 I welcome everyone to the Justice Committee's 27 meeting in 2014. I ask everyone to switch off mobile phones, as I have just done, and other electronic devices. No apologies have been received. Item 1, I invite the committee to agree to consider our approach to a legislative consent memorandum on the Serious Crime UK legislation under item 10 in private. Are you agreed? Item 2 is consideration of one affirmative instrument, the draft road traffic act 1980, prescribed them at Scotland regulations 2014. This instrument brings forward a reduction in drink driving limit. We had evidence from Police Scotland, Scottish Health Action and Alcohol Problems Scotland's campaign against irresponsible drivers on this last week. I welcome the meeting, Kenny MacAskill, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Patrick Down, policy officer, criminal law and licensing division at the Scottish Government. Cabinet Secretary, I believe that you want to give a short opening statement and then we'll move on to the evidence. A few committee members will be aware that the Scottish Government has long argued that the Scottish Parliament should have powers to legislate in matters relating to drink driving in Scotland. In the Scotland Act 2012, devolved the power to set the drink drive limit. While we consider that this very limited transfer of power was a missed opportunity, this Parliament should have the power to set the penalties for drink driving and to consider differential drink driving limits. For example, for young and novice drivers, we welcome the fact that we now have this power to make Scotland's roads safer through a lower limit. In March 2013, following our late 2012 consultation, where the majority of respondents offered support for a lower limit, we confirmed our plans to lower the drink drive limit in Scotland from 80mg to 50mg of alcohol per 100mg of blood. Some considerable time has elapsed since we announced our policies. We have had to engage with the UK Government to provide what is called type approval of the evidential breath-testing devices used by Police Scotland so that those devices are suitably recognised as able to operate at the proposed lower limit. Members will be aware that the current drink drive limit has been enforced since the mid-1960s. While social attitudes towards drink drivers have hardened over the years, the sad truth is that there remain a persistent minority who put their own lives in the lives of other road users at risk by getting behind the wheel after drinking alcohol. Figures show that around one in 10 deaths in Scotland's roads each year involve drivers over the legal limit—that is, 20 deaths each year, 20 families devastated by the loss of a loved one. I know that some have said that efforts should concentrate on enforcing the existing limit more strictly and that there is no need to reduce the drink drive limit. That ignores the scientific evidence that the risks of driving under the ins of alcohol start to increase well below the current legal limit. BMA evidence shows that the relative risk of being involved in road traffic crash for drivers with a reading of 80 milligrams per 100 was 10 times higher than for drivers with a zero blood alcohol reading. The relative crash risk for drivers with a reading of 50 per 100 milliliters was more than twice the level than for drivers with a zero blood alcohol reading. The independent review of drink and drug driving law that was conducted by Sir Peter North in 2010 concluded that reducing the drink drive limit from 80 to 50 will save lives. Applying his estimate to the Scottish population suggests that between 3 and 17 lives could be saved each year, and we consider that the current drink drive limit has had its day. Reducing the limit to a lower level of 50 to bring Scotland in line with most other European countries is the right approach and will make Scotland's roads safer. To ensure that drivers are aware that the lower limit is coming into effect, the Scottish Government will run a public information campaign from 17 November. That campaign is aimed at informing all adults of driving age in Scotland and will comprise of advertising on television, video on demand and radio, partnership and stakeholder engagement, field marketing, website updates, social media and PR. TV adverts will also be aired on ITV borders, which broadcast to both the south of Scotland and the north of England. This will help to raise awareness for drivers living close to the border who may travel into Scotland each day of work. In finishing, I should add that whatever the limit, it should not be forgotten that alcohol at any level impairs driving and our central message remains, don't drink and drive. I'm happy to take any questions. The evidence sessions are questions to the cabinet secretary. Can I just say first of all, I'm delighted that its ITV borders are also getting it, because my constituents, I think, Elaine's, don't get STV in some parts. So, at last, we're getting information to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament to our constituents. I think that you would agree them for us in the same position. Christian, followed by Rodd, followed by Elaine. I just would like to know, you described the process, how you got there, and it took maybe a certain time because you had to go back to Westminster and we had to look at what was devolved and what was reserved. If we want to maybe accelerate the process, if it is more we could do or more you think we should do, why the Scottish Government should do, what the Scottish Parliament should do to tackle drink driving, do you think there is maybe a reason, a good reason to look at what's reserved and what's devolved and it matters beforehand, and maybe which, I would like you to tell us, which of the reserved matters you would like to see devolved before we go further into this way of tackling drink driving? All of them, but that's a matter for others and we have been through the referendum. I think that what we've done as a Government is to do what we can. The only power that was devolved was the power to lower the limit. It would be fair to say, I don't think that it was as a matter of secret, that the police had always hoped that reducing the limit would also tie in with random breath testing. I do know that chief superintendent Murray gave evidence last week that they do have powers and I think that they pull over 20,000 drivers a month, but I think that for the point of clarity the police have obviously sought that, that's something that we would be happy to consult upon as a Government, but we don't have the powers and we can't even go there. Equally, I did mention that other jurisdictions have lower than 50. We think that going below 50 would be problematic in terms of penalties of disqualification. There are arguments to look at what's been done in Scandinavia, where between 20 and 50, I understand that it's not an automatic disqualification. Again, we don't have those powers. We would be happy to consider the views of the committee, the views of the consultees, as to whether we should look at differential limits for young drivers, for those in specialist occupations. After all, if you drive a plane or you take a train, you have a current lower limit than even the incoming driving limit of 50. Those are things that we would be open for, but the only powers that we have are the power to lower the limit. That saves lives, that's why we've done it. We'll take any additional powers and we will work with the police and with other stakeholders, and in particular with yourselves, to see what can do to make Scotland even safer. However, if you're asking me off the top of the head, then clearly the things that spring to mind are random testing, which I think the police would welcome. Indeed, as I say, there's some opportunity to vary the penalties, which may give you the opportunity to look at lowering the limit even further to make our roads safer and targeting specific age groups or occupations. They would be a matter that we would consult on. As a Government, we don't have a view, but we do know that whether it's an Institute of Advanced Motoring, whether it's a police, there are those who do think that there are step changes that could be made. If we can get a bit more detail on that random testing, we heard from the evidence of Dr Perry that there were 15 per cent of French people who have been breast testing in their life. What's the percentage in Scotland that we know? I don't have that information. Given that it's 20,000 a month, I think that it's a significant number of drivers. I imagine that they're not all repeat. I can see what information we do have. I don't have it to hand. I would imagine a significant number of people who have been tested simply because, come Christmas time, there are various campaigns carried out by the police where vehicles are fulled over, even if they're not tested. I think that what they're clearly doing is smelling for alcohol in the blood, but equally now, any routine traffic incident, if you're pulled over, then the likelihood is that you will be breast tested. I think that the percentage will be quite high. I have to say that I'm not aware of any considerable complaints. In fact, I'm not aware of any complaint, either at constituency level or ministerial level, of somebody saying that they've been inconvenienced. Those 20,000 drivers who are pulled over, how many in fact have tested and are positive, it would be quite useful just to know that. Roderick? It's perhaps worth recording that at the present time only the United Kingdom and Malta in the European Union have a limit of 80, so the reduction in the limit will certainly move us more into the mainstream in the European Union. My question is really in terms of the timetable for the public information campaign. You indicated that that would be commencing on 17 November and the new limit I believe is supposed to take it back from 5 December. Do you think that that's sufficient time to educate the public? I believe so. I think that there's already a fair bit of awareness because of the investigations being carried out by yourself because of the efforts that have been made by the police and by others. We would have been carrying out a Christmas anti-drink drive campaign anyway. I think that that gives us the opportunity to some extent to piggyback on it to make it clear that it's perhaps not a Christmas like any other and that there are changes coming through. The TV and radio adverts will reach the record 88 per cent of the adult population. As I recall, it's not simply ITV borders. It's also channel 4 in Scotland, as well as STV. Social media, which I think we all know is so much more important, will help to disseminate the message. We're lasing with Visit Scotland to inform potential visitors of the law change via their channels. Our own international phasing channels will also carry out that. We're working with commercial organisations. For example, Tesco has agreed to take posters and collateral at 60 of their petrol stations from across Scotland. I understand that, as that I think, are doing likewise. Farmer Autocare is keen to support with the dissemination of marketing material. Local authority comms teams have been contacted and other organisations, the Institute of Advanced Motors, ROSPA and Police Scotland. We're looking at working with others. Transport Scotland will be making information available on their overhead gantries on main roads. I think that every possible avenue and media of communication is being looked at internally in Scotland for those coming in from whatever direction, whether they come into an airport, a ferry port or a station. Information is there. Major retailers, as I say, have got Tesco and Asda at the moment, and I would hope that others will follow suit in terms of their petrol stations and elsewhere. Significant steps are being taken. I don't think that anybody will be unaware that, on 5 December, subject to the approval of the committee in Parliament, that change is coming in. However, I don't know if, Patrick, you want to add anything further. Perhaps the only other thing that I mentioned that hasn't come up in that long list, there is a 10-day roadshow of field marketing being planned. It's intended to inform drivers and the wider public. It's going to cover key locations across Scotland, including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumfries, Gallashields, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness and Livingston, just to give members of the public in areas with high football shopping centres a chance to find out about that if they haven't been watching the television or haven't seen it through social media or seen it in the newspapers. I feel that the Highlands and Islands in Ireland seem to be some of the regularities here about that. Elaine, is the Highlands and Islands included in any fair way? It was. Inverness is something like that. Inverness, of course. It's not an island. It's not an island. Elaine, that's the last time I looked at any of me. I wonder in terms of the education programme, is there anything specifically aimed at the day after people have been out drinking, given that we're actually going into a period at Christmas and New Year when people probably drink a bit more heavily than they normally do and go out with friends in the evening, they may get the message, don't take your car, but are we getting a message out to people that you may not be safe to drive the following day? Well, I think that that's a message that we've started to try and get across even within my tenure as justice secretary. I think we'll look back and many years ago it was all about what state you were in when you left the pub or the event that you were at. I think there's been a realisation over recent years and indeed I think the statistics show the number of people who are breathalyzed the following morning. So certainly over recent campaigns there has been considerable emphasis not simply on not taking the car if you're going to the Christmas party or to some other function but equally making sure that if you're going to be driving the following day you've acted responsibly or indeed, as I know, many people who now work for us companies for example in the city of Edinburgh where random testing applies not just to drivers but all who work for the company that perhaps even consider taking the day off if it's going to be a really good night as they see it. So that's a matter for the individual. I think we've raised awareness. Our emphasis is that you have to take responsibility for your actions. People have to be aware that alcohol remains in the bloodstream and I saw the report not simply from Chief Superintendent Murray but obviously from Dr Rice last week. So people have to think it through and act accordingly. The change we are making is not from 150 or 280, it's from 80 to 50. What we should remember is if perhaps somebody got out of their bed half an hour earlier it wouldn't be the 50 limit that would be causing them problems, it would be the 80 limit. So I think that those people should reflect that if they're going to have a good time which we all want to then perhaps it's not simply you don't take the car to the function. Maybe you think about how you get to your work the following day. Also thinking about people who might be going Christmas shopping or that sort of thing that they maybe need to be aware that if they go out in the morning that they might still be home with the 50 limit and not to take a car out Christmas shopping the next morning. The police will be out to be, I think, we're all aware in our own experience that the days of police stops taking place simply in either peripheral routes or arterial routes going out of Edinburgh, they now take place within the city because I think it's recognised that people think they can drive about within the city with impunity but they might get stopped if they went out. That has all changed and equally these events take place not simply at 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock in the morning. They also take place as people are going into work and that's how we have to be because we've got to keep people safe. Other people who are going Christmas shopping want to be able to celebrate Christmas and not suffer. Alison John Finnie. I wonder whether or not there should be a variation in the penalties as people are perhaps just over the new limit. I think that Chief Superintendent Ian Murray was very clear that he felt that the penalties should still remain quite a firm one and he said that he didn't support any variation in the penalties. I wonder if he could explain why the Crown Office is looking at the possibility of what they say, some of the less serious drink driving cases being heard in lay magistrates courts. Does that not send a mixed message? I don't believe so. I certainly support Ian Murray on this. I think that he's quite right. Whether the limit is 80 or the limit is 58, the limit is there. That's what people know. It's done for the reasons that we haven't changed the drink driving limits since the 60s. We've changed very little yet cars are much more powerful. Roads are much busier. We also know that alcohol is probably increased in strength. Whether it's a pint of beer or wine, the ABV is cracked up from the 60s, so we require to make this long overdue change. We wouldn't support any variation in terms of the mandatory disqualification of one year and certainly three or more for a second disqualification within the period of time. That's appropriate to send out the message. I think that what we alluded to in as with your colleague Christian would be whether there should be any additional limit and requirement between 2050 and 2050, where there might not be a desire for disqualification, but there might be a clear desire to show that it's unacceptable. It could be a yellow car, two strikes and you're out. It could be penalty points. That would be a matter for consideration. We would be open to that. We don't have a view as a Government, but it certainly operates well in Sweden. Mr Allard has clearly mentioned about young drivers and others, or indeed those in specialist occupations. That's where we would go. With regard to the JP courts, the changes were made through the Scottish courts service. Those who are in JP positions have the appropriate powers. They should be used. There are less of them in terms of the courts, not necessarily the number of JPs. They serve Scottish justice with distinction and it will be quite clear that they will be able to do with matters. They have the powers to disqualify and it will be mandatory, except in the rare and complex cases in which there can be challenges to disqualification, but they are very few and far between in Scotland. Are you content that that doesn't send a mixed message in? As soon as we've introduced the slower limit, will we start to change which court that you appear on? Do you not think that we should maintain that? No, I think that that's a matter for the crown and for the courts. I think that we've got the appropriate disqualification. I think that what we've also brought in recent years is the forfeiture of the vehicle. People should be under no illusion. That is not simply the loss of a licence in your off the road for a year. The consequences can be the loss of your employment, the consequences can be the economic damages and what happens to your home. It can be the loss of the vehicle, new or old. It can be forfeited, depending on the reading and the criteria. We fully support the crown and that equally. It seems to me that whether some of the actions are imposed by a sheriff or by a JP, those sanctions will be severe. They will be in public court and the programme from the public will be equally significant. The enforcement of that is not exclusively down to road policing. However, we had chief superintendent Murray here last week, and I asked him—in fact, the phrase was, Police Scotland, more than up for this change—and chief superintendent Murray said, we are. We support the change fully and we will be ready to implement it in the proposed date. A somewhat sensitive matter in as much as it will definitely be flagged up as operational. If reports I've received are accurate and I've no reason to doubt them, that a centrally taken decision will mean that, for instance, in the Highlands Islands, after the early hours of the morning, there will be no road policing presence whatsoever. Indeed, there may well not be outwith Glasgow Island and the mother will. That will not only bring challenges about the enforcement of this legislation, but it may well open up the trunk road network to travelling criminals. It's very important that police have to wear with all and deploy in a manner that can enforce this legislation. I wonder whether you agree with that. I certainly would. Obviously, there are operational matters. I think that you'll also find that, although there might be heard at some of those areas, the spokes that they travel down are extensive and significant. Equally, there will be the local area command. I think that the biggest change on drink driving is not simply the enforcement by the police, which is vital and to drive that home message. It's the attitude that is taken by the public, which is that it is entirely unacceptable and that they report it. However, I would expect the police to act appropriately to ensure that the law is enforced and that there is a visible police presence. Thank you very much. I know that you'll be on the case anyway, if you're not, John, so there you are. That's the end of, I think, of... Oh, I beg your pardon, Margaret. Sorry, Margaret. It's really just, I suppose, an extension of that cabinet secretary. When Chief Superintendent Murray was here, he estimated, although he said that data was hard to come by, that there would be likely to be a third more drink drivers found in the initial phase. Obviously, that is a burden on resources for other policing as well. Again, I suppose that it's much the same question as some thought being given to how that's all going to be managed. Well, yes. We have thought, and those are the current statistics. I saw Chief Superintendent Murray's evidence. I have to say also, though we've looked at what happened in the Republic of Ireland where they changed, I think, it was in 2011, and they made the same change as was mentioned by one of your colleagues earlier. I think it was Sir Rod Campbell. It's only the UK and Malta, the Republic of Ireland, used to be at 80, but they reduced, I think, in 2011 their drink driving limit to the 50 that we are now proposing that we go to. Actually, what happened is that the number of drink driving convictions went down. I think that the received wisdom from Ireland provided greater clarity to people. Rather than the number of convictions going up as on a statistical basis here in Scotland, the opposite happened. They've gone down and, as I understand, they've continued to go down because I think what they had was a campaign. It drove home a message. If you're going out, don't drink and drive. It stopped those people who said, well, maybe I can have a couple, maybe I can have one more if I have a cup of coffee. All that ended. So the rather stats that were provided by Chief Superintendent Murray are correct. Equally, the proof of the pudding, the practical delivery of this from Ireland, and I think in many instances, in many ways, even the culture, the demography of Ireland of rural areas ties in with Scotland. Actually, it went down because it drove home a message to people, don't drink and drive. Did everybody heed that warning? No. People who flouted it got dealt with but less did because more took on board the message, don't drink and drive. I think that the point was that over time it's the initial phase where I think Chief Superintendent Maxwell was saying that the numbers are likely to be high until this message really does percolate down and people realise. So it's the resourcing for that initial period where there are likely to be more drink drivers. But these are the statistics from 2011 through to 2014. In Ireland it was immediate. As soon as they brought it in, convictions started to go down. Not because the guard were not enforcing it, but because people were heeding the warnings. So I think that the practical delivery in Ireland was that people took it on board. Once the limit went down, people stopped taking a risk, stopped simply thinking, I'll be within the margin of error or whatever, which they went. That's why, as I say, not simply in 2011, but I think a year after that it has continued to decline. So your worry about initial thing did not happen in Ireland. The message went out, presumably saying to what we're doing, the limit's going down, don't drink and drive, more people are heeded to that, but I do have the raw stats and we are prepared and able to do with that, but I do think that the message from Ireland is you make this change. Most people take it on board. The small minority who don't listen to the law whether 80 or 50 face the consequences of their actions, that perhaps more people who might have, through stupidity or just not taking it on board, actually thought a bit more deeply and either did not take the car, did not take that drink or perhaps, as Elaine Murray was alluding to, gave consideration to what they did the morning. So you're really dismissing this third that was given in evidence last week? No, I'm not dismissing it. I'm referring to the clear statistical parallel from the Republic of Ireland in which they did exactly the same change that we proposed to do. There, received wisdom, would have been that more people would be caught because there's more people who were between 50 and beyond the upper limit before the body cannot take it any more than 80, but in reality what happened was less people were caught because more people adhered to the law and didn't risk it. I would hope even with that that this would be thought as a possibility that it may not get through immediately and there may be more and the resources were looked at throughout the kind of policing duties to make sure nothing was being overlooked. I can give you an assurance that Crown, police and indeed court service feel capable of dealing with the circumstances that will arise. I'm not too sure, cabinet secretary, if I chop right there, but if Chief Inspector Murray is saying that perhaps there could be a third more, maybe caught under us by just the limit, is that because they're going to put additional resources on to catch people who may be over a limit or will they still be working with the same resource? No. What Chief Superintendent Murray has done is simply tried to work out those who were, I think, between 50 and 80 and therefore more like to be caught, so it's been an extrapolation from the raw statistics, but can I give you the information in Ireland, I think, 2007-19,848 statistics. 2010-12,602-2011, and the lower limit was enforced from 28 October, it had come down to 10,575, from 28 October 2011, the exact year until 27 October 2012, the numbers convicted fell to 9,771. You were down almost 5,000 from the year in which there would have been a clear matter before that. There was a reduction from the year when it came in in October, so there was a significant drop. I take cognisance of everything that Chief Superintendent Murray has said. We've spoken to Crown Police and the courts, we're able to deal with that, but he's taken the raw data. I think the example in practice, Ireland went exactly the same way, we're doing what they're doing and I think people take it on board and the reference, I think, there is clear it fell. Although there have been a decline in the number of rest and all but one age group category, I think that was females age 58 to 67, a significant number of drink driving cases involved a male driver, driving late at night, early morning, particularly weekend. So I think what they've done was get the message across. What we're continuing, we don't want to see more people convicted. What we want to see is lives saved and our roads safer. I think what Ireland has done and what the rest of Europe other than the UK and Malta has done is made it clearer for people. You can't go out and say, I'll have two pints and then I've had a meal, so I'll have three pints, while I'll stay for a bit of the dance, so I'll have a glass of wine and I'll be all right because I've done some calculations in my head, just don't do it. That seems to have been the message in the Republic of Ireland. I'm looking in case there's any other late requests. Time I move on, somebody puts their hand up. That's the end of evidence session. I move on to item 3, which is the formal debate and the motion to prove the instrument considered. I invite the cabinet secretary to move motion S4M11277, that the Justice Committee recommends that the draft road traffic act 1988 prescribe limit Scotland regulations 2014 be approved. Formal moved. Do any members wish to speak in the debate and the motion? No. The question is that motion S4M11277 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? As members are aware, we are required to report on all affirmative instruments with the opportunity to sign off our report next week. I move on. I suspend just for a couple of minutes just to let officials change places. The next item is consideration of a further affirmative instrument, the draft mutual recognition of criminal financial penalties in the European Union Scotland No. 1, Order 2014. I welcome Scottish Government officials Neil Watt, head of EU implementation, team of criminal justice division and Neil Robertson, EU policy manager in the same team. Do you have to be called Neil to be in this? It seems to be the case. What happens? Do you say Neil one, Neil two? Who knows who's been asked anything? Don't answer. Anyway, the cabinet secretary will again give evidence on the debate on this instrument, and I understand that he wishes to make a short opening statement. The statutory instrument improves the original transposition of the mutual recognition of financial penalties framework decision. The purpose of the 2005 framework decision is to ensure consistency in the way financial penalties operate across the EU. It enables Scottish fines and fixed penalties, for example, for road traffic offences of €70 or more to be enforced elsewhere in the EU and vice versa. The aim here is to make sure that Scotland is not seen as attractive destination for criminals. Confident fines won't follow them here. Members might ask why we're amending the original transposition from 2009, and there are two reasons. Firstly, as with all new measures, there's always an element of seeing how they work in practice. Since the original transposition, we've identified a few minor problems with the existing implementation, for example delays caused by incomplete or unsigned requests by other member states. In making minor practical adjustments to the original provisions, we can address those. Secondly, one of the measures the UK expects to opt back into on 1 December, the trials in absentia framework decision amends the original 2005 mutual recognition of financial penalties framework decision. We've taken the opportunity to improve the original transposition before we implement the new requirements on 1 December. Despite the uncertainty around the opt-in, my officials and I have updated the committee as much as we can on all the measures in which we are participating, and I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you very much. Any questions from members? How often is this used? Do we have stats? I mean, it seems to be... Ah, I've got one of the needles out here if it's got to rattle through these papers. I think between... Over the last five years, we're talking about 100 financial penalties. Are those coming from abroad to here or from Scotland abroad? Both. The majority are road traffic offences such as commercial lorries and tourist drivers as well. I thought I'd ask, because I was just making sure that you knew. Now that we move on. Oh, you've got a question. Just a slight question. It was just something that came to mind in regard to the caposec about the opt-in and opt-out. Obviously, there's a number of areas here in EU law where Westminster is deliberating, you might call, about either opting in or staying out. Have we had any confirmation that we will definitely be opting into this particular part of framework? Not formal confirmation, as such. I think the jungle drums and the runes, et cetera, are red, and we've had some suggestion that everything seems to be getting sorted. But whether it's on this particular aspect or on the European or West want, we remain concerned. Your question is after me about it. Thank you. I wasn't preempting it. I just... I think the committee certainly is a bit concerned about EU and the opt-in and opt-out, and this is just another one of them, basically. Thank you. That's all right. I move on to item 5. Formal date and motion to approve the instrument. Consider it. I invite the cabinet secretary to move motion S4M-11278, that the justice committee commands the draft mutual recognition of criminal financial penalties in the European Union Scotland number one order, 2014, be approved. Any members wish to speak in the debate? No. The question is that motion S4M-11278 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Again, as members are aware, it requires to report on all affirmative instruments. Are you content to delegate the responsibility for me to sign off this report? Thank you very much. I'm going to now suspend for, I think, just a couple of minutes so we can rattle on as we move on to item 6. Item 6, draft budget scrutiny. We're looking at the police budget, as we've decided to do, and we have two panels of witnesses. I welcome to mean our first panel of witnesses is the Derek Penman, Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland, Ms Tina Yule, lead inspector, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, and I'll go straight to questions from members, please. John. I don't know if you overheard the previous input at all, Mr Penman. I wonder at the extent to which, and I understand that it's a draw down that the chief constable does a finance rather than a draw full of money at Police Scotland. At the extent to which there's any devolution of budgetary decisions within the Scottish Police Service at the moment. That's it. Thank you. No, thank you for that. My understanding is that there is limited budget accountability that's passed to divisional commanders for some general running of their division. The main budgets, which are mainly staff, budgets aren't devolved to their health central at the moment, so there are. An overtime budget would be devolved to local commanders, but in the main, the majority of the budgets are health central. Would an overtime budget be devolved to a divisional commander for a central resource, if I can call it that, so road policing, dogs, whatever? My understanding is that overtime is devolved down and there's an allocation of overtime that's given to each of the divisional commanders, so my expectation would be that in terms of the national functions, things like road policing, that would be done regionally essentially, those budgets would be held by those divisional commanders that have a national portfolio. In effect, if you have regional assets that belong to operational support division, the chief superintendent for that area would hold that budget. If there were divisional resources that were working within the division, then they would be held by the divisional commander, is my understanding of it. For instance, road policing, and the question that I pose to the cabinet secretary for justice is, if my understanding is correct, that at the beginning of next year there's an intention to rain back in the hours of coverage of road policing, ensuring that it's just, as I understand, perhaps Glasgow, Edinburgh, Murrott, Murrott, the motorway network that's going to be covered on a 24-hour basis. Are there any financial implications at divisional level for that? My understanding is that you have divisional road policing attached to the division, but I understand that they are also managed centrally, so it would be for the head of road policing, and the chief superintendent for road policing nationally would have control over those budgets. To be honest, I'm not entirely sited on how it chunks down into the divisional budgets. Is there a road policing and divisional road policing? There is divisional road policing that is attached to the division, and there are trunk road policing, which are a regional national resource. If you like, it's delivered in two ways. Within each of the divisions, they have their own road policing officers, but they are professionally managed by Police Scotland at the centre, if I'm explaining this well. Although they are attached to the division, they are professionally managed nationally from there, so they are directed by the division in the deal with divisional priorities, but they are effectively managed from the centre. If it were the case, I understand that there were to be no road policing officers, for instance, in the Highlands and Islands and perhaps north of Perth after the early hours of the morning. Would that be a good use of resources to your mind? Would that not open the door up for travelling criminals to take advantage of that situation out with the central belt? I'm not sited on the proposals and any withdrawal from that. My understanding is that you would require to have an element of road policing coverage across the country all the time from that, so I'm not sited on what the balances would be. Obviously, the road policing also works in support with other units and local police officers, and the two will be available in cities and will be able to contribute towards policing, but I'm not sited on what those proposals are, so it's difficult to comment. You may not be able to tell us, it might just be that somebody is giving me this information, but is there public information about those proposals? No, it is now. It is now! I think I'll work that one out, yes, even I could work that out, but it's not anywhere, it's something obviously that you've been left with. This information has been raised with me, and it's a subject of great concern, because it is about the relationship between divisional autonomy and central division making, which, of course, has surfaced on other issues. If I can ask one general question, then, Inspector, and that relates to the scope that there is. When we were looking at the formation of Police Scotland, I asked questions about devolved resource management, and, of course, the key to that is that the resource would be money. Is there any sign of that happening, or is there scope for that? I appreciate that a huge percentage, of course, are staff costs, and they are held. My personal view, given the financial challenges that exist within Police Scotland to meet the savings that have to come through, and the fact that 91 per cent of the budget currently is within staff costs, that, at a time of transition, I think it's reasonable for those to be controlled from the centre. I would like to think that, once that becomes more stable, and there's a clear direction forward in terms of the policing model, that there should be some scope at a divisional level to have more resource management, but I understand and absolutely support the need to have that control from the centre at the moment. This is because the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is the money available for transition has been withdrawn because all the transition has been done. Is that the same for the police service? My understanding from the budget settlement that there is still police reform money within the PCG budget, so there is still reform money within the budget for next year. As far as I'm aware, there is still money for reform for the police budget. In that case, the additional 1,000 officers, there's still a commitment for that. Police numbers have been retained, but clearly the number of police port staff have fallen quite dramatically. I think that 2009 seemed to be the peak period and it's fallen about 2,000 since then, which is a huge number to be dropping by. Do you think that the workforce balance is correct? My professional view is that there is a need to have a balanced workforce for Police Scotland, and that balanced workforce should be the correct number of police officers and the correct number of police staff working in the right way, in the right places together. I think that Police Scotland is now going through that transformational change, which is seeing them look to develop new structures as they move forward within there. At the moment, they are going through that transition, but my own view is that there is a need to have a state where there is a balanced workforce. If I give you a specific, for example, licensing officers, we know that they have been done graded. They had a very expert job, a job that reflected their experience. They have been done graded at a time when, obviously, alcohol and the consumption alcohol, the sale of alcohol, driving now new limits, are all very much to the forefront of police policy. What effect would that have? I say that we have not expected the licensing aspect of it, so I am not well cited in the detail of those proposals. Again, at a high level for me it would be about Police Scotland identifying what are their requirements moving forward in terms of licensing, what are the new structures for them moving forward in terms of, if they had eight licensing departments before, what do they look like now, moving forward into the new structure and then making sure that they have the work balance for them. Unfortunately, I cannot comment specifically because I am not cited and I have not expected the licensing function. Does that not come within your remit then? It does what we would do in all the areas that we set up on our scrutiny programme, and we would be cited in the work that we do through the transformational change that comes through from the Police Scotland through to the Scottish Police Authority, but it is not an area that we have specifically looked at in any detail that I could offer a comment on in any detail with you. That is a bit disappointing because I feel that it is germane, the place to do a job front-line, of course, a very important job, but equally, if they do not have the support staff to support them in doing that job, then potentially the effectiveness of that is going to be eroded. I can think of licensing as being particularly important in that respect for licensing of various clubs, the renewal of licensing, and the drink drive legislation that is just going through. I would imagine that it potentially would have an effect on backroom staff as well. What I can say is that I am aware that Police Scotland has established new regional units in terms of alcohol and violence reduction. It has centralised their licensing function in terms of policy from there. The detail that I am not cited on is a mix that you are speaking about. I am not aware of there being any issues escaliki to us either through staff associations or Police Scotland or by the authority that it suggests that there is any problem in relation to licensing or any capacity issues in relation to licensing within Police Scotland, which is why we have not seen necessary to look to inspect that. What we are cited on through our processes would be any national changes that Police Scotland pulled together. If it involves workforce, it will produce a business case effectively for that, and that would then go through internal consultation and would then move into the Scottish Police Authority and their HR committee. We would have some site of those reports going through. What I would say is that I am not aware of any issues that have been raised around capacity in terms of licensing. I am aware that changes have been made around alcohol and violence reduction, which my view would be quite impactive. Would there have to be an issue before you would look at it as an inspector of policing? Shouldn't it be a broad brush approach looking and shining a torch into every aspect of Police Scotland? That is what I am saying, but not saying very well. What we do is look across the change that Police Scotland does. Tina is our lead inspector, and Tina's role effectively is to work and watch what happens within Police Scotland in terms of the transformational change and within the Police Authority. If Police Scotland is developing new proposals for licensing, it would be generated by a paper with a business case. If the staff were being changed around that and the mix was being changed, it would generate itself, too. As a paper, it would then be marshaled through that process. What we would do is pick out anything that we thought was particularly risky in relation to that, and then we could perhaps look at that as part of the inspection process. We also have good links with the staff associations, with the unions, and, again, my expectation would be if there were any particular areas that were causing concern that would be flagged up to us. Because of our new inspection programme, we have opportunities throughout the year now to look at those things specifically. It is just in relation to your alcohol and licensing issue. I am not excited on any issues in relation to that that would have caused us to look deeper at it. If I could move on. Campaigns. We have had doorstep sellers. We have had the advertising of the 101 numbers keep safe online. What budget does that come from? Police Scotland budgets, generally speaking, are mainly around the resources that are used. The staff costs in the main. I am not excited in the level of detail about where the budgets will be. There will be some budgets that will be held divisionally. With other overtime budgets, it might support some of those campaigns. There might be some money that will be released from the centre, but it is probably a level of detail that I do not have in relation to individual campaigns. It would vary my take on that. In the main, most of those campaigns are about re-applying existing resources to do the work that is required for them. Some of that would require some overtime, perhaps it should be released from overtime budgets that we bid for within Police Scotland. Perhaps a question would be better directed to Police Scotland around the detail of that. I suppose that I am looking more generally campaigns, PRs, advertising, anything that might come under that kind of budget. Where do we monitor that? Where do we see what is being spent on protecting Police Scotland's image and promoting Police Scotland's image? I am going to ask you to come in and talk through some of the budget controls and budget processes. In the main, each budget will have a departmental budget effectively. Each of the directors will be responsible for that. They will be broken down functionally. It would be my take on that. They are scrutiny for the budget internally within Police Scotland, and they are scrutiny externally by the SBA. I do not need to surmise about that. Forgive me for using the word surmise, but I think that we have asked Police Scotland where they put that into the various budgets. It might be under Miscellaneous, for example. We do not know, but I do not know. I do not expect a chief inspector to know. I do not expect a chief inspector to know how much was being spent, if it was appropriate, and the amount that was being spent, exactly what it was being spent on. The budgets that will come to the Police Authority effectively will be rolled up by a level of detail within the budgets that will be available that will show exactly what the spends are to teach those departments. The communications department will have a salary budget. It will have a media budget, advertising budgets and things from there, but, as I said, I do not have that level of detail with me at the moment. Other than to say, again, there will be processes internally in Police Scotland to monitor that, and that information will be available. That is nothing that you have cast your eye over, even a headline figure, to see if you thought it was proportionate. We are having up to now to see whether, again, it is an area that is fagged up to be of concern to us that we would look specifically at. What we do know is that the information would be accessible to us through just looking at the budget lines that exist, so we could find that information out if required. I do not have that detail with me at the moment. Sandra Folleberg-Cristian Thank you very much, convener. Good morning. I just wanted to ask in regards to the Audit Scotland report, which was a police reform progress update 2013, and it was in November, not that long ago. I recommended that the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland should work together to agonise strategies for achieving savings. Have you seen any progress in this area? I have a couple of comments that I would like to make, but if you might. Yes, we have, as a short answer. Obviously, we also link in method at Scotland on a regular basis, so we have meetings with Audit Scotland probably to identify areas that we would see would be common risk that we would want to scrutinise from there. I hope that we are seeing now in our last time to give some detail around that because she works specifically in that area, but we have been keen to identify where the changes are coming through, the transformational changes that are coming through from that. We have been looking to do some work around the corporate strategy in particular. That is to look at where is the ICT budget being spent and what changes have been done in terms of the HR function, what has been done, but perhaps we will pass over to Tina if we can, just to give an overview of the transformation change. Yes, thank you for the question. Audit Scotland's report specifically looked at financial strategy and identified some gaps and asked for more joint working in looking particularly forward. What we have seen is a much improved governance process around finance. We have seen the publication of Police Scotland's corporate strategy in March of this year, which sets out a fairly detailed financial plan. I do not think that we could call it a financial strategy because it is fairly short to medium term. One of the areas of interest for us and Audit Scotland will be the forward financial planning in which the SPA and Police Scotland are now engaged in looking towards the publication of a new strategic policing plan from which the budgetary requirements will flow. They are starting that process of strategic planning now, and we will be supporting that with some more detailed financial planning. We are quite aware that they have plans in place and have a good deal of identified savings for 15-16 moving forward. They still have a gap currently that they are looking at and working at those proposals for 15-16 now, but they have a good deal of savings already identified, so we can give assurance. Audit Scotland will meet its own assurances through its annual accounts process, which will be published imminently, but we can give assurance from the point of view of planning into next year and the early signs of the medium to longer term strategic planning that that is now taking place. They are well organised to do that. They have made the right financial assumptions going forward. They have done quite a lot of scenario planning on different public pay awards, inflation levels and other potentially unknown statutory legislative pressures that might come along. They have done as much as they can within the resources that they have just now, and we will be keenly watching how that medium to longer term financial sustainability process goes forward from now on. Thank you very much for that and the detail of your answer. It would be helpful if we could perhaps get an update from yourself, not just from Audit Scotland. I know that it is about savings but it is also about working together and making better changes, I would have said, within the whole justice service. I just wanted to flag up a couple that I had picked up on and asked her if that is part of the working together in regard to the budget and the money that is there and how it is transferred. There is one there for 3.2 million transfer to the SBA budget from the Police Central budget relating to specialised crime divisions and Police Scotland of Police Scotland. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on that one and did you look at that? The other one, which I think we all welcomed in the committee, was basically the transfer of custody healthcare to the NHS, which I think is a real improvement in the forensic medical services as well. Would that come in under your scrutiny as well about the transfer of monies from budgets to budgets? Yes, the wood at a very high level. We have just completed our custody inspection and we made comment there about custody healthcare. The £7.6 million from there was basically the cost to Police Scotland in relation to providing those services and that was then transferred to NHS partners to provide that for them. There is probably a good example where something that was a cost absorbed by Police Scotland moved to NHS and the cost spent with that. That is a good example in terms of working together rather than just shunting the cost to transfer the money with it as well. I think that that would be a good example. Obviously, we are looking in with the authority and Police Scotland and the Government around those budget headings, so we are sited on where the money has been spent. I would like to explore, from the submission from the Scottish Police Federation, that is suggested that local authorities could engage with Police Scotland and dedicate funding to specialist support staff from the communities, rather than to fund additional police officers. I would like to know what you are thinking about and would you see more—I know that it is difficult because you are in a transition period—but would you see maybe in the future a shared budget or maybe letting other partners, such as the third sector, and why not the private sector, to get more involved in the camping that Margaret Mitchell was talking about? In principle, there is a bit about Police Scotland having their budget set and that controls effectively the level of resource that they have. The ability for other partners to come alongside and fund that, whether it is local authorities funding additional officers, I think would be healthy. Localism is one of the key aspects of police reform, so if there is something there around local authorities who might want to contribute and have officers do specific tasks, I think that that is a discussion that is worth having. I think that there is something generally moving forward about how people work together in place in local communities. Again, I would welcome the ability for other agencies to work with the police together around funding and sharing staff for the benefit of those communities. I thank you very much for the answer. On the same view, I know that it is difficult because you are just in a period of transition and you need to vividly clear where and when it goes, but we have highlighted, for example, the money that is spent on football grounds and policing our football clubs. It seems that, for a lot of public out there, the money is maybe overspent or maybe the bills are not paid. Have you tried to think in the future how you could maybe again part company who are making sure that whatever money is spent will be recovered? Again, probably a question best asked of Police Scotland and ourselves because we scrutinised them. To give some reassurance, Police Scotland has pulled together a national policy around recharging and football grounds. I know that they have worked particularly hard to say how to minimise the number of officers that have been required for football matches previously up in Aberdeen. There was no policing in moving it towards Sturding. There is definitely something there for Police Scotland to make sure that it is able to support community events and recharge, as is appropriate. I know that they have a charging policy, and again, that is scrutinised by the Police Authority. There is a framework that would allow for recharging, and there is also a scrutiny of that to make sure that it is done appropriately. Perhaps more questions for Police Scotland. Obviously, the reduction in the number of sports staff numbers has been concerns expressed that police officers might be involved in backfilling in order to step in to do the functions that the sports staff otherwise would have done. In terms of your inspections, have you seen any evidence of backfilling taking place? Not to a great extent from there, but we have checked with Police Scotland that the policy in relation to backfilling is that there is not one, there is not a policy of backfilling, but there will be occasional backfilling if it is required to support the operational need. It is something that we will be keen to monitor moving forward through our inspection process. Again, we are quite keen to link in with the unions and staff associations in particular to see to what extent, if any, the backfilling takes place. When we were at our last inspection, which was in Fife, the only evidence of backfilling that we saw was officers who were providing cover for station counters, where perhaps a member of support staff was temporarily unavailable, a police officer was providing that cover. Was that an unannounced inspection? No, we have given notice, three months notice, that we are going to come into an area, but we do not say where we are going to be in that area, and there was flexibility, so that was a staff officer who would be going out and popping in around there. In fairness, I would say that Police Scotland has given a commitment for those officers to be opened, and my understanding is that they are doing that by backfilling with police officers in them, to some extent. The other area where we have had some backfilling, perhaps Tina may want to comment, is in relation to custody, from where Tina led the custody, so perhaps she will ask you to comment on that. Yes, we published our custody report in August. In that, we looked quite extensively at the backfilling process. There is a balance of civilian PCSO staff working in custody, and obviously officers. A strong part of the actual resourcing model is to backfill from local policing using officers. That is not specifically to fill for the civilian staff, it is to fill in for any custody officer, whether it be civilian or police, to maintain the levels that are required to provide suitable care and welfare to the prisoners or the detainees that are held. There is a balance going on, and the pressure that we were seeing was from local policing being able to provide the resources to backfill for custody. The pressures are not necessarily attached to purely civilian staff that can be across the piece, and it is about finding suitable backfill, because backfill is not an automatic process that has to be the right skills and training in place for some of those roles. In custody, an untrained officer would not be suitable in terms of backfill. Those officers go through fairly extensive training on the whole to undertake that role. Backfill can have quite a few dimensions in terms of covering for leave, sickness, or even just balance the need for female officers. For instance, one of the things that we found was that there really was not enough female cover if there were female detainees held, so backfill has to be required from that. There is an interdependence for backfill that we have seen across the piece. What we say is something that we are alert to. Police Scotland has now moved to its single HR system, so we would hope that it would be better placed to be able to monitor the extent to which backfilling was being done. We are about to embark upon our inspection of Ayrshire, where we will have a specific look at backfilling at that point as well. It is not actually correct to be said that there is no policy of backfilling, because clearly there is a policy on backfilling when it is required. In the custody setting, we did not actually call it backfilling. If you look at the report, we call it cover. It is a cover arrangement that is actually part of the core resourcing model. It is a cover arrangement rather than a backfill arrangement that is a standing arrangement between local policing. If custody was resourced to cover permanently for all the sickness and annual leave, it would be over resourced. It is about that flexible resourcing model that Police Scotland is using, which is a degree of sophistication that we would commend in terms of that. It also places pressure on both sides of that arrangement, which we are managing within their own resource set. We have always had the programme of closures of control rooms, the attempted introduction of a common IT system. In your view, in terms of your inspection role, do you believe that that is working satisfactorily, or do you have concerns about the resources that are available or the effectiveness of the new control rooms, for example? Again, control rooms are the only examples where the project has been planned from that. There is an ICE part of it. Obviously, there is an HR part of it, through which it has been well consulted. We have taken an interest on the basis of, as the service level has been maintained, the effect of our call still being managed within the time and from what we have seen so far. That is the case. Again, I will be asking about how the project has been managed through the work that you are doing. Thank you. There was a report to the Scottish Police Authority board on Thursday, giving a full update of the progress on C3. They are making very good progress and the most recent milestone was the interconnectivity of the Glasgow and Edinburgh control rooms, where calls can be transferred automatically between the two to allow plenty of resource. They are very carefully monitoring the impact, particularly in places like Dumfries and Galloway, and they were scrutinised quite intensively, I would have to say, by the authority, on the impact on the individual staff who were displaced by that move, as well as our service levels for 101 and 999 being maintained in the Dumfries and Galloway area now that the service centre has actually moved. They are monitoring both the benefits, the cost savings and the impact on individual staff quite carefully as part of C3 and actively engaging with the staff associations to manage that. In terms of the technology, that process is going very well as well. As I said, the interconnectivity between the two main centres so far in the central belt was a major ICT project that, again, we are impressed that they have managed to achieve that exactly on time as predicted, so there is a good assurance going forward that the process will continue apace as planned and be managed effectively. One of the concerns around that as well is that people actually, if staff weren't local, they might not know where a place was, whether there was an incident, if it is an unusual name. It is not a remote, rural location that people may not be familiar with. Are you able to monitor whether there have been any problems with maybe at least not being able to attend us quickly because there was uncertainty about where the incident was taking place? We are not personally monitoring that, but again, in the reporting process and the scrutiny process, we picked up that they were being scrutinised quite intensively for the number of complaints that are happening in terms of people not picking up and the amount of callbacks that they are doing to verify whether the resolution at first point of contact was working effectively. Ideally, if it had to be referred on to someone else, it is either a specialist call or they were not able to resolve it because of that lack of knowledge, so they are monitoring that very carefully as well. Does that also have a resource implication of that? Yes. Again, Police Scotland and the SPA can probably answer that in more detail. I am glad that you keep mentioning resource. Obviously, there is an interaction, direct interaction between service levels and the focus on the resourcing. Roderick Allison followed by John Pentland. Good morning. I might, if I may, just to take you to your report on local policing pilot inspection of the Fife division. I am sticking interested in the comments that you made about working hours of senior staff. In that report, I note that you record concerns of resilience within the senior team with all the superintending ranks reporting that routinely worked between 50 and 60 hours per week. You then referred to a survey of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents. We are going to get a representative of those in the next panel. What I wanted to know from you was whether you agreed that this was a pattern throughout Scotland. What impact, if any, has reduction in funding made to this particular situation? Is it related in any way? I am not sure whether it is to do with the reduction in funding or some of it is just the inevitability of new structures. Around there, there has been a drop in the number of superintending ranks across the country. There has also been a drop in the number of chief officer ranks across the country, so some of that responsibility by definition gets pushed down on to the divisional staff in particular. It is just realising that we are 18 months into reform. I think that there is an element of new people undertaking new roles and new structures, and some of that is people working very hard to develop them and to maintain them. I think that the point in our report was very much about the sustainability of that and the long-working hours do not become part of the culture, either expected or needed. Our view is that, again, Police Scotland needs to make sure that its senior managers have the appropriate work balance in relation to that. They are not being constrained, if you like, to have to work long hours because it is on the elastic expectations of that. You also referred to moral issues, and I noticed that there is a paragraph on describing the previous five constabories having a family feel about it in the view of officers and police staff, and that the staff had felt a loss of identity within the division. I understand that. Does that have any financial aspect to it in your view? Obviously, we took the opportunity. The first opportunity that we could really was the local policing inspection at Fife, and we were quite keen to understand staff morale, and we are linking to staff associations as well. As we said in the report, I think that there is an inevitability around something that was once, in that case, a five constabory that moves into something else. There is just that change and uncertainty of change that would have an impact on people in terms of being unsettling for them. We also picked up, as well, some issues around police pensions, which I think were causing some angst among staff in relation to that. There are also the new structures and new approaches that are being rolled out, so when you mix all of that together, I think that inevitable, in some regards, is that when you have that much change on people who are in a steady state before then, it will have an impact upon them. What we picked up on and what the recommendation for Police Scotland was moving forward was around really needing to speak to staff, and actually engage with staff and make them part of the change process. I think that, to our mind, if we can improve the engagement of staff, that will have a positive impact on morale. We are also keen that Police Scotland would look at their staff engagement survey and bring that forward across the whole of Scotland so that the organisation and the Police Authority can have some indication of what staff think and how they feel currently. Again, we are aware that that is work that Police Scotland and the Authority will be doing jointly in the spring of next year, but, to the extent to which it ties back to resources or a lack of resources, it is really difficult for us to pinpoint that level, because some of it might just be new structures that have not yet been put in, things that have not been communicated as well as they could be. To tie it down specifically to any lack of resources is quite difficult for us to do. We are about to do some stuff in Ayrshire, so we will look to try and see what morale issues are there. That will be perhaps interesting, because Ayrshire will be something that existed within the legacy strath Clyde, if you like, and we will be interested in a perhaps more steady state than the legacy forces might have been. Finally, a separate question. Last year, our committee recommended that budget speed is all devolved down to local or even ward level to coincide with local and ward police plans. Have you seen any evidence in your investigations to date of the devolution of budgets down to that local level? No, as I said in my earlier comments, I think that the only things that are devolved down, meaningfully, would be overtime budgets from there. Again, given the time that we are within Police Scotland, the constraints on the finance need to control staffing levels centrally and maintain minimum numbers of police officers, I think that it would be difficult to devolve some of those budgets down. I would hope that once it becomes, if you like, more steady state, there would be opportunities to devolve budgets down from there. Another part of that, of course, is also aligning resources towards priorities and having the ability to actually, you know, flexibility within commanders to devolve those resources into ward areas and priorities locally. We can do that just now by directing officers to go and do that work, but in terms of actually tracking the money back to what gets spent against what priorities, that is also quite difficult to do just now. Returning to your answer about staff morale, I mean, we know that morale continues to be low in new force and the numbers leaving are higher than we would like. What risks do you think are facing the force in the forthcoming year as it strives to make the additional savings that need to be made? Would you support calls for a review of the timetable for reform to allow the new service to take a more cautious and co-operative and perhaps inclusive approach to the change? I think that Police Scotland has done remarkably well in balancing the budget in the first year. All the indications are that in the current financial year the budget will be certainly predicted to come in on budget, but my view would be that, in year 3, the budget that you are considering just now becomes altogether more challenging. Effectively, when 91 per cent of the police budget relates to staff, there is very limited flexibility, which would be my take on that. Obviously, as well as having the savings that were inherited from reform, there is also additional cost pressures, so adding them together makes it altogether more challenging. I think that the view of the chief constable, and I am sure that Police Scotland will speak for themselves in evidence, is becoming more challenging as they move forward in relation to that. From our perspective just now, it is getting in behind what is the sustainable changes moving forward and how are they going to make their budget balance in 2015-16. That is a level detail that we have not yet seen, so it is difficult to comment in general as to how challenging that will be for them and what they intend to do. Can I press you perhaps on what risks there are around that? At what point you might raise a flag and say, we just need to slow down here? The obvious risks are the extent to which, in order to make more savings, I have to potentially lose more staff from there if that is where the savings would come from, or that they would start to cut in appropriately into the other 10 per cent. That would then start to have an impact on operational effectiveness, and that would be obviously where we would be interested around that. How that would manifest itself in the main would be around police performance, would be the most obvious example. Where levels of service were starting to fall, public satisfaction levels were starting to fall, would be an area where that might come in for us. What we would be keen to do is to work with Police Scotland to see where they intend to make those changes and where the savings are coming from. I think that, incumbent upon that, is the Police Authority's role in holding a chief tier account around what is the impact of the budget moving forward and having some of those things discussed publicly would be helpful too. Are you aware at the moment of the levels of sickness absence and are those being monitored? The sickness absence levels are monitored closely both internally by Police Scotland and also by the Police Authority. My understanding—I do not have the exact figures to hand—is that there are increases in there, but modest increases are being seen in relation to absolute management. However, I know that they are being monitored closely within Police Scotland. There is a useful litmus test of the health of an organisation sometimes. The other area that I was interested to explore is that we know that the closure of public counters in police stations and emergency control rooms closed a lot of anger and there was only retrospective consultation. Do you think that budget pressures will lead to further centralisation and further change in the estate? Have you seen any evidence that Police Scotland has learned the lessons of talking in advance of making those decisions? Probably a couple of things there. I know that the estate strategy—what only there is to make significant savings on—would be through the estate strategy that I know has been worked upon just now and will go to the authority. Again, some of that might be about where the local police officers continue to exist. I think that some of that might be about Police Scotland being creative and rather than saying that officers will close, it is about moving police officers into collocation in other areas, perhaps to save property costs but still being available to local communities. Those are things that will be explored, I am sure, by Police Scotland as they look to develop savings. I think that what is key, as you have alluded to, is that when those savings are being put forward—and inevitably there will be difficult choices, I am sure, moving forward—the budget is that Police Scotland would meaningfully consult and engage local authorities in advance of that. I know that there has been a lot of discussion between the chief constable and the authority in relation to that consultation process and in the role particularly the authority would take in working with local authorities. Having listened to the chief constable who spoke at the police authority meeting last week, I think that he identified himself so that there are other areas for him where he could have consulted more and he would intend to consult more and moving forward. I am just following on, Mr Peckman, from the dialogue between the local area commander along with the local authorities. You are probably aware more and more that the burden of treason has fallen on to local authorities. A good example of that is the removal of traffic warrants, which has now been picked up or has to be picked up by local authorities. I see that the Scottish Police Federation has requested that rather than local authorities put any additional funding towards police officers, they are now requesting that they should put it towards support staff. Do you think that that is right? I think that the conversation needs to be had between local authorities and Police Scotland as to how they can best protect their communities in that area. I am not sure that I want to be drawn into what gets funding where. I think that if it is appropriate for that local authority, and we are keen to have empowerment of local policing and empowerment of local commanders, then in some respects a dialogue between local authorities and the local commander about how local authority might support policing and might support that financially is probably a conversation that would be worth having. I am not sure that I want to generalise on where they would look to fund or not fund. Surely you will agree that local authorities are under the same financial constraint as Police Scotland is, so surely you must have a view that why should the local authority take up the burden of the efficiency cuts from Police Scotland? I would take the view that they should not be my take. The example of giving health is where, if healthcare was taken to policing, it was transferred to NHS and the costs went with it, so it was not cost-shunting from that. I think that there is probably a principle around that. There is an aspect of things like traffic wardens about responsibility and legislation around some of that. I think that the overarching bit for me and all of this is about meaningful engagement between Police Scotland and local authorities, so that there is proper effective dialogue around what it is that is needed to be provided and who is best to provide it, as opposed to trying to be shunt costs on would be my take. As we all probably know, the Scottish Government has a commitment to the distant thousand police officers. We are moving in from the Scotland report that we have to be more focused on their strategic approach. Do you think that that figure is going to be sustainable and if it is sustainable, where? It is more of a political question, rather than if it might have impacts on the budget, perhaps, if you could approach it in that way. I think that it is probably quite irrelevant to the decision that we have to make. It is a political decision, rather than a... That may be your take on it, but it is certainly not my take. Oh, it is a political decision, indeed. We are asking if that is sustainable. If so, obviously we have seen a significant impact on the background staff. My question is, do you think that the thousand police officers under the present financial climate is going to be sustainable? I think that it is challenging. It would be my take on that. It is where you have 91 per cent of your budget, as I said before, of staff costs, and then you have the flexibility within that. I think that the thousand additional officers is a good thing, in as much as you have additional officers on the street. It continues to be a good thing, provided that the thousand extra officers are being used for policing purposes. Should the number of police officers then be brought in to do other roles in their less impactive, that is perhaps the point to which it becomes less sustainable. John Finch-e-Reeley, I had a question about IT systems and accepting that there is a role for the authority and that there are implications for the police. We understand that capital reform £10 million has been transferred from operating reform to meet the costs of ICT systems, and I assume that is the helpfully named I6 and C3. Are there any disasters looming that we need to know about, given the history of ICT and the police service? Obviously, ICT, in the public sector generally, is incredibly challenging. It needs to try and harmonise eight legacy systems and international systems, which is particularly challenging and particularly expensive. That would be my take on that. I think that what we are seeing, the major project is I6 around that, and I know that it has been of interest to the committee. The indications are that we are picking up from there a project that has been managed well. Although there is some slippage, that has been taken care of, if you like. However, at the project, there is a high level of confidence about it being delivered. There is also additional ICT spend around things like C3, which is control room technology, and we are seeing some of that now starting to be implemented. Alas Tina, because Tina has been involved in the ICT side with Police Scotland in the terms of what some of the governance arrangements are around ICT to give us some confidence. Yes, there has been quite an increase in governance around ICT. The SPA have implemented an ICT scrutiny forum and are now introducing further reporting into their financial committee to monitor that capital spend. As you say, to improve further governance around exactly what is that capital money being spent on are the projects delivering to time. However, there is individual governance around each of the projects, as well as the programme in total, the ICT programme. A good proportion of reform money is being spent on ICT. Primarily because Police Scotland quite rightly recognised that ICT is a key enabler of transformational change that can support savings and I6 through their flagship programme. They have managed to pull from initial issues with I6, perhaps with specification. They have genuinely pulled that back to a position where they and their supplier are in a very good place with guaranteeing delivery to timescale. Very good communication and governance going on, strong control being exhibited by Police Scotland in terms of adherence to milestones and withholding milestone payments until they are satisfied. They also have external assurance through consultancy and the independent gateway review process, as well as ourselves. They are actually very well scrutinised now in terms of ICT and have a good deal of capacity in place to deliver the programme. However, we do believe that the capacity could increase for ICT in that, if they want to further progress transformational change to deliver some of the challenging savings. ICT is one of the obvious paths, which would increase the pressure on ICT resources and capital funding in the future, but it is for Police Scotland to say what other ICT programmes it wants to bring forward in that case. I just wanted to know about the police pensions. Do you think that it is the elephant in the room? Is it the biggest concern that you have, particularly under the clarity of home between 2015 and 2016, that you will have on the budget? It is probably a question that I cannot answer, to be honest, and probably the one that is best directed to the SPA and Police Scotland in terms of the finance director. My understanding is that the element of pension is taken out of the operational budget, if you like, and it is met from elsewhere, but it is probably a question that is best directed to the director of finance. Just as our final question is, we have got the SPA looking at the police budget and service delivery to an extent as well, and you are doing it yourself. I wonder how the establishment of the SPA has impacted on your role as imagine as chief inspector, given constabulary and looking at budgets. Has that made a difference? Part of our role is to work effectively alongside the SPA in their scrutiny role, and Audit Scotland, because Audit Scotland also has a role in terms of best value and police finance. We have a memorandum understanding with Audit Scotland, so Audit Scotland will do the detailed work on financial accounting and the annual accounts, whether we will meet them around financial risk. What we are looking to do just now is, although we are not scrutinising the finance in terms of inspection activity, to monitor the budgets and how they are being done. We work alongside or we sit in on the police authority meetings and the Police Scotland meetings, so the budget papers that are going through, the business cases for things that are going through, we see, so we are able to comment on them or provide support. We do not duplicate that effectively. What we do is, just now, is that we are pretty much working alongside and watching or supporting the police authority in terms of their governance of that rather than us duplicating. If we identify areas of risk, then we can then pick up on them individually. If you identify areas of risk for Police Scotland, is that what you are saying, or SPA? Both are effective, because effectively the SPA and the chief executive are accountable officers for the police budget. In some respects, the director of finance works closely with the finance lead within SPA. We are cited on that, because we attend and observe private and public meetings of the SPA, so we can see how the budget is being governed. It gives us an opportunity for areas that we are concerned about. We could then look to do some scrutiny in that area, or we could speak to Audit Scotland if it was more appropriate for them to do that. We are not both doing the same thing. In some respects, what we are doing is watching SPA and how they are governing Police Scotland and how Police Scotland report to them. That is helpful, because it is beginning to wonder if there are a lot of cooks here, busily making the broth, as it were. I see what you are telling me that you are complementary in a sense. Indeed, it is us helping the authority in a position where they can exert effective scrutiny, financial scrutiny with Police Scotland and the whole strategic management of Police Scotland. Because we are cited on that, we can also take a view as to how effective that is and support it or inspect it, depending on what is needed. Maintain your independence. Absolutely. Thank you very much for that. Right. I am going to suspend for five minutes and, if you wish, is there a wish for a five-minute suspension? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Back in business, I welcome to the meeting our second panel of witnesses, Chief Superintendent, Niven Rennie, President Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and Stevie Diamond, Police Staff Scotland Brian Shunison, and, as usual, I will go straight to questions from members. Please, Margaret Shunison. Could I ask again about the police numbers? The police numbers are being protected and creased, but the support staff has, as far as I can see from the figures, decreased by about 2035 since December 2009. Is the workforce balance correct, in your view? I have been here before, so would you just indicate to me which one I will call you, Mr Diamond? No. Oh, you weren't indicating. Oh, sorry, I was indicating, but I think my answer is no. Absolutely not. There has been much played about 17234, a political number that has been placed to maintain police officer numbers. Police Scotland is not 17234. Police Scotland, at the moment, is around 23,000 people, and that is 23,000 people delivering the service to the people of Scotland. Our view is that we should have a balanced workforce, so that staff and officers are assigned to the jobs that they are there to do, so we need some sort of review of the work that Police Scotland does to establish exactly how many police officers we need and exactly how many staff we need to actually carry out the roles that Police Scotland is there to do. Can I ask more specifically—perhaps if I always get my ranks wrong, so I don't want to demote your poll? You all live in hope, don't you? Okay. The same question? Yeah, well, I think—I agree with Stephen that our association would tend to support a balanced workforce. We have always—we have always argued that. It's always good to have as many police officers available to us as we can, and we've thoroughly supported the 17234, because it's been on-going. I think that there's a wider discussion on that. I think that it is really a political discussion. We maintain our education budget at a flat line, we increase our health budget, but we cut justice. That is about prioritisation and it's right and proper that we do that, but when we make these cuts, we can't expect the police to deliver the same service that we have done if we're reducing the amount of money. Reform has helped, and transformational change will help, but I think that there has to be a realistic expectation of what we want the police to deliver. When we try and save money around the margins without reducing staff numbers, it becomes an issue about closing control rooms and closing police officers' counters. We try to use our resources in different ways, and then it becomes an issue about wearing firearms. I think that we need a wider discussion of what we expect the police to do and what we want the police to do and then fund appropriately. So you would also support a review of the workforce balance? Yes, I think that we've gone a long way over the years to stop having police officers thinking they're architects or believing that they're lawyers. We actually employ people to do that. Long may we continue that we have the right people and the right jobs, and the police officers use their warranted powers for the skillsets that they have. Can you ask if you're aware of any particular issue with licensing where I think that there's been a downgrading of staff, and it's an expert kind of job, given how important alcohol is and the control of it at various levels? Are you aware of any issue there? To be honest, that's quite a common theme throughout the restructuring of Police Scotland and that members of staff, it's just not a reduction in members of staff, it's actually a de-skilling of staff as well, and some of those roles that the staff carry out are being given to police officers to do that. Licensing is one example, but also, for example, legal documents serving, which is the serving of citations to members of the public. The proposal for that was that there were, I think it was 69 legal documents officers across Scotland. The proposal was to completely do away with that service and to put the serving of citations back to front-line police officers. That proposal has been carried through, I think, it implements in December, but what we've managed to do is to actually take the administrative part of the citations serving, the part where the citations are recorded, some of them are time critical, and put that back to police staff. However, that did involve, again, another downgrading of their role because they've obviously had the part where they're actually out-meeting members of the public taken from them, so that actually downgraded their role one full grade. That's quite a common theme throughout it, so it's not just the fact that police staff numbers are decreasing, their roles are diminishing as well. Anything to add to that? Yes, so again, I reiterate, if 91 per cent of our budget goes on staff and we have huge amount of savings to make, then we're going to change the way we operate to try and make those savings. Our members have felt the pain as well. We heard earlier from the HMI that our numbers have been reduced and the work doesn't go away. In an ideal world, I think, we would have police officers who wouldn't be serving citations, we'd have people doing it, but the savings have to be made somewhere, and as the budget gets cut, even more tough decisions have to be taken in that way. I suppose that we're looking at this balance, how much or to what extent those increased police officers, or increased number, are ensuring that police are doing the role that we would traditionally expect them to use in prevention and detection of crime. Taking on, if not actual physical backfilling, duties that are more associated with the support staff traditionally, would that be a fair assessment? I think that for a long time the police service has tried to meet all the public expectations, and there has to come a stage where we can't continue to operate. As we heard earlier on about traffic wardens, that was one appropriate discussion to say that we can't be expected to fulfil everything that's required in society. Even last week, the chief constable at the SPA meeting announced 100 extra officers being given to child abuse inquiries. We continue to create squads. We continue to meet the public expectation, and at some point we're unable to do that, and I think that that has to be a rostic expectation. To be honest, I've got to agree with most of that. However, we have to have a look at the appropriateness of the roles. If we've got 100 officers, why does it necessarily have to be 100 officers? Are there intelligence roles that are sitting that could be appropriately carried out by members of staff, which would effectively free up the officers to do their warranted role? It's part of that bigger debate about how we got about policing and the public's perception of what a front-line police officer is, as opposed to what support can be given to that officer to carry out their role. Can I ask about campaigns as well? Are you aware of any increase in budget for campaigns impacting any way—some of them are very positive or PR or advertising or anything like that? Is that come across your members' deaths at all? Just the amount of money that is spent on this as opposed to perhaps more front-line sort of direct policing? To be perfectly honest, I don't have an idea of what the budget would be for campaigns. However, I think that there's been much more intelligent use of things like social media in Police Scotland, which, to be perfectly honest, are cheaper. That's not to be all-in-end all. More positive communication, more face-to-face communication, is probably as much a way to go as a social media is. Not everyone is social media savvy, although we do place quite a heavy emphasis on it. Sometimes the interaction between a police officer on the street is much more positive. However, if there's a reduction in those numbers because they are, for one of a better word, backfilling the roles of members of staff, then that's obviously got a negative impact. I don't have fingers to my fingertips. If we change to a number one, for example, for efficiency, then there's a need to publicise it so that the public use it, so there's quite an appropriate use of spend. I don't know the level. I've used it. It's very good. I've used 101. Somebody blocked my driveway, and I think that it's out for two hours. The same question that I asked the previous panel. If you have evidence of backfilling of support staff positions by front-line officers, Mr Penman said that he hadn't detected much of that. He's announced inspection and five haven't detected much. Although Tina Ewing said that there was some evidence of what they call cover in the custody cases, he's wondered what your view on that might be. I'll give you an example, and that's the C3 strategic document. The C3 strategic document announced in January. We don't call it backfill in the C3 strategic document. We call it rebalancing the workforce in our place of condition. I wasn't balanced in the first place. What that proposes for C3 is that the split of the workforce would be 55 per cent members of staff, 45 per cent police officers. I'm not aware of any police control rooms in Scotland, apart from the one that was entirely police officers, but the rest were well under 30 per cent police officers to 70 per cent police staff. That's a rebalancing, which suggests to me that police staff numbers will decrease and police officers numbers will increase. You may say, well, there's experience in police officers going into control rooms, but Dumfries, for example, was 100 per cent police staff. I didn't see any degradation of service there, and I think they were commended for the service that they gave the members of the public down there, so I feel that's a false argument. However, Mr Penn was also talking about how the scope system, the HR system, would be able to identify if the police officers were backfilling on a permanent basis. Part of the budget document that the Police of Scotland put forward was that efforts have been made to reduce the deficit by not employing people when they're vacancy-arised. However, that work is still there to be done, and I'm sure you can imagine who's going to be doing that work. It'll be a police officer that's put in there, not necessarily registered in that particular role, but if there's work to be done, then there's got to be somebody there to do it in that general work, the police officer. I like Stevie. My members don't bring that issue to me as regularly, as I'm sure his do, but I really re-emphasise my earlier evidence that if you're going to cut a budget and 91 per cent of your budget is staffing, then you are going to have to release some of that staff. It's been traditional in the police service across the UK that they stop recruiting and police officer numbers drop, and that hasn't happened here for a variety of reasons. Therefore, voluntary redundancy was used, and we have regrettably seen a cutback in a number of support staff that we have, and the job still has to be done. I think that the logic would dictate that there'll be more police officers performing these functions. We would like to see that rebalanced. Clearly, that has a resource implication because police officers' salaries are higher than the sports staff's. To a certain extent, I think that you'll find that it depends on what role you're performing and who's performing it, but the starting salary for a police officer in real terms is considerably lower than it was some time ago, so where are you sitting on that side of the argument? What is the starting salary? I think that starting police officers will be around about 20,000. It then continues as they go through their probationary period and out the other side, but in real terms, compared to what it was, given inflation and such, it's a lot lower than it was. What's the starting salary? Maybe it's too broad a question for support staff. To put it into perspective, around about 60 per cent of police staff are under 21,000 pounds. On the issue of the control rooms that we touched on in the previous panel, there was concern that, because the new control rooms might not have the local knowledge that the previous control rooms such as Demfries had, there would have to be a transfer of information to local police officers in order to identify where incidents were taking place. Have you any evidence that that's been happening? Have there been issues raised with you about the efficiency of the way in which that's happening? Again, it has a resource implication if it is putting additional burdens on police officers in order to be able to resolve some of the issues around that. To be honest, it's nothing specific about location. However, what I have to remember is that the people who have taken the work from Demfries are members as well. They are put under a burden as well because they have to try to work out where the location is. I'm not going to say that there's not going to be difficulties, that will happen anywhere across Scotland. There are technological assistants to be able to give that. However, if someone is unaware of where they are, they come across a road crash on a remote road and they're not aware of the location, it's very difficult in any case for someone to do that. Possibly easier for someone with local knowledge who may be able to say a local landmark or something like that, which would step out as opposed to someone who just doesn't really know that knowledge and isn't able to zoom in on the electronic map or the location or whatever. There will be issues around that, but the staff who are in place to deal with that have had training that would assist them to be able to find out where those locations are. In terms of the IT systems that support the sort of activity, again, previous panels seem to be reasonably content with progress on those. Is that your understanding that the IT systems are developing quickly enough and are appropriate, or would you believe that more resources are required to make them more effective? Just to the control room question, we went from eight forces into one. I don't think that you should come to any great surprise that we tried to amalgamate some of the services that were duplicate. That was one of the reasons for reform. I am not aware of any instances where wrong locations have been given. This has been happening across Scotland over a number of years. Control rooms have been closing and becoming larger. I think that that issue is not a relevant issue. It hasn't become so. In relation to IT, I would just emphasise what Mr Penman said. Our association was greatly critical of the way that ACPOS organised its IT. I don't think that we would ever get to the stage of having national IT systems without a national force, and it was one of the reasons why we supported the creation of a national force. A lot of the savings of reform are based on I6 being a success. I regularly go to programme board meetings. It has been well managed. A great deal of scrutiny from all levels has been placed on it to make sure that we do not have the same problems that we have had with previous public sector IT projects. From the knowledge that I have just now, I would have to say that I have some confidence that it is going to deliver. John Pentland, Sandra, Roderick and John Finnie. Mr Dimond, the press federation has suggested that local authorities should take up the support roles of what is supported by itself at this time. Do you think that that is a way forward, or would you object totally to that? I think that that is taking us back to the 70s, when our members are police staff, where I was employed by local authorities. I think that we have moved on since then. I think that policing has moved on. I think that the members of police staff are much more integrated. I should be much more integrated into the policing team, rather than being separated out. That is not to say that we should not be looking at partnership working in the future in some areas where that is there, but we should be equal partners rather than having funding directly run by local authorities. I think that it is pointed out earlier on. Everyone is under budgetary constraints. We should be looking at things very carefully, but policing is a much more specialised beast than it was in the 70s and 80s. Consider over the past two or three years that we have seen staff reaches by nearly 1,500 to 2,000. We are now moving into a further efficiency drive. What is the lately impact of that to you and your members? In unison's view, it is going to be catastrophic. In 2015-16, we have not identified where the 70s are going to come from, but when 10 per cent is the running cost of your organisation, 90 per cent is the staffing levels, but if that 90 per cent, 15 per cent is police staff and the rest are police officers, that figure will ring ffenced. It does not take a genius to work out where the 70s are going to be coming from and it is going to be our members who are going to be suffering. You said that it would be your members who would suffer from that, but surely it would be the people of Scotland and the service that is provided to the people of Scotland that will suffer if, as Chief Superintendent Niven Rennie said earlier, the police officers themselves are not equipped to do those jobs and not trained to do those jobs. When we have a limited budget, we have a duty of best value. I am afraid that I do not believe that we have a duty of best value because we have ring ffenced one major part of the workforce. That is not to say that we should be paying off police officers, but we need to have a look at how we work that workforce. We went from nine organisations down to one organisation. We reduced nine sets of senior management down to one. However, we maintained those numbers. If there was a business, when you reduced nine down to one, you would reduce eight lots of senior management teams and take those numbers down, and that did not happen. There was a deal airing of sorts, but the money has been put elsewhere into that organisation to maintain those numbers. I am a much more expensive resource than it would have been if we were losing police staff in that respect. John Boyle, you want to come in on that. I think that that is perhaps the case at local level, but I certainly welcome the considerable reduction in the number of chief officer ranks. I thought that service was much richer for that. It was the case that there was quite a removal of ranks at chief officer level. Yes, but what I meant by that was that perhaps the 17234 should have been reduced by the commensurate number rather than maintaining 17234. Everyone welcomes a high number of police officers, but whenever you have a budget to meet, you have to use your resources most appropriately, and is it appropriate to maintain one highly paid set of individuals as opposed to a better value, more focused set of individuals? That is the second option that I want to take. I have just added that our numbers also saw a decrease. What we have seen possibly is a larger SPA than we expected and perhaps a larger perk than we expected. Although it is right and proper that we should have been scrutinised, we should also examine what element of the savings by reform has gone to creating other organisations as well. It certainly was the case that the chief officers' staff association cost £5 million to run. That is £5 million that it could and should. It is now properly being deployed on operational policing. Indeed. It is a wider issue. If we are to truly make savings, then any transformational change should not be short term to reach a budget. We should be looking at how we operate as a service. As Stephen said earlier, what services we perform and who performs them are making long term savings, and I think that work is still to be done to a certain extent. I am going to move to Sandra, Roderick and John Finnie, back again. Is there something else? Is there a different one, John? Were there was one related to that? No, not to that. No, I have found you a wee bite there. I have come back. Sandra, Roderick and I have got you after that. Thank you very much, convener. I must concur with the comments that John had made. What is Perc? The Police Information and Review Commission is people who investigate the police when there is a complaint. Two of the issues that you raised, Chief Superintendent—I hope that that is correct, I am not too sure—is that the SPA is too big. The Police Authority and the PERK, Perc, the investigation—Perc. It is not a case that I am saying that they are too big. I am saying that some of the money that we allocated from reducing the eight forces into one, we identified savings. There is a perception that some of those savings have gone into directorships within the SPA, for example. It is not just a service that needs to be looked at, it is perhaps the wider area of the bodies that have grown since reform as well. Thank you. I am sure that we will ask those questions over to the two gentlemen who have come and appeared before the committee anyway. I want to attach it similar to what I had done in the previous panel, basically the Audit Scotland report on working together. The examples that I gave about money being taken from the police budget via healthcare put forward to healthcare. I think that we all supported that here in this committee, being given to the NHS rather than being delivered separately. I was going to say—I think that I can pre-empt what you are going to say— that you have not been involved with some of the comments that Mr Dimit has made already. Were you involved in any of those discussions whatsoever in regards to consultation and strategies to achieving budgetary savings? Not in relation to that recently, but some time ago our association started some of that dialogue to say why are the police service providing healthcare, and it came from a 1957 circular. So it had been happening for years, and it was an appropriate discussion, and the right decision has been taken. As was discussed earlier, some of the budget has gone across to health to do that, and that is the proper way for it to be managed. I was going to say 1957s a wee bit before my time. I just wanted to know if you have been involved in any of the talks that has gone on about the strategies. Obviously, the health is one, and we have got the forensic sciences the other. Obviously, there is one that I am sure you will agree on is the increase in police pensions. That has got to be something that has been welcomed by yourselves. Breaking those down, some of that we would not—it is not appropriate for us to be involved in. It is a decision for the force and for the SPA, and a lot of our members may be involved in some of that discussion. We will be informed of the strategy, and we will be kept updated about developments, and that is right and proper, but contributing to discussion is not something that we would do as an association per se. In relation to pensions, that is one of our fundamental reasons for existence, is to look after the terms and conditions and welfare of our members. Pensions, as you will be aware, are largely discussed at a UK level. It has not been devolved, and we are kept updated and contributed to that, but we are represented by one of my colleagues in England and Wales in relation to pension dialogue. Obviously, it has increased by 4.4 per cent, and it has been awarded. You mentioned about down in England that there is an awful lot of disruption there, put it that way when it has not been accepted in that respect by the Westminster Government. I do not want to come to an argument here at all. I am just pointing out that there has been money in the police budget put forward from the Scottish Government to police pensions, and I would assume that that would be welcome. I wanted to ask Mr Diamond, do you have any dialogue with the previous panellists or Police Scotland or the SPA in regard to what is happening about the budget? Yes, we generally are told. It is similar to Niven's answer, and it is not appropriate for us to be involved in that. It is the organisation's decision to make. However, if we see that there is an issue with that organisational decision, then that is whenever we become involved in it. I must say that things have moved on and we are involved much earlier in the conversations now, so it is not as much of a fate of complete. We still think that there is room for improvement in that, but it is not a decision for us to make. Otherwise, we would have made that right decision. I am glad that you are engaging slightly earlier. What action can you take if you are unhappy on what comes forward from Police Scotland in regard to the issues that you have raised here today? Is there any action that you can take in regard to feedback? Absolutely. We will be able to feed back to Police Scotland through our consultative process. This week, there was a demonstration of how we feed back through the Scottish Police Authority when we submitted a paper regarding the C3 proposals. We have the ability to do that, and we will come to elected members to raise our issues with you. That is the process that we would have to go through. I am not giving evidence. No, I just wanted to request that you mentioned the fact that you have given this paper about the C3 to the Police Authority. We are obviously going to get evidence from there. Could we ask him to supply that paper? Sorry, if what you are asking. Mr Dimond and the trade unions have produced for SPA regards to the budgets and their thoughts on the changes that were presented to the SPA. I wonder if we can ask for that paper for us to get. I am just wondering if it is a public paper. Is it a public paper? No, I was presented in private, I believe. I would be for the SPA to decide if they were willing to disclose that. We can ask. I think that it is a bilateral thing if you have been discussing that paper. Perhaps we want both parties to agree to it if it was a negotiating paper. I understand that. That is fine. You have got it on the right. It is a supplementary. I was going to come an earlier date, but could I then ask you, Mr Dimond, if your consultation paper that you sent to the SPA did have any influence on the decision that was taken? It informed a meeting. Further to that, I think. It is a piece this way. Wonderful diplomatic. As I have been, because John just lept in without your back, I have been so diplomatic. I must keep taking my pills. If we can get the paper, we will get it. I understand that there is a certain discretion here from also yourself, but I am reading between the lines. Roderick, followed by John Finnie. John, you are still in, are you wanting? No, take me out. Take you out now. Oh, well, that is good. I will delete you. Delete. No, do not do that. Roderick, follow my John Finnie, followed by Alison. Morning, gentlemen. Association of Scottish Police Superintendent survey found that long hours are a matter of routine, a growing problem that impacts the quality of life, resilience and the health of senior officers. We also know from the Scottish Police Authority Finance report that the police staff salary budget was overspent by 0.152 million, but which 0.1485 seems to be the cost of SPA corporate staff. We also know that there has been an overspend in overtime for police officers at costs. What I am trying to do is to reconcile those bits of evidence. If I may start, then the superintendents do not get paid overtime, so that is maybe reconciling some of that, but I would say all joking aside that there are real significant concerns about the workload of my members. We have reduced the number of superintendents considerably through reform without measuring what has been left for the remainder to carry. Our survey that you referred to has shown that, for a vast majority of our members, long hours are the norm on call when they are not working with calls through the night and expected to be at their desk at 7 o'clock full morning. There is a lot of travel to go to meetings. Over and above that, they are also reporting that they cannot take their rest days and they cannot take their annual leave. More worryingly, when they feel sick, they would rather use annual leave than report sick. That is a culture that we have highlighted to the force, and I have written again to the director of HR this in the last week to say that we need to do something about this, because my members are carrying an intolerable burden. Mr Diamond, do you want to comment on those things as far as they have an impact today? I do not know if it is through a microphone or if you are reading a bit. Mr Diamond, do you want to comment? To be honest, it is a similar situation as well. Whenever staff are feeling under pressure, they will do anything that they can to make it known that they are the right person for the job, if you like. Albeit, most of our staff do qualify for overtime. A lot of it will be paid in time rather than in a monetary payment. However, there are real pressures on staff to perform to fill in the gaps that have been left by either people leaving or roles that have not been filled. I am surprised, to be perfectly honest, that the sickness absence rate has not increased considerably more. That has been the experience previously that would happen. People just burn themselves out. I think that that may come in the very near future. Mr Rennie, chief superintendent Rennie, I want to get it right eventually. Do you feel that Police Scotland and SPA are receptive to the comments that your organisation is making? At a certain level they are. We certainly had acknowledgement from the chief constable and at various meetings from the director of HR that there is a problem and that our survey has shown that. What has been slightly worrying for us is that we are now six months since that survey was produced and there has not even been a meeting yet to discuss how we are going to tackle it. The demand goes on and my members continue to be stretched and we do not see any tangible action being taken to address that. I have got Alison. Can I take Alison first? Yes, absolutely. I will take Alison and then I will let you in with a supplementary. I am concerned by the starkness of what you have just said. You said that your staff are facing an intolerable burden and Mr Dynant has expressed concern about the pressures that are there. All of those flows from the savings that are expected flow from an outline business case in itself was sketchy at best. Everyone, whether they supported the reforms or not, raised concern about it some time ago. Would you support calls for a review of the timetable for the delivery of the savings through the form? I think that three years in there may be a need to revisit what was in that business case. I think that the word that you used was sketchy and I think that there may be a recognition of that but some of it was also predicated on staff reductions at police officer level, which has not happened and whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, it is a fact. I think that I go back to what I said earlier. We need to review exactly how we operate and what we are trying to deliver. The public and the politicians have to have a lesser expectation of us if you are going to cut a budget and therefore we cannot be everything to everyone. Just now, we are trying to be and a lot of that burden has been taken by my members. If we do not face up to that review, what do you think the risks are to the service? We are a can-do organisation. We will continue to try and deliver the level of service that is expected of us. I think that the risks are that there will be mistakes. Unfortunately, as we have seen across the United Kingdom, when mistakes happen in public service, there is an inquiry to find out why it happened and whose fault it was. I think that there is more than just the service at blame here. We need to make a fundamental review of what we require from the police. Are you aware of any budget or for a whistleblower type helpline that would help those people who are off sex where there is burn now, where people are feeling the job is getting down or specific issues that they can then raise in confidence and be taken seriously? Are you aware of any budget that exists for that, just now? There is a facility for that. I have been in the Super Tense Association for 11 years and my members are professional career police officers who want to do a good job and always will be committed to their job first and foremost. I think that there is sometimes anonis in them to admit when it gets too much, but I think that there is a feeling amongst them that that will be showing some sort of weakness and therefore they do not do that. So, whilst they may be provisioned, whether it be utilised or not, I am not so confident. Are you confident that they are even aware that it is there? Oh yes, they are aware that it is there. Certainly at my level, my members, we would help to publicise that to make sure that their staff are well taken care of, so that they are well aware that there are facilities. And confidence in terms of how it is dealt with and working and operating at present? I have no evidence to suggest that there is no confidence in that. I think that everybody is confident that we are utilised at the facility works. Mr Dhan, do you have any comments on that, because it would apply to staff too? Absolutely. Like Chief Superintendent Rennie said, his members would inform my members of the facility and that it is well used. We generally receive a report, I think that I have a quarterly report and I have a monthly report, which gives a breakdown of the issues that have been raised in the confidential helpline, but similarly we will receive calls from members. One of the issues that we have about, for example, stress, we carried out a stress survey, which pretty much echoed what the superintendent's association gained from their survey. When we carried that survey out, it was quite clear that there were members who were really suffering from stress, but the only way at the moment that the organisation records that is if they go off sick with stress, and there is a likelihood that people will not. So it appears to be underreporting, because there is no real method of accounting for what people who are suffering from stress but do not want to go off their work because they are afraid of putting their head above the parapet, if you like. Is this information obviously synonymous? It is just a general issue. Can this be made available? Is it something that the committee could look at? Again, that is for the SPA to decide. Is that information? It might be worth seeing, because it gives to give an indication of where the pressure points are. Possibly, yes. You are next anyway, John, so no need to look anxious. Anxious, no. I am actually looking a bit frustrated, and if the gentleman will forgive me for being so direct, it is time for you to put up or shut up. You are prepared to come in the glare of publicity and make these allegations, which I absolutely understand to you the case. Has there been a stress assessment done of individual posts? Have grievances been reached? There is nothing I am aware that suggests that either of your groups of members are not covered by the working time regulations. There should be an agreement in place that used to be. I do not suppose that it has changed. 47 hours averaged over a 70-week rotational cycle. There should be issues of compensated arrest. There is absolutely nothing that will make Mr House pay attention than litigation. I commend the route of tendering grievance going through due process, because I can assure you that you would get a lot of support if that were the case, and it will focus minds on what the important issues are, which is about workload and the effect of individuals and the effect on the public. I fully appreciate what you say. You have to remember that, although we have an executive, we also go with the wills of our membership. Some find being professional police officers taking on the force in such a way is unpalatable. We are continuing just now to try to negotiate with the force as a first instance, but I can agree that some of my members, who are slightly verging on the more militant, are suggesting the route that you are suggesting. Mr Rennie, the difficulty is that it is not militant. What does it say to the public if you say that my members are going to enforce legislation as regards you, but protective legislation, vital health and safety legislation that applies to your members while we are going to set that aside because we are career police officers? That sends a very, very poor signal. I would encourage engagement through a formal process that could be done. I hope that the chief constable is listening to that. We have an executive meeting on Thursday, Mr Finlay, and I will certainly put your comments on the agenda and the sale. You asked the questions, but I think that he is leading a campaign. Can I move on to a couple of questions? Wait a minute, check where you are. Yes, you are. That is reassuring. Thank you, convener. Sorry, Mr Dan. You heard the comment that I directed to the inspectorate about my understanding of a changed arrangement for road policing unit. The issues that have been raised over a number of periods have been raised today about devolved resource management. It seems that the unfortunate reality is that your members have little control over budget rematters. I would go further. Throughout my service, I have seen budgets get devolved and brought back in. I think that the problem that we have just now is that I do not think that my members have staffing support locally to be able to manage their budgets. That is one area of the business division administration support, which has gone through voluntary denouncing largely. So, while I would welcome devolved budgets and greater powers to move budgets around locally, I just do not think that we have the infrastructure to support that at present. Would you agree that that would be an opportunity to say to folk that, regardless of the fact that it is a single service, that that service does reflect local priorities, because local decisions are being made by local commanders who have autonomy in financial matters? I think that all my members would like to have more power to tackle matters locally, and having a budget would certainly help them. So, specifically on the issue and a suggestion that road policing would only be available on a 24-hour basis from that specialist unit at three locations so that north of Perth there is nothing, would that concern you? I have heard that for the first time this morning from yourself, Mr Finlay, so I need to find out more information about how that— But if it were accurate, would it concern you? If there was to be no road policing, but having been a former head of road policing, I would not see that it would be totally withdrawn in that way, so there must be some sort of contingency and I need to find out more. Okay, thank you very much. I have a question for Mr Diamond. Mr Diamond, we got a lot of statistics about the national voluntary release panel, and a lot of statistics around that. There is one aspect that I wanted to ask you about, and I know that you are very involved with your members here, and it is the sentence that says, the return on investment profile is currently 1.06 years based on full-year savings of £23.459 million. I am assuming that that says after 1.606 years the saving is realised. Is there not an on-going financial implication for any pension issues around your members who have taken that scheme? Or is that factored into that 1.06 years? I believe that it is factored in and I believe that it is based on the Scottish Government guidelines, which are based again on national guidelines. So I believe that that has been taken into account, but I have had to check in that to be absolutely certain. Okay, thank you. I would be grateful if you could, but that would be helpful. Also around the issue of pending decisions, are you content with the way that that is being dealt with? Yeah, we are involved in the panel as observers, and we do not make any decisions about who is released or not, but we are there to make sure that the process is carried out fairly. Okay, thank you very much. Sorry, if it is okay to add, I will replant you about the grievance part of it, is that we are a lay-med, lay-led union. Our members are the ones that drive that. It takes real, real guts for a low-paid member of staff who think their job is under threat to come to us to say, I want to raise a grievance. Our members will be the ones who will say to us that they want to raise that grievance. We will encourage them to do that and give them that support through that, but it takes real, real strength of character for them to be able to do that. It does, of course, and it is also a further aggravation for anyone to victimise someone who raises a legitimate grievance. Yeah, absolutely, but when it comes to put up a shut-up, believe me, we put up all the time when it comes to those issues, and we have to go through the real process, the legitimate process that we have, and if it does come to going through courts, we will do that, but we have to have that back up from our members in the first place. Please believe me, I was actually trying to be supportive. I do not think that Mr Diamond is a shrinking violet anyway, and neither is Chief Superintendent Rainey, a pretty tough man representing their members. I move on to Christian Allan, followed by John Pentland. Regarding how we can maybe make some saving, and maybe operate differently, but we are operating now, and one of his example was quite telling, was Aberdeen Football Club, and some of the games now, there is no police presence, so maybe we need to redefine all these things, and maybe now that we've got the clarity of, we've got that change to a single force, it's maybe time to redefine what police should do, what police shouldn't do. How much do you think all these events have been Football Club, or Football events, for example, with that factor, I believe a lot of, I was during the weekend, and a lot of disturbance in policing at the regional level, how much of that do you think would make a difference, and can we maybe, do you think that some of his costs have been recovered significantly, or not? I think that there's two aspects to that. The first one is the Football one, and I thought that Mr Penman's answer was excellent. Over a period of time, we have gradually withdrawn policing from Football to a certain extent, but you still get the big game recently in the press that Celtic and Rangers are going to play again, and there is a cost recovery from the game, from the clubs, but you have to remember that it's wider than that, just because the game takes place in Glasgow, doesn't mean to say that there's not a policing consequence in Aberdeen or Edinburgh, and that it's not really a bit, there's no ability to cover that, get that back from the clubs, because you can't say directly what was caused by the football. In the wider sense, in terms of cost recovery, I've been very impressed by how Police Scotland has operated. So much so, they have been criticised. The Wicker Man Festival in Dumfries, for example, there was criticism about the way that Police Scotland went about their cost recovery, but in days of tight budgets, if the police are required, it's quite right if it's a commercial entity that they should refund the cost of the policing, and I think that they're well down the road of doing that. You're quite happy with the direction that we are taking, and that direction should be affecting everything that you do, what will be public event or private event inside, indoors or outdoors. There's things that should be judged. Maybe we should raise the money before the event happens. As I said earlier, I think that we need to look at everything that the police do, what is appropriate for the police to do, what is appropriate for other agencies to do, what does it be expected of the police, and where does the funding come from? I think that that is part of transformational change and I think that work requires to be undertaken. On transformational change, we talked in the first panel and I think that you edited two verses in some of the answers that you gave regarding partnership. Do you see partnership that only with local authorities but as well with third sector and maybe private sector as well, especially in the prevention part? I think that everything should be up for discussion at our conference last year. We had the third sector having an input saying what they could do to support the police. We would welcome all avenues of exploring how the police operate in the future. You would welcome budget partnership and maybe sometimes not to be the leading authority on this campaign or on this action. I think that we should be open minded. Let us recognise that we have come a long way in partnership. Partnership working is not something new. We have been working in partnership with local authorities and other partners for a number of years. However, as we go forward, we need to be open minded and look at all sectors of society and see what they can deliver in the criminal justice arena. You mentioned absincusum and sickness. Give us an percentage of what that actually is per year and how does that compare with last year and a year before? The second question is following on from the put-up or shut-up comment. Do you think that it is right that the chief constable controls most of the resources but does not report to an accountable officer? For the absinces figures, I do not have them off the top of my head. They were reported at the last SPA meeting. I think that it is roughly about 10 per cent. However, what the report did say was that there was an upturn, albeit perhaps not as much as we expected just now. As for the chief constable reporting to an accountable officer, I believe that that is done through the SPA. He has to report to the SPA to ensure that his budget is balanced. In that way, it has been carried out. It is not really for me to be able to say whether that is right or wrong. With our association, it tends to be presenteeism rather than absenteeism that causes the issue. I would like to make sure that my members are taking appropriate time off. That is one of my main concerns. With regard to the chief constable, I think that it is right and proper. The statutory obligation lies with the chief constable. He does report to the SPA and, as you found out earlier, he is inspected by other bodies as well. I think that that is the correct structure. We did not find it out. We knew it. We do know about Audit Scotland and the inspectorate. I just thought that I would save your answer from there. Thank you very much for your evidence. That concludes the evidence session. Thank you. I am going to, if you like, committee. I will just move straight on. Do you want me to move straight on? No break. I am now moving straight on to item 7 public petitions committee. We better do it on the record. Can we just get moving on? Please pay attention, team. Item 7 public petitions, do you want to say something, Roger? Thank you, convener. Could I just record for the record my register of interests as a member of the Faculty of Advocates? Right. Now we move on to the first petition, a new petition, PE1501, public inquiries into self-inflicted and accidental deaths following suspicious death investigations. The Scottish Government has committed, as we have been told, to bringing forward legislation to implement the recommendation of Lord Cullen's review of fatal accident inquiry legislation. Screwting of FAI legislation may be the most appropriate forum for the issues raised by the petitioners to be considered. Can I have your comments, please? On the petition… Sandra. Ffetal accident inquiry one? On PE1501, yes. That particular petition, just now, the new one. Oh, sorry, no, sorry, I was PE1280, I was… We've not come to that yet. Right, okay, I'll leave that one just now then. Bear with me a minute, I'm having prompting all round. Are you content to consider this position as part of our scrutiny of the forthcoming legislation on FAIs? That's what I was trying to get at you. You are. Do you wish to write to the Crown Office and PF service to ascertain the level investigation carried out into the 4,000 deaths classed as self-inflicted for the last five years? That would be a statistic that we would like to have. What am I getting back from me? Yeses? Yes. The on-going petitions PE1280, Ffetal accident inquiries and deaths abroad, like the previous petition, that petition also obviously relates to FAIs. Again, are members content to note the developments outlined in the papers and a greater turn to the petition once the legislation on FAIs has been introduced? The issue now, yes. I would like to keep the petition opened and I know that the Government has been looking at that, and I think that it's September that we're going to come forward with some proposals. Next year? Yes, 2015. I would like to request the committee to write to the cabinet secretary and ask for an update on this particular one. A number of MSPs have raised this through constituents as well, and it's been on-going for quite a while. I welcome the looking at legislation, but I would like a re-update. I'm just considering if it's not being… I don't quite know whether it's proposals or something's going to be lodged as a bill. If it's September 2015, is there sufficient time to do that legislation within the session? We could ask that in the letter to the cabinet secretary. I think that's really something that would… Sorry, Elaine, yes. The note from the clerk just says that it's 2015, not September 2015. I wondered if we could maybe get a timeline from the Scottish Government in terms of when it intends to bring this forward. Yes, I would go along with that. Would it be… Is it also possible to ask what they're thinking is what it will cover? Some of these petitions are on different things. Is a broad thing in FEIs or just FEIs in deaths abroad or what? What is the intention for this bill to cover? Do we want to also ask, apart from being told broadly 2015, obviously the clerks have done their best to find out whether there'll be sufficient time for this to be processed during the course of this session. Is that happy with something along those lines? Alison, you're not looking as if you are. You're just thinking. You've got your thinking face on. Right. That's what we'll do. PE137, no independent inquiry, the McGraway conviction. You've got the most recent submission at Annexhaith paper 6. It makes clear that the GFM and Police Scotland have had two constructive meetings since we last considered the petition. In a separate development, the Lockerbie relatives now have made a submission to the SCCRC. Members are content to note the progress being made on this petition between GFM and Police Scotland. I maintain a watching brief and also perhaps a watching brief on what happens to the SCCRC. To keep it open, I think that that would be good. At each time, I have to say that we have members of GFM who come to the public area and make a long journey to be here. We welcome their attention to what the committee is doing in this regard. I know that they've kept going for a very long time, particularly I'm going to mention Robert Forrester, so I know that he's made a long journey to come to everyone of our meetings, Mr Forrester. He mustn't clap, he mustn't clap. But I do thank you for your attention. So we're keeping it open while we're more interested in those two things. PE1427 multi-party actions. The Scottish Government has stated that, on the long term, it's committed to multi-party or class actions if we're consulting its approach to matters that will be taken forward by primary legislation following Sheriff's principle, Taylor's recommendations. Are you content to keep the petition open till after the Scottish Government has developed its approach to this issue? Thank you very much, yes. Do members also wish to ask the Scottish Government to specifically include the petitioner in its consultation and to respond to the petitioner's concerns about the holding of documents by private companies? Roddy, yes. There are, obviously, court processes for the disclosure of documents that are outwith to freedom of information, so it's partial. I don't have a problem if the committee wants to write to the Government about it that just thought that would be as well to point out. I think that we appreciate the limitations of the Freedom of Information Act, but within its remit is to provide as much as possible. But I think that in courtesy, the very least to the petitioner is to specifically invite him to respond. Do you agree? Okay, no problem. PE1449, preserving independent Scottish Administrative Justice Council, since we last considered this petition, we've received some missions from the chair of the Scottish Tribunals and Administrative Justice Advisory Committee on the convener of Accountability Scotland and the original petitioner. The chair of the advisory committee gives assurances that the end-user is well represented in the advisory committee, and I see that we've got a note of all the members on the interim one. Are members there for content to close this petition? In doing so, do we wish to draw the Scottish Government advisory committee's attention to the letters from Accountability Scotland and the original petitioner? Right? Okay, okay. PE1479, legal profession and legal aid time bar, since we last considered this petition, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has proposed increasing the legal aid time bar limit from one year to three, with effect from one January 2015. The commission is currently consulting on those changes, and the petitioner has been included in that consultation. The petitioner has indicated that, in his view, there should be no time bar. Are members content to close this petition on the grounds that the time bar is being extended and that the petitioner has had the opportunity to participate in the consultation? Alison? I think that I'd be happier if we waited until the consultation had closed and we were able to just have a look at what the outcome of that is rather than prejudge the consultation. I'd be happier to keep it open for just one more cycle, if that was possible. If you knew it, it seems sensible to keep it open until after the 17th of November. I don't know the major problem that the committee wants to do that, but I have to say that the idea that there should be no time bar for something else is something I could never agree to. No, I'm in the same position as well. One has to have some point of finality unless it's a common law crime or something in which there's no time bar, but I think that, otherwise, one would have to have some kind of surety. Yes, we'd be happy to do that. Okay, thank you. P1504, civil appeals. This petition was originally fair to us for consideration during our scrutiny of the courts reform Scotland bill, which has now been passed. The committee previously wrote the petition to ascertain what the point of general public reports was in her case, not reasons were given by Slyster for not representing her or responses to Annex D. Do you have any comments on the petitioner's latest submission? Are members content to close the petition on the grounds that the bill has now completed its parliamentary passage? Thank you very much. P1510, PE1511, they are fair to us during our session with the inspectors, the Fire and Rescue and Constabulary in August, but these are issues that, of course, police and fire control rooms have arisen partly today. So are you content to keep the petitions open for the time being because we can raise them when we're taking questions on the budget? Okay, okay, right. Item 8, subordinate legislation, is one negative instrument. The legal aid and assistance by way of representation, fees for time at court and travelling Scotland regulations 2014, SSI 2014-257. This aims to bring in a consistent approach on how Slyster charged the time-engaged at court across civil legal aid, criminal legal aid, legal aid and contempt of court proceedings and advice and assistance for matters relating to assistance by way of representation. This instrument is due to come into force on 10 November 2014. The DPLR committee did not need to draw the attention of the Parliament in any grounds. Do you have any comments? I'm pleased that the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland and the board seem to be content. Well, bring out the cake. Yes, they are content for the time being. Item 9, we're content to make no recommendation in relation to this instrument. I've just said that. I'm content to make no recommendation in relation to this instrument. I'm moving too fast for you. Item 9, subordinate legislation, is one instrument, not subject to any parliamentary procedure, rules of the Scottish Land Court 2014, SSI 2014-229. This sets out the practice and procedure to be followed in the Scottish Land Court with effect from 22 September 2014. It seems a bit pointless if it's already there. The DPLR committee has drawn the instrument to the attention of the Parliament for minor drafting errors and a failure to follow the normal drafting practice. The DPLR committee also noted issues with the timing of the instrument. Are members content to endorse the concerns of the DPLR committee? I have a brief point, and that is on page 6 of our paper paragraph 2 in relation to the Scottish Land Court's response, which I found strange, at best, unprofessional at worst. The general approach taken in drafting the rules was to use gender-neutral terminology, but as you will be aware, that can sometimes be cumbersome. I don't think that's an appropriate response from a public body. The DPLR report has picked that up. They don't miss much, so you're content to endorse the report. Yes, but it's worth saying that I would have expected more from a public body in this day and age. Right. That said, we're now moving to private session.