 I welcome everyone to the Justice Committee's sixth meeting of 2016. I asked everyone to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices to interfere with broadcasting and we switched to silent. I apologise from Margaret McDougall. I am going to ask the committee if I can move to item nine, which is armed forces UK legislation bill and whether we can discuss this in private. You agree. We are now moving to private session. That is the committee back into public session. I now move to item two in the agenda, commissioner of women offenders. It is our main item of business today and it is our annual evidence session on the progress and implementing the commissioner of women offenders recommendations. I welcome the meeting, Michael Masen, cabinet secretary for justice, Colin McConnell, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service and Kerry Morgan, community justice division, Scottish Government and I'll go straight to questions from members. I'm interested to read the update on the progress that has been made over the last year on the issues relating to women offenders. At the heart of it was a service redesign, particularly around community justice centres. I'd be grateful for an update from the cabinet secretary on what progress there has been. Of course there was a divergence from the recommendation in the report, which was that we would roll out similar types across the country. I think that the Government has decided to have localised, locally responsive centres. Could you perhaps give the committee more information on that? You're correct to say that what we allowed was a level of flexibility so that local partners could design the service in what they thought would best reflect the local need. All in there were 12 different projects taking forward. Some of them went down the idea of a justice centre type route, so the tomorrow's women centre in Glasgow was that type of approach that they chose to take in areas such as Fort Valley. They chose to take a different approach where they redesigned the services that they were delivering, but again with the same intention of working with women to divert them from the prison system. What has happened over the past year is that there has been an evaluation of those projects, and the evaluation has come back and demonstrated that, in a range of them, they have been effective in helping to reduce the need for women to go into the custodial estate and also to help to support women when they are coming out of the custodial environment and to support women who may be on demand in the community. That evaluation was published in autumn of last year, which highlights the progress that has been made in those different project areas. Our intention is to continue to work with some of those partners over the months and years ahead on how they continue to develop the delivery of those services at a local level. It is fair to say that we did not go down the route of everyone having to have a justice centre. It was to allow local partners to design what they felt best reflected their particular circumstances. For rural areas, a justice centre might not be the most appropriate route. A more bespoke approach was allowed in these areas to take forward a model that they thought was appropriate. Are you comfortable that I accept the need for flexibility that there is a consistency of service available across Scotland? I think that it would probably be going too far to say that there is a consistency of service. I would like to see greater consistency of service, but I do not think that we are there yet. Part of that redesign is also about changing community justice provision in Scotland. The community justice bill is about seeking to achieve that. One of the ways in which we can help to achieve greater consistency is through the creation of community justice Scotland, which will have that national overview of what is happening at a localised level in community justice provision and also to drive improvements in those areas, while at the same time allowing a flexible approach in the local area that reflects local needs and local circumstances, but collectively helping to achieve a greater consistency. I would not go as far as saying that we have a consistency at this stage, but I think that we are making progress in order to try to get to that particular point while also reflecting local circumstances. Can I turn to alternatives to Ruman? Can I just like to say something? Can I just let you back in and up, because I have a bit of a cue. I have Gil, then I have Margaret at the moment, Gil. I thank you very much, convener. Cabinet Secretary, I want to talk about electronic tagging. I wonder if I can ask you how extensively electronic tagging has been used to date for real male offenders and whether that has proved to be an effective remedy in enabling women to maintain family relationships, particularly with their children? On female offending specifically, the use of electronic tagging for them, I can give you some statistics of that, but we have just to put it in context if that would be helpful. During 2015, we had 1,806 restrictions of liberty orders that involved electronic tagging. Of those, 86 per cent were for males and 14 per cent were for females. Of those coming out of prison, where they had home detention curfew imposed, there were 1,426 cases of home detention curfew licence, in which electronic tagging was used. In that instance, 89 per cent of those were for males and 11 per cent were for females. I suspect that the question that you have is that it looks quite a low number for women compared to men. It is a dangerous place to go. I have known you too long, Christine. However, in terms of proportion of the actual prison population, female prison population is around 4.5 per cent to 4.7 per cent of our overall prison population. However, about 15 per cent of the electronic tagging takes place with women. Proportionally, it is much higher than it is for the male prison population, just to put that into context. It would be fair to say that compliance with them has been broadly fairly good, with broad similarities between males and female slight differences, not significant differences. In terms of electronic monitoring, the compliance rate in 2015 was over 82 per cent for women and was around 85 per cent for males. Males are slightly more compliant by about two or three per cent, but not by a great margin, given that the proportion again of women who are receiving electronic tagging is greater. In terms of specifics around helping to keep women closer to their families, there is no doubt that the use of electronic monitoring can help to support and assist that type of area. I am not aware of any specific research that has been conducted into the use of electronic monitoring and helping to maintain family relationships, but I think that, instinctively, someone has been given a tag and has been given a home detention care view, and they still have their family there. That clearly is helping to maintain those family links. You will also be aware that we have some detailed work being undertaken at the present moment on the use of electronic monitoring, and the expert advisory group is due to report in the next couple of months with their findings from that. It would be fair to say that electronic monitoring is probably international evidence that would show that electronic monitoring is best and most effective when it is used alongside a range of other measures, not just electronic monitoring itself, but other measures that are about trying to help to address some of the underlying causes that may drive offending behaviour and address some family issues as well, and the expert advisory group is looking at that type of issue at the present moment. I am a general interest minister. The Government might look at the issues or the stats and we know that, particularly for women, family relationships break down, husbands and partners go away wall and children go into care and things like that. I wondered if you would be looking at the impact, if the thought process is that there is benefit for children and that they are looked after better by their mums and with support. Will you be doing some research into that and coming up with some figures in that regard? The present moment does not plan any research specifically on the use of electronic monitoring and family links aspect, but the work that the expert advisory group is looking at is not only our experience here in Scotland, but also an international experience. Last year, we hosted an event in Perth where we had one of the experts in the area of electronic monitoring over from the Netherlands. He is a judge in the Netherlands and they have designed a very sophisticated system in the Netherlands on how to make better use of electronic monitoring in helping to drive better outcomes in addressing offending behaviour. They have put a lot of detailed work into developing a model that he presented to us, which I attended, which was very interesting in itself. That was organised by the expert advisory group and that is the sort of things that they are looking at in advising and how we move forward with electronic monitoring in the future in Scotland. It would be fair to say that there is more that we can get out of electronic monitoring, but what we need to do is to make sure that it also has the right safeguards in place. One of the things that I am often asked about is why we are not using GPS much more. There are technical issues about GPS, so, for example, it has been highlighted that there are technical ways in which individuals can get around it. Rather than just saying, yes, let us just use more of it, that is the sort of thing that the expert advisory group is looking at before we decide on what further areas we can use it within. In the same vein, I noticed that you had recently consulted in regard to re-offending. For women in prison, there is a 60 per cent re-offending rate, so that is a high number. I wonder whether we are looking at the numbers in regard to when we are using electronic tagging, etc. If that is an impact, if that steadies the ship and women do not re-offend, is that another tool? The point that I was making earlier is that international evidence would suggest that electronic monitoring is one part of the jigsaw that can be used in helping to work with individuals in addressing their offending behaviour. So, experience would suggest that trying to use electronic monitoring just simply on its own is not an effective tool to simply address offending behaviour. It should be seen as part of a package of measures that are taking forward in addressing better or trying to obtain better outcomes. That is exactly the sort of experience that has had in places like the Netherlands, where they use it in a much more sophisticated way. I have no doubt that the evidence from the expert group that has published their report would be of real interest to the committee. The effect of that system is that the judge decides on what outcome he is trying to achieve and has developed a system that demonstrates how he can use electronic monitoring in order to achieve that outcome. It is a much more outcome-focused approach that he has to it. Evidence would suggest that internationally that is the most effective way in which to use it, and the expert advisory group are looking specifically at that type of issue, so that we can understand how we can make better use of it, but make use of it in a way that helps to achieve the better outcomes that we would all be looking for. I think that I was a bit careless in my question to you, and I am really glad that you are actually focusing on support in this regard, and not just the electronic target. Thanks for that. I think that the committee is well aware of many years of experience in this Parliament that many of those women are damaged. It is heartening to look at the outcomes, so the electronic target is not just seeing a way of not having people incarcerated, but it is a way of ensuring that we have support systems to get off their drug alcohol, mental health, health issues, and all kinds of complexities that make it. Can I just take it from that? How are our judiciary looking at this now? Are they moving—not really for you to speak to the judiciary, but to comment—on whether our judiciary is working in that cultural change of what might try to achieve here with this woman offender, given that we have the community justice bill coming through that is trying to be more integrated and so on for support? It would be fair to say that there have been changes in the way in which the judiciary looks at some of the issues around alternatives to custody. You are right in that electronic monitoring should be seen as being that it cannot help us in addressing those other issues and prevent the need for someone to go to custody when it would necessarily be the most effective route to deal with those issues. I think that there is a body of work for us still to do there in understanding that. You might be aware of some of the couple of pathway projects that were started in three sheriffdoms. This goes back—this is some baggage that I brought with me from my time in health. It is not a bad thing. A lot of this is health issues as well. It is around the idea of using improvement methodologies to help to affect change and improve the way in which the system responds to what it is trying to achieve. This is a methodology that underpinned the patient safety programme that we have extensively through our NHS in Scotland. We have established three pathway projects in three sheriffdoms, which are very specific in using this new or using improvement methodology to look at. If we want to reduce demand for the number of individuals who are going to remand, then, if we want to reduce that by 10 or 20 per cent, what do we need to do in order to achieve that particular objective? The improvement methodology and the improvement team are helping those particular teams that have now been established to strip back the system and think, well, what do we now need to put in place in order to achieve that particular objective and to then look at what changes need to be put in place to achieve those outcomes as well. In the sheriff principles, the three sheriff principles that I agreed to participate in this can see the potential value in this. We have now got a team of leads that includes the judicial institute as well, who have an oversight responsibility and taken forward these three particular pathfinders using this new approach, which, as I say, is completely new to the criminal justice system, but it is an approach that could lend itself to deriving some of the change that we need to see in the system, which is much more outcome-focused rather than process-driven. That is what the improvement methodology can assist and support us in trying to achieve. In fairness to sheriffs, many of them do not want to see people coming up before them time and time again because they can also see if we keep the same way that the system fails. The route that the cabinet secretary is taking with the outcomes and presumed training for sheriffs will be more better for the individuals and society at the end of the day. I think that that is a shared objective. I have Margaret Eileen and then John Lennon Allison back in again. Margaret Eileen, John Lennon and Alison Marger please. Good morning, cabinet secretary. Although it is early days, I wonder whether you are in a position to provide any information about the uptake of fiscal work orders since they were rolled out to the 32 local authorities in April last year. Also about the number that are being successfully completed. You are correct to say that it is early days around the fiscal work orders that they came into play as of 1 April last year, which were available and were one of the key recommendations that the commission had highlighted. They are available to both men and women in the cases where the fiscal stink is appropriate. When a new disposal is introduced, experience would often tell you that it takes time for it to bed in and to become established, so for the fiscal to get used to it and to understand it effectively in its implementation. So what we have saw is gradual increase over the last year, but less than a year now. We will still be in the criminal justice social work statistics for 2015-16. It will get the first full cohort of fiscal work orders taking place. The returns that we have for June to November of last year may provide you with some insight into the numbers. The number of fiscal work orders that were assessed during that reported period was 393. The rest of the statistics will start to come through as we move forward on that. Of course, that is a statistical ability that is publicly available and will be available to committee members. On a gender basis, there has been an issue in the past about community service over diseases, not being friendly for women and for various reasons. They default on them, and then the next stage is imprisonment by default. The guidance that was issued in advance of the fiscal work orders coming into play did set out some guidance around gender issues. For example, taking into account that certain types of activities might not be appropriate, and that it might be that certain groups should be female-only for women offenders only, and that the timings could also take account of if they have childcare issues as well. There are guidance there for specific gender-based issues to be taken into account when ffiscals are looking at making a work order. There is a level of flexibility in the system to take account of those matters. Do you have an indication of the types of offences that it would be deemed appropriate to consider a fiscal work order? We have not specified that to ffiscals. Those are largely for minor offences, but we have not specified to them what type of offences they should be, and it is for a matter for them to use their judgment based on the nature of the offence and where they then believe that it is in the public interest for it to be pursued through the courts or where they believe that a fiscal work order is appropriate. We have not defined it by a type of offence to give them the flexibility that they need to consider matters. Is the cabinet secretary to start telling the Crown Office anything like that? That is very true. If I get into a situation where I start to specify that I am here, then ffiscals would then feel potentially obliged as though that is what the Government intends to be. We have given them the guidance that is set out very clearly for them and how they should apply fiscal work orders, but we have not specified the types of offences that it should be used for. Any information coming forward on where they have been set out for what kind of offences that has been? I think that you said 393. I do not know whether the criminal justice social work statistics were broken down by offence, but we can check that for you. However, I cannot off-dock my head to remember whether it is broken down by offence. Okay, thank you. I could perhaps have that writing to the committee. Thank you very much. Mr McConnell, I attended a regional meeting sometime last year when we were developing the new model, and at that time you had a presentation when you gave some indication of when you would hope that the new model would be in place. I was wondering if you were able to give the committee any sort of update on when the new facility at Cortenvale will be fully functional and also when the five other regional centres might be in place. I mean, thanks very much for the question. It is no doubt that you would expect to be working hard on that. The current plan that we have approved with the cabinet secretary and the Government would see us running a programme right through until final completion in 2021, which would not only anticipate the new national unit coming to fruition but all the other elements that the cabinet secretary laid out to Parliament earlier. Of course, the cabinet secretary and the Government rely on me in the prison service, along with justice policy colleagues, to deliver on those things. I can certainly give the committee an assurance that we are on track to do that, as we currently speak. Obviously, some of the plans will be fewer places and therefore you are requiring a reduction in the female prison population. Have you done any modelling around that and when parts of the current Cortenvale prison might be able to be decommissioned? Of course. Rather than focusing on a number or a date, it is important to engage with the committee with what we are doing here. That is such a creative and innovative approach. If you look across internationally, nowhere else has achieved that. Scotland is in the lead. Scotland is at the front edge of developing integrated, consistent services for women who come into contact with the justice system. There is quite a bit of modelling going on, but, as ever, to fail to plan is to plan to fail. There is modelling going on, there are lots of considerations and discussions going on, but that is still a wee bit to go yet before we finally settle on a particular approach and configuration. As was previously set out, of course, in the public domain, it is only right that, as we develop this new approach, we keep some flexibility in the system just to make sure that we do not break it as we are trying to make it. As we move forward, just to reassure the committee, we are absolutely on track and consistent with what the cabinet secretary set out to Parliament last year, but in doing so, we will be really cautious and really careful that we move forward on a basis that we can cope with any challenge that we might get along the way. I think that you have been ambitious enough in regard to that planning. In terms of the planning, I can speak for the planning. It might be for others to speak to the ambition, but, again, what we need to keep reminding ourselves is just how innovative Scotland is being. We have looked across internationally for an off-the-shelf solution. There is no such thing. In fact, with the Scottish Government's support and leadership, as you know last year, we held an international symposium on women in custody and just what the future should hold. We have international recognition and support for the direction of travel that Scotland is moving in. In fact, I remember an expert from Canada saying at the end of the symposium that she wished that she was working in Scotland given her ambition. So, are we ambitious enough? Oh, for sure. It is what we are doing, creative and innovative for sure. However, as the head of the prison service, I have to make sure on our Government's behalf that, as we move that ambition forward, we can deliver on the ambition. That is why the care and attention to detail is being put in as we move the whole concept forward to achieve that ambition. It seems to me that we need to push this a bit further. We are currently around, I think, in the middle of July last year. We had the number of women in custody was 414. The capacity that you are building for in this new estate is 397. That is not really the kind of reduction that I had hoped that we would be building for. Can I clarify that? Yes. It is up to between you and the cabinet secretary. If you want to say that. Yes, Colin. Yes, Colin, please. Actually, it is far more ambitious than that, Ms McInnes. If you look at what is contained in the proposal, we are being hugely ambitious because what the model would have at the end of this journey is a national centre at the current vale of 80, five country regional units of 20, and the facility at Grampian. If we do the math, that is at the end of the journey, if we do the math, then that is 80 plus 100 plus 50. At some point in the future, if you look at what we have put out as a discourse, we are on a journey. Part of my job is to advise the Government on making sure that we can cope in capacity terms and stress terms as we move towards that eventual model. As things happen, we have capacity in the system that we can use. Ultimately, the challenge is to operate a system that has a national of 80, five regional units and Grampian. That is, to go back to your original challenge, hugely ambitious. We must make sure that everything else that we are doing balances with that. We will need some flexibility in the system. Perhaps if you do not mind, convener, if the cabinet secretary can give us some assurances about the decommissioning of Edinburgh and Greenock, some sort of timetabling for that or ambition to move towards that. That is part of the challenge. I go back to the ambition that was set here. I have been interested in some of the commentary out there on the approach that we should take here in Scotland and we should look at what is happening and other jurisdictions to help to inform our future model of the female custodial estate. From the international symposium and also from the literature review that we have conducted in this area, I have been struck by the sheer lack of alternative models out there to inform the approach that we take here in Scotland. Comacornals is correct. We are in a situation where we are leading from the front in a different approach that we are planning to take here. The intention is that the core aspect of our female custodial estate will be the national unit and the five community units, along with the facility that we presently have at Grampian. What I have said on a number of occasions is that the custodial environment does not sit in isolation. It sits alongside the other measures that we will have to take forward. That is about making sure that we have less women to find themselves in remand, that we have to look at the use of short sentences where women are more likely to experience a short sentence than a male, that it has to sit alongside the reform that we are taking forward within community criminal justice provision as well. All those measures collectively can help to reduce the demand that we actually have required from our custodial estate. As that demand starts to recede and decline, we are in a position where we can start to turn off some of the provision that we have in Edinburgh and elsewhere. However, I am not in a position where I cannot turn off the demand like a tap. I have saw that in the press on a number of occasions that people keep saying that they need to turn off the tap. If it were that easy, I suspect that many of my predecessors would have turned off the tap. What I am the time to try to do is to stop the door revolving around this particular debate and to start putting in place things that will start to turn the tap in the right direction. Taps, revolving doors, I think I'm following the narrative. I was reading a bit in the press this morning that we need to turn off the tap. If it were only that simple. The point that I am making is that, as we take forward those other measures that can help to reduce the demand in our custodial estate for women, we can start to close them down or no longer use them as part of the female custodial estate. The objective of that is to have that core female custodial estate as we are set out as an ambition. Now, there are significant risks attached to that because if you just drop it down to the core right from the very start, you could be in a situation where potentially you end up with overcrowding in some facilities because you haven't got the balance right. The custodial aspect is only one element of the jigsaw. All of the other elements can help us to achieve what is the ultimate objective and that is to reduce our female prison population and to then have a custodial environment that is reflective of that. That would be the core that we've already set out as being our plan. I don't underestimate the challenges that there are in getting to that particular point, but I believe that it's very ambitious. Given our look internationally at the evidence out there, I'm very confident that it is very ambitious compared to what's happened in other jurisdictions. Elaine, you were going to ask something about John and then Roderick. Thanks, convener. It probably relates a bit to this tap, actually. I'm just counting your metaphors, minister. We're going in my columns even as we write. That's really about mental health support, both for people who have offended or are neither in prison or on release or, indeed, the support, which is a pilot project in Glasgow or was a pilot project for six months in the Greater Glasgow area regarding out-of-hours access to community psychiatric nurses for police officers, which seems to have been quite successful in terms of 96 per cent of the people referred not actually requiring any further intervention. So, maybe if you can expand on those particular projects, but also what are the implications if that's rolled out? What are the implications for the health service? Clearly, 234 individuals who were referred in the Greater Glasgow project across the country could be a significant number of people and require additional mental health professionals within the health service to be able to give the police and, indeed, to offenders the requisite amount of support. I think that it's a very important issue, which I think underscores the need for better partnership working. You're aware that we had the ministerial group looking at the reintegration of prisoners back into the community and a key part of that was about looking at how we can make sure that the different component parts of Government and public services are operating in a much more co-ordinated way from health through to housing and the prison service. There's a whole range of recommendations that came from that, which are now being taken forward by the different departments. Collins got a lead in some of those areas. There are 18 different recommendations in that particular report that we published last year, all of which have been taken forward in order to address some aspects of the joined-up working, but there's the other side of it, and that is about those individuals who end up within our criminal justice system when, in fact, they are more in need of health support and health service supports. The pilot that was run in Glasgow, which you mentioned, was proved to be very successful. It was very successful on the basis that it allowed the police where they identified an individual who was in distress or in difficulty, and they suspected that there was an underlying mental health issue. They were able to contact out-of-hours service in order to check whether they had any record of this individual or new of them and to get advice. In effect, they were doing a triage of that particular person's circumstances at that time based on the information that was being provided by the police. It wasn't a new resource, it was just a different way of working. The out-of-hours mental health team has always been there. What it was was about making a link between the police and that particular service and the out-of-hours service and the police. What we've now been doing is taking forward the learning from that. There was an event last year that was hosted at Tilly Allyn looking at the experience in Glasgow. What is now happening is that a number of health board areas are now working with local police commands and looking at how they can then deliver that type of approach here or that approach within their own particular health board area. If you can, which health board areas? I think that the question was rolling it out, so be helpful to know where this is being expanded. It seems a really sensible idea. The one in Glasgow has been that there is work being taken forward in loading at the present moment as well. I can get more details on the other board areas where there is work being taken forward in this, but this is exactly the type of thing that we can find individuals who end up in our criminal justice system when, in the end, the criminal justice system was at the place that it should have been in the first place. The statistics show first hand the real difference that it can make. I had a meeting with the British Transport Police a number of months ago, and some of the officers at Central Station Glasgow told me that they now have a specific phone that is purely for this purpose, so that they can call a mobile phone in their car, so that they can call out of their mental health service. The officer gave me a very good example of where they found someone near the railway lines, appeared to be in distress, didn't have any background in the individual, but they got their details. They were able to contact the out-of-hours mental health service, they had knowledge of them, the arrangement was, the police then took them to their home and the out-of-hours mental health team knew that they had family support there, who would be able to assist them. That resolved the issue. In the past, they would have been in a situation where that person would have taken the accident emergency or potentially taken into custody, which avoided all that. The work that Police Scotland is now taking forward on a national level is to try and help to make sure that other health board areas are making sure that their out-of-hours mental health teams are responding to the police when these issues are arising. It was a larger change in work practice, rather than being any big new project that required additional funding. That seems extremely sensible, so it would be very helpful if we had details about how far that has been progressed with other health boards. If any are being tarred, they are not meaning to be tarred, but it is just a change in work practices. It seems extremely sensible, as so many of us know that people end up in custody or in police stations who have mental health problems, whether they are permanent or a temporary state. We would be very useful if the committee knows about other health boards. I think that we would want that. The CPN service operates out-of-hours anyway, because a lot of people have mental health problems. Is it integrating with the police? I wondered whether, in the longer term, there would be a requirement for some transfer of resource from criminal justice to the mental health services in order to add additional support? If you look at the vast majority of the experience in Glasgow, a lot of it did not require any specialist response. It did not have to be admitted to hospital or taken into custody. I am not entirely sure that there is a need for resource transfer. Arguably—you would expect this from the justice secretary—a lot of that has caused a lot of cost in our criminal justice system over the years. When I was the public health minister, one of the areas that I sought to give focus to was the need for our health service to be much more effective in dealing with individuals who present in distress. People present with an obvious mental health issue, but individuals who present in distress, their system is not good at responding to them. If you look at the track record of many individuals who sadly go on to commit suicide, their contact with our health service and aspects of our criminal justice system can be quite extensive over an extended period of time. The question is, why are we not picking up those warning signs? Why are we not intervening at an earlier stage? When individuals buy in large—I do not say that because people are simply not interested—when someone in distress presents at an A&E department, they will say that they do not have a mental health issue as far as we are concerned. They may make a referral on to social work, but the link between that will not really be followed up. I do not think that it is about transferring resource from one area to another. I think that it is more about trying to make sure that the gaps between some of those services are closed down and that they link up much more effectively. If we have an out-of-hours mental health team who are available to be able to advise the police when they have someone before them, that person is known to them—actually, they are not at risk—or take them home because we know that they have support there or they are someone who needs to be admitted to hospital. When you have someone on the line who can give you that type of clinical advice, that makes a big difference to the police. It reduces the need for someone to be brought into custody. All of the resource that is then tied up with someone coming into custody is not about transferring resource, but about making better use of the resource that we have at the present time to be much more effective in addressing the needs of those individuals. Part of what a very detailed response—thank you, cabinet secretary—is particularly the section on healthcare, which has been touched on. I do not know whether that question is more directed to Mr McConnell. With regard to the national prisoner healthcare network and, in particular, the female offender health workstreams, is there more that you can say about the offender throughcare workstream? Is there any particular aspect that you are interested in? I am presuming that links are better with the change that took place with NHS in the Scottish Prison Service. Are there still challenges connected with people securing a GP, for instance, when they are released from prison? Is that part of how they are doing it? I think that, indeed, that is still a challenge. We should not try and hide away from that. There are a number of disconnections that occur, as you know, when people move into custody, hence our issue about people moving into custody needlessly or for short periods of time. However, there are still particular challenges to be overcome. As the cabinet secretary has been talking about, the two big national organisations working together, there are undoubtedly significant improvements. We are seeing, again, where praise is due for healthcare colleagues, significant improvements generally across the service. I think that there are some hotspots still, and the chief inspector has commented on them as he has been conducting inspection reviews of prisons. However, no doubt, things are generally improving, but there are particular issues that are linking up with GPs or particular services that have been connected, while in the custodial space, moving back into the community, making sure that that consistency of availability is still a challenge for us. I spent some time with throughcare officers in Berlin a couple of months ago with Ian Whitehead, the governor there. I was struck by the real potential that can come from the greater use of throughcare officers in our prison system. Those two individuals had extended careers within the prison service—a 20-plus-year service—and they were absolutely glowing about how they enjoyed working as a throughcare officer, the link between prison and into the community and supporting individuals in moving back into the community. However, one of the things that they found most dispiriting was the number of barriers that individuals can face when they move back into community. One of the very simple ones that they face is being able to apply for benefit, because many of the benefits have gone to being online, and some of them will not provide you with a benefit if you have no fixed abode. Some of them cannot get a fixed abode until they are liberated from prison, so they cannot get accommodation because they do not have the benefit to pay for the accommodation and they find themselves in difficulty. I was struck by what the throughcare officers can do is help them to register with a GP and help them to get them to that first appointment, encouraging them to do so. However, what I was particularly encouraged by was the real enthusiasm that there were among some of the prison officers who were involved in that area of work. The potential in that area of prison staff being engaged much more beyond the walls of the prison and helping to address those issues gives us a really good opportunity to go forward in the future. However, there also needs to be some changes in the system beyond that of healthcare in order to remove some of the barriers that, at times, can encourage people to fail rather than helping to support to reintegrate them back into the community. We have had that before at the committee about the permeable walls, as they were the porous walls of the prison, which seems, again, like a very practical and sensible idea. It is my metaphor that I get to use. However, the point that I am going to make is that do prison officers now in training to become prison officers, is this part of the training that is done? You talked about those very established ones. We do form a relationship with the prisoners and support them and so on, but they are not turn keys and so on. That is an old, long-gone expression. Can you tell me, Mr McConnell, if there is any in the training now about it, as we are moving in this direction? Again, thank you very much. You gave me the opportunity to assure the committee, and you are particularly convener that that is a significant element of basic prison officer training. If I may blow your own trumpet here on what Scotland is doing on that very issue, learning from all the work that Professor McNeill is leading on in terms of resistance theory and resistance thinking. Again, with the Government's support, the Scottish Prison Service is actively developing the future training and qualification of prison officers in Scotland and, again, very much internationally leading the way on that. We have engaged with Scottish universities and other international sector experts in terms of the future training and qualification of people working in prisons in the future. Again, linked to what the cabinet secretary was saying, the future vision will be that this will not be a workforce that is simply constrained to working with people in custody, but will become truly justice professionals that work across and through the justice system. All the issues that you have just raised are very much at the core of that. I was delighted to see one of the work streams related to brain injury. The committee received a fascinating presentation about the high incidence of brain injury among prisoners, which was considerably more. Clearly, there is a limit to how you can prevent it. We have moved off women offenders. You may feel that, convener. However, I am reading from the report that we got from the… Go for it then. I am sick corrected. Just making sure that we keep to the brief. Absolutely. Paragraph 52. The higher incidence among prisoners, clearly we cannot prevent the incidence that someone sustains an injury. It may be about detection. Can you explain more about what that work stream involves? It is really about understanding much more of the circumstances about why people get into trouble in the first place and come into contact with justice services and justice system. If I may say so, it is a counterpoint. This may seem a bit obvious to say, but it is a counterpoint to the often piddled view that folk that get into trouble are simply bad. There is a whole range of drivers and reasons why people are sometimes unconscious to themselves, indulging behaviours that ultimately get them into contact with the justice system. This stream of work is about helping us to understand with other professional organisations and professional people how we can work more intelligently together to keep people out of the justice system in the first place if and when that is appropriate. However, when they do come into our contact to understand more appropriately what our responses should be in terms of engaging with them, both from a medical and from a relationship point of view, in order to make their recovery and we would hope reduced or no re-offending in the future. That is really the core of the work stream. I think that it was a suggestion that a lot of those injuries had not necessarily been recorded at the time and it was researched subsequently and it discovered that people had sustained significant head injuries that should have resulted in brain damage. What has been done about or what can be done about the earlier, if you like, recording of those? I think that some of that moves out of necessarily the justice system. However, the fact that we have a core work stream that you have just touched on in Mr Finnie is about raising awareness of the issue. I go back to the point that I made at the outset. Some of that is about debunking myths and stereotypes. What is very clear is that there is no homogenous thing as an offender. There are many reasons and causes as to why people have the behaviours that they have and some of those behaviours lead them in the justice system. I think that raising awareness and getting a better understanding of what the issues are and why they have come around and then how to positively respond to them, that is the key to turning those things around. I apologise, yes, paragraph 52, absolutely right. Roderick and then Christian, please. Can I just pick up some of the themes that were being discussed a few minutes ago in care, but I wanted to refer to the evaluation report of the 16 projects that were published last year. In the conclusions, 11.4 says that the evaluation identified potential gaps in service provision that may be considered in future initiatives. Opportunities include developing more purposeful or rewarding activities for women at an earlier stage and forging women's links in the community, helping women to cope with the loss of children into care and supporting them in regaining or maintaining custody where appropriate, and support for women leaving short-term prison sentences through care, which we were talking about earlier. Obviously, in the annex to your report, you talked about the importance of mentoring, but given that comment, is there anything further that you can add to the themes that were in that conclusion, in particular in relation to them? What has happened since the evaluation report was published is that we have been working with those different organisations and service providers to look at how we can build on what the evaluation is highlighted for them, where there can be further improvements and how they can look at adapting their practices. That is a piece of on-going work. Last year, we provided some on-going financial support to some of those organisations to allow them to continue to develop their services and to take their services forward over the past year. If you look back at the commission's report, the objective was not to try to create a centralised process of how you must do it at a local level and how it has to be delivered. What it was was about trying to help to support those services at a local level to redesign and to reconfigure themselves in a way that achieves better outcomes. The evaluation report was to help to support in achieving that. A work that has been on-going since then is focusing around whether issues have been highlighted by further improvements or changes in adaptions to the services that can be made in order to achieve better outcomes. The evaluation report was in the end of the process. It was an opportunity to take a look at those services at that particular point and to look at where further improvements could be made. For women with children in particular, the loss of children into care and help to regain custody, are there any specific thoughts or initiatives that might tackle that particular issue? That is a very big area that does not confine itself to those projects in any shape or fashion. Part of that goes to the very heart of looking at what is the most effective way. What does evidence-based tell us is the most effective way in reducing the risk of someone committing offences again in the future? We know that. One of the things that can result in people committing offences again is that, if they are separated from their family, if they lose their housing, if they lose their job, all of those factors can create the potential for individuals to commit for their offences again in the future. Part of the approach through some of those services is the redesign that we are looking to make in the Custodile estate. The additional investment that we are putting into alternatives to custody is all about trying to make sure that we take a much more evidence-based approach to how we deal with individuals who have committed offences. That involves looking at our community disposal as much more effective in helping to address their offending behaviour, while at the same time maintaining their housing situation, their family contacts and also maintaining employment if they are in employment. All of those various parts of the jigsaw all have to come together in order to deal with the very types of issues that you have highlighted about separation from family and, in particular, the impact that that can have on children. Evidence also shows us that children who experience the trauma of a parent being in custody are at greater risk of potentially ending up in custody at some point in their own later life. How can we help to address some of that? Part of that is, for example, the mentoring service that we have that we are delivering through SHINE and the work that they are taking forward across the whole of the country to help to provide role models for individuals who are either coming out of custody or on remand in a community disposal. All of those different elements have a part to play. The community custodial units, a key part of them, and having them on a regional basis, is to help to support maintaining those family links where someone may be within the custodial environment. That is something that we know has been lacking with the largely centralised approach that we have taken with a single female prison in Scotland. I could move on, if I may. You talked earlier about the Pathfinder projects. Obviously, we have also had a consultation and presumption against short sentences, which closed in December. Have you any initial thoughts on that consultation and, indeed, the implications, particularly for women? The consultation closed in the middle of December last year. We are in the process of collating all the submissions that we received to that consultation. They were in total 63 submissions to the consultation. We are still drawing together that data and that information. Once I have had an opportunity to consider what the findings are from, the consultation will then be in a position where we can take a view on what we think should be any change to the presumption against. The other part that is important to keep in mind is that the presumption against short sentences might not have a big impact on the overall number of individuals that we have in our prison system, because it affects both females and males. What it will certainly do if it is increased is that it will help to address the chirm of those who get short sentences. The vast majority of individuals within our custody state get a sentence of two years or more. If the presumption was to be increased, it will help to reduce the chirm of those who get those shots at six-month-type sentences. The level of resource that it takes up within our prison system will free up that resource to be used much more effectively. It might not have a big impact on the global number within our prison system, but it certainly will have a significant impact on the chirm that we have of short-term prison sentences. The range of that impact will be dependent on the threshold at which we set the presumption. Do you have a differential impact on women as opposed to men? Potentially, yes, because women are more likely to get short prison sentences. Potentially, yes, but it will be largely around the chirm of short-term prisoners rather than the overall global number. Are you able to indicate when the analysis of the consultation response will be published? It is at a fairly advanced stage. I would hope that in the coming weeks I will see the outcome of the actual analysis and then we will have to consider what approach we want to take as a Government in any changes that we want to take forward in the presumption against. It covered two areas. One was two aspects to it. One was should we increase the presumption from three months? If so, what should we increase it to? The other aspect is that we should take a radically different approach to dealing with short-term sentence. We have to look at both aspects of what the feedback has been in the consultation. I have noticed that the Herald has got a front-page splash on some of the views that have been expressed in the consultation. I was going to ask about that. You said that the resources that are wasted—I am making the presumption, I think, hopefully correctly—would go into the non-custodial element of people who are either electronically monitored or being supported outwith. We move away from that. If and when that takes place—the presumption against the short sentences—how the resources would be able to move in time, the timeline for the resources to move from the custodial part of the justice system to the monitoring within the community, community service and so on, that is a tricky one to do. We are back to the tap here. I will bring in Colin McConnel to give you a bit more of an insight into just the practical demand that the churn of short-term prisoners can have on the prison system. Please stop this in a cabinet. We know the practical demand and the administration and how they are revolving door. I am interested in the transfer of those resources in terms of—I think that Bucks are being passed here. No, no, because I want to—a couple of things. I just wanted to—from the SPS's point of view—to give them the opportunity to explain how, but if you have that knowledge, that is fine. We know that. That is fine. If you look at what we have done in the last two years, we have transferred a more or some amount of resource from the prison service into the community. Over the past two years, it has been £3 million. We have identified in the forthcoming financial year what will be a resource transfer going from the prison service into community justice provision and into alternatives to custody of what will accumulatively come to about £5.5 million. We are gradually making that shift, but as I say, what we have also got to recognise is that there is still a considerable level of demand in the prison system. We are starting to try to make that shift. If we increase the presumption against it, that will see a marked level of resource within the prison service that can then be better utilised for supporting areas such as community disposals, we can look at trying to do that. The challenge is that, if we reduce the prison population to community disposals, that money is not released until that reduction is taken place, but those individuals have to be somewhere else receiving those alternatives to custody. That is why we are attempting to start a shift so that £5.5 million that we are putting into alternatives into community justice provision this year, which is alongside more than £100 million that we put in. It is a protected budget that we have in community criminal justice social work budgets. We are trying to start moving that shift where we can while trying to balance up the demand that there is still within the prison service and to achieve that while we are in the present financial climate where budgets are reducing overall. It is not only difficult to do it at any time, it is made even more difficult to do in the present financial climate, but we are starting that process. In the forthcoming financial year, we are moving a bigger chunk of money from the prison service into the community setting than has ever happened before while trying to maintain the needs of what the prison service needs in meeting the... I was asked that in the context of women prisoners, many of whom I think they could agree are not, shouldn't be in custody in the first place. They need a huge amount of support across housing, across medical services and all kinds of things for a considerable period of time if they are not in custody. It was just to ensure that, laudable though it may be at the end of the day to stop prison sentences, not just women but safer women, then you have to have resources in place or they are very vulnerable. The other point is worth keeping in mind here and the commission's report recognised this. Deal with some of these issues is not all about new money, sometimes it is about changing work practices and the approaches. That is what the Eilish Angelini's report recognised, that it is not all about new money, it is about using existing resources much more effectively in order to address offending behaviour and in providing alternatives. There is still work to be done in helping to make sure that we get that, and part of trying to help to support achieving that is through the community justice bill reconfiguring the way in which community criminal justice provision is delivered at a local level, with a level of national oversight, to try and get some consistency and how it is being applied across the country. Some funding will be required, yes, it can improve integration of services but I think that some funding will be required, will it not? That is exactly what will start a decision as I have outlined to you. I just thought that I would rattle that one through. Christian, are you called Christian? I think that this is revenge because we complained about a window being opened last week. I don't know if other committee members are gold. Perhaps it's just a few of us. I agree with you, temperature is low. I was only making a statement. Kevin Smith, good morning. You wrote to us and you said that when the commission on women offenders was established in 2012, the female prison population has stood a reason for more than 10 years, and you added that the recent statistics serve as the female prison population has reduced. However, I remember you coming in front of this committee and saying that you had another great success. Young people were less and less coming into our prison system. To what extent that success of young people are going into the prison success is affecting those figures? I suspect that it is probably still too early to say, because the reduction we have had in our youth offending population is such that it may take a couple of years for us to see how that feeds into the adult population. Over the past couple of years, we have saw the number of young offenders overall reduce. I would also anticipate that feeding into the adult prison population, but it may be a few years. I would be very hesitant to start banding too many figures around on that. That will result in extra-reduction in our adult prison population, male or female, until we move on in a few years' time, because it has only been in the last couple of years that we have seen that reduction in our young offenders. However, over the past three years, when it comes to young offenders, in total, in 2013-14, there were 566, and the figure to date for 2015-16 is 445 over the course of the year so far. That is a clear reduction that has taken place there, but I would be very hesitant at this stage, just to set out how that might feed into the adult population that I would expect it to, but what that will look like is too early to say. What is interesting to find out, because the commission on women offenders back in 2012 was saying that there were a population of women who were decreasing. It was one under the age of 21. There were already decreasing at that time, but what we found is that the women offenders over the age of 30 were increasing. Is that population decreasing now? Globally, since 2011, the female prison population that we have in Scotland is declined by just over 6.5 per cent. It is now down to an average of around 4.30 per cent, but, in those different age bands, I do not know whether Colin has more detail on that, but if not, we can certainly check to see if we can get some more detail on the different age groupings. I am calling from memory here, but I think that some of the detail that was produced by Justice Analytics, I think that generally the given trend is that peak offending, I think that regardless of the gender, is moving to the right, so peak offending is getting older. What we see in custody, not just because of that, but because of longer sentences for some particular offending types, then the custodial population itself is tending to get older. Whether you can extrapolate much, as the cabinet secretary has said from some of the early data that we have on trends for youngsters, I think that it is too early at this stage to try and make those connections. It would be good to understand, just to make sure that that population of women over the age of 30 are very much affected by the great work that you have done. We are not talking only about younger offenders, but we are talking about the women of all ages. That would be important, I think. I can certainly give you that assurance. I want to say something to the cabinet secretary. We can stop right there. Thank you very much. That is quite a long session, but it is a worthwhile one, because it is a very important issue. Progress has been made, but I know that we want to see more progress made. I thank Mr McConnel and Ms Morgan for attending. Cabinet secretary is staying for items 3 and 4, so I will just suspend for a couple of minutes to allow officials to change over, please. Item 3 is consideration of the first of three affirmative instruments, the draft rehabilitation of offenders act 1974 exclusions and exceptions Scotland amendment number 2, order 2016. I thank the cabinet secretary for staying with this item, and I welcome the meeting of other Scottish Government officials. Keith Mayne, safer communities division and Carla McCoy-Steven's director for legal services. Can I remind everyone present, as you already know, that officials can take part in this item, but under the direction of the cabinet secretary, I would suggest, because this is an evidence session. The rehabilitation of offenders act 1974 allows individuals whose convictions are spent to legally say that they have not been convicted of a crime. The aim is to help rehabilitate offenders by not making their past mistakes affect the rest of their lives if they have been on the right side of the law for some time. That means that a person who has a spent conviction does not generally have to disclose it and is protected from being prejudiced by that conviction or failure to disclose it. However, there are exclusions and exceptions to this protection. Either set out in the rehabilitation of offenders act 1974 exclusions and exceptions Scotland order 2013. In particular, the 2013 order removes the protection in cases where a person is applying for a firearm or shotgun certificate. That permits the chief constable to elicit and consider information about spent convictions when assessing a person's suitability to hold such a certificate. The draft order before the committee today aims to add airgun licensing to the exclusion and exception in the 2013 order, bringing airgun applications into line with those of other types of guns. I believe that this is necessary to protect public safety and prevent air weapons falling into the wrong hands. In passing the bill for the Air Weapons and Licensing Scotland Act 2015, the Parliament agreed with the Scottish Government that air guns are potentially lethal weapons that should be subject to greater control. That order helps us to achieve that greater control by requiring a person to disclose all spent and unspent convictions and allowing the chief constable to take that information into account when deciding whether or not to grant an air weapons certificate or permit. It is worth emphasising that the existence of a pass conviction does not necessarily mean that an application will be refused. The chief constable will take all of the circumstances into account before deciding on each case. In addition, the chief constable's alliance on spent convictions information in any particular case must be justifiable and compatible with convention rights. Any refusal to grant an application is appealable to the sheriff. Just to clarify, it is not that there have been previous incidents with air rifles or air guns. It can be any other kind of thing. I see animal cruelty or something would be an issue, so it is just to clarify that that is the case. It could be disturbances of all kinds, perhaps aggressive behaviour or assaults and so on. It is not just connected to possession of weapons. No, it is not. It is any spent convictions. Yes, that is useful. I then move on to no other questions from committee members. I want to item 4, the formal debate to approve the incident. I invite the cabinet secretary to move motion S4M-15427. The justice committee recommends that the draft remittal decision of offenders act 1974, exclusions and exceptions, Scotland amendment number 2, order 2016, be approved. I take it that there is nothing to respond to. I put the question to the committee that the question is that motion S4M-15427 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much. That is that, so what we do is thank you cabinet secretary and your officials for attending us to spend briefly to allow the next set of witnesses to come in to item 5. I move on to item 5. It is the second affirmative instrument today. The draft courts reform Scotland act 2014, consequential provisions order 2016. Welcome to meeting Paul Wheelhouse, minister for community safety and legal affairs, and the Government officials Walter Drummond Murray, civil law and legal system division, and Greg Walker direct for legal services of the Scottish Government. This is an evidence session. I do not need to say the usual stuff, because you know all about it, so I invite the minister if he wishes to make a brief opening statement. I am happy to waive that, convener. Are there any questions on the instrument whatsoever? Roderick. Convener, just for good order, are you able to advise how many step entry magistrates effectively are going to be abolished? How many are there? I will check with my colleagues, but I believe there are two, but if we can just confirm that. There are two full timers and seven part timers who will be transferring to the summary sheriffs on 1 April. They are not going, they are becoming something else. We will be happy to know that. That is the evidence session over. I now move to item 6 in the agenda, which is the formal debate on the motion to approve the instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S4M-15423 that the Justice Committee recommends that the draft Courts of Horns Scotland Act 2014 consequential provisions, order 2016, be approved. I take another member wishes to speak in this debate, and you do not wish to respond, minister. Can I put the question to the committee? The question is that motion S4M-15423 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you very much. I suspend briefly to allow the officials to change over. And now we want item 7. It is consideration of a third affirmative instrument, the draft advice and assistance in civil legal aid, financial conditions and contribution Scotland amendment regulations 2016. We have before us the minister still and we have Denise once in civil law and legal systems division and Alistair Smith directorate of legal services Scottish government. This is again an evidence session. Do you want to make an opening statement, minister? I am happy to waive that, convener. Questions from members. Margaret and Roderick. I wonder if minister you could comment on the concerned trade by the loss society, while supportive of the instrument itself on the fundamental difficulties regarding payment mechanism for police station work? Certainly, I recognise this as an issue that has been a subject of debate for some time. People being questioned at police station will obviously no longer have to consider costs when accessing legal advice and the loss society that I understand is supportive of the removal of police station contributions. We think that it is a positive step in reducing bureaucracy also for solicitors and they will no longer have to assess and collect contributions for this work. We believe that there is potential for significant efficiencies and simplification of the current system of legal aid to deliver savings, while maintaining, as I have said to the committee previously, a high priority is to maintain the wide access to legal aid for both criminal and civil cases. We are committed to working with the legal profession, the loss society and other stakeholders to deliver those efficiencies. Obviously, it is an issue that is being flagged up with the justice board as well as an area to try and work together with the practitioners and also policy colleagues to try and issue what we have as efficient a system as possible. I know that there have been some concerns raised about individual fee rates and so forth. The loss society's contributions are also focused on the contribution element and on contracting. Those are all the issues that we are discussing with the loss society as to how we take forward wider reform of the legal aid system. Hopefully, the single measure that we are dealing with today will simplify the process for solicitors and solicitor advocates in terms of providing advice to their clients and making life easier for their clients as well. I hope for a good order to refer to my register of interests as a member of the Faculty of Advocates. The Law Society in the paper talks about moving to a system of block fees. Can you comment minister on the implications of that? The comments that have been made by the Law Society and their response will be taken into consideration as part of the implementation of the criminal justice bill and a wider view of criminal legal assistance, which is something that we have committed to doing. As part of a review of the legal aid system to achieve a simpler and more efficient system, we have asked the Scottish legal aid board to look at the management and administration of court duty schemes, including fee structures, and the required standards of service. As in any area of legal aid work, we will work with the Law Society of Scotland and justice partners to ensure that the system fairly rewards the work that is required in the round. I stress that. There is a lot of focus on individual elements of the legal aid fees, but we are looking at the overall cost and payment for taking forward a case on behalf of a client. While we want to incentivise practices that promote the best interests of clients and the effective operation of the wider justice system as well, we have already made it clear to the Law Society that we plan to work with it and the Scottish legal aid board to review legal aid provisions as a whole in order to achieve a simpler and hopefully more efficient system. That is the theory, at least. It is difficult to deliver in practice, but we want to manage expenditure effectively while maintaining access to justice and ensuring that Scotland has a sustainable legal aid system. The issue of block fees will certainly be something that will feature in that discussion, because clearly there are advantages from a simplicity point of view from the point of view of the legal adviser. Cutting down the bureaucracy, the need to specify individual time commitments that have been used on behalf of their client is something that we need to have as much evidence as possible to inform that discussion about what appropriate block fee would be in that situation. I wonder if I may bring in Denise at this point to discuss the level of discussion that has happened with the Law Society on the issue of block fees. Thank you. The Law Society in Practitioners is a broadly supportive of block fees, and in the Los Satis paper there has been some mention of that. The work that is under way at the moment is to try and look at—we are focusing on criminal initially—the various elements of work that a solicitor might do to support a client in any aspect of criminal procedure. That is right from the police station right through to the sheriff appeal court. It is important to say that, at the moment, in our block fee arrangements, there is provision for exceptional case status. If exceptional cases fall out with the normal routine work that a solicitor might do, there is a route to apply for additional renumeration to address the additional work. We are trying to get a balance between the block fees and, as Mr Wheelhouse has said, the simplicity and reducing bureaucracy, but ensuring that there is capacity within the system to deal with exceptional and out-of-norm circumstances. That is fine. I have no other questions. I am going to move on to item 8, the formal debate on the motion to approve the instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S4M-15426, at the Justice Committee recommends that the draft advice and assistance in civil legal aid, financial conditions and contributions to Scotland amendment regulations 2016 be approved. I take it that nobody wishes to speak in the debate and nobody wishes to sum up. I put the question that motion S4M-15426, we agree to R, we all agreed. As members are aware, we are required to report on all affirmative instruments, such as the members content to delegate authority to sign off the report on the three instruments that we consider today. That concludes the meeting. Our next was we already did with item 9. The next meeting will be 23 February, and I close the meeting.