quite like arbitration because it is not treated as a quasi-judicial determination, but it is another mechanism that some people use to reach a decision. Having given that outline, I am happy to contribute to the discussion later, but perhaps I ought to stop now and let others speak. If I can pick up on a general issue, that is to do with the term ADR or alternative dispute resolution. I think that I mentioned this in the paper that I submitted on my behalf rather hastily last week. I think that there is a danger here and we may already have had a hint of it of the various different options for the resolution of disputes being viewed in some way in competition with each other. I think that one of the causes of that may be the description alternative dispute resolution. Many jurisdictions ADR is no longer used as a description of what are, as Craig has fairly said, a large number of possibilities for helping people to resolve disputes. The question really is alternative to what. In the earlier days, what one was looking at was alternative to court, to litigation, but really what we are looking at here is a range of different options by which people who have disputes which are unresolved and which they have not been able to resolve themselves can be assisted in the early and effective and efficient resolution of the disputes. I would cancel the committee if it feels able to do so to move away from using the expression ADR and alternative dispute resolution and to look at a range of dispute resolution options. There are a number of these in Craig's Outlandies and for me the question to be asked is what is the appropriate process or offer to those who have disputes which are unresolved and which helps them to resolve them quickly, effectively, constructively and efficiently. There were a number of questions that arise from that which allow us to look at the different forms of dispute resolution, maybe to work out if you like a hierarchy, when the reality is that the vast majority of disputes are resolved by people themselves. They are resolved using what we would call negotiation, whether that is skilled or not. Those which are not resolved by people themselves are then resolved with the assistance of others using negotiation. It is only a very small number of disputes which require the assistance of a third party. For example, a question to ask would be when is it appropriate to use it or to involve a mediator as that third party, when is it appropriate to involve an arbitrator and when is it appropriate to involve the court? The court in most jurisdictions and certainly historically Scotland has been slightly out of step here is viewed as a last resort for all sorts of reasons. It seems to me that those are the questions and issues that the committee might wrestle with. That is helpful for you to think about as a range of dispute resolutions. You had a small question on the back of what John Sturgeon said before being in Robinham. I am just wondering whether, based on what you are both saying, we should be viewing things like the small claims court as one of the threads to that, i.e. not just looking at alternatives to court but also what options there are within the court system and whether there are simplified routes through the court system that might or should be made available to people. A fair thing to say? That is fair to say. I would take it back a step down if I may and ask still what is the most effective way for people to resolve their small claims. Is that through an adjudicative process where a third party pronounces a decision or might there be a number of these cases in which using a negotiation process would effect an even more helpful result for those involved? So there are principles to be applied and then you are right. If adjudication by a third party, including a court, is appropriate, what is the most effective and streamlined way of doing that in the circumstances? My point was going to be very similar to John's. The term ADR tends to cover a mixed bag of apples and pears. One thing that might be quite useful to think about is that we have on one end of a spectrum interest-based systems of coming to an agreement and at the other end of the spectrum a rights-based spectrum. Arbitration is very much in the right space and mediation is very much in the interest space. That spectrum that was described earlier covers a range in which interests can come into it and rights can come into it as well. I think that that might be a helpful way of looking at it. As I said, mediation is very much in the interest-based area. What follows from that is that it is voluntary and it is facilitative. Those two are key aspects of it. I think that another thing that might be useful to consider is that mediation is not only an alternative to the courts or to tribunals or to onwards. It has a phenomenal reach and it is operating from playgrounds through family situations, which are not necessarily ones that come to court through communities, workplaces, commercial and public services. Of course, in the shadow of the courts tribunals and onwards, that reach defines something slightly different about mediation, which is reflected in that mediation is also about a way of having dialogue. It is very important that that underpins the way that people deal with difference and the way that they deal with the disputes that may come from difference, but not necessarily come from difference. Mediation is also about the change in the culture of how we deal with things. Very wide-ranging and people of all ages from the very young to the very old can perhaps benefit. If dispute resolution, as opposed to ADR, could be seen as the umbrella term, and underneath that umbrella there are various methods of resolving disputes, and that includes litigation, arbitration, mediation and the others that were mentioned by Cree Connell. Those are all options for individual clients, and the decision on which is the best method to be used to resolve the dispute should be carefully considered with each individual client, with advice from their legal adviser if they have one. Looking at the differences between each, there are advantages and disadvantages to each method, and all of them have both advantages and disadvantages. They are not all appropriate for each individual, and they should be carefully considered, and the best method tailored to their needs can then be selected. Unfortunately, litigation in a sense is not represented here today because the agenda is ADR and the barriers to using ADR, and that is obviously very significant. However, if we consider dispute resolution as the umbrella term, it is important not to exclude litigation, and as Cree Connell says, we would not like to ignore that completely because that is a fundamental important part of the package of methods available to clients. I agree with what Angela Constance has said that it is about the range of options that Craig and John discussed, and therefore it is about making sure that the parties understand what the options are. There has to be more information for people, including small businesses, about the options, and then it comes to an actual dispute. It is about practitioners and advisors making sure that those parties are aware of the options open to them, and that could be mediation, arbitration or litigation. As Angela Constance says, there is no right or wrong in respect of those different options. It will depend on the case in question as to what is right for the parties involved. I will pick up on some of those points. One thing that struck us is that there is a permeability between a number of the forms of dispute resolution. It is not necessarily that a particular dispute will go down one route or another. Quite often, thinking about the things that John has been describing, you will start off in negotiation perhaps in anticipation of court proceedings or to avoid court proceedings. Court proceedings may result from a negotiation that has not successfully settled the matter, but it may have narrowed down the issues in dispute for that litigation. Indeed, through litigation referral can be made to mediation in a variety of circumstances. Again, the mediation may bring an end to those proceedings or it may further narrow down the issues resulting in a subsequent settlement or indeed a narrower litigation to come from it. It is very often not one or the other, but you might expect people to try a range of different ways of resolving the disputes, particularly if they are tricky ones. That is a good opening to give us a basic understanding. Just in the back of what we have been saying, I am just wondering how often is the client advised of all those options? I am trying to get a scale of how often people use ADR. Is it something that is recommended regularly among the profession? I am the vice dean of the Faculty of Advocates. We are generally involved in litigation, although we have a strong interest group in arbitration and mediation. We are training large numbers of advocates in relation to those areas so that they can be very effective and give very detailed advice to clients. Having said that, in many situations where an advocate is involved, it will be because litigation has started. In a sense, the first point of contact between a client or a potential client and deciding whether to resolve a dispute is the solicitor or solicitor advocate. It may be that they are in a better position than I am to comment on the frequency. I know that the Law Society of Scotland requires solicitors in their code of conduct to give advice about the different methods of dispute resolution available to clients. If no doubt of clients requested information, the solicitor could advise on that. That is helpful. Perhaps I could just add to that. I think that you have to be a little careful about how the different methods relate to each other. If you take, for instance, litigation and arbitration, the law says that if you have an arbitration clause and one party insists on resolving the dispute by arbitration, that will be enforced by the courts and, to arbitration, you must go as one judge put it. On the other hand, the parties have the option if they both think that the particular matter is perhaps a technical legal point and they want it resolved by a judge, they can agree between themselves to go to court. In terms of mediation, I think that it is quite regularly discussed. It is usually discussed against the background of trying to resolve matters because I think that sometimes people have the impression that the whole function of lawyers is to generate as much litigation as possible in order to make as much money as possible. However, if you have unhappy clients at the end of it, it is a very short-term view. I suspect that many lawyers spend much of their time trying to persuade parties that there are other things to do other than fight forever in some expensive forum, whether it is an arbitration or a litigation. That inevitably leads you to another way of resolving this. The simplest method, as John has said, is to negotiate a solution. If you can negotiate a solution, why should you do anything else? However, it may not be possible. There may be personalities, there may be people taking positions—it would not be unusual—in which case one option may be mediation. However, the point with mediation, I think, certainly is a quite common view, is that compulsory mediation is a bit of a contradiction in terms. It is something that you should opt to do because either you or your advisers think that it is the right thing and that you should not really be forced into it. I think that it is probably fair to say that finding a solution is always discussed and mediation will come in depending on the other options. Bring in Liam McArthur, just on the small point that you are picking up. Mr Cornwall has covered some of what I was going to ask. That is fine. We can move on to John, Andrew and then Heloise. To respond, if I may, to one of Mackay's questions, I think that in some ways you have identified the key to all of this. I think that the key is that those with disputes in Scotland are able to make informed choices. I have no doubt that the provision of information is better now than it has perhaps ever been. I have no doubt that many advisers now include in their advice to clients that there are options other than litigation. However, I think that it is fair to say in Scotland that the prevailing culture where matters become disputatious and are not capable of easy negotiation is to default to adversarial processes. In the adversarial processes, as Robin was hinting at earlier on, people inevitably set out their positions and are involved in the paradigm of establishing right against wrong, and you have this kind of win-lose approach. I would suggest—and this may be where one becomes a little bit more tendentious—that there are significant societal, economic, business and community benefits for Scotland if we could move towards a more consensual culture in which more disputes are dealt with co-operatively, consensually and therefore by negotiation, aided or otherwise. The phrase that I hear more than any other as a mediator is, I wish we'd had this conversation a year ago. These are often experienced people, clients, business people, parties, individuals who are involved in significant litigation who discover that in the course of a day they can indeed resolve their disputes but have spent a considerable amount of time, incurred a lot of emotional and other stress, and disproportionate cost. I'm considering what I'm about to say but I'm pleased to be able to put it on the record, and I know that people will say there's a special pleading, but I'm going to try and distance myself from that. I am frequently shocked at the disproportionate amount which parties, including many lay people, have incurred in costs in litigation prior to achieving a solution to that litigation, which, it seems to them and others on the day, might have been achieved at much less cost and with much less stress and anxiety. It seems to me that there's the possibility in Scotland to move towards a more consensual approach to many disputes, not by any means all, and that if we can invite, inform, encourage and advise people with disputes to use a range of options, including, particularly, as Robyn described, interest-based negotiation, by which she means people are able to work out what they really need and really want and find the intersection of that. That would be a good thing. Mediation is never compulsory in the sense that you can never compel, even if people are encouraged or even compelled to use mediation, you can never compel them to agree. They can still decide in that process not to reach an agreement and use other processes if they wish to do so. The provision of information about that is really important. I think that other stimuli, other incentives may be necessary to bring Scotland to a place where so many other jurisdictions have reached. Now, my way, there's a number of members who want to come, but I'm going to go to the witnesses just to hear what they have to say first to Andrew, then Robyn. Yes, I'm just going to add on the question. I think that John is right, there's more information now about mediation arbitration than there has been, but I do still think that there's more to do in educating the wider public about the options and indeed encouraging solicitors to do more to make sure that they are very clear on the different options for their clients. As Angela said, solicitors do have a duty to ensure that they are explaining the different options, but I think that there is a need for more and maybe even going back to universities and ensuring that at the time of the law degree that those students are being better made aware of the options and not just the usual focus on litigation which you tend to find during the diploma, for example. Thank you. Heloise? I think a lot of what I was going to say has probably already been covered, I just wanted to add to the point about mandatory mediation. Edinburgh Sheriff Court Mediation Service, if a sheriff makes a referral to the service, it's mandatory for the parties to speak to me as the coordinator and receive information, and it's always very clear from that point on that mediation is one choice among other choices. I just wanted to add as well as to what John said. I find a lot of the cases that I deal with are more suited to mediation than litigation, maybe possibly. They don't have a lot of evidence, there's a lot of emotion there, sometimes people just want an apology and it enables people to meet on an even basis as it's set up for party litigants, there's some cases in the court where one party is represented and the other party is not, so I think with mediation we have about 75% are successful, but it's always stressed right from the beginning that it is a choice and as long as the information is there, people always have the option even after the mediation of going back to court again. I do retract cases after the go-to mediation. We find about 50% of those cases, even if they don't settle at mediation, do settle later and don't reach proof. Can I just ask you to mention apologies, since I've got a particular interest with that. Are people aware of the apology site and has that helped to encourage them to seek mediation, to come forward to give an apology? I haven't had experience of that so far, but that's something I'll look out for. Then Liam Kerr, sorry Robin next, always give the witnesses the first shot, and then I'll bring in Liam, Ben, Mary and Daniel and then go back to Rona. Thank you very much chair. I was really going to comment on the compulsory part as well, but I think we would find amongst the mediation community in Scotland there's agreement that mediation itself should not be compulsory, but where you find the word coming in in relation to mediation is usually about people having information. There's an article in one of the papers that you have from Relationships Scotland, their appendix from Stuart Valentine, is about people having information before they go on. Quite a lot of jurisdictions do require that people get information about mediation, so that aspect of compulsion I think is generally felt as acceptable, but compulsion actually to go to mediation is not. We do come into issues about the way that simple procedure has actually been carried out in the courts recently, in that I don't think there's yet a good understanding that when a sheriff asks people to go to mediation it really needs to be to go to find out more about mediation rather than to determine their case through mediation. It might be worth mentioning at this point that in relation to simple procedure the Scottish mediation is holding a seminar tomorrow evening which will involve sheriffs and others who the Scottish Government to look into and explore the last year of using simple procedure and the ADR clause in relation to that, which generally means going to mediation and how we can improve that. Any member of this committee that might be interested in joining us of that would be welcome to come as at five o'clock tomorrow. Anjalaam, then I'll bring in Liam Kerr. I wonder if I could draw the committee's attention to a very significant event which is going to be taking place in Edinburgh in 2020. It's called ICA 2020, which stands for the international council for commercial arbitration. I understand that it is the arbitration world's equivalent of the Olympics and the Scottish arbitration centre secured the bid, competed with a number of very high-profile venues. There is mention of this in the written submission to the committee. In the world of arbitration, all eyes will be on Edinburgh. It is an amazing opportunity for us here and in Scotland generally to showcase our talents in relation to arbitration. It's very important that we all work together. This year, in April, there is the official handover in Sydney, Australia. The dean of faculty will be attending along with other members of faculty. Certainly, FOA arbitration, the special interest group in arbitration, wishes to assist generally over the next two years in promoting the event, because the profile of arbitration will be raised. That's helpful to know, but I suppose that today we're drilling down on why arbitration and what the advantage is, Liam. A number of the witnesses have suggested that compulsory mediation would not be the way to go. The question is, was mandatory conciliation in the employment tribunal the right way to go, given that it has a very high success rate and there would obviously be savings to the parties and to the public purse? If mandatory conciliation in the employment tribunal was the right way to go, why doesn't that extend to other forms of litigation? Who would like to run with that one? John? I think that this is a topic that the committee should wrestle with. I have an open mind about this point personally. There are significant costs attached to a justice system. When people choose to litigate, they incur and cause others to incur, including taxpayers, the cost of the justice system. If it is the case, and the evidence suggests that it is so, that the use of mediation, for example, can help to resolve a very large percentage of cases that might otherwise be in the civil justice system, there is at least an argument or a topic to be discussed about whether or not people should be encouraged, incentivised or even compelled to try that process in advance of using the justice system, which is entirely under article 6 of the Human Rights Convention. I think that you raised a point that is worthy of consideration. I repeat the point that I made before that in encouraging, incentivising or compelling people to try mediation, no one is forcing them to achieve a settlement or reach an agreement for that. That could not be done. I think that there are public interest and financial interest reasons for discussing the issue, and the committee should do so. In saying this, I think that I express a view that in many jurisdictions that has been a necessary interim step to encouraging the greater use of voluntary mediation over the longer term. Following up on that point, sometimes in mediation there is a process by which if the parties have not come to an agreement by the end of the mediation, that the mediator can be asked to give some evaluation of the situation. In a way, that is stepping outside that interest-based arrangement and moving more towards a judgment. I think that, as John said, there are areas to be explored, but I think that the interest-based mediation, because it is in the interests of the parties that you are trying to find a resolution, will need to be voluntary. That part of it needs to be voluntary, and it is only after that that one could step aside from the mediation and the mediator takes on a slightly different role. I was just going to say that I do believe that there is an importance in having a concept of provision of a court justice system that is accessible to all and available in an effective way, and forcing people not to go there seems to be at least a challenging issue. I do agree with the comments about the voluntary nature. I am afraid that there have been quite a few instances that I hear about anecdotally in England and Wales where people have gone to mediation because they are told that they have to. There is then a cost involved in that. There is a process. The mediator has to be paid. There are often lawyers involved, so they go through a process at the end of which they are really just no further forward. It is also sometimes used as a tactical device to try and win her out from the opposition during the process without ever having any intention of settling. I think that there are arguments. I do not think that there is a simple answer to it. I had occasion to discuss that with Lord Tyre from the Court of Session at an event. I asked him the direct question about should you be pushing mediation. He is dealing with commercial disputes in the Court of Session, so possibly at one end of the spectrum. His view was no that he regards the business community as his customers, and he was looking to create a system that was effective and giving decisions in the way that the customers wanted. The commercial court is very good at that. The only thing that he said was that as soon as he saw a dispute in front of him, which looked like a corporate dispute, it seemed to be two brothers fighting with each other. He immediately said that this is one that you might want to think about other methodologies of resolving because fighting to the death in the courts might not be the right way forward. My own view for what it is worth is that it is horses for courses. There are cases where the courts may be the best solution. Somebody may not have done something that they should have done and the other party is deprived of that if they are forced into some form of compromise, and there are other cases where a much more constructive solution can be achieved by negotiation or mediation. Was that a particular point in what Craig just said? I am not readily persuaded that that answers my question, because the point that I seek to make is simply that if we accept that the reduction of the cost of the public purse, reduction of the cost of the parties and increased success rates are the end games, then one would have to conclude that bringing in a mandatory prerequisite in the employment tribunal of some form of conciliation has succeeded. If you start from that point, why would you at least consider extending the same principle to other forms of litigation? Is that something that you would want to respond to, Craig? I do not think that I have all the answers and I do not pretend to have all the answers. My own view is that mediation is less used where it could be most effective, which is in smaller disputes and disputes involving individuals, where their personal feelings and concerns are particularly heightened by what has happened. Whereas in the main mediation has tended to focus on providing a provision to the commercial world, at least that is where it started. It has extended, as one of the speakers said, to other areas now. It may be that, in the majority of employment disputes, which are essentially concerning an individual's rights, one can push people into a negotiation, in which case that may be very effective. I am afraid that I cannot comment on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, but I still maintain the view that forcing people to go through a compulsory mediation process before they get access to the courts is quite a difficult issue. The committee is probably aware of the recent litigation over employment tribunal fees that reached the Supreme Court, in which there was a long judgment about the importance of access to justice and how anything that stood in the way of access to justice was potentially unlawful. Indeed, there are also statements from that court as to why everybody benefits from the existence of a justice system. It is not simply A and B who happen to be engaged in a dispute who benefit from it, but everybody benefits from the existence of an efficient system. There are some quite nuanced questions here. I take the point from an employment lawyer to my right that compulsory reference to ACAS is a system that has been tried and has been proved to be successful. I have no doubt that he is right about that. John Swinney, do you want to pick up on that point before I bring Ben Marriott? Chair, to clarify, there are others in the room that are better placed than I, but Craig Connell refers to mediation having started predominantly in the commercial field in Scotland. There is a lot of mediation in the commercial world, but there is a considerably greater amount of mediation in other fields. It started, I think, in Scotland, probably in the family area back in 1985. There is a huge amount, and others here could speak more eloquently about that in the community sphere, the neighbourhood sphere, relationships, employment and so on. The committee should not in any sense feel that mediation has been used solely or principally in the commercial field. That is just a matter of information. There is one point that I pick up on what Craig has just said. Again, there are strikes at the heart of much of the discussion, and that is that there is a benefit to society more widely in a justice system and in compelling people to use the courts. We can understand in theory that proposition, but think about each individual case. Why should each individual litigant be compelled to use a court system for the benefit of the wider society if that individual litigant could find an easier, more effective and quicker way of resolving disputes by negotiation? I think that we have to be careful about the preservation of a system for its own sake and compare that to the recognition of the needs and the value for individuals of having a more effective system. One final point for information is that there are a huge number of English cases of high authority discussing all of those points that we are discussing just now about the principle of mediation, about access to justice, about the human rights convention article 6, about costs, about incentive, about compulsion, not just English cases around the world. You are just exploring things at the moment, I know initially, so I just suggest that that might be an area for further expiry. That is helpful. Ben. Thank you, convener. Good morning all. I am still registered on the role of Scottish solicitors, and before coming to this place, I practised for a brief time. Most of that was in commercial contract drafting, and I think that the points raised about solicitors being the gatekeepers, perhaps that is a bit too far, but certainly having a significant role in guidance is so important. I wonder if we need to shift the conversation into the initial contract drafting and when people are actually coming to agreements to think about how, if those relationships break down where the preferred avenues are. For example, I think of a contract that I worked on where there was a clause that obliged the parties to consider arbitration after a certain period, and that gave us leverage to think about, well, if they do not want to use arbitration, perhaps an expert could be involved, which I think Craig Connell mentioned earlier. My first question is, do we need to think about more at the conception of agreements, rather than focus on the end? And also, do we need to view disparate resolution beyond the main categorisations of mediation and arbitration and think about the role of legal opinions and other creative ways in which solicitors and others in practice are trying to resolve disputes? Another question that I think we might want to later, but I would like to raise it, is, are there spheres where we can think more creatively about how we could use alternative dispute resolution affecting not just commercial contracts but other issues around communities, as John Sturrick mentioned? For example, I am looking at the moment at how we try to assist owners and owner-occupiers of tenement flats to undertake communal work in their properties. Is that a place where, for example, alternative dispute resolution could play an important role? Quite a lot of different points there, but I think that it is all useful for the discussion. Those two points are useful ones. The first one on the conception of agreement I think that it would be very valuable if mediation clause went into contracts at an early stage, and it sometimes does. There are examples around the world of mandates or pledges that are made by organisations to put mediation into their contracts. Scottish Mediation has a plan to introduce a Scottish Mediation Charter on a voluntary basis for organisations in Scotland and encourage them as part of that charter to put mediation clauses into their contracts. I think that there is a lot that could be explored in that and how that could be supported by legislation. Just picking up on the other areas, there are a lot of other areas, and sometimes they are discovered by organisations that provide mediation for one purpose. Anyone who looks at Friends of Scotland will see that our director who is sitting at the back here was in the Friends of Scotland last week or the week before. He was writing in it about community mediation organisation that has started to get involved in unoccupied problems of agreement on carrying out repairs. That is exactly the thing that you are talking about. Where something started out as a mediation service for neighbour disputes has moved into that area, and in some councils it has moved into workplace mediation as well. As mediation moves into an organisation, the organisation starts to find ways that it can be used. The ingenuity of organisations as it starts to come into play in using the skill of mediators, not necessarily with a full mediation, but in terms of what I describe as a mediating way of dealing with difference and issues so that they do not escalate. It is a very valuable contribution. I think that Ben makes a very good point about contracts. That is effectively the agreement that should determine what the dispute resolution mechanism is going to be. It is not about, I am afraid, a mediation clause. I come back to making sure that those who are drafting understand what the agreement is about and therefore what would be best suited for the parties, or their client, in respect of that agreement. It might be mediation and arbitration. You can have a tiered clause or the view might be that it should be litigation. I come back to the point that is about making sure that practitioners, contract drafters understand the differences and are able to advise properly. We certainly find it more challenging to get to contract drafter lawyers who are generally not interested in dispute resolution matters. We find it more difficult to get to them to persuade them to think about this particular clause, which might be in a 300-page contract, and to point out the value of taking some time to think about the consequences of what goes in that agreement. If there is a dispute, that is what will count what is in that contract clause. I think that that point is well made and it is something that we have to do more to get general counsel of companies, so in-house lawyers, but also private practice contract drafters, to think more about what they are putting in contracts. I think that the committee should be cautious about seeking to limit the choice open to clients or potential clients. At the point of either entering the contract or at the point of disputing where there may not be a contract, it is important for each individual to consider all the options available and to make an informed decision about what the best option is for them. The key is, in my view, education and raising awareness, and allowing people to find that information. It is how best to do that. One of the examples that might be of interest to you relates to personal injury arbitration. Personal injury work is very commonly conducted through the courts and litigated and FOA arbitration is promoting and raising awareness about the possibilities of arbitration as a means of resolving personal injury claims. That has been used very effectively in Scotland in the past, after the Piper Alpha disaster. Many of the claims by men who were injured during the Piper Alpha disaster 30 years ago were resolved by personal injury arbitration, but many lawyers in Scotland, both in the faculty and in the solicitors profession, are not aware of that and are not aware that that is a method that has been used, and Scotland is unique in that regard. I am aware that many of us here work predominantly in what would be viewed as the commercial end of the market, and you are hearing quite a lot about that. The reality in Scotland, however, is that most folk with problems and disputes will never get anywhere near a court or a lawyer, not least because they do not have the resources, but probably also because they do not know about it. It is important to be very aware that there is real potential and real need in the commercial community, and that is important for business and the generation of wealth in this country. However, what we are talking about is also about family matters, community matters and neighbourhood matters—small claims, as we heard earlier on—and those will require different approaches. They have different needs—financial, educational, informational and resource. I think that the committee would be astute to think about the differences that there are to make the differentiation and not to seek to find one size or one approach, if at all. It comes back, I think, to the diversity of all of this, but the real need to focus on the real needs of the people in Scotland who have got disputes. I was just going back to some of the comments that were made earlier. I was just interested in the differences of approach, the consensual versus the adversarial. I know that, earlier on in the meeting, when we first started, Mr Connell talked about how we would not want to see a situation similar to that that operates in England and Wales. From what I am picking up in, please correct me if I am wrong, I think that the overall impression would be that you may not want to see a different system operate in Scotland, but there could be ways that we could potentially better utilise the other ADR methods in Scotland. I would be interested to hear more about how that works in England and Wales and to get some of the different opinions on that around the table. Anyone want to pick and run with that one? The only thing that I say about the English experience is not in any great detail, but the position in England and Wales is broadly that the parties in civil litigation are, in effect, told that they need to mediate under pain of being penalised in costs if they do not. That is a very oversimplified picture. Therefore, parties, even when they think that they have a cast iron open and shut, case feel obliged to go through a process in order to avoid the ire of the judge later on when they say, why didn't you mediate? John Stout would tell you that there is no case that cannot be mediated to a solution and maybe in a theoretical sense that that is correct. I think that it is just a question of, I would endorse the view about horses for courses. There was a mention of family mediation. Every day of the week, we get decisions from the courts which say that A is right and B is wrong. In many cases, that is what is necessary because that is what has to be decided. However, if you take a dispute following family breakdown, on which I do not pretend to be an expert, it is pretty obvious that in many of those disputes where there are children and money and so forth, there is no winner, no loser or there ought not to be. Therefore, there is great scope for family mediation to be effective there. I would also just like to endorse what Andrew Stout said about the difficulty of getting to the contract drafters. I am forever trying to persuade contract drafters to listen to people like me who have been through the humps and bumps of the consequences of not getting it right, and it is quite difficult. Psychology is quite simple. If you are entering into a contract, the last thing that you want to think about is things going wrong. You are being positive, you are about to do the deal, things are great, shake hands, get the paperwork done, and then along comes somebody who says, have you thought about your dispute resolution clause? What should you put into it? I have to say that there are some more sophisticated versions now, which require tiers. First, the managing director of each company should meet to try and achieve a solution. Second, third and so on. There are some more elaborate versions out there, but it is quite a challenging task to persuade people to focus on that early. Of course, every dispute does not arise from a contract, so that deals with one particular aspect, but not everyone. However, it still does come back to the issue between treating mediation as a system that works best if the parties have agreed to be there and want to be there, and mediation being thrust upon people when they do not want it. That is still one of the issues that are out there for discussion. Family law has been mentioned, and of course there is scope for that, but we are very conscious that not all cases in family law, for example those that involve domestic views, would not be appropriate. If we get that out of the way, then we know what we are talking about when we are talking about family law. Mary, if I may, you raise a very legitimate question. Sometimes in Scotland we worry about looking south of the border for help, but there is a lot of information to be obtained. Since the late 90s, the English civil justice system has been much more inclined towards finding ways for early dispute resolution. That is incorporated in the rules of court and the way in which judges approach cases and the encouragement and information given to clients. I think that, with great respect to Craig, it is much more nuanced and now sophisticated than he might have characterised it as being. If you have a completely cast iron case, very few are completely cast iron or they would not be litigated, then you have nothing to fear from the English approach. The English approach is that if you unreasonably refuse to participate in mediation, having been encouraged by a court to do so, then that may have some implications for expenses or costs, as they call them in England. That is a way of trying to adjust the risk balance, if you like, if people choose not to try something that might be useful for them. The reality is that, in England, it is well established that many, by no means all, many cases will go to mediation. The structure is set up to accommodate that. The information and research shows repeatedly over the years that, in 85 to 90 per cent of instances, that produces a settlement. The parties are out of the court system. Everybody is happy. Of course, every now and again, it does not work. Of course, that will have incurred some additional cost, but even there, what we tend to find is that it has greatly enlarged the knowledge of the case. It may often have reduced the scope of the issues in discussion, very often cases settle many months thereafter because of further thought, but what it does is it helps to focus the issues in the case. Of course, it is not perfect. To what extent might a new approach be at least marginally more effective and helpful for clients than the present approach, among a range of options. At some cases, it is quite understanding and right that we will still go to court, but the committee needs to be mindful that, in Scotland, even in those cases in the court system, only about 5 per cent are educated upon and decided by a judge. There are questions about the use of resources, even in that statistic. Again, it is much more nuanced. There is much more to be discussed, and you are right to have a look out of the border at what they have experienced. I was thinking into the future of things that could be done in Scotland. One of the areas is when legislation is being examined up here to see where mediation might be relevant to it. Two of the successful areas of mediation—successful in terms of its take-up and use—have been the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, in which there is a section in the legislation about mediation, and in relation to young people's special education needs, where there is a section about mediation. Providing within legislation for mediation can be a constructive way of the Parliament adding to what is there, and taking away some of the obstacles that get in the way. The obstacle is not well-known in many cases, and it helps to raise its profile and make it available. Liam McArthur, on the commercial side, occurred to me when a number of witnesses were speaking there that, in terms of the contract, it is right that psychology in the drafting of a contract is not envisaging its failure. Nevertheless, the insurers of the company will have an interest in ensuring that those aspects of the contract are written in a way that minimises the potential risk to the company. Is there a way of exploring it through an appeal to the interests of insurers? In relation to the family situation, you are quite rightly cautioned against two broad-brushing approaches, and the issues around domestic abuse are clearly ones that would need to be handled with great sensitivity. However, in relation to the break-down in devoted cities, it is invariably suggested that the only winners in that are the lawyers, and I can imagine that many will make strenuous efforts to dissuade their clients of going down a route that is simply going to bog them down in more emotional and financial difficulties. Nevertheless, having some firmer requirement around mediation would at least strengthen the hand of solicitors that this is something that clients would need to consider, perhaps more seriously than they often currently do, because they are so fixated in getting back at their other partner. Is that something that we could perhaps find a way of recognising the nuances in all this, but finding a way of maybe reinforcing a little more? Andrew Bekham, do you want to raise your point just at this juncture? That is what Craig mentioned earlier on. I am trying to look at it from a practical point of view and what we have done in the constituency. One of the things that we did was the purchase, community purchase, of the local football teams at Murnaff Sea, where there were 1,300 fans putting money into a pot and working with each other. The lawyers kept saying to us, what if things go wrong? How are you going to deal with this? Have you looked at some kind of resolution, disputed resolution? We were of the mind to get the deal done, everything draws a... 1,300 people have backed it, so let's move things forward. When we look at some of the stuff that we have here from SPICE, it says that the gatekeepers and solicitors are well. In a lot of cases, in my experience, they have given you the advice, but you are at the stage where you are saying, I need this to progress, I need this to move forward as well. I have taken it on, this 10-year programme is going to be something that we will have to manage over the next 10 years. However, the other thing is what John was talking about in the normal day-to-day constituency stuff, where mediation happens and people get involved. However, a lot of constituents and members of the public actually see mediation as a block to get their resolution. They don't feel they get the buy-out, they don't get the benefit of it, they feel that, oh, I've got to go through this before I can actually get some kind of resolution on the issue. That's another way when we're looking at, I suppose, both connected by and to the whole idea of mediation in itself. On the family mediation, I think that that's one of the success stories in Scotland, is that there has been a move towards mediation in family cases and there's bodies-like relationship with Scotland involved in that work. Practitioners involved in family law are quite aware of the options around mediation. I think that it's always at the forefront of their mind, but it's not always the right way to go. There are a number of family practitioners who will tell you that, for example, arbitration might be right for their clients and, indeed, flags who submitted a submission to the committee talks about family law arbitration. Equally, it might be that litigation has to be considered. I think that the general point is that it has to be about options and each case will be different. In the case of family where there's just no way that the two people involved want to even be in the same room, it's going to be difficult to mediate. Equally, they might not want to go to court because they might not want their private business being discussed in public. For example, arbitration might be an alternative that allows an actual decision to take place where they can't themselves come to any sort of mediated decision. I think that it's all about making sure that people have the options and not requiring people to always go down one particular route. I think that you're absolutely right. I've been declared my interest as somebody who connects with the relationship with Scotland. I know what they do and how that has expanded. Is it fair to say that it might still be patching the way that referrals are made to mediation in family circumstances and other particular sheriffs that are more predisposed to it and may even lay an expectation on what he or she expects that route to achieve? I know that it's one that's come in unless you particularly want to respond to that. I want to go back to the comments about mediation being a barrier to clients getting a resolution to their case. I found my experience in the simple procedure court. Quite a few of the party litigants have quite an unrealistic idea of how the court system is structured and what it can do for them. I've found that a lot of clients don't realise how difficult it is going to be to get their decree, the amount of evidence that is required, which I suppose comes back to getting information and advice, and we do have an advice system that we refer people to as well. I think that that can be a barrier. I think that once people are more aware of the not just mediation but of the reality of litigation as well, and also going back to the comment about patchy referrals. I've generally found that the sheriffs at Edinburgh tend to be very pro-mediation. Judicial encouragement can be very important in encouraging people to go to mediation, as long as that's not seen as it being mandatory. You do have a dedicated mediation unit there. It's not the case throughout Scotland. No. There's also one in Glasgow, but I find that, since the simple procedure rules were brought in, I don't think that there's been a... I think that different courts seem to be taking very different approaches to the rules. I'll bring in Colin and then I'll move on to Rona's substantive point. I'd like to pick up on Liam McArthur's question there. I think that it's important to recognise that, even in family cases, the majority are not litigated at all, so most family situations resolved by way of negotiation and settlement, and it's actually a minority which ends up in the courts in any form, and then possibly a minority of those which end up being mediated. The court has long had the power to refer parties to mediation in family cases, and that is why mediation has gained a bit of a foothold in family work. I think that it probably is patchy. I think that there are probably enthusiasts for mediation, both among some local bars and some sheriffs. Many, many years ago, when we started funding mediation through legal aid, we monitored the take-up of that, and there were definitely hotspots in certain places. You could identify individual practitioners who had made it a priority and individual sheriffs who certainly emphasised the benefits of mediation in their local courts, and that encouraged more take-up at a local level. In encouraging or trying to make people aware of mediation as an option rather than plumbing on to litigation, we perform some sort of gatekeeper role in applications for legal aid and litigation, which is another subset of the whole picture. For applications for legal aid to litigate family matters, we do ask the parties before we will grant legal aid what efforts they have made to negotiate to try to find a settlement or if they have considered mediation. However, we have to be mindful of the appropriate balance of not standing in the way of people appropriately litigating where that is the right thing for them to do. We are mindful of trying to avoid becoming a barrier ourselves. However, we do put it to the parties that they should be considering where the mediation is an option for them. For some, undoubtedly, they do not see it as being for them. Part of the experience of mediation is that it is hard work for the parties. They may get more out of it in the sense that what they put in may get back in terms of a more lasting relationship, a resolution that works for each of them in the sense that there is no win or lose. It is trying to find a mutual solution. However, they have to give of themselves to that process in a way that many might feel they do not have to litigation process where their solicitors might seem to be doing battle for them. However, it is certainly particularly where there are emotional issues involved. It is quite difficult for the parties to do that, and some might be reluctant to do it. I am going to ask Ronat to come in at this point, because it is a substantial area that we have not covered. We would like to hear more evidence about Ronat. Thank you, convener. It is about funding, basically. There are two strands to my question. One is the funding framework. How is arbitration and mediation funded? We have heard that it can save the public purse money and reduce legal aid costs. However, how does that work? The second question is, does it cost a client less to go to arbitration or mediate than to litigate? We would like to bring up the funding issue and address that. Robin. I will focus on the issues in relation to the simple procedure. We have had from Eloise a contribution about what is happening in the Edinburgh Sheriff Court. The only funding that goes into that is the funding for the co-ordination of the service provision of that. The mediators that work there are doing it all on a pro bono basis. If one looks at the west coast of Scotland, the Strathclyde University, through their mediation clinic, provides a service in seven different sheriff courts. They have done over 70 and 80 mediations through the period of simple procedure. All of that work is being done on a pro bono basis. The co-ordination is being subsidised through the University of Strathclyde. Elsewhere in Scotland, as far as I am aware, there is no mediation service other than to refer people to the Scottish mediation helpline. The helpline will then refer them to mediators who will make a charge. We are not talking of a high charge, but it does present a problem in relation to some courts. People are being asked to pay for mediation. Other courts are getting the mediation fee, and we have different arrangements for the co-ordination of mediation operating across Scotland. Over the course of the last year, it has been quite a mixed bag in terms of funding. The seminar that I was referring to tomorrow where we are going to bring together, under the auspices of Scottish mediation, people that are interested in this area, I hope that we will address some of those issues. There is an access to justice issues. They are right away, Angela. There is legal aid funding for litigation and mediation, but, as I understand it, the current position is that there is no funding from the legal aid board for arbitration, and that does limit the choice of parties. The point that was raised earlier in relation to, for example, domestic abuse situations, where simply the parties that are being controlled or physical abuse are such like parties, need a decision to be imposed on them. They cannot reach a resolution themselves. That would not happen in mediation, but it could happen in arbitration. There is a significant number of people interested in family law arbitration and working in that field and have educated themselves in working towards that. However, there is no doubt that a lack of legal aid funding for arbitration does limit the choice of parties and means that they are pushed towards litigation if they cannot resolve their disputes through mediation. We have long funded mediation, as an outlay on a solicitor's account, prior to litigation under advice and assistance or as part of a grant of civil legal aid. We started doing that in 1995-96. At that point, I think that there is a great hope that making funding available through legal aid would be in the unlocked mediation, that that was the thing that was holding it back. I do not think that it was. As I say, we have been doing it now for over 20 years. The take-up has not been enormous, as I explained earlier. It has been geographically differentiated, depending on local cultures or local behaviours by sheriffs or solicitors. I do not think that the availability of that funding is the thing that was going to allow mediation to flourish when there are other either structural or cultural barriers to moving towards mediation in terms of arbitration. Are people aware that that funding is available? Do you think that part of the problem is a lack of awareness? It is one of the tools available to solicitors in advising their clients and enabling them to make informed choices. Again, it goes back to what advice are people being provided with, what options are they being presented with, what preference is being expressed there, if there is a preference to be expressed by their adviser. I think that awareness generally of it as an option or an understanding of what it might involve might hold things back as much, if not more, than the availability of funding or otherwise. With arbitration, we are meeting faculty on Friday to discuss arbitration more generally. We have previously met Andrew and his colleagues, but I do not think that we have ever had a case presented to us for how arbitration could fit into the legal aid system. Mediation exists alongside litigation, which is the proceedings for which civil legal aid is available, whereas arbitration is an alternative to litigation. It sits distinct from litigation, and therefore its ability to be integrated into the legal aid system, particularly as it is directed towards litigation, is a bit more of a challenge. We will discuss on Friday, and I would be interested in exploring just what the funding mechanism could or should be that would enable arbitration to happen, and what rules would have to be placed around that. Obviously, we have very detailed rules around access to legal aid funding for litigation, and we would have to consider what the position would be for arbitration in a similar way. John Finnie, could you have your supplementary and then I'll bring in John Sturrock? Thank you, convener. Mr Lancaster, some of it has been alluded to already, and that is the research that SLAB published in 2014. I believe that it was based in 2012 experience. First and foremost, if there is a catch-22, because one of the findings was a lack of publicity about ADR as an option, I mean is there a role there for SLAB to promote it? I wonder, given that the landscape has changed slightly there with the apologies being another option, is there any plan to review your role or do further research on this? We have been involved in discussions over many, many years about ADR generally. It is more often focused on mediation. I think that our experience has been that there is something there that is holding it back, the research that we published and others that we have contributed to the Scottish Civil Justice Council's access to justice committee's work on ADR suggests a long list of potential barriers, many of which are cultural or knowledge or understanding based. I think that there are opportunities to use online sources of information where you can present different options alongside each other, and if people are using those as they are initially trying to work out how they might seek to resolve a dispute, then there is no influence being placed on their viewpoint by a particular adviser who might encourage them to go in a particular direction or otherwise. The MyGov.Scot website, which is a growing and useful resource in terms of information about what every day matters, but dispute resolution is there, presents information about advice services, legal aid, alternatives to court and court alongside each other, and there are links there through to many mediation and other ADR organisations. I think that that information is out there, but we have a culture where the default mode for many people is to go to see a solicitor, and by the time they are doing that, they have probably already got something in their minds and it is very difficult to move them from that if they have a particular focus on wanting to litigate the matter or being proven right. That is not really the approach that is going to be most amenable to mediation. It is getting that information to people early when they are considering their options before they are partway down a track from which it is quite hard to retreat. I am going to ask Liam Kerr to come with our final kind of substantial question. I am very conscious of the clock. We have about five minutes left. Convenience. I apologise for calling you chair and chairman earlier on. First of all, in response particularly to Ron McKay's question, there is evidence available from other jurisdictions about the savings that may accrue from, for example, the use of mediation. If the committee would like to access to that, provide some information if possible. The evidence certainly from England is of various substantial savings being made through, for example, the use of mediation. It would seem to me that it would be useful perhaps to think about whether or not some sort of comparative study could be carried out. However, it is important also not to look at this just from the point of view of finance. There is a danger that we look at this as a way to save public money, and that is an appropriate factor on a criterion. However, of course, there are other issues, other benefits and other disadvantages of each, but I have mentioned to myself stress, anxiety, time, relationships, contracts and so forth. All of these would be worthy of consideration. I have suggested in my paper as one of the recommendations that Audit Scotland might be invited to carry out some sort of a review of the civil justice system from a value-for-money point of view. I think that that would be interesting to develop. Can I make a point about what Robin was saying about mediation and the provision of pro bono services? I think that that has been great, and people have given a huge amount of time and sacrificially over many years. There comes a point, however, if mediation and mediators are to be perceived as a valuable part of the dispute resolution framework, that some value will need to be placed on the provision of those services and some appropriate level of remuneration made available, not least if you want people to develop their skills and their careers in that way. I think that I wanted to finish these remarks by picking up on what Colin had said and what I said earlier on. We are back again, however much we discuss this, to consideration of the structural and societal cultural ways in which we deal with problems in Scotland. In this very building, there is very often perceived to be a culture of win-lose, adversarialise or polarisation. That gives signals. Of course, we are in some ways geared up biologically and psychologically for the fight of flight mechanism to prevail, particularly when we are under pressure. I think that it is working with these ideas as well and what it might be to be a society in which we can understand how people act and react under pressure, particularly when things become very emotional and how nevertheless we can help people to work more effectively. I just finish off. That was really the context of the apology act, convener. It was an attempt to put a different approach into the culture of problem-solving. I apologise for being well recognised as one way of achieving that. I think that what this session opens up is all sorts of possibilities and interesting questions for Inquiry. Thank you, convener. For time reasons, I will ask two very direct targeted questions, if I may. John Sturrock, you talk quite rightly in my view about the nuances and access to justice has come up. Do you think that there is a danger that we talk about access to justice when what we really mean is about access to the courts? I am not sure that the two concepts are synonymous and are often wrongly conflated. I would be grateful for your thoughts on that. The second question that I have, I will put to Robin Burley, although I appreciate others who may want to come in. You talked earlier about how those areas are not necessarily well known about. Given that they are cheaper than the courts and the solicitors and their success rates appear to be high from the evidence that we have seen, it seems odd to me that people are not availing themselves of this and they do not know about it. A cynic might suggest that the legal profession would be reluctant to recommend, given that they effectively talk themselves out of money. Would the cynic be right? Us if, Mr Kerr. John Sturrock, could you start and then Robin? I think that you raised a very, very important point, if I may say so. The issue about justice and what we mean by justice is one that would take up the whole hour and a quarter and more. I think that you may be right in that access to justice is perceived rather more narrowly than it could be. I would like to reframe the question, however, and suggest that what we are really considering is availability of early, effective, efficient and useful processes to help people with problems to resolve those problems, disputes, differences, whatever they may be. Justice has a much wider concept or a much wider understanding than merely a reference to rights as defined in the law. That itself is a contentious issue and needs to be discussed rather. I do not think that the cynic is right. I would say that there are two things that we need. One, we need leadership and the other, we need education. On the leadership one, I think that it would be great if people within the Scottish Parliament availed themselves of the opportunity to learn about mediation, to take courses in mediation. It would help us to show that there are other ways of handling difference and dispute. On the education one, I am leaving here to go to the University of Strathclyde to do some tutoring in mediation. I am doing that as part of their diploma course for lawyers. Edinburgh has a diploma course that includes a mediation module that Strathclyde does. If we had modules in mediation throughout all the law schools in Scotland, we would see a change coming in. Education is really key to making a change, but that is a generational thing and we need leadership now to make the change. I think that you are right about the access to justice point. You should look at all the different options and mediation, for example. It clearly falls within that. On the point about costs, if you are going to see more mediation, more arbitration and particularly at that lower levels trying to keep that work out of the course, you have to have a way of making that cost effective. We have talked a bit about legal aid, and you will not be surprised that I do not agree with the slab on arbitration. However, we need to be a bit more radical and look at things like online dispute resolution. We need to look at telephone mediation, for example. There have been successful schemes elsewhere. When you think about particularly rural areas where people might have to travel hundreds of miles to their nearest court, we need to be thinking seriously about how we ensure that people can get access to dispute resolution, whether it is the court, whether it is mediation or arbitration, and that we have proper ways in which people can do that, possibly even from their own home, if they are doing it on a telephone or from a computer. We need to be much more radical about ensuring that people have access to different dispute resolution methods. How that actually happens—do you start to integrate it into the wider court and justice system? Does it become an option, a triage approach, where people get the choice as they come towards the court door about the different options open to them, the different costs involved? Obviously, it is going to be cheaper to do a telephone mediation than it is to have somebody in court for a number of days. We need to be quite radical about the options that are there that are being tested elsewhere in the world, and to think about the possibilities for using technology to ensure that people have real access to justice in Scotland. I am afraid that the clock has beaten us. I thank all the witnesses for what has been an excellent session—I think that ADR or RDR, if we want to revert to that—that is an area that really has not been given the prominence that the court today has helped to resolve to an extent. It has also raised lots of issues, and the panellists will be pleased to hear that during our work problem we will be looking at those issues and deciding if we want to move forward and do some more. In the meantime, thank you all very much for attending. I suspend now for a change of witness and have a five-minute comfort break. Agenda item 5 is an evidence session on remand. The committee previously held one round table session on remand on 16 January, and the evidence session today provides the opportunity to explore some of the issues raised then at the round table, but in more depth I welcome Karen McCluskey, chief executive and chief gardener, head of improvement both with community justice Scotland. Thomas Jackson, head of community justice Glasgow City Council, representing the convention of Scottish local authorities. Tom Halpin, chief executive, safeguarding communities, reducing offending. Catherine Lindsay, chief social worker, and member of social work Scotland. You are all very welcome. I thank all the witnesses who supplied written submissions. That is always extremely helpful for the committee in advance of an evidence session. I refer members to paper 4, which is a note by the clerk on paper 5, which is a private paper. We will now commence with our questions. I look at Liam Kerr. You keep throwing me that in the carter. Of all the committees, both Liam's could end up, and it would be justice, wouldn't it? Sorry, Liam MacArthur. Thank you, convener. Good morning. I will offer a quote from the Scottish Prisoners Commission from 2008, where it said, often remands the result of the lack of information or the lack of services in the community to support people on bail. I welcome your reflections on whether things have moved on since then, or whether that reflects a view that is still opposite. Who would like to start? It is fair to say that we have watched the remand numbers growing, so we have not seen them reversing. From that perspective, it is still an issue. Whether it is about more information or more support is something that could be discussed, but the critical issue is that we have good evidence that, where we provide supports in the courts, we see that shift in judicial confidence, we see sheriffs making a decision towards bail and community options, so we know what we can do to shift that. There is no doubt that the president's commission at that time reflected whatever we know what the issue is. I think that that fundamentally remains the same that the question that you have made is very good one, which is, has it changed since then? The reality is that people do not comply with bail and other conditions. Because of a broad range of circumstances, you have to look at the whole picture, it is not just about, I do not want to comply, and then you look at the availability of those supports that work with that. The answer to your question is across Scotland. That is a very different picture and different bits of the country. We do, though, still have the view that the statement that was made by the president's commission is right and is one that we should focus on and stay focused on. If it is a patchy picture, it is invidious to pick out exemplars or name and shame. Is there evidence of what those who are getting this right more often are doing? Are there others who are perhaps not doing it? Where we have, in the view of SACRO, structured bail supervision services, those are effective. I refer to one example where the service in one sheriff court with the full support of the sheriff principal and the sheriffs accepted short adjournments to make sure that the package was around people and so on. In just about 30 months, it worked with 30 women. Those were women who were selected because they were already going to revan. The adjournment during the hearing was because the breaches had occurred. The DTTOs weren't working as a history. Of those 30 women, 25 complied with that support around them. Of the five who didn't, four were for breach. One was for other reasons moving out of the area. We know that there is one example, and I could give you many examples where we know that it is effective and does work. I would say that we have a relatively new body. We have been looking around Scotland just now. In terms of remand and knowing that I was coming to the evidence committee today, I spent some time in the custody courts. We are absolutely dealing with the most damaged and chaotic in our community. The bail supervision is not going to be the only thing. Most of them live in chaotic accommodation, bed and breakfasts, letters don't follow them from one place to another. I think that we are going to have to look slightly wider for some of the solutions to this. My colleagues will be aware of the work that is going around homelessness. We seem to be able to occupy opposing moral universes around this. We look at remand, and we are dealing with the same people that often we are dealing with in homelessness. Indeed, one leads to the other. Many of them are sleepers who have just come out of jail. I think that some of the evidence based on some of the housing first model, where we put people in a home. Maslow's higher archive of needs would say that those are the most essential things for people to have a stable background and reduce some of the more abhorrent and damaging behaviours. We don't have that yet. I think that if we look at the cases in the court, people who are the most dangerous in our communities will need to be remanded, but the chaotic, we absolutely need to think of different ways to deal with them. The picture is very patchy around the country. I hate to use the word postcode justice, but in some areas you may be diverted. You may have a great bail supervision pilot, although more likely if you are a woman than if you are a man. It is a mixed picture. It is no surprise that a remand has continued unabated. In which case are we misdirecting by focusing on what perhaps social work departments could be doing in order to provide the information and the confidence of prosecutors and sheriffs to take on alternatives to remand? I listened to Harry Burns giving evidence to the health and sport committee. The majority of people that I saw in the custody court last week needed a care package. They were people with alcohol problems, drug problems and because we are looking for the propensity to re-offend for those who are drug abusing, it is more likely that they will re-offend. If you look at places such as the Netherlands and Germany, they will provide immediate access to immediate detox. That would be much more effective than remand. People would achieve much more better outcomes. Are those options being woven in among others in relation to housing allocations in the rest of it? In some places, not too far from here, LEAP, which is the abstinence programme, is absolutely outstanding. I couldn't tell you how good it is. I asked them if they could take more people. Yes, they probably could. I know of defence agents who say that they have been desperate to get people in. We need to look at this as a public health issue for a great majority of the people who are cycling in and out of our prisons. If we look at this as a justice issue, we will not achieve the paradigm shift that we require to start to put in other things to keep people from offending and reduce victimisation. Catherine, you wanted to come in mental. I am picking up on Karen's point that our observation, working with some of the most vulnerable across society, whether or not they are in remand, would be the issues about stickability of often universally available services. What we tend to find is that our more chaotic individuals struggle to engage continually with services. Whether it is because changes of address mean that correspondence about appointments is missed, whether it is just the level of chaos in an individual's life, it often means that trying to hold on to them and support them to get to a point where they can affect change is challenging. That is often when we see people who are in and out of a custodial or remand situation. Rather than focusing specifically on the criminal justice social work element of the response and bail advice and provision of services to courts, there is a partnership element to this that is much broader than a justice response across health, across the third sector and across local authority provision. If I draw on the local example in Orkney where you are seeing more of an integration between social work and healthcare provision and what not, you have housing colleagues, presumably sitting co-located with you. Are local authorities and health boards now grasping the fact that a multi-pronged approach to some of those more complex cases is the only way of getting the stickability that you are referring to? I think that it is about the multi-agency approach absolutely and looking at people's circumstances in the round. Individuals exist in families and communities and they have a range of issues that lots of different services can help to resolve. The challenge, I think, and from a social work Scotland perspective, we would observe, is that often our systems around appointing, for example, substance misuse support is not as flexible as perhaps it needs to be to encourage the continued engagement of some of the most vulnerable and chaotic individuals. For example, if I have a GP's appointment on Friday, I will know that I need to keep that. I will remember and I will have lots of different things that help me to get there. However, for a lot of the people that we work with, they might not even know when Friday comes, so their ability to keep that appointment on Friday with a GP or with another service is limited. Even if we can tap them into services, it is often the follow-through and the actual real engagement on an on-going basis, which is what people need to help them to make changes in their lives. Tom? I will keep it brief because it really follows on from that. There is a traditional view of bail supervision, which is about compelling compliance and curfew and rigid things. What we are talking about here is something much more holistic. The social work part of that is crucial. The project that I talked about, which was undoubtedly successful, was really successful because the court's social work and the third sector were really the one team that were working together. The reality is that just one very quick anecdote is that women who have breached their DTTO, breached everything that they have decided off, and there is only one place that women are going to en masse for adjournment. The first conversation between the court's social worker and the third sector was that we need to see, put a package around her, put a plan around her and tomorrow we will start, but today getting the court to accept that this is a credible solution. The first response really was that she cannot comply, but she cannot comply. Why would she? The very point has been made, and the third sector response was that she has got to comply. This is the last chance alone in the really honest conversation. That women kept 11 of her 12 appointments, and the one she didn't should have a reason for, and she went back on to DTTO. It is crucial that we do not write people off here because the system is not flexible enough and not holistic enough. It is those other wider supports. The final bit is that we are talking about housing at the table, health at the table and the rest of it. Very often, we are at the table and the conversation is right, but from a third sector perspective, the referrals between each other is pretty rigid and systemic, and that is where it falls between it. You need someone who can go between the spaces that does not have one alignment, who can make those appointments and make sure that someone is there on Friday. That is the holistic bit, which is probably not just about the process diagram. The supplementary, Fulton? It is a point later on in the bill supervision, but I think that this is probably a good time to bring it in. As a supplementary, I should also declare an interest as a registered social worker in the Scottish Social Services Council. Obviously, the community pay back order, one of the purposes of that, was to try and bring in a more holistic approach. When somebody is convicted and given an order, there are sometimes conditions for health services and such like to be involved, but in relation to remand, we are in a totally different position. Just picking up on what you said there and for the rest of the panel, is there something that you would see that could work universally across Scotland to give somebody that bit more teeth if you like to be able to do the work to get the different agencies involved? Perhaps like a bill supervision officer, I should say that in the area where I worked, bill supervision was very effective. It was regarded as particularly successful in that area, and I know that it is not its patch across the country, but would you have any suggestions on that? There are a number of examples where people who have successfully moved through bill supervision move on to, because of the disposal of the court, to community pay back, and then the real crux when you are in that position, that that is not simply about supervision of unpaid work. It is the widest. There are great examples across all authorities of where that is happening, so the point you are making is right, but it must be an end-to-end pathway that everybody understands what we are trying to achieve. It probably speaks to both, the first point and the second point, in terms of that response to people who are subject to bail. The committee will know that the new model of community justice across Scotland is now rolled out across the 32 areas, the local authority areas, in Scotland. Each of the areas are required to produce and have produced a community justice outcome improvement plan, and many of those speak to the issues of remand and bail. The concept behind that is to develop comprehensive, cohesive, local services that are a response to individuals who are within the justice system. I think that sometimes the justice element of it obfuscates us to the fact that those are individuals who do not come on a level playing field. There are people who, by and large, have numerous complex difficulties arising from a whole range of previous trauma, and there are people who, as Tom referred to, there are people who do not comply, who find difficulty in compliance, where the system generally demands 100 per cent compliance 100 per cent of the time. The idea behind the community justice outcome improvement plan is specifically that for all local partners to have a common vision of what community justice means in that area, a part of that will be about when people are bailed to the community. What is our collective response to issues of let's help people not lose their accommodation, let's help people not lose their employment, let's help people to stay connected to their family? Those are the issues that we know impact and help to improve people's lives, so it is as much about, although we do need to think about the structures that we have around it, it is much, much more about the people-centred approach in terms of that whole issue of it being a public health issue and that if we don't address those issues with people, if we keep seeking to punish, punish, punish, then we will further marginalise people. No is standing the issue that yes, absolutely, there are dangerous and harmful individuals out there in the community. The vast majority of people who deal with through, for example, community justice, criminal justice social work and society services are people who are in need of care, are in need of help, are in need of assistance and present as much arrest themselves as they do to other people. Okay, thank you for that. Maurice Corry's, and it's up to me. Thank you, convener. I'm absolutely, what I'm hearing is complete music to my ears, because I visited the Magistrate's Prison Barlinny on Friday, and this exactly is what came out from the lead on the support for outcomes, et cetera, and the deputy governor of the jail, because there's quite clearly an issue there. Forty per cent of the people were just revolving dolls situation, and one of the things they said was this coordination by social services and local authorities coming together with the police. Now, there's an example. I was lucky last year to visit North Devon Council parties on holiday about as interested in what they were doing, and they have a multiagency team in their headquarters, and it has reduced their problems by 50 per cent because the police are next door to social services, next door to other people. Thomas Jackson, what are you doing about COSLA in relation to encouraging local authorities to do exactly that? I mean, I should reflect that any answer I can give, I have a better knowledge of Glasgow than I do of every local authority, and it is a varied picture. When I think picking up on a couple of points from today's discussion, first of all, I think we need to make sure that alongside discussion around bail supervision, we talk about voluntary opportunities in Glasgow, and it's not unique to Glasgow. We have a third sector partnership between three third sector organisations who sit in a social work office and provide an option for women. It's a women's based service for bail support. Entirely voluntary, there's no conditions within that, and we're having very positive outcomes from that. First of all, we have to make sure that we're broadening our opportunities for people. We also have to look at the overall impact. So you mentioned to Barlinnie that constant churn, and that is a unique situation for Barlinnie, but in terms of remand, I know this committee has already received evidence that about 20 per cent of the daily population are individuals in custody, and they are on remand. Actually, the daily reception is closer to 60 per cent. For women, it's well over 60 per cent. So we're actually talking about a huge volume of individuals. You've heard today that when we're talking about these individuals, we're talking about individuals with very complex needs, and that raises the issue about where the resources are going to come from. We're talking about complex needs. We know what works. We know the evidence of that. You know what it's Scotland's own study in 2012, where they identified that there's a £3 billion spend on reoffending in Scotland, said only 16 per cent of that is spent in terms of rehabilitation. So our shift in justice spend needs to focus on what we can do in the community. There's plenty of good examples out there across the third sector, across the public sector, and I think we could do a lot more of that if we could think about how to take some of our investment that's currently locked up in prisons and put it in the community. Thank you, convener. You and our previous evidence session, we were told that there was a lack of robust data on why judges are still putting people on remand. Do you have any view on why that data is not being captured? Secondly, do any of you have any data that might be too strong a word, but any anecdotal evidence as to why judges are still putting people on remand? Tom Nenkeeth, again. In terms of that, I have just, from the projects that we have done, we have figures around outcomes for the people. For instance, in one, three local authority areas over a period, I can tell you, there was 250 cases and I can give you the breakdown of what happened. So we can give you sufficient evidence to draw inference from, which I think would be helpful and that's available. But the realities and the experience that we had in the project that I told you about with the 30 cases, there was great support from the court, and they did a survey of their own courts in that sheriffdom over a five-week period, and there were 70 remands, only two were women. I'm making that point, and the two were extremely important, but if you talk about numbers, that project wasn't touching the large number of males that were going through remand. But what was clear that it came out of that was that the sentences that have been referred to the court was very supportive, so long as the community alternative is credible and consistent and is there. What they're faced with, if you've got someone who's breaching all the time, who's reappearing and you don't have an alternative, then it forces you down a route. So this is about making sure that what we provide in community to support that actually supports the aims of the court, which is not to put someone in prison at that stage. Can I ask just on that, just to clarify, I'm going to reflect back what I heard and it might sound quite pejorative, I don't mean it that way. Do I take it from that that the judges or the people saying we are going to hold people on remand are concluding that the community alternatives are not credible to use the word? Is that why judges are deciding to use remand? What in that particular case, where if you have someone presenting at you for not the first time, not the second time and it's and are not compliant and there is no wraparound service, there's no holistic service, there's no report in front of you, there's no resource in front of you that's going to actually see that through and you know that if you just actually released as you did the last time, we're going to be back here next week if that's my phrase, then that's not a credible position whereas as we had, we had an adjournment, we had a court social worker, we had the third sector partner, there was a needs assessment done, there was a care plan put in place and we come back to this is what's going to happen and if there's no complies with that then it's a different discussion. So anecdotally effectively the judge is saying what else am I supposed to do, is that? That was an impression I certainly had in that case. I think that the absolutely, I've no disagree with any of that and what I'm going to say here, please, I prefer to be saying this is no mechanism of criticism of anybody in any sentence or procurator fiscal. When you look at the legislation, the legislation is difficult in and of itself because the driving legislation behind it, the criminal proceedings in 1995 access, 27C for the Bent and Mac, talks about taking consideration factors that say substantial risk of failure to appear, substantial risk of re-offending. These are in quantifiable statements and it is left within court in a very complex and very speedy process to make decisions. It's further complicated by additional factors in the legislation that asks, has this person previously, if the previous convictions have they previously failed in order without any recognition of how previous is that? I suppose the overall picture is that if you're going to make an assessment of the risk that that individual presents in court at that time, I suppose there is a question around the examination of how are those processes driven, what are the outcomes of those processes, what is the evidence that drives that decision making within court at that time. There's another part of the legislation that requires that where Bill is granted or refused that there should be a record kept of this. Now, I'm aware that in some cases there are, some cases there aren't, but you asked about the lack of data. You're writing that aspect because we don't actually know if remand has been applied when individuals, is it the same individuals will remand in time and time? Is there a difference between remand being used in solemn or in so many cases? There's a dearth of data within that, so I think that the two elements are compounded. I would just say that I absolutely agree with you. It is an area that is right for problem-solving. When I was at the court on Monday, I actually picked up a form, which is a procreter, a physical form, and it is a report by sheriff, whoever it is, in a bail application, and it goes through criteria, yes or no, about why they are giving bail or refusing bail. I don't know where that's kept. I don't know if it is filled in, but it would absolutely be useful if we were starting to look at it going forward. I think that there's another point that I would just highlight is our tolerance for risk. We are so used to applying risk models for some of our most dangerous people in our society, and that is absolutely right. We also tend to use that tolerance of risk for some of our more chaotic. I think that that is impacting on remand when I sat in the court and I've sat in numerous custody courts now. I do see a lack of knowledge about some of the things that are out there. We're obviously looking forward to electronic monitoring, and I'm heavily involved in that, particularly around bail and the use of GPS, which I think will make a big difference, as opposed to the radio frequency that is now used. However, there is a lack of knowledge about what's around in the courts just now. You know the people who were really good with their defence agents? I have to say that I was just so impressed by the quality of the defence agents that I saw in the court. They knew their clients, they understood their journey, they had some knew their clients very well, and they represented them very well on the court, and they also highlighted opportunities of third sector services and other services that were out there. I have to say that I came away thinking that I need to contact more of the defence agents to tell them what's available. I'll bring in John Finnie and then Catherine. It is related to that point, and it did an example that Mr Halpin gave earlier. We had previously commended to as stand-down reports and previous evidence. It would seem that there is a pivotal role following on again from what Ms McLeach said there for the criminal justice social worker in the court connected with the sentencer. Is it the case that sentences are being meted out in the absence of a criminal justice social worker being present in the court? If so, is that possible, that could be addressed? I mean clearly there will be a broader perspective on criminal justice social workers in the court. In our experience, that can be very much subject to demands that are on the local department whether they are available that day etc. The thing there about the reform of the system, we've got to be careful with not shuffling the deck chairs around the deck. When we talk about reform, it's about we'll do it in that team and then we'll outsource it, we'll do this, and actually we're still doing the same thing. A lot of the point that Cairn made around the risk is very relevant. A lot of the risk assessments that we brought in, we brought in at a time before austerity. The resource around that was at that time. So is it time to go back and look at what do we mean by risk assessment and are those still relevant in the context of the resource that we have today? Because all that resource is tied into that. Is that actually the resource that's changed lives or is it given information to the administration of justice? So I think there is something about really going back and looking at what is it that we're doing here and broader than is there someone that can get you to housing appointment. That's really, really important, but it's a whole system in when you talk about reform. Just to pick up on the original question around decision making in courts, there has been some research done on number of different jurisdictions around sentencing decision making. I have had the opportunity to talk to a number of sentencers in my career about that issue. I guess what I would share around that is that every individual case is an individual case, is the response that you would get. I think that the courts are often weighing in the balance, risk seriousness of the alleged incident and also a perception around a history of compliance or non-compliance with court or other orders that are around, but also the nature of how someone presents on a given day. I think that we'd also feature. There's no doubt that the availability of information to courts to help them contextualise that individual would be of greater assistance. There is some variability around how court criminal justice social work is delivered in practice. Now, not every court is created equal and not every criminal justice social work service has the same level of funding available. The reality of delivering court-based social work services is that you might be one single social worker who is covering a day on duty in a court, possibly covering more than one sitting court at a time, and possibly running from one court to another to try to capture the people that you want to engage with. In my written response, I think that we've given a flavour of some of the tasks that a criminal justice social worker in the court would undertake. They might be the only person doing that across several courts in one building, at any given point in time. They're also in demand from various solicitors representing clients, looking for updates on any information so that solicitors can also try to inform the court around their individual clients' circumstances. It's a really complex situation. I think that one involves quite a lot of juggling and making decisions real-time about where best to give their time of the court. Of course, if your time is taken away individually interviewing someone who has perhaps just received a custodial sentence or has been remanded in custody, someone whose family is very distressed as a result of that decision, you're not then in court available to provide information about someone else. There's a real-world issue here about how we would provide sufficient cover in those settings to mean that, in every instance, there was real, in-depth, meaningful information at the court's disposal to help decision making. Thomas, then you're bringing Liam Kerr again. I think that Catherine picked up on some of the key issues around stand-down reports, the same-day reports. However, 3,700 were issued in the last year of full records. More than half of those are oral reports. Catherine also picked up that there's a whole range of informal information that gets to the court's years through solicitors, through other means, via social work. So social work do provide that resource. It does vary. I think that's a fair point across Scotland. The issue is, though, about a judge's decision. They're trying to make a rational decision in a complex setting, as Keith highlighted, with a very complex set of individuals. How do we shift that confidence? More information is one of those ways. I think it's also about more options. What are our community options that we have available? In our evidence that we submitted, we presented some information. We've had investment in women's services. In terms of a woman going to court, we know now that we can put up a greater support for women who might be facing a decision between remand and bail. We don't have that same resource investment in terms of men. Again, the question comes back to, we have invested well in aspects of the justice service. A judge will have every confidence that if they send somebody to custody, that they'll reappear in court. We haven't necessarily made the same sort of investment in our community services. That's got to be a crux of today's discussion. Fulton supplementary. I'm just following on from the discussion that we're having just now. How important do you think that the local courts are in that then? I know that there's obviously been changes to the local court system recently. Just to do the whole question, I wonder if you like, how can that situation be resolved? I think that having local knowledge at local courts in my own experience was very effective because it didn't always rely on the court social worker to provide the information to the local office because it also provided that. How can that problem be resolved going forward? I think that the evidence from places like Red Hook, the community courts, that having a stable sheriff who sees lots and who sees the same people can have a real positive outcome on some of the most difficult people that we're seeing day in, day out. It is a challenge when there are numerous courts sitting and you've got big places like Glasgow and Edinburgh when they might see different people each time. The evidence base tells us that some of the community court models definitely work. They are incredibly expensive. People tend to focus on the building and the process. I definitely think that when we see things like the drug court and there's about to be a new alcohol court in Glasgow and some of the alcohol court in Edinburgh, it's shown real success because the people who are sitting on the bench are absolutely invested in it and so are the people who are coming in front of them. I don't think there's anyone else who wants them. No. Liam Kerr, your other question. Yes, thank you. Karen McCluskey, I'd like to come back to you. You mentioned electronic monitoring. We heard in a previous session that the chief inspector of prisons saying that electronic monitoring is not available currently as a condition of bail but might be in the future. Are you able to help me to understand why it is not available now and how likely it might be available in the future? Any of the panel, what difference would that make to remand numbers if electronic monitoring was available? My understanding is that it used to be a provision that you could use EM for bail. Of course, it was radio frequency so you had to have a box in your house and it's quite cumbersome. I was just coming off the expert group in electronic monitoring so we have recommended that both GPS and alcohol monitoring be recommended and they are now drafting the legislation at the moment and that will have to go through a process. We have proposed that it should be used for a range of things from bail, from people coming out of prison. It's an extra tool, however it's not just technology. It's a bit like wearing a Fitbit and then expecting that you're going to lose weight or become fitter. You need to be supported with electronic monitoring on. If I'm putting an alcohol bracelet on someone, I need to help them to avoid alcohol. That's about fending their sober friends and sober places. It can't just be about the technology but I have great hopes. The evidence based from Germany and from America is very positive and I hope that we should be able to use it for bail but we will have to support people. If you were doing a house and first model or doing some of the bail supervision, it could be an extra tool in the chef's toolbox. Catherine, hi there. I just want to add to that bit electronic monitoring from a social work Scotland perspective, any other tool that can help us to reduce the unnecessary use of remand would be very welcome. I would only caution against the potential risk of up-tariffing existing bail supervision cases. What I mean by that is that we've seen bail supervision now for a lot of years from its original pilots and it has grown but actually the use of remand has grown exponentially alongside it. Our concern would be that we add more punitive measures and more restrictive measures to bail supervision but it doesn't, at the same time, correspond with a reduction in the use of remand. So, whilst we would support the use of other and more restrictive measures, we would welcome that being tallied to a use of remand that reflects. That population has shifted as opposed to we bring people who are ordinary bail at the moment or bail supervision up to bail supervision plus. That would be a risk that we would need to be mindful of. Just trying to get my head round the statistics and the trajectory that we've seen in remand, we're constantly told that crime figures across a range of measures are down. We've got a presumption against shorter sentences soon to be extended further. We've got the very supportive measures that we're talking about and we're talking about electronic monitoring as well. It just seems counterintuitive that, at the same time, we're seeing this increase in remand. I think that we've explored quite well the complex issues that each of those individuals have that explain some of those cases. However, it does seem to be a picture of trends that don't necessarily appear to be following the way that you would expect looking at some of the other figures in relation to crime figures in terms of presumptions against shorter sentences. I'm sure I won't give you the answer in the sense of exactly why, but to confirm your concern is that the SHINE Women's Mentoring Service across Scotland works with 800 women a year. That's for women serving short sentences or on remand, so it's less than four years. It's a big bit of the population. We know that 76 per cent of the women who would be eligible for SHINE do engage with it, so it's not as though we're not getting a fair representation, but half the women in SHINE are on remand. That seems awful disproportionate in terms of if you're working in the prison and it's about people starting through care, people coming back in reintegration. The reality is that if you look at those figures, it tells you there's a disproportionate use of remand, and then you look at that group and 70 per cent of them are not getting a custodial sentence. You then go into the issues that you were talking about that we're all very aware of. It brings you back to the answer to your question. It's our inability to deal with the chaos. That's the fundamental thing. It's not about the seriousness of offending. It's not about legal process. It's just the inability to comply and how to tackle it. You're absolutely right. We're at a 42-year low for crime. The movements that we've made on youth offending are pretty spectacular. I think that we shouldn't in Scotland forget how far we've come from, from the place we were. 80 per cent of police calls at the moment are about vulnerability. It's no crime, it's vulnerability. That's exactly what we're seeing in the courts. The problem is that we're seeing that through a lens of justice and not looking at it through the lens of vulnerability. Police Scotland are having to look at this completely differently as well, up-skilling people in mental health, training and a whole range of other things, but we are dealing with a different thing now. Many of our services are just an effort for purpose. We don't have the level of services, we have defunded services because we have austerity and that's understandable, but I think that community justice and returning people to communities and improving their health outcomes has to be a priority and it has to be a priority when our budgets are set. Thomas? I think that Tom said it very well when he said we're dealing with chaos and that's got to be a feature in any interpretation of this. I think we also have to look at the whole of the justice trail because in this same period we've also seen a reduction in police undertakings and we've seen reductions in police disposals and procurative fiscal disposals, so earlier in the system we're also not taking people out, we're not providing the right supports to make those viable options. Okay, thank you and we'll move on to Rona. Thank you, convener. Yeah, just following on really from what we've been talking about, I'm very interested in women in the justice system and women in remand and as you said that we heard the figure of 70 per cent of women not going on to be sentenced and also things like women pretending not to have children in case they were subsequently removed etc, which is shocking. The 2012 report of the commission on women offenders included recommendations such as bail supervision, electronic monitoring etc. My question was to what extent of the recommendations being implemented, you've kind of answered that I suppose in a way, but I'm interested in Thomas if you could maybe expand on the Glasgow monitored bail system which seems to be successful and is that similar to the shine product that Tom was talking about? I think following the report in 2012 and the government's response we saw quite a hive of activity across Scotland in terms of supporting women, so in Glasgow we've been very fortunate we've been able to establish as defined in the Angelini report on women's justice centre, we have tomorrow's women Glasgow that's been operating now for three and a half years, has really proven itself in terms of being able to work with a range of vulnerable individuals, individuals who haven't previously engaged with the service. We also established a new supported bail project that's delivered by three third sector organisations each providing a slightly different area of expertise, so Turning Point Scotland, Aberlour childcare trust and Why People who are an accommodation specialist, again targeting women, it came out of a justice reinvestment from the government, they identified £1.5 million that they top-slice from the SPS budget and distributed across Scotland, and that allowed us to establish new services such as that. So we do have quite a rich response to women and we're starting to see the fruit to that in terms of what the outcomes are for that. We don't have nearly the same in terms of men, have we achieved everything that was set out in the Angelini commission? No, I don't think we have, I think we still have to watch that and so even now, nearly six years on, it's worthy of keeping an eye on it. Is that project specific to Glasgow or is it anywhere else in Scotland? There are other projects, I know that SACRA lead on some and have led on some that have now not been able to funding a cease, but the project that I'm talking about is unique to Glasgow. There's a great service in North Lanarkshire, there are services in Ayrshire, and they are springing up all over the place and obviously we've got the Inverness Justice Centre, which will be opening soon. So I see some really good work, but it's still patchy, and for women who are in rural areas, I do worry. It's great if you're living in a town centre where there's probably enough people to justify a service, but if you're in a very urban area, that's lacking. I have to say that I was very impressed when I went to Orkney. Orkney is very thoughtful about how they support their women in an area probably where they don't have a great deal of people coming through their services, but I do slightly worry about that. Can I just ask if there's a recognition among professionals that work in a system like yourselves if there is a recognition of the fact that women present a fairly unique case in the sense of their needs and families, not to lessen the service that men get, but is it recognised that there is a problem with women in remand, basically? I don't think that I have met anybody who has underestimated the damage and the trauma that are experienced by lots of the women, and my previous experience in working with lots of women who have been involved in violence, domestic abuse and a whole range of things, they take much longer to get to a good outcome. It takes years and years of work, and sometimes we think that this happens over a short period of time. People think that you can get an outcome in six months, so some of our colleagues in the third sector are funded for a very short period of time. Those women will take a long time to get to a place where they have a life that's predictable and understandable and manageable and have a sense of hope. We also recognise that we are very understanding now about adverse childhood events and the impact of trauma and the fact that parental imprisonment is again an adverse childhood experience, so we are passing it on to people's kids. If there is no greater reason to try and change the outcome for women, it is to make it better for their kids, because we cannot pass that back on to the next generation. A number of the panel want to come in, so it is Tom, Catherine, Keith and then Thomas. We know from the experience of Shine and the work that came after the Angelina commission is evidence now that there is gender difference in the substance. That's gone beyond anecdotal and there's more evaluations of it, we can give you that, so just accept it, that's to be established. The point that I would make around the country, you'll see great examples, you'll see initiatives and all the other things, but there still exists gender inequality in Scotland because it's not universal and that's the fundamental point that I would come from. I can just tell you from my own experience around some of the services that are delivered in Tayside, which is the area that I'm from, specifically Angus Council in my day job. We have a really good success rate particularly with the Glen Isle project in Angus, which is a very rural area. There are really challenges around how to deliver a service specific for women, which are small in number, in terms of Angus criminal justice services. What we've found is that it's not the criminal justice social work part of the intervention that's important, so we outreach into the Glen Isle service, we do the compulsory parts that aren't needed by the court, but it's the more community-based support of elements, some of the wraparound health care and support, and the packaging of support around helping women to access services that you or I would take for granted. It's the longevity of that that's really important, so we find women don't leave us, which is a real challenge then in terms of sustainability of that as an approach. It grew from a justice perspective, but actually there's a recognition that there are a cohort of women in our area, and I've no doubt across other areas in Scotland, who need extra support in order to make consistent changes in their lives, both for their own benefit, for the community's benefit and for the benefit of their children and their families. Keith, then Thomas. Just to answer your question about the recognition, absolutely when you look at the community justice outcome improvement plans and having had connection with the 32 areas across Scotland in the creation of plans, absolutely recognised. It's an area that many local areas toil with, and I think that there are other factors, for example, the smaller local authorities haven't been the justice manager and the Erswell Tuso's work officer in one. Small areas that don't have many women that come through their service, how they bespoke individual plans for those people and their families, but there's also, whilst I recognise the sterling work that's been done, for example, in Glasgow in the women's services, I think that what we need to do is share how and why those services work, how, for example, they get a buy-in from other partners like health and how we then translate that to other plans across. Not necessarily taking the Glasgow model and transplanting it, but finding that bit about learning from the research of how that actually works, why it works, why it's made an impact and see how we can share that, particularly a bit about collective buy-in. The issue of buy-in and leverage across the 32 areas in Scotland is, in a community justice sense, that they are just toiling just now. For example, the relationship between community justice partnerships and intricacy joint boards and the services that they deliver through health and social partnerships, the relationship between the two of those entities and community planning partnerships, would really at the start of a local journey roundabout that, but, yes, women are recognised, the specific issues for women in the justice service is recognised. Thomas? Coming in last, I think everybody just about said it, but I mean, I think it's a given across Scotland. There isn't a women's service that isn't trauma-informed where training isn't part of that. I mean, in Glasgow, tomorrow's women's Glasgow, the psychologist is based within the trauma team, that's what we see is it, and we are sharing that training out the way. For example, tomorrow's women's women's Glasgow has provided training to Victim Support Scotland in Glasgow, recognising that they have a unique expertise, and we built that up. I want to pick up on one thing Karen said as well, because I think it's really important for the committee here, which is this issue about how long you have to work with people for the changes to happen, and we're seeing that with women in particular. Tomorrow's women's Glasgow, when we first set it up and after 12 months of monitoring it, we saw very little movement in the sort of things we thought would change, like offending levels, health issues, relationships, and it was a period where it was quite challenging to keep the public sector partners on board, to keep their investment there, the social workers, the nurses, the psychologists, the prison service to comment, all of that staff were there on the goodwill of the public sector saying this is the way to move forward. It took another year before we started to see those substantial shifts because we were targeting the most vulnerable individuals, and that's something as well we have to understand if we are going to target a higher level of individuals who are facing remand where we want to shift to bail, we're going to have to invest appropriately and recognise that we're dealing with individuals who may have extremely chaotic situations that we have to unpick over a longer period of time. I was glad to hear the Glynaila project mentioned while I represent Angus North and Merns that falls within my colleague Graham Day, Angus South constituency, and I know he's raised that a number of times in Parliament, but really it was just going back to, I suppose, what Karen Gray raised earlier and about the wider impact on families, and he talked about ACEs. We've had a debate in that that Gail Ross MSP had brought to the chamber the other week, so it is very much high on the agenda just now. Actually, just to hear a bit more about the impact that being on remand has not only on the person themselves, but also on their wider families and what impacts you see, particularly on women, given that there are a higher number of higher percentage of women on remand, and the fact that then the vast majority of them go on not to receive custodial sentences. It's just really to hear a bit more about that. I'll actually just say that my colleague Nancy Looke should be here from families outside, because she does this incredibly eloquently. The ripple effects of women being taken in remand and their kids going into care and sometimes losing their accommodation and going into debt and exacerbating mental health—I mean, I don't know where it ends—is just a spiral. There are a lack of services on remand for women, because you don't need to go to work. You can be saying to yourself for pretty much all day. That will absolutely exacerbate your mental health problems. It's catastrophic. I mean, it is catastrophic. There are very few women and we know that, with a presumption against short-term sentences, 98 per cent of women are getting a sentence of less than 12 months. We must be able to do something about that going forward and design services to make a difference, because it would be great if Scotland could lead the world in trying to change the outcome for some of our most vulnerable women. So what we do know is that a period of remand or a period in custody is devastating for the individual concern, but also for their family. So the kind of impact that we can see for children is that sometimes they don't know what's happened to a loved one in their life, so they just disappear for a period of time and nobody actually tells them the truth about what's happened sometimes because they think that's the best thing, but actually children know that something's not quite right. So somebody who was there and caring for you and loving you and taking care of you yesterday is just not there today and there was no notice of that. Now I have a small child and I dread to think what he would make of that if I just wasn't there tomorrow. So I think we kind of conceptualise these things as happening over there to other people and somehow that makes it better. But actually, you know, how to process that as a child, I think is the untold damage emotionally that that does in terms of how you understand the world around you is a certain place where you can rely on people and a lot of the children and young people who are impacted by custody and remand will be children who already have suffered adverse childhood experiences. They may be children, for example, who are already not in the direct care of their parents and or who might be in the process of being assessed for alternative care arrangements. One of the direct consequences of periods of remand or custody can be that there are unnecessary delays to those assessments. So actually children's planning doesn't happen because parents are not available to, for example, be tested around rehabilitation because it's right and appropriate that we don't remove children unless we're absolutely sure that home is not the right place for them. But to do that, we actually need parents to be able to be physically present and engage. We also know that parents who are in a custodial setting often struggle to meaningfully engage in things like child protection case conference discussions about their children and also children's hearing and other court arrangements are more difficult and of course people are presented in handcuffs at these meetings, which obviously sets a particular tone around their involvement. That's scary for children when their parents turn up with two officers who have been there transporting them in their handcuffed in the presence of the group making decisions about their lives. All of those things are, I think, very damaging for families, but it's the missed birthdays, it's the missed first day at school, it's the missed good night story. It's all of those things that, I think, make it a very difficult impact for families to rationalise. I also think that we forget that every individual who's in custody is also somebody's child. The impact on their parents and their wider social support network is also a real challenge. Even the practicalities of visiting people on remand are really difficult and often very costly and expensive and time-consuming. All of that puts a lot of extra pressure on families and the lack of availability of the resource that that person might have been bringing in had they been employed before they were remanded. All of that stops in terms of access to any benefits that might need to be reassessed in the light of somebody not being in the family home. The ramifications are huge, they affect every facet of an individual's life and therefore every facet of their family's life. The average period on remand is something like 23 days. All of that disruption for 23 days. Thank you very much, that was well made. We are getting nearer the close, we've only got back in another five minutes. In which time could I have Daniel Morris and then very briefly please? I just wanted to pick up on something that Karen McClusky mentioned in her previous response, which is that the reality for people on remand is that they're spending long periods of time in a cell with nothing to do because they don't have to participate in work. That's a picture that we've heard from other sources. We hear what you're saying about that we should try to stop people going on remand, but when they do, what should they be doing because that doesn't sound like a terribly good activity. They're untried, they're unconvicted. They're innocent technically because they've not been through the court system. I would like to see better health services, and of course I would, I'm an ex-nurse. I would like to see better health services. I would like to see good mental health services, more support for women to be involved and to look at them not just as a deficit but as an asset. We never ask people what they're good at, we only tell them what they're bad at. Everybody has an asset and we need to build on that within any time that we have. It's a teachable moment. For Shacken Diclamenti it would say that the motivation to change model can start at any time. I think that the period on remand should also be looked at as a motivation to change so that people might be pre-contemplating or contemplating a change in their behaviour and we should be able to support them. Is there a place for it to happen? If it has to happen and if they are a threat to themselves or other people, we should be trying to capitalise on that. Can I just briefly ask that? Are you aware of any good examples where that is happening at all? It's probably just not enough. Do you know? I mean, don't be wrong, I have lots of colleagues within the prison system and they will do their absolute very best in a very difficult circumstance. Many of the people who are coming in, both men and women, will be detoxing from drugs. It's incredibly chaotic, so trying to provide that level of support might be really difficult when you've got a huge volume of people. I mean, it's scattered. The problem is that if you've got such a big volume of people coming in remand, you can't provide that service. If we reduced it, then the ones who are there might get that level of service. There are examples of good practice here. In the Shine project again, I would use an example, which although the example would give us around women, it would cross gender. We have prison-based champions, we call them. If you're on remand or you're in the prison and your peers and all the rest are not coming out of their cells, you're lying on top of that bed because that's the norm. If you go and do something else, you're out the norm. That's a very difficult place to be. It's going to be hard to break it, but having the champion working in the prison, engaging with people, starting the interviews about what will happen, engaging beyond that, speaking to your defence agent about how you're engaging, starting to get group activities going. The prison service resources are fully utilised in that area, and I think that it's this engagement in the third sector. Shine is a collaboration of a number of third sector organisations. It's not an organisational thing, it's about the ethos that I'm talking about here. That work inside the prison, work with them, and there is something there that I think can be amplified and would start to address that difficult cultural and situational scenario that you've described. This has blown me away, I'll be absolutely frank with you, convener. This is all coming back to me when my visit to Balein, I'm sorry to go on about it, but all this is absolutely credible. It's happening there, and that was a cry from the support officers, from the Deputy Governor, is this question, Catherine, about your mental health support. I'm currently looking at a project about that in my own area in Vale of Leven, because we've got real issues there, and I think that that is something that needs to be done. The champions, yup, the guy sitting on the top bed, you know, the fear to get out of their bed because it may be seen to be different from the others. I saw people on remand in there, in their blue tongs, I saw the rows of rows in custodial in red, those were in grey who were doing, they got jobs to do the catering, what have you, all trying to integrate. I mean the work, the support teams. The other thing that blew me away was at five o'clock, the family reception centre, when the prisoners and I, I avoided using the word prisoner, but the staff did, so we had to, was stowed out with families, in tears, and you know, leaning on heavy, there was no standing room only, sorry standing room only, and the three staff that were put on there to work with the families, and there were NGOs, they weren't within the staff, work were incredible, and so I really would like to meet you all again, because I have some issues on that. Before you answer that, could you address it from the other side of the coin, and you know, if we're just seeing remand and people are going when they may have been expected to be in custody, how are the families and the victims kept in the loop? Tom? The support, as the alternative to remand, is based in mentoring, it's not just about supervision, and you can't mentor without the widest support of families, friends and the social capital that's around an individual, so I do think that the fundamental answer around supervision is, but what's that holistic mentoring that you're offering? And the point about keeping the family, the victims involved if suddenly they're expecting someone remand and that doesn't happen? Sorry, I've not understood that part of the question. I suppose if we're looking at measures to reduce remand, but there's an expectation perhaps that that person would have been put on remand, how are they interested? How do we ensure victims and families? Because there's two sides of the coin. There absolutely is, and there are people who that remand is absolutely appropriate and that will be tested by the court, and I think that that's the clarity of it. It's not that a third sector organisation comes along and champions someone who should be out there, this is a decision of the court. I guess my view of what victims would like is less than 20 days respite. And actually what we know is that the adversity caused by a period of remand contributes to almost all of the facets of risk that we would assess in terms of the likelihood of further re-offending. So if our aim and objective is to reduce the likelihood of that individual committing further harm or further annoyance in their community in whichever way that transpires, then actually what we need to do is take every opportunity to reduce the risks that they present rather than increase them through our systematic approach. Can I bring in Ben and then Thomas? Thank you, convener. I just, Karen, a number of months ago I hosted an event in here with Circle Scotland and ASC around their women's outreach teamwork. That was quite a remarkable evening and quite a remarkable project and I just wanted to give the opportunity if you wanted to say something about that project because I think it was quite illustrative and demonstrative of how a different approach can be successful for all. I mean they were incredibly supportive of the women, they saw them, just almost like I was saying before, they saw them as assets, but Shine and some other projects do similar things for women but they supported them, they looked at financial, they looked at everything that affected these women and I think what was really important I think with Circle was they allowed the women to think about what a different outcome might look like and where they wanted to be and then they helped them along, you know, supporting them along that way and obviously we had a lady there who'd been supported and it was transformational. I mean she was able to look after her family, she could engage in work again, she was thinking about working and you know the very fact that someone is able to again to be part of the wealth creation of Scotland to support themselves, get square money is quite a transformation and I don't think anybody who was in that room could think or that's not a good use of money or that's soft justice or that's you know not the right thing to be doing. Absolutely and I'd be happy to provide the committee with more information on that if you want and I just just very quickly you also made a point earlier which I thought was was really important about vulnerability combined so prevailing issues of vulnerability combined with a lack of knowledge in the court process I wasn't sure if you were referring because you said defence agents were very empathetic and informed I don't know if you were in saying that there was a lack of knowledge was that the judiciary had a lack of knowledge or the prosecutors had a lack of knowledge or the system didn't integrate enough to be fair agreed because promises don't come in open through with that. The pfs and the sheriffs didn't always know everything that was available the defence solicitors were very good they had researched it they knew exactly what was available and suggested it to the court. Just in terms of your question first of all convener about that issue about how we communicate particularly to victims I think the issue of consistency is really important and as Catherine said 21 days 22 days out of out of sync is maybe not that consistency. In terms of cornerstone I think that demonstrates just what we I think a few of us have tried to say here today that there's a real richness in the third sector in particular and we have some really leading examples that show we do know what works and I guess the outstanding question is are we going to shift our justice spend because again if 16% of that £3 billion spent on reoffending is focused on rehabilitation and the rest is much more reactive and punitive without the same sort of dividends then we're getting that balance wrong and there is a long term vision we need to be grasping and thinking about how we'll get there not not in one or two years but in five and ten years. I think that's an excellent point to end on and a point that we're always looking at the spend and the amount you know not a one year funding three year funding gives them the money to go on with doing the job that they do so well thank you so much that's been such a worthwhile session today we now move in to move to our next our next agenda item which is agenda item six are the members content to delegate responsibility to meet our range for the Scottish Parliament corporate body to pay on request witness expenses for the remand evidence session you are agreed thank you very much we now move into private session that concludes the public park of today's meeting our next meeting will be on Tuesday 20th of February when we'll be holding a round table session on brexit and policing and criminal justice and we now move into private session