 Good morning, and can I welcome everybody to the 7th meeting in this session of the Public Audit Committee? Before we begin, I would like to remind members and guests that the Parliament's rules on social distancing should be observed, and if you are moving around the room or entering or leaving the room if you could wear a face covering, that would be greatly appreciated. The first item on our agenda for members of the committee is to ask if we can take items 4 and 5 in private. Are we all agreed on that? We are agreed, thank you very much. The main purpose of our meeting today in the first half is to discuss the Audit Scotland report into community justice, sustainable alternatives to custody. We have three witnesses with us this morning, which I am delighted to welcome to the committee. We have Joe Griffin, who is the director general of education and justice. We have Neil Renwick, who is the director of justice. We have Catriona Dallrymple, who is the deputy director of community justice and parole in the Scottish Government. We have a number of questions that we would like to ask you, but I wonder if Mr Griffin would like to begin by making an opening statement. I would like to thank the Public Audit Committee for inviting me to give evidence today alongside Neil Renwick and Catriona Dallrymple. I very much welcome the opportunity to discuss Audit Scotland's recent paper, Community Justice, Sustainable Alternatives to Custody, following on from the Auditor General's Evidence to the Committee on 30 September. At a time when the Scottish Government has an increasing focus on community justice, Audit Scotland's report and its planned work for 2022 will be enormously helpful in informing our approach to this vital area. The various points raised are relevant not only to community sentencing, which is the main focus of the paper, but also to wider community interventions such as diversion from prosecution and alternatives to remand. Overall, we agree with Audit Scotland that there are some challenging issues to address within community justice, as well as opportunities to improve outcomes. However, I would stress at the outset that it is important to see community justice in the wider context of the changing nature of crime over the past decade, with a downward trend in levels of crime overall, but increases in prosecutions for certain types of crime, especially sexual offending. It is a complex picture. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those involved in delivering community justice services, including justice social workers, community justice partners, third sector organisations and a range of others for their work during the pandemic in maintaining critical services in incredibly challenging circumstances, supporting individuals on orders and keeping our communities safe. The on-going impact of Covid on the sector and the wider justice system will be a key consideration in our next steps. I would like to thank the committee again for the invitation to appear today and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr Griffin. We have a range of questions that we want to ask and grant that we want to cover. Let me begin by reflecting on the Audit Scotland report, which was put in fairly sharp relief the picture as it saw it. When we received evidence from the Auditor General, he said, and I quote him, that there is a fairly static level of progress, which was an interesting way or perhaps a polite way of describing what could best be described as a zigzag in the outcomes of custodial versus non-custodial sentences. Again, I think that it is important to emphasise that the findings of Audit Scotland were that, for people's sentence for one year or less, if they were put in custody, there was a 49 per cent chance of reconviction within the next year, whereas if they went into community justice, there was a 30 per cent chance of probability of reconviction. We know as well that there is an enormous cost to the public of people serving time in prison. Audit Scotland came to the figure of a cost of £37,000 a year for somebody to be kept in jail versus the cost of an equivalent community sentence to be around £1,894 per year. There is a massive discrepancy there as well, and we are the Public Audit Committee, and we are interested in those figures. My first question, Mr Griffin, is, do you accept those findings and all of the other findings that are contained in the report? We accept the recommendations to the Government, and everything that Audit Scotland says is factually correct. It is important to look at the overall context when we are looking to compare custodial and community sentences in particular, and in that context we can say that perhaps more progress is implied than the way it is sometimes framed. If I may, there are just three key facts about the last 10 years. First of all, the number of disposals overall has fallen by 40,000. Secondly, the number of individuals sentenced to prison in the last decade has fallen by 4,000, that is some 18 per cent. Thirdly, the number of short-term sentences of 12 months or less has fallen again by 4,500 in 10 years, that is around a third. We are seeing less activity in the justice system, fewer sentences, fewer individuals going to prison, but those that are are going for a longer period of time, and it is the growth of those longer-term sentences that is keeping the prison population high and keeping the share of custody as opposed to community justices at the levels that Audit Scotland has correctly identified. There are various reasons that we can explore. If you are interested convener around this, they relate to more confidence in reporting changes in legislation, some of the success of the approaches taken in youth offending, for example, but the basic fact is fewer people going to prison for longer. In that context, I think that community justice is actually making steady progress, so overall the number of community sentences has increased 7 per cent over the course of the last year, and the percentage share of all disposals is 22 per cent, and that is an 8 per cent increase in 10 years. We are really ambitious to do even better than that. For all the reasons that you have outlined and that the Auditor General outlines in his report, the discrepancy in terms of outcome, the discrepancy in terms of cost makes us really ambitious. We are still seeing short-term sentences, so we saw 1,400 people getting a custodial sentence with a main charge of shoplifting in 1920. There is more that we need to do. We need to ensure that the capacity and the reliability is there for the judiciary to feel confident to avail themselves of those sentences and appropriate circumstances, but I think that the progress in the growth of community justice has been steady and I think that it has been reasonable. Thank you, Mr Griffin. I feel free to bring in the other witnesses alongside you if you feel that they could helpfully illuminate some of those points further. You spoke of totals, and I am not in a position to dispute the figures that you have presented before us, and we will look at those in a bit more detail. In the Audit Scotland report, there is emphasis on the proportions. If it is a stated aim of public policy to change the balance between custodial and non-custodial sentences, yet when we look at the last three years and the proportion of non-custodial sentences was at 59 per cent, then went down to 56 per cent and is back up to 59 per cent. That does not really show clearly to the public and to members of this committee that there is a clear line of progress being made. It looks as though it is rather one step forward, one step backwards and perhaps one step forward again. Would you reflect on the proportions as well as the totals? No, I am very happy to. The proportions that Audit Scotland demonstrates in their report are only custody and community sentences, as in a much wider range of other disposals, fines, admonishments and so on. The issue with just comparing custodial and community is that custodial includes the short-term sentences that we want effectively to be increasingly displaced by community sentences, but also the longer-term sentences that we know are growing and have been growing steadily over the course of the last decade. That stubborn figure of the high 50 per cent for custodial sentences and the high prison population that we still have in comparative terms compared to the rest of Europe is now being driven by longer-term sentences for fewer people. In other words, the situation has changed. I would submit that community justice actually achieved quite a lot of its objectives over the course of the period of time, but the context has shifted pretty significantly so that we are now seeing the rise in the prison population driven more by fewer people going for longer sentences. You dispute the conclusion that there is a fairly static level of progress or no progress at all in your eyes. We are making progress in shifting the balance from custodial to non-custodial sentences. I think that it is absolutely accurate what Audit Scotland has said to say that the prison population is still high and that the proportion of prison sentences in the overall mix for justice remains high and stubborn, but that is being driven by fewer people going to prison for longer sentences. It is not being driven by a stubbornly high rate of short-term prison sentences. They still exist, and I gave the example of shoplifting, but community justice has grown—community sentences have grown—but we have seen a shift to a longer-term picture as well. That is the slight disadvantage of just making that direct comparison between custody and community that custody includes the short-term and the longer-term. I want to move on, and I will bring in other members of the committee shortly. One of the things that stood out in the report—I know that other members will address that as we go through the session this morning—is the quite significant geographical variations of community sentencing by different local authority areas, for example. I wonder whether you could give us your understanding of the reasons for such wide and marked variations depending on where you are in Scotland. The Audit Scotland focus is on community payback orders. There is a table in the paper that shows those wide discrepancies. It does not tell the whole picture because there are other community disposals and other alternatives to prosecution that lie in the mix. In those areas that appear to have relatively low rates of community payback orders, they have relatively high rates of fines, for example. It is not a complete overall picture, but the issue of regional discrepancy has been something that has troubled us for a while and is a feature of the system. To some extent, it is inevitable because, as a different demographic, there is a different population mix. Obviously, every individual decision is a matter for the judiciary based on the circumstances in front of her or him at the time. A lot of what it comes back to is the importance of partnership working here. Community justice is the product of different organisations working together. There are eight statutory partners and there are more that sit around the table. There is a lot of variability built into that in terms of local resource, local priorities, local performance and also the quality of the partnership working, the degree to which people buy into the process. I think that is partly at the heart of it. Whatever system you have for community justice, because it is holistic and cross-cutting, you would need partnership working and that can be harder sometimes to hold partnerships to account rather than individual organisations. I think that it is something in that mix. We do have some plans that I can talk about and how we want to improve some of that regional variability in due course. However, I think that it needs to get better. The whole picture, I think, we need to see those other forms of disposals in the mix as well. Mr Beattie will have questions about the Government's structure a little later on, but I want to turn to Sensen and ask Willie Coffey to come in at this point, because there has been an interesting report published just today by the Scottish Sentencing Council, which goes to the heart of some of the questions and some of the areas of concern that we have as a committee. I want to invite Willie Coffey to ask his questions. Just to start this discussion about the judiciary's response to all of this, do you think that it is keeping pace with the changes that are occurring? I will put this figure to you. From the data that we have, it seems to us that you are twice as likely to be reconvicted if you have had a sentence previously compared to a community disposal, but that is not reflected in the numbers and percentages of community disposals that are happening within the community. The question for us that we are interested in is the judiciary keeping pace with this. We have a press release this morning from the Sentencing Council, and Lady Dorian cites a number of key themes in here. She talks about greater consistency, resource constraints and so on. She talks about legislative barriers as well. Importantly, the public's perception of all of this is that there is a problem there about confidence in community disposals. Do you tell us a little bit what your feelings are about what the potential barriers may be for the judiciary to perhaps catch up with this process? We welcome the report this morning from the Sentencing Council. It is incredibly useful to have that insight from the judiciary on how they view community justice and what some of the obstacles might be. We previously had a report in 2018 from the Council on the purpose of sentencing, and it set out five essential purposes. One is protection, one is punishment, the second is rehabilitation, the fourth is giving the opportunity to make amends and fifth is an expression of disapproval of the act. I think that it is through that lens that you see the judiciary then looking at community justice. I think that the report this morning does demonstrate that it understands the benefits of community justice. I get the sense from that. There is a shared ambition to see more of it for the reasons that you set out. They also make a really helpful contribution in pointing out some of the things that might just plant that seed of doubt in a sheriff's mind when they are examining a situation about whether that is the best course of action for them. A lot of that analysis is quite well aligned with the Audit Scotland report. It is aligned with what community justice Scotland says in their annual report as well and what they would also tell us when they report into government. Some of it feels as though those are issues where we are, if you like, on the case. There is a review under way of the community justice strategy. There is something about the outcomes framework and the data, which I am sure will come up to in a moment, which is definitely not where it needs to be. A number of the other issues that they point out reflect the holistic nature of the system. If you are effectively dealing with offending behaviour, you also need to be looking at homelessness, drugs, alcohol, employability and so on. The quality of that partnership brings forward the disposals that can face these different ways and then give judiciary that confidence is really important. We see the overall report as a helpful contribution. I think that both the growth in community sentences and the fact that the Sentencing Council has taken the time to inform the debate in that way suggests to me that there is also a shared interest in the judiciary in community justice continuing to grow. Do you think that, from our perspective, the public's perspective as well, that if there is such evidence that you are twice as likely to be reconvict, that does not seem to be reflected in the number of community disposals taking place. Is there an imbalance there, do you think, that we need to be exploring further with the judiciary? So overall, yes. I agree. We are certainly ambitious for the reasons that the convener was pointing out at the beginning. You were saying, Mr Coffey, that the better track record on outcomes, the relative cost and efficiency, is one of the reasons why the Government extended the presumption against short sentences from three months a few years ago to 12 months recently. Because of the Covid pandemic, we are yet to be able to measure the impact of that. However, we have seen a real decline in the number of short-term sentences. Not completely, and they are still there. That may reflect some of the lack of confidence in some areas that the judiciary has that that will be the best disposal for the person in front of them, but I do not get the sense that your question is about the judiciary sort of keeping pace. I do not get the sense or sort of denial about that really. I think particularly from that report this morning, I get a sense of judiciary who recognises the advantages and who wants a system that they can rely on so that they can pass confidently community sentences where it is appropriate. Now, it is our job, together with partners in the sector, to make sure that in each and every part of Scotland they can have confidence in that capacity and in the quality of those community disposals. Who do you think the legislative barriers are? I mean, Lady Dorian is referring to legislative barriers to the imposition of community-based sentences. The legislation is there, so we are on the bar. I may ask Neil Wrennick just to come in on that. My interpretation of that was the legislation dealing with those auxiliary areas, so alcohol, drugs, there are different statutory frameworks that pertain to those different areas that a sheriff will want to take into account and that can get quite complex alongside the community justice legislative framework as well. Neil, would that be your understanding? Yes, absolutely. That is a good reflection, and as the director general says, I think that the report is hugely helpful because it makes some specific suggestions about reforms that we can look at, particularly in areas around where we are dealing with people with mental health issues or drug backgrounds, providing some more flexibility in terms of how community payback orders operate, to provide a mix of interventions that are better suited to each individual's needs, and I think that that is a helpful presentation to make and one that we will definitely look at. Are those barriers stopping us from imposing community-based sentences and forcing us to have custodial sentences? Is that what we are talking about? I think that my reading of what the report says, and again I have only had the chance to look at it briefly and we will look at it in a lot more detail, is that it is that mix of both the legislation in terms of the choices that have got available in terms of designing that package for each individual, but then also some of the access to those services, particularly around mental health and drugs, so I think that we need to look both in terms of the options that are available and then ensuring that those options are available in each community as well, so we will definitely pick up on that. Craig Hoy has got some other questions to probe a bit more into this area too, so Craig. Good morning, Mr Griffin. Just looking at this morning's report from the Scottish Sentencing Council, it refers to the fact that the council is of the view that there is a lack of public awareness and confidence in community disposals, and I just wanted to dig a little bit deeper into that because it suggests that more work needs to be done to raise and enhance public understanding of community justice, but the report out today also refers to a Moray survey that was done a few years ago, which looks at various scenarios and essentially tests public opinion and public confidence in relation to custodial versus community sentences. One of the issues here is whether or not greater awareness will ultimately lead to greater confidence in community justice, because one scenario put to those who were being pulled, concerned, an individual who was found to have indecent images of a child on their laptop, and asked whether or not that individual should get a custodial sentence, 77 per cent were off the view that that should carry a custodial sentence, but in effect, because there was no images of abuse of the children, it would most likely attract a community payback order. I suppose that what I am asking here is who should really be in the driving seat here? Should it be the Government, the public or the judiciary? I do not have confidence that greater awareness will lead to greater confidence in the system, and what is the Government's present thinking in relation to that? Thank you, Mr Hoy. Neil Orkatch should feel free to come in and supplement my comments. I am far bit for me to question the judiciary's interpretation of that this morning. I think that there is still work to be done in increasing the visibility of community justice. It is not a great term, if we are honest. I am not sure that we have yet found a better way of describing the group of issues that relates to sentences, community payback orders and other matters, the preventative work that we need to see to reduce crime in the first place, and the rehabilitation of offenders and people coming out of prison. That is the responsibility of the community justice system. I think that we have yet to find a way of describing that that is as readily understood as prison, which is a very well-established concept in the public mind. I think that, of course, there is something in what the judiciary said in their report this morning. In terms of whose responsibility that is, I think that there is something on the Scottish Government, of course. The public debate has been, by this administration and different guises, looked at the balance of prison and custody for a considerable period of time, going back to Henry McLeish's report in 2008 and the prison's commission there, and there has been a consistent political and public dialogue about that. We have community justice Scotland now at a national level who are able to increase visibility and do the work that they do. Of course, at a local level, there has to be on-going work with communities to understand the nature of the system that we are talking about. I think that your point about does awareness necessarily equate to greater confidence is a really interesting one. I think that, as always in the justice system, looking at individual cases is going to raise pros and cons and different perspectives there. I would go back to those five principles of sentencing that the council has set out. That might be something for the public to have a greater awareness as well. There are those five different aspects that a sheriff will be weighing up at any given time in the specific circumstances concerned, so whether that is protection that needs to be given that real focus or it is a rehabilitative element. Of course, what the Government can do is also add things into the mix. One of the things that the management of offenders act as enabling us to do with Parliament's support is an increase in the use of electronic monitoring. Electronic monitoring and the advances in technology there potentially give us a potential to increase the protective aspects even of community disposals. When you are looking at things like bail and around 28 per cent of the prison population this week are on remands, it is a really high significant figure. The greater use of electronic monitoring gives that greater degree of security and protection at the same time as allowing us to pursue those other aspects around rehabilitation or the opportunity to make amends that community disposals give us. Neil O'Katt, I do not know if you would like to add a thing to response to Mr High. One other area that I mentioned is the role of the Scottish Sentencing Council itself, which has a specific statutory role in raising awareness of sentencing. It has done some really interesting work. It published a report in 2019 about public awareness of sentencing and that showed very high levels of awareness of community payback orders and electronic monitoring as sentencing options with 98 per cent of people saying that they were aware of those sentences and a majority of people 63 saying that they had confidence in the fairness of the justice system. It is clear that there is more that we need to do in terms of improving wider understanding of the breadth of options that are available around community payback orders and community sentences and around building confidence in that as a rehabilitative model. I mentioned the work that Community Justice Scotland has done around promoting better understanding of individual cases of people who have been, as you say, through the community justice system and have turned their lives around. That has been a really positive contribution that they have made. Is there a risk, perhaps, that if you do not persuade the public through a process of raising awareness that you could actually damage confidence in the concept more generally? In this case, for example, of where 77 per cent believe that that should carry a custodial sentence, whereas it would in practice attract a community payback order. Do the public just have to say, just say tough to them that the system does not reflect their idea or their concept of justice? No, I do not think that we would ever take that approach. Every individual case is going to be different, so every set of circumstances need to be understood in its own terms. It is the aggregate of that that we then think about in terms of the justice system. Where there are concerns in the public, there are ways that the Government can help respond. I gave the example of greater use of electronic monitoring alongside those other disposals that seek to do that. This is more for our ministers rather than us as civil servants. Of course, we support and advise them in bringing forward that information, but an understanding of the public mood is incredibly important in the justice system. Both the people involved in orders and their families and victims absolutely need to have confidence in the system. We certainly would not question that. I want to bring us back in to the Audit Scotland report and some of the nitty-gritty of that. I know that Sharon Dowie has got a series of questions that she wants to put to you. There is a lack of data on the wider outcomes for people who have been through the justice system, including things such as employment or health. There is also a lack of data to allow Community Justice Scotland to be able to assess how much progress community justice partnerships are making towards national outcomes. Why has Community Justice Scotland been unable to effectively assess how much progress has been made against national community justice outcomes? I will be clear on that point. I think that this is an area that we need to improve. The governing framework for data is something called the outcomes and performance improvement framework. That dates back to November 2016 and was put in place just before the establishment of Community Justice Scotland. In the statement that Community Justice Scotland should be looking to achieve seven outcomes that are defined at a national level, four of those relate to the health and functioning of the system and three relate to individuals going through the system. Behind that you have 26 national indicators that look to try and track. I think that there are a couple of things that we have learned that are not working well with that. One is that around half the indicators are qualitative. They are statements about an improvement or a state of affairs. They lend themselves to a subjective narrative return, and that is invariably what you get from partnerships back to Community Justice Scotland. In the Community Justice Scotland annual report, you have a summary of what people are describing by way of improvements in processes or relationships. That makes it quite hard to aggregate up in the way that, if you had numbers and quantitative data, you can then say out of the 30 partnerships that this is improving by x per cent. You are dealing more in language and judgment there. The second area is that in the quantitative indicators that are there, it is about half. Some of them are readily measurable at national level but not at local level. At the time, the aspiration was to put in place a data system that could do justice to the breadth of what Community Justice could achieve, which brought in a couple of challenges. One is that inability to measure some of them at local level. I think that we felt at the time that the methodology would evolve when we would find ways of being able to do that. We have not done that yet, so we need to reflect on that. The second thing is about the breadth and complexity of what you are talking about. Someone who is committed to an offence is also a person. They will have health needs and employability needs, as we have been discussing. The ability to measure all of those and track them consistently at that individual level is bedevilled by all sorts of different datasets and data protection agreements. Some are reserved and some are devolved. It is a complex pitch. That is not a cop-out. We need to try and get to that place so that we can do justice to the complex aspects facing those individuals. However, it is not something that, in all honesty, we have achieved in the last few years. The legislation always said that, after five years, Community Justice Scotland should review the framework. That is what it is doing now. The work is well under way. Together with our review of the overall strategy for community justice, improvements to that will be published in the early course next year. We would accept that it is not working as well as we would like. It does not give me, as an accountable officer, the kind of data that I would like to see. We have a clear plan to improve. We need to learn the lessons, including those that Audit Scotland has helped us to understand. Can I ask what work the Scottish Government and other stakeholders have done to examine whether the way that wider outcomes such as future employment and health have been achieved? Neil O'Cack might want to come in here. I am afraid that I will have to reflect again on some of the challenges. The way that the data works is that you are not looking at an individual identity for a person and that you can pursue through different bits of the system. I think that what you are hoping for at an individual level is that the criminal justice social worker who is working with that person has a good understanding of how they are getting on, but invariably that is not reflected in a multi-agency dataset that you can then look at and you can flick to the DWP tab and see this and you can flick to the alcohol and drug partnership and you can see that. We do not have that level of complexity and sophistication in the system to be able to follow individuals in that data-led quantitative way, although absolutely the criminal justice social worker in that relational way ought to be in a position to be able to work with the person and to see how they are getting on. Neil O'Cack, is there anything that you wish to add to that? Obviously, Mr Griffin has identified that measurement is really challenging in this sector. Understanding or impact is equally served by understanding the interventions that we implement and their evidence-based. We begin with that reasonable belief that we should contribute to the outcomes that we are seeking, even if we cannot exactly measure that contribution. We base our strategy on the principles that are clearly supported by the academic and the evaluation literature. For example, we know that seeking to divert people from the justice system early on, seeking to divert people from custody whenever appropriate, seeking to address offenders, underlying needs and addictions are all going to improve outcomes in terms of the ultimate aim. I will get probably one last question then. It is mentioned in reports as you said previously, so the AGS's briefing states that Audit Scotland's 2012 report and title reducing re-offending in Scotland reported that a lack of data made it difficult to assess the impact of community justice authorities. You mentioned as well that it was in the OPI framework report 2016. It is also mentioned in another report in 2019. We are predecessor committee raised significant concerns about a recurring key audit theme of incomplete and poor quality data. Although I take one board, you are saying that it is multi-agency, it is complex and that a review is well under way. How and when will the data issue be identified in the auditor general's briefing? When will it be addressed? It is just to make sure that we do not come back to another report from the auditor general that, again, states that there is incomplete data to do a report. It is obviously the first report that I am talking about in 2012, so that is nine years ago. I completely understand the point. I think that the legacy report from the predecessor to this committee is something that the Government, the civil service, has digested. We have read it, discussed it, and the auditor general has been to the executive team. We have discussed some of the key themes that he has been observing in his organisation. We understand the point, and we need to get better at it. In this particular sector, our early expression of that will be in this revised framework that we are talking about next year alongside the… I am sure that we will be able to discuss that in due course, but we need to get that right and we are determined to do that. I would not want to imply, though, that some of those things are going to be easily remedied and that we will be here in a year time saying happily that we are now able to track an individual offender in respect of every different agency and every different area of public life. It would be very hard to do that for any individual citizen, and it is quite hard for people, sometimes as well, who are potentially living quite complex lifestyles as well, sometimes bordering on the chaotic that may be insufficient accommodation and so on. I want to underline my absolute commitment and the commitment of the civil service and my colleagues on the executive team to improve that as part of how the Government approaches public policy. We will do better on community justice through the production of this new framework next year, but there are still going to be intrinsic difficulties that are going to take time for us to work through, and I just need to be really honest about that. I am sorry just to clarify at one point. I think that you raised that was helpful, was the concerns raised by Audit Scotland in their 2012 report when you were just reoffending absolutely fed into the work on the development of the performance and indicator framework, and there was a two-year process of workshops across agency working group that developed that OPIF. As the director general says, it was absolutely an ambitious document that was trying to reflect both qualitative and quantitative indicators. Obviously, as you say, testing that and community justice Scotland applying it in the new system has identified gaps and issues with that framework that we absolutely accept. We are really grateful for the work that community justice Scotland did last year reviewing the framework and the work that it is doing now in terms of informing and helping us to develop the new framework that will sit alongside the new national strategy as well. It is not that the concerns that were raised in 2012 were not responded to, they were responded to with some significant work, but clearly as the director general says, this is an incredibly difficult area to try and get the right mix of indicators for, and we are continuing to work on that. Mr Steeff, I just have one thing about the evolution of this system. Community payback orders have been in place now for 10 years, which is a reasonable period of time, but it is not a long period of time again compared to prison. I have observed in my time in this area that there has been this shift in a mindset and a focus that is about the management of offenders that are looking at risk, at timescales, at numbers of community payback orders, and increasingly to think about these broader sets of outcomes in terms of the housing, the drugs and alcohol that will also support that person's journey, the rehabilitation journey. That has a transition that has been taking place over the course of the last few years. It is a system that is maturing and a data system needs to mature along with that. As Neil says, we are going to find some complex things along the way, but it reflects the different philosophy of community justice that you are looking to be effective in reducing offending and cutting crime by addressing some of the underlying causes that reflect the need that we need to improve and have a more complex data set as well. Make sure that wherever we are focusing the money on, we are getting the outcomes that we are going to do. You will understand that this committee has a healthy appetite for data. You will understand that, as an accountable officer, I, too, have a healthy appetite for data. Well, it is outcomes, performance and improvement, isn't it? Of course. So that needs to be measured and it needs to be measured in a meaningful way. We mentioned earlier on in your evidence about the governance and accountability lines, particularly since the Community Justice Act 2016. I know that Colin Beattie has got a whole series of questions to ask about that. Yes, roles and accountability. I particularly draw your attention to paragraph 9 of the Auditor General's report and also to paragraph 13 bullet point 1, which is the first issue—at least the first priority—that the Auditor General has listed. Whether all stakeholders involved in the planning and delivery of community justice have a shared understanding of lines of accountability and areas of responsibility. The literal answer to that is that I cannot give an authoritative answer in respect of 30 partnerships with statutory partners in each. My impression is that there is a good level of understanding. I think that the act is clear. I think that there is a complexity that comes from trying to combine both a local approach that needs to be cross-cutting and joined up, and that is the partnership bit with a national function, which is the community justice bit, which is in terms of gathering the data and securing the improvement. The Scottish Government has a role in that as well. Within the act, the duties are such that you could see different levels of effectiveness and different levels of engagement, so if we take something like planning, the act is really clear that partners need to plan together. What that looks like has a scope to be to be variable in different areas. I want a community justice Scotland's themes is that they are not seeing enough strategic needs planning at a local level, so there is a real sense of the capacity and the different needs within the community sector. It is quite hard to give an authoritative answer to say, I can guarantee each and everybody does. I think that the act is clear enough. It has been in place for a number of years now. We also have the care inspectorate now undertaking scrutiny in community justice, which is incredibly helpful. They are also providing good feedback that helps people to improve. From your perspective, do you believe that the individual stakeholders involved all have a common understanding of their responsibilities and roles? Yes, I do. I have no reason not to. It is a pretty reasonable question to ask. Because of the scale of what we are talking about, at a literal level, eight statutory partners, 30 partnerships, it is a hard thing for me to say. I am not hearing a steady stream of information to say that there is a real problem with this agency or that agency over there. I think that it detects a certain amount of uncertainty in your responses in regard to being absolutely sure that everybody understands their roles and responsibilities. Maybe one of the issues is that the community justice partners still remain accountable through their usual accountability arrangements. Does that create an issue? The issue is that you need to have a partnership approach at local level. We came out of the community justice authority model, which was widely thought to not be working effectively into the local partnership model, partly to reflect the local and partly to reflect the partnership. As I said earlier, you cannot tackle offending effectively unless you are looking at all those different areas. A partnership will always have to be a feature of that. How you hold partnerships to account is a more complicated business than how you hold individual organisations to it account. An incredibly important part of community justice is criminal justice social work. It currently sits within local authorities. It is really clear how they are held to account through local authority processes, and that is a really clear set of accountabilities. How you hold the partnership to account collectively is going to be more of a grey area and it is going to be more nuanced, but the individual organisations need to report through their accountability chains. Given the fact that we want everybody fully understanding where they are, what they are doing and working together in a cohesive way, do you think that community justice Scotland would benefit from additional powers to support its role, for example enabling it to drive a bit more strategic approach to planning and so forth, so that there is a better line, a more disciplined line of accountability? Community justice Scotland has more interventionist powers than it has used, so it has the power to go in and make a direction. In that case, given the uncertainties, why haven't you done so? It is for community justice Scotland to do it not for the Government. What they haven't done is to avail themselves overtly of that power. What they have done is behind the scenes, to have discussions, to have interventions, to try and promote that collaborative working. We have also seen the care inspectorate since 2019 restart their scrutiny in this area, which has also provided that degree of challenge and improvement in a number of different areas that were previously struggling. There is always a balance between a direct quasi-punitive intervention and something that you look to try and achieve through collaboration and improvement. Up until this point, it has been more the collaborative and the improvement approach. Those other powers are there, and it is something that I am sure we will be reflecting on. We are reviewing the strategy, as I mentioned earlier, as the legislation requires us to do, and it may be that partners feel as a result of that that we need to turn the dial up in some of the more direct interventions. I am certainly open to hearing evidence that that would be an effective thing to do. Given that you believe that community justice Scotland has the powers, why are not they using them? During the 2016 consultation for that particular act, many stakeholders said that they were unclear of responsibilities and roles. It still sounds as if there is a weakness there. If community justice Scotland has the powers, why do not they use them? If they do not use them, why does not the Government push them? I may ask Neil O'Cat to come in on this one. My understanding is that, as I say, they have chosen to take an approach that is more behind the scenes, that is more about promoting collaboration and improvement than avail themselves of interventionist powers that would be seen as a really significant thing. Neil O'Cat may be able to help to shed some more light as to what their thinking has been behind that. I know exactly as the director general says that the new model has been operating prior to Covid for three years where concerns were identified. Community justice Scotland has taken the approach of going into local areas and working with them to try and drive that improvement. The care inspectorate undertook an inspection in West Dunbartonshire and identified a number of concerns that community justice Scotland has been working with that area in terms of addressing those and delivering that improvement. You are right that the direction power exists there for community justice Scotland and it is for them to decide whether to apply that or not. The reassurance that we have had from community justice Scotland is that they are intervening and working with the local partnerships to try and drive that improvement, but they have identified some wider issues, including the issues around data that the director general mentioned that they are looking to drive improvement across the whole system as well. I do not know if there is anything else that I cannot want you to add. I just want to highlight, Mr Beattie, that community justice Scotland can and will highlight certain issues within their annual report, community justice outcomes report, and in the last report they did highlight concerns about three areas that had not renewed their outcome improvement plans as required. They have highlighted some areas, the auditor generals highlighted some areas. There seems to me a problem and one that needs to be addressed. Community justice Scotland has got the powers. I do not talk about being draconian about it, but if going behind the scenes and having a wee chat to people and trying to usher them down a particular path is not working and it demonstrably seems not to be working, then action needs to be taken. I am open to that line of argument. We have a consultation under way at the moment about the strategy and how it is working. I am open to seeing evidence that a more interventionist approach would deliver results. I would not quite characterise the system as not working. I did not use the term not working. Excuse me for giving me Mr Beattie, I did not mean to mischaracterise you in my term. I have not seen evidence of egregious problems up to this point that I think would justifiably have caused community justice Scotland to go in with the directive and interventionist approach. Yet stakeholders in Audit Scotland have expressed concerns. They have. Community justice Scotland takes the view that the best way to address those is through the collaborative approach. You mean carrying on with what they have been doing before, which has not really given the results that we are hoped for? I think that there are positive results. Neil gave the example of West Dunbartonshire. I think that that is a really good example of how a partnership that was finding some things difficult was able to respond to Care Inspectorate scrutiny and make some improvements to the Care Inspectorate's satisfaction. I think that there is a combination of things here. I think that the data that we do have, I think that the community justice Scotland approach, as it judged to be necessary, there is then also the scrutiny, which has restarted since 2019 from Care Inspectorate, which I think has been important. We have got to get the data sharpened up, so we have got a clear idea of performance, including relative performance, across the piece. Then there is a judgment to be made by Community Justice Scotland about what will best get the improvements and the results that they need to take. I would be poorly placed to say that we must never take a more interventionist approach. I am open to that line of argument. Have you accepted the Auditor General's report? Yes. In that case, you are also accepting the fact that there is an issue around accountability and lines of responsibility. It is a question of what you are going to do about it to change what is happening now to ensure that the required outcomes are achieved. I think that there is a complexity in the system and the accountability. We do not have plans to review the 2016 act and, if you like, make significant changes. We think that we have to address the data, but that is really important. We have to look at the overall strategy. The data is important, but it is absolutely essential. The fact is that, if people do not necessarily fully understand the responsibilities and areas of accountability, you have a fundamental problem right from the start. It seems that a softly approach behind the scenes over a number of years has not really been delivered, so there must be a need to revisit and see what needs to be done to pull this together. As I said, there is a review that is under way at the moment. The legislation always provided for that. I am happy during the course of that to hear evidence that a different approach would get better results. I do not accept that there are egregious problems in the system. I think that we are making steady progress, as I pointed out in my earlier remarks. There is the opportunity to hear how taking a different focus in some different areas could lead to improvements, but the Government does not have plans to revisit the framework—the accountability framework—that is set out in the act. You are always going to need some degree of partnership at local level. You are always going to need some kind of oversight and improvement function at national level. That strikes a balance, and we need to keep improving the way that it functions rather than visiting the fundamentals. Thank you very much indeed. We are in our final few minutes. If other members want to come back in for another go, they are welcome to do that. It struck me going back to the overall outcomes and where we began. We have a national strategy that has been in place since 2016. We have an act of Parliament that provides for a new institutional structure to deliver community justice. The conclusion of the Audit Scotland report was that little progress in the intervening period appears to have been made. I understand the points that you were making in the beginning, Mr Griffin, about the total volumes and how that has changed. However, as the Public Audit Committee, one of our maxims is to follow the money. If you look at the Audit Scotland report, it says that community justice funding makes up less than 5 per cent of overall justice funding, and there has been little change in recent years. If you were following the money, that was a priority, and everybody wanted to see a change in the balance between custodial and non-custodial. Why is that so static? That is a fair point. It is partly because it is a relatively cheaper system to run than prisons that we have been talking about. Some of the unit costs are quite instructive. The unit cost of a community disposal is far smaller than a custodial one, for example, so a prison system is a more expensive system to run. We have increased funding. We have increased funding by 13 per cent since 2016-17, and there are commitments that the Government has made to increase funding still further. It also relates to the transition that I described earlier that community payback orders were first introduced 10 years ago, and this is a system that is growing and is maturing. The other crucial thing about community justice again is its breadth. To some extent, the funding that relates to criminal justice social work that the Government provides through section 27 that is hypothecated is only part of it. The reasons for having a partnership approach, which brings complexity in terms of accountability, is that other partners also bring resources to the table. When I speak to colleagues and localities, they tell me that that is happening. You have drugs and alcohol partnerships also bringing their resources to the table. You have local authorities in terms of housing and accommodation also bringing those resources to the table, Skills Development Scotland and so on. It is quite hard to quantify that, but those resources are also part of the mix. We are on a transition. We are on a journey of increasing that share of 5 per cent to a larger number, but there is that more complex picture of these other funding sources being an important part of the picture. Two things arise from that. Would it be possible to get that information, that data, into the public domain? If the point that you are making is that 5 per cent does not capture the full extent of the additional resources that are now going into community justice, then it would serve your argument and serve the case for the performance of your department to demonstrate that more resources are going into that. As I say, follow the money is quite an important maxim, isn't it? The other question that arises for me and one that we asked in the session with Audit Scotland on the report is, do you have any targets? I mentioned the 59 per cent figure. Do you work towards any kind of formal or informal or internal or externally set targets for that number? We do not. The idea of a target for the prison population has been mooted. It was mooted by Mr McLeish and his prison's commission report, a target of some 5,000, to ensure that the prison population remained at a level that was comparable to other European countries. Ministers took the view at the time—this would still pertain, really—that there are a couple of factors that make that difficult. One is the independence of the judiciary. For the executive to constrain the independence of the judiciary to make the kind of sentences in that very crude and target-based way, I think, is problematic. The second thing is the unpredictability of the system. I described in my early comments the big change that we have seen away from the short-term custodial sentences to fewer sentences of longer length. We could not have foreseen that in 2008. Similarly, we do not know for certain how the justice system is going to develop in the course of the next decade. We know how we would like it to develop when we have our plans and where we want it to go. I think that targets are problematic as far as the prison population is concerned. In terms of community disposals more generally, personally, my mind is not closed to the idea that we could consider that. I think that we have to look at the range of community disposals and not get too fixated on community payback orders as important as they are, but to understand the full mix in terms of some of the pre-sentencing options that also exist there. That is something that we can give some thought to in the refresh of the strategy. However, I think that a target for the prison population is problematic. I was not suggesting a target for the prison population. What I was referring to was the whole basis of the conversation this morning, which is about the proportions again. How do you get a shift from a custodial to community-based justice options? That is not about a cap on the prison population. That is about how do you shift from disposals that are custodial-based to disposals that are not custodial-based? My question is, do you set any targets on that shift in balance from one to the other? The answer to the question is no. I will go back to the point that we have seen a shift from short-term prison sentences to community centres. There is no question about that. The data is really clear, but in parallel we have seen an increase in longer-term prisons. The nature of the challenge, if you like, has changed, which, again, could call into question the usefulness of targets for that percentage, because you are not comparing the same things as you were 10 years ago if you follow me. However, the clear answer to your question, convener, is no. We do not have plans for a target. One issue, and the director general is absolutely right about the importance of that switch around in terms of the reduction in short-term sentences. Obviously, when we talk about percentages and numbers, it can feel very unclear. Even in the short space of time, since the new arrangements came in place in 2016-17, we have seen a 1,500 drop in the number of people going into prison for short-term prison sentences. That is 1,500 people not having the disruption to their housing, employment or family life. Those are really important changes that have happened in the short term. As the director general said, the longer-term, much larger numbers, 4,000 reduction in the number of people going into prison. We have not set targets for specific elements of the justice system, because that reflects decisions by the independent judiciary. What we have done is provided some targeted funding for some specific areas. A good example would be around supervised bail, where there was a recognition over a period of time that the use of supervised bail by the judiciary had been dropping, and that availability was an issue. We provided some targeted funding towards that, around £1.5 million over three years. That has seen a significant drive up of 60 per cent in the availability of supervised bail. That is clearly still further that we need to go, but it is a good example where some targeted funding, rather than setting a particular target, has had an impact in improving the availability. We were looking at wider areas where we could apply that approach prior to the pandemic. Because of the impact of the pandemic, we have allowed some more flexibility for local partnerships in terms of how they have used their money over the past 18 months, but that is certainly an approach that we think has worked well for supervised bail and may have benefits for other areas as well. Thank you, Mr Anick. That was a very helpful and instructive answer, but your answer provoked one final question from me. Everyone talks about the log jam in the criminal justice system because of Covid, and the courts have been operating on a very different basis. I wonder whether, Mr Griffin, you can give us something of the view of the department about how you are going to manage the backlog. Does that present opportunities? Maybe not the right word, but does that give you a junction in time to perhaps drive what is happening in a slightly different way? I do not know if, specifically, the recovery does, but the work on recovery is taking place at a time where we are considering these other things in other ways. A review of the strategy that we have talked about is the national care service consultation as well, which potentially could have implications for criminal justice social work. However, the recovery from Covid is clearly a really important part of it, or we have provided additional funding. As you know, £11.8 million so far will be looking at the budget in light of Mr Sunak's announcements yesterday as well to see to what extent we can sustain that in coming years. However, I do not know Neil, but is there anything else that you want to say about Mr Lennon's question specifically about the opportunity of recovery to help us to make the shift? Absolutely, and that was recognised as we have been going through the pandemic. So, very deliberately, the recovery programme that we are following is described as our recovery, renewal and transform programme that is built within it is the idea that there is that opportunity not just to return the system to the way it was in April 2020, and that is absolutely being picked up. As the director general said, the need to look at a balanced system as we recover and caught activity is now getting back to the pre-Covid levels, which will have an impact downstream for prisons and community sentences. It was very deliberate that within the £50 million recovery package £11.8 million of that is going directly to community justice to try and strengthen that recovery and make sure that the capacity is there as those cases feed through. Well, thank you very much indeed and thanks for ending on that very positive note. I would like to thank Mr Griffin, Mr Renwick and Ms Dalrymple for joining us this morning. I appreciate your input and your candor and your vitality at times in some of the questioning. Thank you very much indeed for your time and your evidence. Mr Griffin, I look forward to seeing you again soon perhaps. I am now going to suspend the meeting to allow a change of witnesses to take place. Morning's committee agenda is consideration of evidence from Audit Scotland on their briefing paper on the vaccination programme, which was produced recently. I would like to welcome our witnesses who will give evidence this morning on that research and audit carried out by Audit Scotland, beginning with Auditor General Stephen Boyle, Lee Johnson, who is a senior manager with Audit Scotland and joining us remotely is Eva Thomas-Tudo, who is a senior auditor, performance audit and best value at Audit Scotland. I will ask Stephen Boyle to give us a brief opening statement. Just to say to Eva in particular if you want to come in if you can use the chat function and put an R in there and to all those in the room if you want to come in if you just simply indicate to myself all the clerks and we'll do our best to take you. Auditor General. Thank you, convener. Good morning, committee. Today I'm bringing to the committee a briefing paper on the Covid-19 vaccination programme. It focuses on the management of the programme, the progress that has been made so far and also outlines some of the next steps, including preparation for the delivery of the extended flu and booster programme over the autumn and winter. The Covid-19 vaccination programme is the largest mass vaccination programme ever carried out in Scotland. While audit work often highlights where things have gone wrong, it's also important that we also give credit where we see success. Excellent progress has been made in vaccinating a large proportion of Scotland's population. More than 90 per cent of people aged 18 and over have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. The programme has also been effective in reducing the number of people becoming severely ill and dying from Covid-19. Vaccines have also been delivered in a variety of settings and the rate of vaccine wastage has been low. My paper also recognises that there has been variation in uptake across sections of Scotland's population. The Scottish Government has been taking action to encourage people to take up the offer of vaccination, but a smaller proportion of young people, those in our most deprived communities and those from some ethnic minority backgrounds, have been vaccinated so far. The vaccination programme is being implemented under uncertain and challenging circumstances. Clinical advice from the JCVI continues to evolve and is needed to be implemented quickly, most recently through Busterv programmes. The Government and NHS boards have done well to respond quickly to newly issued advice and eligible groups offered vaccine within days of clinical advice being published. NHS boards and health and social care partnerships have predicted vaccine costs of £223.2 million in 2021-22. The expenditure needed, however, may change depending on any further advice from the JCVI. The Scottish Government has confirmed that vaccination costs will be fully funded by them for the 21-22 financial year. We will continue to monitor the funding and spending and provide an update in our overview of the NHS in Scotland in early 2022. The programme has relied on temporary staff thus far to deliver a wide range from staff across a wide range of NHS disciplines. This diverse workforce has enabled the vaccine programme to progress quickly, but it is an expensive model. The Scottish Government has recognised that a longer term solution is needed and work is under way to recruit a permanent workforce. The delivery of the vaccination programme, convener, has been a success thus far, with good collaboration, joint working and new digital tools developed at pace. There are opportunities for the Scottish Government and the NHS to use the learning from the programme to inform the implementation of further stages of the vaccine programme and the wider delivery of NHS services. I look forward to answering the committee's questions this morning. Thank you very much indeed. It is a wide-ranging briefing and we have a wide range of questions to ask, so I will get under way with a couple of questions to begin with. My first question is, of course, a broadly positive report, as you say, but there are challenges, not behind us, but challenges that lie ahead. We know that there will be increase in pressures, which we normally see during the course of the winter on the national health service. There is, as we know, a considerable backlog of treatment and there is the continuing pressure of delivering the vaccine programme. Do you think that there are adequate structures, leadership and governance in place to withstand those pressures and to meet those challenges? It is undoubtedly clear. I do not think that there has been any attempt to understate the extent of pressures that are facing the NHS in the winter. I think that I have heard the cabinet secretary in a number of occasions over the past few weeks say as much to manage public expectations about what we are facing. You rightly point out that the NHS is similarly facing the challenges of recovering its services, the backlog and what is also worth pointing out, convener, is that the NHS pre-pandemic was experiencing extreme challenges. In Audit Scotland's reporting, we had commented about challenges around sustainability before the pandemic. By way of factoring all those factors alongside the delivery of a vaccination programme, we will undoubtedly remain challenging. What we found in this report is that the structures, the funding and the pace with which the delivery of the programme were all done well and an effective programme that was delivered well. Whether that acts as a template for the delivery of NHS services over the course of the winter remains to be seen. As it relates to the vaccine programme, we have seen positivity, as we have commented on. I think that our next opportunity to pass comment and particularly looking at the delivery of NHS services tackling the backlog will come in our NHS overview report that we will produce early into 2022. Thank you and we will look forward to that. One other point from me or one of the question for me is whether you could confirm that the costings in the briefing cover the booster programme, which is in front of us now and has already started for some categories of the population. Do you also have any sense of what the cost projections will be for vaccine programmes in future years? Have you picked up in your work around the vaccination programme that has been in place this year? Do you pick up any sense of where things are with the booster, but what possibly a future vaccination programme might look like and the cost of it? I will start and I will ask Eva to come in in a moment just to say a little bit more about the detail behind some of the numbers that we captured in the report. I think that there are a number of variables. The predictability of the cost into the future and the use of vaccines and the extent to which clinical advice might change probably reflect uncertainty. With some degree of empathy, it will be challenging for the NHS to say with much confidence about what that might look like. The figure that we quote in the report of £223 million for the remainder of this financial year is based on assumptions that the Scottish Government gave to NHS boards about the delivery of the programme, staffing, premises and so forth. Subject to that being static in terms of the application of the booster programme with some degree of confidence, looking into the future, we are probably less able to say what that might look like, convener, in terms of the future cost profile. We have seen some funding announcements that have come through over the course of the past few days and additional allocations to support the delivery of NHS boards, NHS activity for the rest of this financial year. Like others, we will be watching closely what comes out of the Scottish budget and the draft budget later this year to see what the future cost might be of the delivery of the vaccination programme. I will ask Eva just to update the committee on any further information that we have. I think that I am unmuted now. The £223.2 million that we quote in our briefing paper is based on a predicted cost from NHS boards and NHS DPs as part of a review of quarter one. It does incorporate the predicted cost of the booster programme, but, as we say in the briefing, the accuracy of that and the final cost for this financial year will depend on whether any further advice is issued from the JCVI in terms of any further requirements for delivering vaccinations before the end of the financial year. Okay, thank you Eva, that's helpful, so it does not include the cost of the booster programme, did I pick that up correctly? No, I think that it does include the cost. It does include, sorry, right, that's good. And you mentioned about announcements in recent days and so there was an announcement of an additional £492 million which included funding for PPE, test and protect and the delivery of Covid-19 vaccinations. Do you have, do you, Auditor General or any of your team have any sense of how that will fit in with the likely demand that we expect to see? So we've not seen, we've not done any audit work on that yet. We've seen the breakdown in the allocation that's applied to the NHS boards and the national boards in particular, and I think that one of the significant figures that we see in that is the size of the allocation to NHS national services Scotland, that received just, might I know, 109 million of that. So that, the extent of the variability is something that we see throughout the briefing paper and our work on this, that the pace of change of clinical advice in terms of the allocation of booster programmes, so I think it reflects the current status of booster programmes. And if that changes, then we would anticipate that there will be further funding requirements for the NHS and health and social care partnerships. As I mentioned, we'll be tracking that closely through our audit work. An opportunity to update in the NHS over to your report and then into the annual audit work that we'll carry out on the NHS boards over the course of next year as well. Thank you. And of course we'll be coming back as well. I think it might be even be next week to the PPE report that you produced, which is in part of this terrain as well. As I say, we've got a wide range of questions and I want to begin by asking Sharon Dowey to come in on an important area for us. Thanks, convener. Morning, Mr Boyle. You've touched on customs there and in paragraph 18 the briefing explains that the vaccine programme has been reliant on temporary staff and volunteers, including nurses, GPs, dentists, optometrists, et cetera, but this has been very expensive. Have you undertaken any work to cost this delivery model and what has the cost been to the public purse? Our briefing paper captures worked up to the end of September and we, as I mentioned a couple of times, will continue to track and monitor this with further reporting next in the NHS overview report and then through the annual audit work during the course of 2021-22. Our understanding thus far is that around £55 million has been spent on this staffing model. The Scottish Government has looked and is beginning to think about its plans for a more medium longer term model of how it might deliver what we expect to see as an on-going programme of Covid-19 and booster programmes. What that might end up costing, I suppose, will depend on the staffing mix inevitably that it chooses to settle on, so probably with a less reliability as to what that number might look like, but it's our understanding that it's around £55 million that it's cost thus far. You've indicated that as restrictions ease in NHS services recover, the availability of the temporary workforce will reduce. With that in mind, do you foresee any implications for the roll-out of the Covid-19 booster vaccine? It's potentially difficult to be definitive on that point at the moment. That's generally not what we're seeing at the moment and maybe by way of example, I'll ask Lee to come in just about the rate of progress that we're seeing of the booster programme, although it's not captured given the timing of our briefing paper. We are not seeing any real difference in pace of the roll-out of the programme. The point that we're making in the report is perhaps worth by way of context. As we all recall, the early stages of the initial Covid vaccination programme—much of that was undertaken in large public venues and sports stadiums, concert halls and so forth—and the availability of those as social distancing is eased and lockdowns have ended is no longer what it was and much of the programme is now being undertaken in more local settings. As that rolls out over the course of the booster programme, as I say, we're not seeing that real divergence thus far, but it's perhaps worth turning to Lee for a second just to give us a committee indication as to where we see the rate of progress of the booster programme. As of yesterday, 27 October, 568,373 booster vaccinations had been delivered, but we also have to recognise on top of that that 53 per cent of our 12 to 15-year-olds have also now been vaccinated. I think that, touching on Mr Lim's earlier point, the vaccination programme will remain a priority in terms of staffing to prevent the NHS from becoming overwhelmed this winter, with all the other additional winter pressures that come along. I think that they will maintain the staffing to make sure that the booster and the flu vaccine are rolled out as a priority. It was mentioned as well that the Scottish Ambulance Service was drafted in to help to support the delivery of the vaccine programme. Is that still the case? Obviously, we know that's under pressure as well. Just now have those staff been moved back or are they still helping? Obviously, at the point that there was mobile vaccination units, the Ambulance Service was there, but given the pressures that the Ambulance Service is under right now, I am sure that those staff will be doing their day job, if you like. I think that what we will need to see is going forward in terms of trying to reach those more difficult populations, as we also talked about in our briefing, whether there is a need going forward to reimplement the mobile vaccination centres. As the demand for the vaccination is reducing as we are moving on to the booster programme, which is a smaller number of people than at the height of the mass roll-out, if you like, there has been less need for those mobile clinics. If I may, one of the other points that we would make about the workforce and venues is that, of course, we recognise the contribution that the armed forces made to the delivery of the vaccine programme and the support that it provided to the NHS in Scotland. I think that the expectation of that would not be the continuing, as we move to a more predictable delivery of the NHS vaccine programme into the future. It is just one of the other variables that was present during the early stages of the booster or the vaccine programme, rather than the need to, as the NHS and Scottish Government are doing, do what they now mean for a more permanent workforce to deliver the vaccine programme in the future. That brings me on to my last question. We understand that the Scottish Government is undertaking workforce planning to secure a permanent, sustainable vaccine workforce. Do you know how far advanced those plans are and what must the Scottish Government consider when undertaking that planning? Again, I will ask Eva to come in a moment, Ms Doe. She has been tracking some of this in conversation with Government and NHS officials. We know that work is under way and that the Scottish Government, as we have mentioned in paragraph 19, is thinking in terms of workforce planning, the use of registered nurses and so forth as the model to move into a more sustainable delivery model for the rate of the vaccine programme. We understand that it is also making some thinking about what the cost profile of that might look like. Those plans are under way. It may be a line of question that the committee wishes to explore directly with the Government to be a better place to offer a more direct assessment of their progress. We know that plans and work are under way, but I will ask Eva to say a little bit more as much as we are able to. Our understanding is that the Scottish Government is anticipating recruiting a permanent workforce. The exact size and nature of that workforce will be for the Government to confirm, but our understanding is that it is hoping to recruit healthcare support workers as much as possible. Working alongside registered nurses is a more cost-effective model than they have been able to use so far. The role of that workforce would be to support all vaccinations across Scotland on a sustainable basis rather than just Covid-19 vaccinations, but, as we said, the Scottish Government will be able to provide a more up-to-date picture. One of the elements that was mentioned in the report is the whole area of digital access and digital tools, which is an evolving picture. I know that Craig Hoy has a number of questions on that and I think that Willie Coffey might also want to come in on that area briefly as well. Good morning, Mr Ball. Our predecessor committee, and I am sure that its predecessor committees, when looking at ICT projects, has often found significant and negative impacts on public funds through their management or mismanagement. Your briefing refers to the fact that a number of digital tools were developed at pace. To date, have you picked up on any ICT issues similar to those that we have seen in prior sessions? We recognise the point that you make, Mr Hoy. Audit Scotland has not been short of reporting to predecessor committees on troubles in ICT projects. I have a couple of times made the point that that was not always necessarily representative of the success or otherwise of Scottish public bodies in delivering ICT projects, in that the nature of our reporting, as perhaps alluded to in my introductory remarks, can often infer that that is representative of the entire delivery of ICT projects or public services. However, that feels like a departure from some of the commentary that we have made about troubled ICT projects. As we have similarly alluded to in introductory comments, there is a real opportunity to learn from some of the development of digital tools. We cite four of those paragraph 20, but the tools that were available to clinicians, data stores, or the scheduling arrangements, and maybe say a bit more about that in a moment or two. However, as a model, we saw through our audit work that digital was a key driver, an essential component of the roll-out of the vaccine programme, and that was done well. It is an important opportunity now to apply some of that learning across the NHS and wider parts of Scottish Government. Just looking at the use of NHS boards using the system-tallocating reschedule appointments, the NVSS, it has obviously been adapted as time has progressed to improve its functionality. An example that I had in East Lothian in the early days pointed to the fact that people living in East Lothian were not necessarily giving appointments in East Lothian. They were being routed to West Lothian, Midlothian and Edinburgh, even when there was capacity within East Lothian. I think that many of those have been fixed, but just moving forward, what risks have any continued to exist for health boards using the NVSS system? I recall the example that you made in the early stages of the roll-out that people were being asked to travel further than they might have expected, and perhaps not the availability of public transport to make that easy for patients accessing booster services. We refer to some of the flexibility that evolved during the roll-out of the programme paragraph 22, for example, which talks about some of the island boards in Scotland that identified that their ability to manage the programme and the scheduling arrangements would be easier done at a more local level in their understanding of their patients' needs. If I may step back, I think that there is that opportunity and perhaps the importance of flexibility that, as the roll-out extended, particularly the scheduling point, we have seen the availability of drop-in arrangements that, as people and patients were able to say at their convenience, rather than using the scheduling tool themselves, is that perhaps superseded some of the earlier prescribed appointment times for patients and, therefore, that flexibility of people making their own choice. It is an important component that continues that people access the vaccine, access boosters in a way that is most convenient for them and might also extend into addressing some of the lower uptake points that we have seen in different parts of Scottish society. Just finally, in light of a report that is, I think, this morning to a Scotsman based upon a spice report, in some areas of Scotland, up to three quarters of people in certain neighbourhoods have not yet been vaccinated. There is a concern that the reliance upon digital means that there are some people who are hard to reach, be it that they don't have a reliable internet connection or they simply don't have the devices. What more do you get the impression that the Scottish Government should and could be doing to ensure that those that fall into this category are then captured and brought into the vaccine programme? I'll ask Lee to come around and look to this in quite a lot of detail, but some of the arrangements that are currently being used and have thus far. For my own consideration of the data, the Public Health Scotland data tools are clear in terms of the roll-out of the first stage of the vaccine programme and the second vaccine that follows. It is analysed by age group, by NHS board area and by local authority area. It is set out quite interesting and perhaps not what we'd expect from some of the previous consideration of the availability of IT for some of Scotland's older population is almost entirely vaccinated above certain age groups, but it matters in terms of the entire access to the vaccine programme across Scotland's full population. As we mentioned in the report, we have seen some groups of society, younger people, those who are most economically deprived, and then some aspects of Scotland's ethnic populations have not been rolled out. We have seen some of the steps that we have talked in the report, also listening carefully to the cabinet secretary and his evidence to the Covid committee recently about steps that health boards are taking to reach into different communities, whether it is in religious settings, some of our gypsy traveller communities, just to broaden their reach and dispel any of the concerns that people might have about vaccine hesitancy. I ask the minister to say about some of the specifics that we are seeing. I think that it is important to recognise that there are a number of reasons why some groups are not accessing the vaccine from access to work reasons, for example losing income, that could hit them hard to the more psychological social reasons around not wanting to have the vaccine and their beliefs about what the vaccine contains. The Scottish Government has done a lot of work to try and encourage the groups where uptake has been lower to have the vaccine, so we list the range of things that it has tried to do in terms of understanding the data, to assertive outreach, to working with certain organisations, to tailor their messages. Public Health Scotland has a Covid-19 vaccine programme surveillance strategy, which sets out how it will monitor the uptake of the vaccine among a range of other things, such as adverse impacts. It specifically points out that it will look at where uptake among certain groups is lower and how it can encourage those groups to get the vaccine. It also outlines its purpose around an on-going evaluation of the Covid vaccine programme. A report came out on 6 October, which outlined the learning from the flu and Covid-19 vaccination programme. In it, it details what it has learnt from lower uptake in groups and what helped to encourage those different groups to take up the vaccine. One of the Government's core rationales for the system of vaccine passports was the hope that it would lead to an uplift in vaccination rates among certain target groups, one being the young. Obviously, the system is still in its relative infancy, but have you had any evidence to suggest as yet that it is actually doing that? It is not something that we have looked at yet. The timing of our briefing really captured data and arrangements up to September, so the decisions and the application and the roll-out of vaccine passport arrangements are not covered in this briefing paper. However, as I mentioned, there are opportunities for us to take stock and report further, and we will look to do that through our overview report early next year. I am not sure that we want to dive into a full-scale debate about vaccine passports this morning at the Public Audit Committee, but I do not know whether you have some questions on the digital stuff but also on the population reach and so on. Just a few, convener, thanks very much. Steven, were there any issues picked up in terms of the lower age group, the lower numbers in certain age groups in certain communities and so on, that may have been attributable to the digital access issues? Did you pick up any of that, or do you think that it was different reasons that people in those age groups in those communities numbers are lower coming forward for vaccination? I will list the teams to come in a moment to express any views on the work that we have seen. The answer is that there is probably a combination of factors, much of what will be about the timing of the roll-out of the programme, and any perceptions in society that they were less at risk in terms of access rates. As Leigh's mentioned, there will be factors about people's working arrangements as well, all of which will have played into the factors that will have caused the different rates. It probably is about a limit to where I would go beyond that and perhaps point to more academic research about some of the societal motivations for people to access the vaccine programme. What is clear from our work is that the data is telling us that younger people have not received the vaccine programme to the extent that some of the more at-risk groups in society have. However, there are probably causes for optimism, as Leigh mentioned, about the extent to which the youngest group that is eligible for the vaccine programme is 12 to 15-year-olds is already over 50 per cent, and that pace of progress feels positive at this stage. You have said that the digital apps work really well and had to be developed at pace and so on, but I have always asked questions from the public. Where is this data kept? Where is it? I have sometimes asked GP practices questions about constituents and issues and so on. Where is the data? Who keeps it and who is making it secure? We will do our best answers. Perhaps I will have an opportunity next week when we talk further about NSS. In terms of the role of NHS national services Scotland, it provides much of the functionality to support the delivery of services across all of our health settings in Scotland. Leigh might want to come in and say a bit more, but we refer to, in the report, the national clinical data store, which is one of the real components of the data that we all have, which is referred to as a community health index. There is a chi number that sets out to use our unique reference point, and that forms the building blocks of which to roll out various programmes, the extent of a vaccine programme that we are. It comes with huge responsibility and importance, of course, that this is managed safely and securely. All of the right safeguards are put in place managing people's personal and very private medical data that is done securely. We have not seen any issues during the course of our work to require reporting, but it is something that we closely monitor, and our auditors of NSS do that work. There is a lot of structure and systems around that in the NSS, around the assurance that is necessary. All of those factors are in place, but I recognise the point that your constituents make. Much of that would be behind the scenes. That might be a last query on compatibility with other jurisdictions. I am talking about the digital platform for it. We have also heard stories from here and there and everywhere about if people were moving from country to country, the digital apps perhaps weren't compatible. Are we, by and large, ironing that out, or are there still issues to resolve in that area? I recognise the point that you made. I think that particularly those issues surfaced where people received perhaps their first vaccine in another part of the UK and then sought to access the second vaccine in Scotland. I think that, again, referencing the evidence that was given to the Covid-19 Committee earlier this month, that issue was acknowledged that it had been challenging, but the progress was being made to resolve that point. It is not something that we have looked at in detail for the purposes of this briefing paper. Probably my sense is that the challenging that is undoubtedly for individuals, but it was not terribly widespread and the extent of the challenges that were in place seemed to be ebbing. Colin Beattie now has some questions to pose to you. I would like to get a clarification on something. You mentioned in the report that the allocation of vaccines was according to the Barnett formula, so presumably it was done on a population basis. Were there any issues in that, given that Scotland has different demographics and therefore different priorities as to the volume of vaccine that would be needed at any particular time, was anything taken into account on that and did you note whether there were any issues arising from that? I will ask Eva to supplement my response in a moment in terms of the overall planning, the assumptions that were used. The short answer is that no, that is not our understanding, is that it was a fairly straight application of the Barnett funding model that sets out the relative population share of Scotland relative to the rest of the UK as the basis for which vaccines were provided across the four nations of the UK. However, I will pause the moment just in case Eva wishes to share any additional insight on that point. Just to say that Scotland's share of vaccines coming into the UK is based on the Barnett formula, there was detailed modelling that took place at the Scottish Government to more effectively allocate the share of vaccines across Scotland based on what NHS boards were able to deliver at any given time. That was deemed pretty effective considering how quickly the roll-out happened and the high uptake across Scotland. The reassurance says that it did not impact on due to the demographic differences. Given the pace and urgency of the roll-out of the vaccines, I can understand the point that you made about whether a more detailed analysis of rural components, age profile and risk factors led to a more detailed analysis and negotiation between the four nations. However, it is our understanding that that was done at a higher level on the basis of relative population share. Let me turn to some of the points that Willie Coffey touched on. I am looking at Exhibit 4, which has some fairly detailed information here. The source of this information, as I understand it, is Public Health Scotland. Given our previous experience with data, are you comfortable that those figures are accurate? You are right. We are quoting the source of this information as Public Health Scotland. The Exhibit refers to the uptake of the vaccine in terms of the 10 socioeconomic groups in Scotland, ethnicity and by age. In terms of our work, we have not undertaken a forensic audit of the reliability of this data as a briefing paper as distinct to an audit. We have more opportunity to do so, but we are not seeing any data issues. We think that the volume of data and the transparency with which it is provided is something that we are relying on from Public Health Scotland. If we encounter any data issues, we will, of course, update the committee on that point, but it is not something that we have seen thus far. I will come back and ask a couple of questions in a second. I am looking at page 5 of something. The spice paper shows the proportion of the population who has received the vaccine. That is page 5 of that. Pretty much all the way down the line, there is a discrepancy between those who got dose 1 and those who got dose 2. It is not insignificant overall. Do we know why that was? Forgive me, but I do not have the spice paper in front of me. That is a private one. What I am seeing here is that by local authority area, there is a discrepancy of a few percentage points between dose 1 take-up and dose 2 take-up. Did you encounter that in the course of your audit? Did you note that? I will ask my colleagues to come in. We may want to in a moment, but I recognise that there is a marginal difference in uptake from people who have received one vaccine, and the numbers do not equate exactly to those who received a second vaccine. Probably a range of factors behind that, and it is probably drawn from Public Health Scotland data. If I had one vaccine, that would be sufficient, or I would be speculating about whether there are work factors that have stopped in place. I recognise the data that you are referring to, but there is a marginal difference between members of the population who have opted for one vaccine and then not taking a second vaccine. Looking at, again, coming back to the analysis of take-up of the vaccine, there seems to be indication that in the cities where you expect a higher take-up than in rural areas, that is not necessarily the case. The vaccine uptakes below 50 per cent in areas occupied by students. Is it possible that that is skewed by the fact that many students who were resident in Edinburgh, in fact, went home during the Covid and got their shots there? Is it masking perhaps a better situation than we actually are taking out? I think that it is very likely to be a factor. The transient nature of student populations, which GP practice they would be registered with, would be their student accommodation or another address, their parents address, which would say where they would expect to receive their vaccine. If I may, on the whole, given so far through the first and second stage, it feels like it is, although important for the individuals, in totality, probably one of the learning points for NHS boards in the future to tackle. However, overall, the extent of roll-out of the vaccine programme—over 90 per cent for first dose and just marginally short of that for the second dose—exceeded the expectations of the roll-out of the vaccine programme, which initially had a target of around 80 per cent. Important is that those points are explored further. Looking overall, the vaccine programme is, as you have highlighted, lower in some groups of the population. Your briefing states that the Scottish Government is taking action to address this lower uptake. What is the action that is being taken and is it sufficient? Lee may wish to comment on the very specific steps that are taken on individual groups. Whether it will be sufficient is one that we will want to return to, to take a judgment in the overview report and beyond, to whether or not those three groups of society for those younger people are more economically deprived communities and then some of our ethnic groups are just about the steps that are being taken. I will lastly just update the committee on what we know. Thank you, Mr General. Just about your point about the data, Mr Beattie, I think that we have to also recognise that I do not have access to the spice paper, so I cannot see the data that you are looking at. We did not, in our briefing, go down to the local authority area break up either. However, in terms of some of the breakdowns that we have done, it is based on population estimates. It is the denominator that is used to calculate the statistics, so you are always going to get a slight margin of error, if you like. For example, in the paper, we say that 100 per cent of 60-plus-year-olds have been vaccinated, but there will be a small margin of error in there. We know that there are a few 60-plus-year-olds who probably have not taken the vaccine up, but it is about the population estimate that the statisticians use to calculate those figures, so that is where the small margin of error can come in. In terms of trying to target groups where uptake has been lower, as we say in our paper, the Scottish Government did undertake a health inequalities impact assessment, which looked at the impact that the programme, the roll-out of the programme, would have on different groups. There are quite detailed recommendations in that assessment around the actions that they should take. Does that impact assessment been published yet? It has not. As you can see in our briefing, we recommend that we would like to see it published. Do you know why they have not published it? You would have to ask the Scottish Government that. I am in there at details a lot about messaging and how you reach these different populations, but we have outlined in our paper the improving data collections so that they can really understand the groups who are lower in uptake. We have talked about data a lot, but the data was not that good, and they have made a lot of improvements around understanding that, around working with different organisations to make sure that the messaging for different populations is right and improving the accessibility of the information. NHS Inform has provided information in lots of different languages, as well as assertive outreach to different communities. The travel and gypsy community, the homeless community and the Polish community, for example, as well as the mobile clinics, and going into places where the populations with lower uptake are so into churches for the black community and delivering the vaccines in those churches. How successful they have been is a more difficult question, because I do not think we will ever have quantitative data to show the difference that it has made, because it is very difficult for us to know what changed people's minds, what tipped the balance to decide to uptake the vaccine. As I said in one of my earlier responses, we know that Public Health Scotland has an on-going surveillance of the data and what different things are making. Where there is lower uptake in a certain population, where they then need to take some very targeted action. Yesterday, I was reading an article from voluntary health Scotland, which represents the third sector health and social care organisations. They were talking about the fact that NHS Fourth Valley and NHS Fife have been able to show that assertive outreach to the homeless population and the traveller and gypsy population has succeeded in getting people who have never engaged in any kind of vaccination programme to take the Covid-19 vaccine. It is anecdotal and qualitative kind of feedback, but I think that we have seen successes in encouraging people, but whether we will ever have the quantitative data. I guess what we now have in terms of the better data collection is a baseline to work from going forward. Have any of the NHS boards developed their own impact assessments? As far as we are aware, the Scottish Government has not published it. It is not publicly available, but as far as we are aware, it has shared it with the health boards so that they could then develop their own health impact assessments. We have not done any detailed work in terms of seeing all of the NHS boards, but we know that the Scottish Government encouraged them to do their own health impact assessment. I am reminded just how important those questions are because of the evidence produced in your briefing paper. If you look at Exhibit 2, it shows us in very clear terms the difference in outcomes whether you have been vaccinated or up to the double dose or not. Just for the record, the number of cases recorded is almost two and a half times more for the unvaccinated versus the fully vaccinated. The number of hospitalisations is three times more for the unvaccinated versus the fully vaccinated. Sadly, the mortality rate is five times higher if you have not been vaccinated versus fully vaccinated. Those matters of inequality, ethnicity and deprivation feed into those outcomes. I do not know whether you want to comment on that. There are incredible statistics when we look at the efficacy of the vaccine up to the date that they are recorded and the tracks progress between March and September of 2021. The rationale for the booster programme is that the efficacy wanes as we are led to believe, but the point that you make is that, for those groups in society that are not accessing the vaccine programme and who would already be facing health inequalities, they will be exacerbated by not accessing the vaccine further. All the more importance and emphasis needed to extend and continue the push for those groups in society for everybody gets the benefit that the vaccine provides. I think that we, as a committee, will reflect on the questions and answers that we have received on the health inequality impact assessment and the fact that it has not been published. We will deliberate on whether we think that we can make an intervention in that area or not. One final area that I just wanted to come to, which is really in your domain, which is about how you plan and how you budget. How you plan and how you budget in a situation where a third party, the JCVI, is essentially deciding who the priority groups are and almost the chronology of who should receive boosters and, indeed, possibly further vaccination programme access. Have you got any reflections on how well the Scottish Government, health boards and so on, has responded so far in that environment and whether you have got any sense of what the future will look like and what difficulties or what challenges does that pose for those people who have got to budget and plan to provide those vital services? It has undoubtedly been an incredibly challenging, complex programme to deliver. With endless variables, I think, when perhaps I refer to Exhibit 1 in the report, it just sets out some of the timeline and the major milestones. Those are just the major milestones that have been brought up by many other events. We have a full-page exhibit that sets out the number of events that have happened that have had to be anticipated and responded to. Some of those, as you have mentioned, have been orientated around clinical judgments from the JCVI about the timing, the pace and the roll-out of the vaccine programme. All of that is very difficult to plan and budget around. The finances have been dealt with in a different way than would have been in a normal set of circumstances with the full cost of the vaccine programme being covered and not left to individual NHS boards to deal with. My answer will mirror the overall judgments that we have made in the briefing paper, that there has been excellent progress in the delivery of a successful programme, but that challenges still remain to deliver the programme into the future. Given the extent of the variables, the need for a permanent workforce, the importance of reaching all components and parts of Scottish society to ensure that everybody gets the benefits of the programme and that there are still variables. There could be further waves, further application of booster programmes, more clinical research, I am sure about the durability and efficacy of vaccines into the future. What we look to do through the briefing paper is to provide an update and a snapshot, but recognise that there will be more reviews and more audit work undertaken. We will begin to do more that in early 2022. The committee will look forward to receiving the outcome of that work and we will, I am sure, be having further evidence sessions on it in the months ahead. I thank the Auditor General and colleagues for coming along and taking part in the session this morning. It has been very helpful. I now want to close the public part of the session and go into private session. Thank you very much.