 Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting of 2024's Citizens' Participation and Public Petitions Committee. Our first agenda item is simply to agree-taking later agenda items in private. Particularly, the evidence that we are going to hear this morning are members content to do that. We agree to consider the evidence that we heard on P1979, which to establish an independent inquiry and an independent national whistleblowing officer to investigate concerns about the alleged mishandling of child safeguarding inquiries by public bodies and again on the A9 dualling project which we've been considering and therefore agenda items five and six will also be taken in private, a member's content we are. That brings us to agenda item two which is consideration of continued petitions and the first of those is petition number 1947 which is to address Scotland's culture of youth violence lodged by Alex Acain and the petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish government to address the disturbing culture of youth violence in Scotland. Now at our last consideration of this petition we took evidence from Dr Fern Gillan and Dr Susan Batchelor and the committee though previously met with an Edinburgh based youth movement group GVT just off the grass market and also visited Milton in Glasgow where we met the petitioner our parliamentary colleague Bob Dorris was in attendance as well and we met families not necessarily from the Milton area we had people from the Fife as well present but who had direct experience of the issues raised in the petition they gave their evidence anonymously some of it was for members of the committee present very very harrowing to have to hear but I think we were extraordinarily impressed with the courage of both the individuals and their families in the candor of the evidence that they gave us so I'd like to thank all of those who who were prepared to meet with us and do that and therefore delighted to welcome our witnesses to the committee this morning and our we have with us Emily Beaver I'm just suddenly where my note is missing I've got it on a different page but sorry Emily Beaver who is the senior development officer with no knives and better lives will lend in deputy head of unit and head of analysis at the Scottish violence reduction unit and delighted also of Jonathan Waters who's the community policing inspector for Police Scotland so welcome all and thank you all for being present the questions we've got probably arise out of the different sessions that we've held you're not a conglomerate so if you have a particular view that you'd like to express just let me know that you would like to come in and I'll invite you to do so so what what does available evidence tell us about the level of involvement of children and young people as perpetrators of violent behaviour we've obviously heard examples of it our academics didn't really think that there was a significant issue particularly in relation to young people and were these are these teenagers younger than that older than that if they're there and is there an easily identified universal relevant factor that you think can be pointed to as the source or is it really much more complicated than to try and summarise it in such a simplistic way i.e. its deprivation or i.e. its family i.e. whatever and I'm very interested to know so who would like to kind of kick off quite a general introduction we've got a starter for three Mr Linden thank you thank you convener what we know about violence in Scotland just now in terms of the young people and young people involved in violence is you know and it was repeated in the last committee meeting that the most of the young people in Scotland in fact if not a vast majority of the young people in Scotland they're not involved in violence they're not involved in criminality they're an absolute creditor country they're family in their communities however what we also know as well is that there are groups of young people that are involved in violence some through you know they're being assaulted being victims themselves some get involved in violence in terms of actually committing violence the age groups tend to change in terms of what they're involved in the older the age group the more violent it's likely to be the younger age groups we've seen through things like the Bissell report tend to be kind of low level violence and anti social behaviour the numbers are not terribly high however each community is different when we look at specific communities in specific areas people's experiences of violence change i've been involved with the violence reduction unit since it started i've been there since the days of John Carnigan and Karen McCluskey and violence in Scotland has changed and it has significantly came down and this has been driven by young people's behaviour in the main young people's behaviour has changed over that period of time less than we're involved in carrying the weapons less than involving violence and gang violence but when you look at the actual instances of violence it's not equal we've got some communities out there that experience violence some families experience violence a lot more and that goes for groups of young people as well so when we talk about reductions in violence across a country and changes across a country for some people some communities and some individuals it doesn't feel that way it feels very different particularly if you're the mother of someone who's been assaulted or you've been assaulted yourself or you've lost someone to violence violence it is horrific violence tarnishes our communities and tarnishes what we look at if i was looking at in terms of age groups you have to look at in terms of the behaviours of what the age groups are doing in terms of how we tackle it we need to think about the young people and how we prevent it we're looking at the kind of that kind of teenage group that was mentioned in terms of some of the more serious violence but some of the most serious violence that we see in the country is not committed by young people it's committed by people over the age of 20 and we've seen that trajectory increase over that period of since i've been involved in this since 2005 is increased year after year after year of that age group that's involved in serious violence you cannot tackle violence just by tackling it at a youth level culture we must tackle violence across the country and look at it across all age groups because if we don't we're not setting the best example i think our academics suggested that the the historical kind of territorial gangland violence amongst young people is less of an issue than it once was and that it the violence is such and the way that it occurs is different in its pattern well the territorial violence that we've seen it was obviously a highly sort of promoted or you know reported on from the example Glasgow in the kind of mid 2000s it's not disappeared no it's not a way but it is significantly reduced at one point i think we're reporting on you know 50 60 70 gangs with 600 members we don't see those level of numbers now in terms of young people are involved in it we don't see the large territorial fighting on the streets that we used to see in the parks in the friday and saturday night but it does still happen but what we're also seeing as well as the influence of other factors such as social media and we've seen the influence of that kind of expansion of networks and how people connect together so territorialism has changed it's not necessarily just connected upon who your next door neighbour is this idea of networks and social networks has broadened over that period of time and that has affected how we respond to it too and we want to look in some detail at the influence of social media in the last 10 15 years specifically emily beaver you were going to come in yes thank you yeah i think for us would echo what will had said that the majority of young people aren't involved in violence and that's really important it's a kind of foundation of prevention is actually having that reassurance for young people that the majority of young people aren't carrying weapons for example are not going to be involved in violence because actually it's a lot of time that fear factor if we create that social norm and we create the feeling that the violence is just around the corner that young people will be kind of on edge they might start taking measures like carrying weapons because they think that that would keep them safe you know if they feel if the perception is there that there is in fact lots of young people who are ready to jump into violence and we certainly want to avoid that because that's not the case i don't know if the committee had seen but the last time the Scottish government did a deep dive certainly into weapons carrying and the profile of individuals involved in weapon carrying both those responsible and those harmed by it was actually those in their late 20s 27 29 depending on the classification of the weapons carrying to address one of your initial questions about a universal factor i would say of course it's more complex there's not a universal factor but there are things like poverty like the mental health crisis like the fracture in relationships from coven that means that violence is is more likely or it's kind of setting young people on a path that makes it harder to make positive decisions for themselves and their peers Jonathan Waters I would agree with both Emily and Will the vast majority of people of young people that come into the city centre come in to enjoy the attractions of the city centre there's obviously quite often not a lot for them to do in their local area and they come into city centre and quite often don't have much money on them as well so there is an element of hanging about but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing anything wrong it might be a perception from members of the public that they are but more often than not they're not doing anything wrong in terms of what Emily was saying there's certainly no universal factor sometimes things like alcohol can have a have a factor in the way that the children young people present to us but i wouldn't say that that's just one of many factors from the sort of analysis and statistics we've got the age group is between 26 and 35 you're more likely to be involved in your male you're more likely to be involved in violence than a young person i mean obviously the committee's concern is with is particularly amongst younger people and the victims of violence that we met were 12 or 13 years of age one was the subject of that violence on a school bus one was a slightly withdrawn individual who was artificially befriended and more or less invited by appointment to be assaulted and we might have a chance to look at some of that in more detail later but obviously what the committee therefore was hearing was and these were girls and they were attacked by other girls was of really horrendously despicable acts at a relatively young age egged on by the peer group who was in attendance and i i i i suppose that's i wanted to understand is that with are those two examples that i'm hearing there uniquely awful or in the pattern of trends is there however small nonetheless a trend at that age group of growth however small in youth violence we've just done a piece of work actually on violence between girls so the specific issue because practitioners were telling us that they felt it was becoming more frequent and perhaps more serious we didn't didn't the statistics don't show that because they don't record it in that way so we went out to young people directly and spoke to them i would say the young people that we spoke to were the majority of whom had had violence really woven throughout their lives they had both been responsible for violence but also had been harmed through violence and that was violence perhaps in the home perhaps through social media and then their kind of acts of violence where they were responsible for that harm was kind of as a result of all of those things is what they were saying and they were young people who were really loyal to their friends which sometimes meant they also got involved in fights that they said they felt that they didn't have a lot of trusting adults for example they said explicitly teachers don't care until it's a crisis point until you're in a fight so they really felt they weren't getting support and they were young people who were really fiercely protective of their families families we found was a real trigger point for violence for example if someone had said something about someone's family but also that some families condoned violence so i think there was a lot of pressure on these young people from all these different arenas and that culminated in violence in some shape or form we would say what we're really exploring now is how to support young people girls in particular to develop those trusting relationships with adults that make sure they have that support in place that they have support to navigate social media in a positive way we put a lot of onus on young people to navigate social media it's a really complex place that has lots of things that are acting against us all the persuasive design and things like that that are in there but we know that young people also really lacked any kind of hope and optimism for the future they didn't have that and therefore they felt like that was it this was their lot for life it was always going to be like this so until we have that kind of positive future for them they felt there was nowhere else for them to go yes Mr Waters again i agree with what Emily was saying we don't i'd say those two examples are uniquely awful i would agree with that common assaults are quite frequent and and low level sort of public nuisance is the top top call that the police attend in Glasgow city centre that involves young people so it is is crime at a very low level that we generally deal with as opposed to these more serious matters okay we'll come back to it i mean some colleagues attest that i i represent a relatively affluent area in that i'm the msp for the eastward constituency in the south side of Glasgow with some very high income areas but also with its own areas of of less that are less fortunate and this is another theme might come back to but i'm struck because that i've had examples of youth violence brought to my attention too at the lack of responsibility of parents it seems at times to acknowledge that their children can in any way be responsible for acts of youth violence and who therefore neither support the teachers the school and indeed have themselves become part of the harassing posse if i can put it that way of the individuals who have been the subject of the violence and of course that's an emerging trend because teachers have been saying for a very long time to me now that particularly those who've left the profession that if they only had to deal with the children that would be fine but they now find having to deal with the parents almost impossible because they get very little support from them so i say that i'm satheem i want to come back to but i don't want to hog all the time so david torrance thank you governor good morning to witnesses just to put on the record because i know the media and everything i'll be watching us the experience of violence amongst children and young people is it increasing in your opinion just so it's on the record um that is a very difficult question is it increasing the reporting of it isn't just now what we're seeing it is in terms of maybe a very low level in terms of stuff has come through schools etc from a policing and recorded crime perspective we're not really seeing that but that's probably maybe to do with recording issues what we're probably feeling it on the ground and listening to people is there is a feeling that it's increasing i'm just a bit concerned that that might cascade a few years down the line maybe in 18 months time or so we might actually start to see an increase in recorded crime and increase in violence because although we might not be seeing it just now it does feel that way but not at any kind of catastrophic level that actually that is going to go out of control i still think there's an opportunity if we intervene we can intervene and support and help and stop this from happening but i'm concerned by that i wouldn't say that there's a from look at the the data over the last five years it's quite level quite stable in terms of the number of incidents reported there was a spike when just after covid which was throughout 2022 the first 11 months of that were particularly bad in terms of use coming into the city centre just in the back of covid and the lifting of restrictions and that led to more more reports but since then it's kind of levelled out into the kind of and it's there's no real change between over the last five years might be a perception that things have got worse but certainly from my experience and from the the statistics i've got is that there's no real change to the the level it's worth if the committee hasn't seen it and looked in detail at the hbsc report the latest version that came out last June paints a real picture of what's going on for young people in scotland and it's a really bleak picture you know there's really not that many young people who are very happy with their lives who are confident who there's lots of young people who feel lonely for example all these things that are kind of make a kind of perfect storm of situations where young people are just less able to make positive decisions and we can really see that change since 2018 the results are really quite drastic in how those numbers have changed so i think for sure for the committee it's definitely worth looking at that where there is that perspective from young people telling us how their lives really are going back to violence among young people social media and your sites like instagram and tiktok and things like that how much has that played in an increase because i've seen some horrendous videos on some of your social media sites boasting about what they've done and they're quite proud about it in fact in five hours one about a school teacher getting assaulted by a people who went viral everywhere so how's that rise in social media played a part in violence amongst young people certainly young people's experience that they've told us about how they use social media certainly there's some enabling factors of social media so for example very large group chats on snapchat was something that young people told us that are often used to coordinate fights in fact young people said once they were added into one of these groups that they felt like there was no way out that they had to have a physical fight they felt trapped even if they didn't want to they didn't feel there was a way out so that was one way and it's worth saying that as well this is not just confined because of the networks available to young people they some of the young people we spoke to were receiving really harrowing threats death threats from other young people outside of Scotland that somehow had been you know added into these massive group chats or had their number somehow so the violence that they experienced through social media as well not just violence or videos of young people fighting each other but really serious animal cruelty for example other bullying other types of harassment that maybe aren't even aimed at young people the just kind of sense of violence within social media was something that they said was ever present. Yeah I think Emily raises some very good points one of the problems with social media is things like the algorithms and how we actually attract people to watch videos it's about how it's shared it's about how it propagates things that it likes or things like streaks and that kind of make an addictive nature in terms of our young people social media itself is that a cause of violence i'm not so sure in terms of that i don't think it helps i think it's that accelerant it can make things a lot worse in terms of what we're looking at i think we have to have a we need a serious look in terms of how we address it and how we place it from a national level because i think there are real challenges with social media that actually a lot of the social media companies need to seriously look at in terms of what we're doing and how we're exposing young people to it but also how we're exposing adults to it as well we need to remember that young people are if you like learning machines they come into this world and they learn from their community and parents and their adults and people around them so when we look at young people's behaviour young people's behaviour is actually sadly a reflection some of our own behaviours so we need to actually address our attitude towards social media as well and how that also with social media is social media and young people's attitudes and use of social media vastly differs differs from ours social media and internet and technology we use it as a transactional sort of behaviour we use it to do things young people can have can blur the lines between reality or the real world and social media and they both merge together so we also need to look at something of the work that Emily was talking about and actually listen to young people more about actually what would work and how we could address it and take them as the lead in order of what we do with it. Thank you. Can I just get back to you? I just want to illustrate at this point with one of the evidence from one of those that from whom we heard this was a 12 year old girl who was vulnerable she was befriended on social media invited to meet the individual with whom she'd been befriended found that in fact she'd been invited to an appointment where there were a crowd of people she was then physically assaulted the incident was filmed she was left unconscious she was hospitalised her parents didn't recognise her when they saw her in hospital the video of the assault was then posted not anonymously but with the names of all those involved attached they did that because they understood that in their minds if you're under 25 the police won't procurator won't take forward any action against them that they afforded it with impunity by thinking that and promoting that view they are encouraging others to do the same now i accept that social media if you like is a tool there that is being used by people who are disposed towards that kind of violence but the more it struck me that there is a belief rightly or wrongly that that process as was described is accurate it's going to encourage more of it because the people perpetuating the violence were empowered they felt that made them untouchable and you know within the peer group gave them status however appalling that might be so that is an example i think that we heard directly of what davidine you are talking about and you know it was very difficult not to be profoundly struck by that yes i think that's that's a really telling point in terms of some really case you're referring to if we go back to 2005 pre most social media if you like you know there was the instances of things like happy slapping whereby you know people be videoed actually being assaulted and it was posted on things like my space or the videos were shared and more general now because we have that speed and we have that alleged anonymity and what you're saying that sort of belief of lacking of consequences it can make a significant difference to it whereby people are posting things it doesn't it can encourage other behaviors what we also know is in terms of things like social media in terms of that ability to share videos is its constant retraumatisation for the victim because it's you know it's constantly out there it's hard to take down even if the social media companies take down it's been shared across whatsapp groups etc it's not like a violent incident of old whereby you might have been assaulted and sort of maybe able to move on for it wasn't that you know too traumatising that there is everyday traumatising not just for the victim but the victim's families and friends etc so it is horrific now in order to address that is this about sanctions perhaps behaviors have consequences but we have to understand what those consequences are and we have to understand what works best we also have to support the victims and support victims families better and we're not terribly good at that you know we need to actually think about sometimes from the victim's perspective and support the victims at the same time we do not want to see this violence we want to prevent it i wouldn't like to spend all our services dealing with victim services and dealing with trying to stop offenders from offending again i would rather stop it in the first place one of the parents said that they were slightly aghast that the remedy was a series of actions that were put in place to support the perpetrator of the violence to try and take them out of that culture but the the victim of the violence had received virtually no support whatsoever in terms of any kind of remedial support David Torrance sorry interrupted okay thank you and this is questions to mr waters because so many evidence that the committee is taking from families was around social media the threats of violence or violence from social media and they felt that police had become immune to it that there was no response from the police so can you put on record what mr Torrance yes these videos are very concerning and the instance that you talk about is very harrowing to hear those details it definitely does compound the experience of the victim and their family they have to live through that again and again if it's on social media i don't take away for that at all in my experience it's not the main issue it's social media it's obviously the violence itself and we for every instance we've got a victim care package that we try and a bespoke one for each victim is particular if it's a young person where we try and link him with the schools we see if it's related to anything to do with gangs as well and we try and try and link in with for instance campus officers as well to work in the schools i think the system of youth justice is is not very visible about how successful it can be is there is a three different three different levels of youth justice from direct measures in terms of the police maybe surprised to know that 75 percent of children are actually taken home on that first instance that are given a a formal warning they don't offend again and then we move to early effective intervention which again is about diverting youths away from from violence and from offending and it's proven to be very effective glasgo i could speak about glasgo because obviously that's where i might be community inspector for glasgo city centre early effective intervention does does work doesn't work in all instances but it does on the whole work and obviously if if the offences are of a very high level it will go to the procreate fiscal or children's reporter but we've got a system in glasgo called one glasgo which is where the offenders are that for where young people are repeatedly offending we're intervening through a system called one glasgo 90 we find that 93 percent of those that are referred to that actually get involved in that diversionary programme and it's found to be very effective so i think a lot of the time the effective measures are not visible to the public which is unfortunate but there's a lot of good work happening but in the background good just one more thank you um to yourself mr otters again these families didn't feel what police would respond to any threats from social media to their children can you elaborate on what the police would scotland would do if he's were constantly aimed at a child obviously we'd have to look at at a case by case basis but if there is if there's a video and or if there's social media threats then there's there's legislation through the communications act that we should be using and we could prepare charges against those that are responsible so there's legislation that we should be using for that those types of offenses but again we'd have to look at each individual case mr charger you've been keen to come in thank you good morning panel i've got a couple of questions i think i'm interested by the social media first there's so many fake accounts i've been opened and even though if if if if it's an account it's been opened by in my name and i report it to the police that there's a fake account open in my name the response from the police is that sorry you can't do anything but that fake account puts off loads of stuff which is can be against you know so recently i've been getting quite a lot of complaints from ethnic minority people where the fake accounts have been opened and it's for the young people but when it's been reported to the police police just works away from it do you have anything to say on that one police says that you have to write to the social media company do you think that social media companies are not taking responsibilities and it's quite easy to open an account on anybody's name without any background checks or anything at all a lot of the social media companies are based abroad so it does make it more difficult to for police Scotland to engage with the companies and try and get their co-operation but they do they do some do co-operate and we try and we try and make things better for the persons that are reporting that in terms of fake accounts again it'd be very much encouraged if the people feel as if their their details have been used fraudulently that they should report it to the police and very much encourage that thank you the other thing is i i've been getting a lot of constituents who's got like shops or education centres i mean it's mostly from leith and their shops has been targeted by youngsters like 12 13 14s kicking the windows king doors all the time and it's the same people but when the police were called the police comes up and says that they're underage people can't do anything and if the shopkeepers or the business owners go out and talk to the kids their parents will come and start jumping on them so i mean what's what's what's what kind of response should we give it to the constituents who is going through this sort of trouble and i think these sort of things are happening more or less every single day in leith ocean ocean drive and all that stuff and i get constantly emails from the shop owners so i think that's a very good point in terms of actually looking at the problems at local level on this is about how we respond to it i mean when we look at things like areas around its shops or say transport hubs or anywhere else we're you know perhaps groups of young people are coming together and we're finding you know perhaps increasing act social behaviour maybe low level violence and these other crime and other issues but actually it's been said earlier just young people hanging around we know that instances things like what works is things like hotspot policing so hotspot policing is incredibly effective but actually hotspot policing is not just about policing and criminal justice it's identifying where some of the challenges are and how we can best deploy resources that could be multi agency partnership resources it could be youth workers it could be street workers in terms of say you know the kind of idea of a hospital navigator or a street navigator to engage with young people and to find out what's happening and listen to why they're there you know and try and help them move along we don't want to see young people being criminalised we don't want to see young people being brought in the criminal justice system but equally we want to see people in community be able to go about their daily business and not be scared and be free from that sort of behaviour you know and shopkeepers and be able to continue on with their daily business so there has to be some some way of addressing that we have to be able to deploy some form of resources for that but again that might take some funding some money in order to actually think what do we want to do because this takes resources it takes people resources to deal with people problems and that's one of the issues we're faced with i think it's worth also emphasising what will said about talking to the young people involved and finding out what those drivers are is it that there's actually nothing else for them to do you know they've found something to amuse themselves just so happens that's really inconvenient and you know really unpleasant for the people who are experiencing that you know money and youth work services moving that upstream so that young people aren't in that position to be making those choices in the first place is really where where we should be emphasising that fund and spend in that preventative measure. A lot of police station i mean there is an announcement that police stations will be closing so do you think that like the the local gurdwaras or mosque or and things like that when they know there is a police station nearby a lot of the time they feel comfortable the community who uses them they feel comfortable do you think those closing down of the police station in the area is going to make people worried that that's going to be a lot of trouble what do i mean that it will inform us the workers to answer yes mr chowdry i think people are more interested in where the police officers are as opposed to the physical buildings and we've been given a lot of investment by the Scottish government and for mobile devices so that officers can actually be in their areas and they can remote work remotely using their devices so they don't have to return to a physical building to do things like paperwork so there's with advancements of technology the buildings themselves are not as important they might be symbols in the community in terms of the people know where they are but if we can obviously police are just like every other public service there's obviously budget constraints so if they're looking to save money in buildings well the police officers will will still be in the communities it'll just be the the buildings that will might not be there anymore thank you mr you some years ago from 2007 to 11 i was community safety minister and along with cabinet secretary of justice at that time kenny mcaskill we work very closely with with john carnahan and Karen McCluskey and i was struck by their both their passion but also the practical approach that they brought and particularly and i want this is where i wanted to ask and talking about preventing youth violence as we've heard from inspector waters about division activity because you know does seem one of the key ways and inspector waters you've confirmed this this morning to take young people into a different path of life and thinking and away from mindless violence is to provide division activity and at that time we introduced this idea of cashback using money taken from criminals drugs money for example or other property seized and investing that in the rational activity and what i wanted to ask the witnesses really is is that is that still the one of the main correct approaches and if so is it being supported sufficiently i'm not just talking about taxpayers money or resources as people tend to call it as if it was a type of mineral it's not it's money but it's not just money it's also a sort of will and a purpose amongst the government agencies to get things done and not pass it to somebody else's desk so i just i don't know the answer to this question but i just wanted to hear from from each of the witnesses are we doing enough should we do more and if so how do we go about that and what do we need to do perhaps now more of or better that could help to divert some of these young people away from some of the acts of absolutely mindless violence that we've heard in what were extremely harrowing cases as the convener has pointed out. Mr Llywydd, you raised some very good points in terms of what we need to do when we went back to those days and cash back was introduced and along with a number of other programmes that John and Karen helped to pioneer we were looking at that idea of that kind of primary and secondary prevention how we stop that transition of young people into crime how we change behaviours how we stop people carrying knives how we engage with them that was incredibly successful some of the best evidence round that from an international perspective is round about some of the diversions out there things like social skills training or sports or mentoring things like navigators or that idea of supporting people in the community at that point in need but we need to and we need to invest more we do need to invest more in our time our effort and make decisions that actually face our young people today because if we are not making the decisions on how young people are served by our communities then we could be facing these future problems and they will only accelerate for us whose responsibility is it is everyone's responsibility one of our mantras always going through in terms of what we do and this is about leadership but not necessarily just political leadership it's about leadership at all levels and not looking to the left and to the right and say well actually you need to do something this is about us all doing something whether or not it's political leaders teachers police officers family members community members brothers sisters we all have a choice to make about violence we all have a choice to make about our children's futures and how we spend our money as you said how we spend our resources how we spend our time though may well be political decisions through budgets but actually we have to make a decision on what we want from future yeah the cash back is a really great example the programmes recently changed that has shifted some of that money away from smaller grass roots organisations and i think funding across the third sector for sure has to be a consideration in the longevity of that it takes a long time to build sustainable meaningful relationships with young people so if you're working on a one-year funding and then you don't get that you know the young people don't have that stability they can't trust that process and we see a lot of young people then falling out of services falling out of youth work provision because of funding cuts because the programme that they go to in the summer is being cut or whatever it might be we've provided the committee with some examples of existing youth work current ongoing youth work activities and like will said it really takes a team there's a really great example of a partnership between children in need and mcdonald's for example where lots of mcdonald's restaurants were facing antisocial behaviour and disruption from young people so that instead of being punitive and banning young people from mcdonald's they're trying to then actually talk to these young people welcome them in do some employability work for example with skills young people are now then having part-time jobs in mcdonald's but also having detached youth workers there to support the young people who are there to have those trusting relationships lots of different things that are going on and certainly more funding for youth work that can be embedded within our communities is would be of benefit. Mr Linden you want to come back again? Yeah just taking a back up what Emily said a little bit particularly around strategic funding if we look at some of the cash back where it would be three to five years worth of funding for organisation that allows long-term planning and long-term development of workforces and long-term development of services and training of youth workers and training of people to able to interact and work well with the communities if we're dealing with things that year to year funding for many organisations and many third sector organisations and community organisations who do the vast majority of that really on the ground preventative work across Scotland that's really difficult for them particularly now when you're not when you have troubles with funding you don't know what the future is going to be how can you make those sort of planning decisions in order to support your communities better so i think we need to look at how we fund in general particularly those smaller organisations because those as I said those are the ones that make the real difference and make that special around that relationship building with young people in order to help prepare them better for the future Mr Ewing term funding not year to year is the sort of death knell of schemes because the definition takes longer than the year to do anything worthwhile by large i don't know inspector waters wanted to answer the question about what the police role is should be what more could the police do if if anything in relation to the version activity inspector waters Mr Ewing yes one one project that we're doing Glasgow city centre is the common ground youth project and it's we can't do that obviously the police can't do this alone in terms of providing that diverse activity so this is a project which is going to be led by Barnardo's and it's about having youth workers actually in the city centre engaging with young people who are sometimes in the periphery of groups and trying to get them engaged and to signpost them to services back into their own community sometimes those services are limited what's available but there is more services back in the communities that it is in the heart of Glasgow or in cities and i think that has a very important first step as well about trying to make things better of course we could be doing more and and this is and but by working with partners we can at least enhance our chances of making a success well i'm sure you're doing a lot of good work and as you say sadly much of it is invisible which is a shame we did it when i uh in those distant days when i had an executive function um we we did use to some extent the the army and um a army facilities barracks um out of bounds um establishments to take youngsters from Glasgow who i think john McCluskey said were kind of identified as about to go into serious crime you know they started doing a criminal activity and you know john's view was just a matter of time if if things took their course that they would get involved in more criminality get involved go to Glen Oakles end up in Barlinny and so on so his idea i think was you know to to get him a room give him one of his typical talks which imagine would um you know would make most people's hair curl um but but also to take them out of their habitat you know their their place they're happy with maybe out in the scheme somewhere and take them into somewhere entirely different like you know became gorms or something like that and the reason that i felt that the army was very good at this is that um this is what they do you know they take young men mostly but women as well nowadays and they turn them into stronger better team playing people that's what army training is all about and they're very good at it so i did feel and maybe this sounds old fashioned to some but i i did think that this was a strand not their sole answer but a strand that would help particularly young boys in their teens from becoming heartened criminals and therefore the minute invest involved would pay itself in spades in avoiding all the misery that such criminality would cause throughout their lifetimes for other people that had themselves is that something that's happened it's happening now where has that been dropped and i was going to ask if that was a reflection a question there was to you i think we got to it at the end emily beaver there's certainly activities like that that still continue with the army and with other providers and i think maybe we're saying that you know some young people will really thrive in that very boundaries setting you know rigid setting of an army and there's other others who might not so there are a range of providers that do that kind of system taking young people out of out of their norm right showing them that there's something different and that's kind of what i was referencing at the start if young people can't see a different thing can't see a different future for themselves it's really hard to imagine and actually just that break and seeing the opportunity to learn something different venture scotland's one to really look at that do lots of that lots of outdoor provision as well teaching young people outdoor skills and outdoor activities spending lots of time in nature you know really in the health and wellbeing impact as well as the antisocial behaviour or perhaps involved in violence side of things yeah when we look at these programmes these programmes can be effective in terms of what they're doing but it's not just the programme what it tends to take is actually a lot of work before and afterwards so it doesn't matter if it's a outward bounds adventure course or perhaps a week you know residential with the army you know again as emily said some young people might rail against that but it's about the work you do afterwards to support the help because just taking a young person out of their scheme their environment the troubles the trauma that they face in a day to day basis for a week's respite for it might give them a week's respite and a week's reflection but then if you're putting them back into that same level of trauma that same community the same problems etc the gains can be quickly eroded so what we've found is how do you support them when they come back and that is through things like mentoring it is through adults and peers and people that can support them on a day to day basis and look to try and challenge some of the behaviours out there but also challenge some of the circumstances that got them there in the first place so it's much more elongated in say a one week's or even a month's long programme when we're dealing with young people with significant trauma and significant issues it takes a significant amount of time and a significant amount of resources to help change that. I'm interested in the justice system response in the widest possible sense and I welcomed the comments from Mr Waters that there's kind of those three tiers and I was interested I think the statistic that you provided of when you take someone home the reductions in re-offending 75 per cent which is amazing but I'm really interested in perhaps the more extreme end which I think you kind of finished up on in the three tier approach and if you could give the committee an indication of the likely consequences of multiple assaults particularly where an individual might move from the children's hearing system and is that adequate and then to the criminal justice system and ultimately finding out that anecdotally from my experience in Dundee that individuals can sometimes rack up dozens of convictions if you like in the children's hearing system then have a big shock when they enter the criminal justice system and I wonder if you could perhaps provide a commentary on what the likely steps are in those hopefully more extreme cases. In the more extreme cases obviously they would be reported to the fiscal and there'd be a children's hearing and then it'd be down to sheriff whether to put in statutory measures, whether that person needs compulsory care in local authority but that's obviously a very extreme measure we're trying to get trying to intervene and provide diversions before it gets to that stage so that's why as I mentioned I'm not sure about Dundee but in Glasgow there's the one Glasgow project where this is people that are repeatedly coming to the attention of the police. Last year there was 99 people in that system that entered that system and it was very effective but they don't just look at the individual they look at the whole family because quite often as Will was saying you might remove that person for a short time out of the environment they are but then they just go back but if you maybe look at the whole family approach about what financial assistance can we provide employability to these young people have any hope for the future is looking at all that and that's why schemes such as one Glasgow are very effective. In terms of the tier system early effective intervention is is actually quite effective and when you get to the the higher levels then it's almost out with the control of the police what happens then once it gets to Procator Fiscal and the court system but it's trying to the police really have an involvement before it gets to that level and we do have a role along with other partners to try and prevent it from escalating. I think it's really important that we ground this conversation in a children's rights based approach that's obviously in front of everybody's mind at the moment and looking at well what does a justice system for children look like that's who we're talking about their children even if they have been responsible for harm we have to hold that uncomfortableness you know and have that difficult conversation of yes they need to be held accountable and they also need help to recover from whatever they're going through and that reintegration into society that they're not lost causes that we need to ship off somewhere and hide away from everybody else and if we're thinking of what child friendly justice looks like a really good definition that we use and share with practitioners is about a good friend can tell you when you've done something wrong and they'll help you to do better next time and I think that's what we really need to have here that actually we have to help young people who are responsible for harm for violence to do better next time that they're not the sum of their behaviours even if that has been frequent that they that we always have that hope and optimism for transformation and change and it will be with them to do it and we know from research certainly from the Edinburgh study of youth crime and transitions that their recommendation of following young people through their lifetime who are now in their kind of mid to late thirties is to maximise diversion from the criminal justice system that it just doesn't work as it is for young people it doesn't set them down a better path and so I think we have to kind of keep all of these things in mind certainly with incorporation now coming into force within the next few months of what this really looks like and how this could really be a radical shift for our justice system for children and so you've articulated I guess what it should be I suppose my questions pick on some of mr waters evidence is if a child is put in local authority care or indeed into a secure unit is there any evidence that that has beneficial outcomes for the individual and what is the panel's assessment on the effectiveness of the justice system response I don't know who wants to pick up on that but certainly we work with young people within secure care and and also sometimes in in a wire-up moment and there's some of the nicest young people you've ever met actually there always are easiest sessions that young people are much more keen to be engaged than when we go to schools for example which is always really striking but they're young people who are really vulnerable they're there because they're vulnerable for a whole load of reasons and a danger potentially to others all themselves and I think that we've quite often seen the same young people in that system one striking example we went to one secure care unit and the young person said oh I've met you a few months ago in the other secure care unit you know still in that system and there was another young person talking about oh I have to go to Pullman later on what's it like they'd never been and then another young person saying my whole family's been in prisons they've been in Barlinny they've been in such and such so I think that gives you a sense of who those young people are who that demographic is and actually the level of support that they need and the level of supports you know really quality within those secure care and the relationships that they can build with those staff I can't speak to the statistics of of that but certainly from the the young people that we've met they need a lot of support to do better next time okay thanks well yeah I'm not going to necessarily comment on where not the justice system is effective and ineffective that's going to outside my expertise on this one here but however what I would say is it could be better we could look at it in terms of actually it's not down that silo route of justice system or a justice system response because if we look at the examples given of young people committing multiple crimes, multiple acts of violence etc it harps back to a phrase that ex director of education Maureen McHenna from Glasgow once said to me and that is all behaviours communication so what is a young person they're telling me about their life in terms of why they keep committing crimes why they keep getting involved in violence why is this happening to them and why is it not being stopped or why are we not doing something about it so if the justice system in terms of how it exists just now is not able to work and transform and transition young people in terms to you know make them have better outcomes or let them have better outcomes whatever that looks like for them we need to think about what else does it need how do we work across our systems how do we work across our mental health system how do we work across our social care system our education system and that's the problem that we have we have all of these systems and what happens is we expect young people to navigate them we expect young people to be part of a system rather than the young person to be at the centre of it and the systems to navigate around them so would I say you know that it's perfect it's absolutely not perfect but it's probably the best it can be just now we just need to think about it differently and I don't know I'm not sure about in terms of at that level when it gets to children in sub-secure facilities and whether that's successful or not it's really out with my area that's fair enough just a final question convener just just around prevention and particularly the roles of schools in that which we've discussed social media but actually a lot of the violence you might imagine would emanate from the school environment even if it doesn't take place there and I wonder what the panel's assessment was on how effective schools are at that early intervention point or indeed working with the police in terms of getting the community officer out you know anecdotally I've heard particularly at primary school that's very effective even in terms of combating social media abuse for example and I'm just keen for the views on the role of schools in the educational system yeah incredibly important in the role that schools in playing this but you know there's an old phrase as well that teachers can only teach you what parents provide and what communities provide and it takes a community to raise a child there's so many adages on this but the idea of schools being so the responsible for it is really difficult schools are there to help educate to help train to prepare young people for your future and that's prepared them from the widest possible sense they do a great job but it's a struggling job just now in terms of what they've got we've seen the well publicized sort of issues in terms of teachers complaining about behaviour in schools and violence and they probably need more support and help in terms of what they need we can't keep putting things on schools in order to fix some of our social problems there are wider issues at play and we need to be able to support the schools in order to do that so and this goes back to the primary prevention and secondary prevention modelling if we're wanting to truly help this we need to help the schools more we need to provide them resources we're not it's in terms of additional help for say educational psychologists we need to provide them things like mentoring and youth work etc we need a better relationship with our for a good relationship with example campus officers etc and the third sector schools need as much help as possible if we want to prepare our young people for the best future i don't know if they have that just now and i think that's one for the teaching unions and for teachers to discuss i think it's worth you know we've seen some really great examples of where schools have been really innovative and using using the resources and time that they do have to support young people but that's really quite mixed and it's not a consistent picture just because they don't all have those same resources so for example campus officers are not in every school there's some areas like folkirk for example there's a campus officer in every school whereas in others they don't have any Aberdeen for example and it's where the school is able to have those resources able to commit that time able to develop those relationships with young people positive relationships that's what it all comes down to isn't it and I'm sure you can all think of teachers that you've had that you know were stood out and you had a really positive relationship with them that's what we need for all young people but teachers need to be able to have the kind of breathing space within the curriculum within the school day to be able to foster those relationships and that can obviously be challenging I feel to the petitioner and to the witnesses from whom I heard to ask this they understand that the police operate within guidelines issued by the Lord Advocate and those deal with the circumstances when alleged offences committed by children should be reported to the procurator fiscal can you explain what the impact of those guidelines is on the police who have to deal with allegations of violence does more need to be done to explain to victims what action is being taken or what action is not being taken because those witnesses and their experience was not abstract it was real we're told by the police they're under 25 there's nothing we can do it's not worth it the procurator won't act in consequence in both cases the families then felt unable to leave their homes because they were coming into contact with the perpetrators who were provoking them further mocking them making their lives difficult within their community because they felt that they were now immune and bizarrely to me their parents seemed to be part of the posse of abuse towards the perpetrators gone are the days when some parents would have felt that you know they had a duty to act in respect of their children now they seem to feel they've got to defend them in front of the people that were being abused what do you say to those people because i think probably they listened in some despair to the academic discussion we had at our last evidence session and tried to relate that to the absolutely appalling experience that they themselves had had and the lack of any response to it i think the response to that is quite simple it has been more transparent with the parents and more transparent with the families the families need supported they need help they are being victimised they are being traumatised on a daily basis through us so actually by not doing that are we fulfilling our duty as public sector are we filling our duty i'm not so sure i don't know and i can't comment the specific policing procedure on that in the fiscal etc but we do have to look after victims we do have to look after families better if we're not doing that it's it's incomprehensible quite frankly we are looking at people that are faced with real traumatic challenges in the life they're looking at their the victims their sons their daughters who have been assaulted who have been affected by violence and it doesn't stop it doesn't stop in terms of people are reconnecting with it and or actually continuing to actually provoke and you talk about parents who are now supporting it that's not new convener we've seen that back in the 2000s when we looked at gang members etc when parents were actively supporting violence that's not a new behaviour it's a behaviour that you know as many parents can't really understand either because they don't necessarily expect their own children to be involved in that and perhaps asked by a real a realism and i kind of check on that but we have to address that and we have to work from a victim perspective on this and not just from a perspective of prevention in terms of stopping them that kind of tertiary prevention and the first of all from that from a victim's perspective is there should be no victims we should actually stop this in the first place there should be no violence we shouldn't rest until you know every young person that every person in scotland feels safe from violence rather than trying to deal with the consequences but when there are consequences and the violence does happen we should support the victims as much as we can anybody else mr waters convener i think basically we do provide i can't comment those individual cases but on the whole a robust police response because it doesn't matter if the victim is young a young person or older person it's the same investigation model that we use we take witness statements we view cctv and we report the circumstances whether that's into procreator fiscal or to the children's reporter so there's no difference to that and the the guidelines are and perhaps it's it's down to the leadership of the police from low levels like myself to cascade that to the officers that we we need to be more as well says transparent with the victims young people can still be arrested and they can still be taken into custody where it's an interests not only of the young person but of the community so we do have the police powers at our disposal and the youth justice processes i think as i said for one of the first questions are on the whole are successful but it's probably not visible to the communities that these disposals and diversity works taking place and it is a victim-centred approach that's what we get trained from the very beginning that's what we should be providing to the public and i think in more cases than not that we do but sometimes the system's not perfect sometimes people do get let down you want to come with a very final quick follow-up yes just to follow in the devil's advocacy and out of fairness i think to one of the young females whose mother provided quite harrowing evidence of the assault on this young girl the mother said i won't mention names but i learned afterwards that the girl who was the attacker had attacked no less than 20 children and was well known with the police and in fact i still continue to get videos or stories of attacks weekly now i mean i just mentioned this because you know over the years i have heard this quite a lot the police knew well that this individual had caused many other crimes had carried out many other assaults and i appreciate that that's just a general claim there's no particular evidence behind it but i mentioned it because i think it probably is not an isolated experience that many people perhaps living in areas of extreme poverty find that you know there is a young hoodlum who just causes endless mayhem and nobody ever seems to do anything about it i think this is extremely unfair to the police they just say that and also there's a question about the police outdo its job and then what happens when it when it goes to the justice system not very much perhaps there's that argument as well inspector i'm aware of all that but but you know i just kind of wonder particularly from inspector waters you know what would you say to this mother that sees the the female that attacked her daughter in a quite horrific way leaving her almost unrecognisable from facial injuries and scared to go out at all what would you say to the mother and how is there anything more that the police or any other authorities can deal with to to identify youngsters that plainly are causing very serious injury and harm to other people other young people in scotland it's obviously difficult with the the case that you describe because obviously i don't know all the details that is as i said that kind of escalation process that is clear guidelines in for the police sometimes members is public the system sometimes lets people down but on the whole i would say that it does work that is clear guidelines in for the police about what we should be doing and but the young people themselves that's the difficulty is that the persons committing defences are young people themselves so that we need to think about them in terms of the kind of public health approach how how can we actually divert them away from offending because it's not just simply we're not really looking at punish punishing these young people it's about how we divert them away from a life of crime so it's a difficult question to answer because obviously the the harrowing details but i think there is on the whole a robust system in place that serves the majority of the public i'm not sure if that'll bring much i don't think i'll bring much comfort to the the victims that you mentioned but i just would encourage people to report to run on a little bit because it's an important subject is there anything we've not said or anything that you might like to volunteer finally just by way of comment for the record just before i draw this to a conclusion no in which case i'm very grateful to you thank you very much the your evidence has been very helpful very candid and forthright and i'll suspend the session briefly thank you thank you very much and our next petition continued petition is petition number 1864 to increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore wind farms lodged by aileen jackson on behalf of scotland against spin the petition calls on the scottish parliament to urge the scottish government to increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore wind farms by adopting english planning legislation for the determination of onshore wind farm developments empowering local authorities to ensure that local communities are given sufficient professional help to engage in that planning process and by appointing an independent advocate to ensure the local participants are not then bullied or intimidated during public inquiries but we last considered this petition as far back as the 31st of may last where we agreed to write to the minister for local government empowerment and planning to seek clarification on what the scottish government mean by ensuring communities have a meaningful say on planning applications the minister's response refers to the definition of community set out in the national planning framework and notes that at the time of writing a consultation was under on effective community engagement in local development planning guidance and members may be aware that that consultation closed on the 13th of September 23 the response goes on to highlight that the government's planning and environmental appeals division have agreed to consider a refresh of reporter training on handling inquiries to ensure members of the public are able to give their views and to have those properly heard in a safe environment at inquiries now we've received five submissions subsequently from the petitioner the first of which comments on the response we received from the minister suggesting that clearer definitions are required in order to make an effective assessment of the effectiveness of planning guidance the petitioner has also restated their proposals for enabling communities to access professional help engaging with the planning process which they suggest could be financed through an increase in planning application fees subsequently an additional submissions from the petitioner draw our attention to the type of experience community groups face when confronting or being confronted by developers legal team during inquiries and comments from the UK government the decisions on onshore wind are best made by local representatives who know their area the publication of a deal between the onshore wind industry and the Scottish government with the industry commenting that a well-resourced and efficient planning system is needed to enable projects to go ahead where they have local support so we've received a range of submissions from the petitioner a response from the government and obviously the consultation that they held has subsequently been published do members of any comments or suggestions as to how we might proceed. Mr Torrance I wonder if the committee would consider writing to the Scottish government once again and asked what it expects to publish outcomes of the consultation on effective community engagement in local development planning guidance seeking update on the work to explore the scope for planning authorities to determine more applications for onshore wind farm developments including the impact of onshore wind sector deals for Scotland has had on this work and highlight the petitioner's continuing concerns about lack of professional support available to assist members of a public contributing to public inquiries. Thank you Mr Torrance Mr Ewing. Yes I would support Mr Torrance's recommendation but just perhaps add something which is just hot off the press as it were and has arisen since the papers were provided to us for this meeting which is that on Friday in response to an inspired question there was publication of a new depopulation action plan and that this contains within it an apparent can be the new approach to be taken to areas where there is chronic depopulation notably parts of the highlands remote highlands although apparently one is not allowed to call remote areas remote any longer and the islands but in this document it says that the new approach will be and I quote local by default national by agreement now that suggests to me that local decisions will prevail unless I'm missing something but I raise it because I wonder if the clerks in the letter could draw the attention of the relevant minister who's a different minister I think to this new paper and ask if this is this new approach is going to influence the response or regarding community engagement because on the face of it at least for those areas suffering depopulation which actually will be the areas where actually very many of the wind farms are proposed that this seems to me to be a new factor which the Scottish Government have brought in as apparently a new approach and new policy sorry to go on at some length but I think that's a very fair point and I'm very happy that we seek to accommodate that it wasn't the suggestion I was expecting from Mr Torrance earlier but is is Mr is Mr is Mr are we content colleagues to support Mr Torrance and Mr Ewing's suggestions as to how we might proceed we are thank you petition number 1916 request a public inquiry into the management of the rest and be thankful project lodged by councillors Douglas Finland and Donald Kelly calling on the Scottish government a parliament to urge the Scottish government to instigate a public inquiry regarding the political and financial management of the 83 rest and be thankful project which is due to provide a permanent solution for the route we last considered this on the 17th of May last year and wrote to the minister for transport but of course since we last considered the petition transport Scotland has announced the preferred route for a long-term solution the NEN minister now the cabinet secretary of transport provided details of this preferred route in her response the response also notes that the proposed medium-term solution is a temporary solution intended to add resilience and operational benefits while the permanent solution is constructed we've also received a submission from the petitioner raising concerns about whether the preferred route option is the right choice and how the solution will be funded particularly when there is new government with different spending priorities well there's always going to be a view as to what the right choice would be I think the important thing is here that we actually now have a preferred option both for a temporary and a long-term solution so I wonder how we might take this forward colleagues any suggestions mr Torrance I was very tempted to close this understanding orders but I would like the committee to write to minister for transport seeking further detail of delivery planned funding and governance for a 83 rest and be thankful programme including information on the work being undertaken to ensure a statutory process and constructions are completed without unnecessary delay are we agreed we are I think we should ask for as candid a response as possible from the cabinet secretary because obviously we are aware of statements being made in the chamber on an almost daily basis about the inability to deliver on major projects and I think we would want to understand where this sits within that framework petition number 1957 home reports to make surveyors more accountable lodged by Catharine Donoghue calling on the parliament to urge the Scottish government to ensure surveyors are legally responsible for the accuracy of information provided in the single survey and to increase the liability on surveyors to pay repair bills where a home report fails to highlight existing faults in the condition of the property at which point I know and excuse mr Chowdry from our proceedings we last consider the petition on the 17th of May last where we agreed to write the Scottish government seeking further detail on its plans to review home reports and in its response Scottish government has stated its position that delivering the ask of the petition would be inappropriate as the scope of the home report survey is outlined at the beginning of the report and that members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Severs carrying out home report surveys are required to have a complaints handling procedure and professional indemnity insurance in place the response goes on to note that the delayed 2020 review and home reports will now be progressed alongside the government's work to update cross-tenure housing standards well in the light of that how might we proceed mr Ewing well I do think we might close this petition under rule 15 7 of standing orders on the basis that the Scottish government's position on the ask of the position but petition does remain unchanged but also that the scope of the home report survey is set out at the beginning of the report and that members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Severs who are carrying out a home report must have a complaints handling procedure in place they must offer independent third party recourse to complaints including alternative dispute resolution by the property ombudsman and they must carry professional indemnity insurance so in the light of all of that I wonder if members feel that this is a petition that can be closed are members content with mr Ewing's suggestion mr golden yeah i am in terms of the context of the petition but i think in terms of home report the petitioner in might want to look at another petition within the same same area to look at the effectiveness of home reports but in terms of this specific ask I agree with mr Ewing are we agreed we are so we thank the petitioner for bringing the petition forward given the reasons given set out by mr Ewing I think we feel that this is a point at which we will have to close the petition but I hope the petitioner has also taken note of mr golden's comments as well petition number 2002 to ensure access to legal aid for people with disabilities lodged by grant white calling on the parliament to urge the Scottish government to provide increased funding for legal aid cases legal aid and civil cases for people with disabilities and we'll ask considered this on the 19th of april 23 when we agreed to write the law society of scotland on the scotish legal aid board now we've received responses from the scotish legal aid board and the law society of scotland the legal aid board highlights its recent research into the experience of users of civil legal assistance noting that the results were apparently overall positive responses to questions on finding and contract on contacting solicitors did not reveal any significant differences in experience between those with and without a condition that limits their day-to-day activities however eight respondents reported feeling that their disability had made it difficult for them to access the solicitor and in its equality outcomes plan covering the period 23 to 26 the scotish legal aid board are aiming to improve the accessibility of information about legal aid and its services with a focus on people with disabilities and other groups so and ask of the petition the law society of scotland's response states that the number of firms providing civil legal aid has significantly declined over the last decade by some 20 percent and a lack of sustainable funding mechanism and fees not keeping pace with inflation are noted as being the contributing factors in submission it states that a mechanism for periodic review taking inflation into account is required to address the impact of inflation on the legal aid system so responses from the law society of scotland who appear to be amending practice to some extent and the law society of scotland do we have any suggestions for action mr thorns i wonder if the committee would consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders on the basis that regulations to provide an uplift of 10.2 percent to all legal fees were approved by parliament in march 2023 3 million has been announced to strengthen that access to justice for the deprived communities and vulnerable groups and neither minister nor the scotish legal aid board can compel solicitors to provide advice or representation thank you and i might add that we note the additional measures the scotish legal aid board are trying to implement to facilitate access our colleagues content to close the petition at this point we are so again we thank the petitioner for bringing the petition there does seem to be some movement from the scotish legal aid board of course it's open to any petitioner in the light of subsequent experience to bring a fresh petition if that does not make the difference that is hoped for that brings us to agenda item 3 which is consideration of new petitions and as i always do because there could be people who are joining us to hear their petition considered for the first time that ahead of doing that we invite the parliament's independent research body spice and the scotish government to offer a preliminary review or to offer us any guidance this is an action we take because previously it used to be the first thing we then agreed to do and that only delayed proper consideration of the petition so we moved to petition number 2050 in the light of that which is to prohibit the use of recreational drones on national nature reserves without a permit from nature scot a very interesting petition i think lodged by lee whatson on behalf of the thang seal watch the petition calls on the scotish parliament to urge the scotish government to amend the current guidance on flying recreational drones on national nature reserves so that use is prohibited without a permit permits include a flight time date in a greed flight path operation is in accordance with the drone code advice on the legal status of the wildlife and habitats is provided the petitioner raises concerns that drones can be used both intentionally and unintentionally to cause disturbance to wildlife and can have a significant impact in the well being of many species on national nature reserves in particular excuse me raising concerns about impacts on nesting birds and seal colonies now aviation and drones are subject to such is a reserve matter as such aviation legislation including drone specific legislation is the responsibility of the UK parliament however nature scot has powers to make and enforce bylaws for national nature reserves under the wildlife and countryside act of 1981 in 2018 nature scot and the partnership for action against wildlife crime in scotland raised concerns about wildlife disturbance by drones the scotish government's response to the petition notes that existing law requires that licenses are obtained while wildlife photography may disturb a protected species the submission also states that the scotish government will ask the partnership for action against wildlife crime in scotland to consider whether its guidance on drones and wildlife needs to be updated and republished so i think with the increasing prevalence of drones this is an interesting petition in relation to its potential consequence for wildlife both well intentioned and ill attentioned and i wonder what colleagues might think mr thorns thank you convener i wonder if a committee would consider writing to nature scot to ask for an update view on its concerns raised in 2018 about wildlife disturbances by drones how many complaints made about drones used hasn't been investigated since 2018 and of those whether any complaints were referred to police scotland however it would consider creating a bylaw preparing the use of drones in the national nature reserves without a permit under the wildlife and countryside act 1981 and this is probably key convener i wonder if we write to police scotland and that's whether there has been any prosecutions for wildlife crimes in scotland related to drone use and if so how many and how many police investigations into suspected wildlife crimes arising from drone use have taken place each year since 2018 and how many investigations of its nature have been reported to a procurator fiscal each year since 2018 mr ewing i just wanted to make one suggestion and put one point on the record one suggestion is that because drones are fairly widely used for various purposes many of them i think legitimate i think we could also perhaps ask ask nature scot and accept mr thorns his recommendations whether they think it would involve disproportionate costs to introduce such a licensing scheme i i would be concerned that such a scheme may be difficult to operate in practice for grounds of cost not least because nature scots budget apparently is to be slashed and therefore will they be able to do even the workload they've got i think perhaps frankly not the point i wanted to put in the record though convener was that there is another site to to the to these stories namely that you know i have had a constitution to is extremely concerned that drones were used apparently at the instance of a very wealthy voluntary body in fact the most wealthy in europe with an interest in birds to carry out surveillance of of locals that lived near an area where that organisation felt that there may be wildlife crime going on so they felt that there was drones were being used to invade their privacy and i have raised this case with the with the lord advocate and i just wanted to put that in record because you know i make no judgment about the merits of this particular instance or any others it's not for me to do that but it is i think for me to say that there are two sides to to this kind of story it's not all one sided and there are people in the countryside now that that they are actually quite concerned about the inappropriate use of drones by pressure groups who have a particular campaigning interest yeah i'm grateful for all that i wonder if we might also write to the uk government since they are responsible for aviation i think in this instance i would be quite interested to know what their thoughts are on a summarised version of the petition and just the issues arising from it and whether of course there's a prevalence a similar prevalence elsewhere within the uk and whether that may lead them to think afresh about any regulation in relation to the use of drones are we content with all that we are we move thank you very much it's an interesting petition we'll keep it open and we will be taking forward the inquiries that we've just set out petition number 2051 to improve the processes for protecting children and young people from traumatic incidents lodged by diane youngson calling on the parliament to urge the government to establish a consistent and transparent reporting mechanism for instance affecting the health of pupils and schools and to review and improve upon the existing guidelines for schools in dealing with at-risk pupils to place a law monitoring of reporting mechanisms with ultimate responsibilities being placed with Scottish ministers and local authorities and finally to reform the exclusions procedure to include consideration of whether exclusions may cause further harm now on the reporting and monitoring the spice briefing notes that all schools and local authorities are expected to use the bullying and equalities module in seamless to record and monitor bullying incidents however education scotland's review found that the module is challenging to use and that national guidance is not being fully implemented leading to inconsistencies the cabinet secretary for education skills submission highlights the getting it right for every child approach and in particular the role of a child's named person she also highlights the counselling services in place throughout secondary schools which are available for children 10 years and over on exclusions the 27 17 national guidance is noted the guidance states that exclusion should be used as a last resort and should be a proportionate response where there is no appropriate alternative with the wellbeing of the individual being a key consideration the Scottish government held a series of summits on relationships and behaviour in schools last year the cabinet secretary provided an update on this work to parliament in November and announced that a joint action plan will be developed to address the issues raised as part of this statement the cabinet secretary also encouraged more accurate recording of all incidents of inappropriate abusive or violent behaviour in schools so in view of the information before us do members of any comments or suggestions for action Mr Torrance could the committee consider writing to a cabinet secretary for education and skills to request a timeline for the development of publication of a joint action plan on relationships and behaviour in schools and information about how a Scottish government expects its call for accurate recording of incidents in school to be achieved are we agreed colleagues we are agreed and we will therefore keep the petition open thank you very much and we will seek the information as set out by Mr Torrance petition number 20 58 to require all dog boarding kennels to install smoke detector smoke alarms and sprinkler systems lodged by Julie Loudon calling on the parliament to urge the Scottish government to improve fire safety within dog boarding kennels by mandating the installation of smoke detector smoke alarms and sprinkler systems the spice briefing explains that animal boarding establishments in Scotland must be licensed by local authorities under the animal boarding establishments act in 1963 it requires that determining whether to grant a licence a local authority shall have regard to the need for securing that appropriate steps will be taken for the protection of the animals in case of fire or other emergency conditions set at a local authority level can include more detailed requirements although in 1963 I very much doubt that sprinkler systems were that widely applied or even available the Scottish government recently consulted on proposals to revoke the animal boarding establishments act 1963 and instead regulate animal boarding under the animal welfare licensing of activities involving animals brackets Scotland brackets regulations 2021 in response to the petition states that it sorry the Scottish government's response to the petition states that this approach is being considered and could provide a more cohesive and robust framework for ensuring the wellbeing of animals being cared for so an important consideration and petition uh mr goldom thanks convener I think we should write to the Scottish government to ask when it's analysis on the consultation responses to its consultation on the licensing of activities involving animals will be published and if it will give specific consideration to fire safety in the forthcoming animal boarding regulations I think it's part of that letter it's worthwhile highlighting rehoming centres which aren't boarding kennels but are a very similar facility with the the caveat that the dogs there do not have owners but otherwise is essentially a similar facility and presumably the requirements would be the same I also wonder and I'm relaxed but whether we do this once we get the response whether we write to cosla in terms of licensing requirements and whether local authorities would have the resources to check and on that as well as the fire service to perhaps find how prevalent this issue is I mean clearly there's one case but how often is that happening and I think it's important for context to have the differentiation between rehoming centres and boarding kennels but it might provide us with an indication of how prevalent the activity could be of those suggestions seem very worthwhile mr Ewing yes I have some support to mr golden's suggestions I just maybe add one inquiry which I think should be made I'm not quite sure of whom which is this that obviously we have legislation on sprinklers in domestic flats at the moment introduced I think at around 218 pre Covid at that time convener it's been drawn to my intention by constituent a builder of a renovator of flats that the estimated costs that were given for the costs of installing sprinklers were very very modest now he tells me for various practical reasons they have risen astronomically such that it might even make the construction of flats in his instance unviable and I just thought I'd mention that because if they have risen several times several times not just by a thousand or two or two but huge amounts then I do think that at an early stage we do if we were to pursue this petition we would need somewhere to get advice about the costs to kennels and other establishments that mr gold mentioned and I think it's just out of fairness and balance I thought I should throw that in just just last week I got a letter from a constituent which was quite alarming really because we all want safety but you know would a smoke detector actually at 100 quid be you know peace effective that was his argument rightly or wrongly we parliament and I voted for it past this sprinkler legislation but it's turned out to be grossly more expensive than estimated at the time thank you so we will take forward the petition mindful of all the suggestions that have been made by colleagues petition number 2059 to ensure pedestrian crossings cannot be disabled without sorry in which case I'm just I just wonder sorry referring back to the previous position whether we should be writing to what's the relevant kind of dog agency that we might take views from so you could in terms of I don't know in terms of boarding kennels there's one at hapus actually near forfer but the rehoming would be edinburgh cat and dog home which may have even made an assessment and dogs trust have two places in scotland I think just in view of mr ewing's comments it might be worth us trying to establish one or two relevant associations to ask what they believe the consequence of this would be what existing far safety measures they do have in process in place are on regulations in relation to all of that because it could be that there are alternatives to a sprinkler system and it might be worthwhile just investigating that extremely profitable businesses no so okay we can do that too so that brings us to petition number 2059 to ensure pedestrian crossings cannot be disabled without an equivalent safety measure in place lodged by Lachlan McDowell and it calls on the parliament's urge the Scottish Government to introduce legislation requiring that during roadworks or at any other point where a pedestrian crossing is disabled or otherwise bypassed that measures to allow alternative pedestrian traffic flow are put in place and any broken down or otherwise disabled crossing be rectified or have an alternative in place with 24 hours of being reported this petition was prompted by experience for pedestrian crossing in a busy road outside a primary school which had been deactivated now the spice briefing and the Scottish Government response both note that the safety at streetworks and roadworks code of practice requires anyone undertaking works that require a pedestrian crossing to be suspended to agree with the roads authority what if any alternative arrangements will be provided for users of the crossing prior to the suspension of that crossing and it's also noted that those undertaking works are required to take specific consideration of the needs of pedestrians particularly the needs of those with small children push chairs and those with reduced mobility including visually impaired people and people using wheelchairs or mobility scooters so in the in view of that do we have any suggestions from the committee yes Mr Torrance could the committee consider closing the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders on the basis that bodies undertaking roadworks are already required to consider the needs of pedestrians and must agree appropriate alternative provision with the roads authority before works takes place as set out in the safety at streetworks and roadworks code of practice will we agree well i think in this instance we will close this petition but i think we can obviously draw the tension of the petitioner to the provisions that currently exist and to which there is recourse in the event of any pedestrian crossing being disabled that concludes the public part of our meeting today we'll meet again on the 6th of march we now move into private session