 Gweithdoedd am eu digb cymryd y cwmwysol, ac yn siwr gweithio i'r 1st mewn 2016 y Mweldiwn Vidro Gwmwysol Cymru, ddod yn fwy o'r rhai wladegall newydd. Fy fwy gofio i'r mwyfodol ddiolch yn unig yn gwneud bod dyma maes oherwydd i gyfrydd sy'n gweithio'r ddwyd yn mewn ei pw Stormau Cymru, ddod yn fwy o ddod yn fwy o fwy o'r cymryd, yn y wneud, mae ddod yn ddod yn gyfynidol i'r cymryd o'r cymryd o'r brwyo, because the papers are provided in digital format for those who wish them. Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private, and this is related to items 4 and 5, which are consideration of evidence that I heard on the Wildlife Crime Annual Report 2014 and consideration of our draft report to the Finance Committee on the Scottish Government's draft budget for 2016 and 2017. Members, are we agreed to take items 4 and 5 in private? We are agreed to take them in private, thank you very much. In that case, we can move on to agenda item 2. The second item is about the Land Reform Scotland Bill, which is to consider a motion on the committee's timetable for considering the Land Reform Scotland Bill at stage 2. I have lodged a motion outlining the order in which it is proposed that we consider the various parts of the bill, and I refer members to the text in the agenda. Therefore, I move the motion that the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee considers the Land Reform Scotland Bill at stage 2 in the following order. Part 1, chapter 1 and 2, and part 2, chapters 3 to 10, chapter 3 of part 2 and part 11, including after section 102, the schedule and the long title. I invite members to make any comments on that, if they wish. It might be helpful for those who are not in the mysteries of bill consideration for you to explain the effect of that, which, as I understand it, will be to remove consideration of the tenant farming commissioner section of the bill until almost the end of the proceedings. Indeed, the attempt here is to allow us to discuss the farming matters and tenancy in the one part. The member of the Land Commission, which the tenant farming commissioner will be, refers to that particular section of part 10 issues, so we thought it most useful to take that matter and her responsibilities at that same time. That is the reason for the order in which we have put things. Is there any other comments? I will put the question, which is that the motion S4M-15225 in the name of Rob Gibson be approved? Are we all agreed? We are all agreed, and the result is that we will take the motion as moved. We will move on to agenda item 3, the Scottish Government's wildlife crime in Scotland, 2014 annual report. The third item for business is to take evidence on this. We are joined this morning by our panel of witnesses, Malcolm Graham, assistant chief constable, major crime and public protection, Police Scotland. Sean Scott, detective chief superintendent, wildlife crime portfolio holder in Police Scotland. Tom Dizer, specialist prosecutor, COPFS wildlife and environment crime unit, in other words, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. I intend to kick off in general terms, when we look at the way in which the report is made, it seems that the recording of the data was designed to suit the operational needs of Police Scotland and the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service, rather than to meet the requirements of those of us and others who require a picture of wildlife crime levels or trends. For example, prosecutions may not happen in the same years that crime was committed. A single crime may have more than one perpetrator. Only the main or most serious charge is recorded criminal proceeding statistics. Charges can be altered during proceedings, making it difficult to track cases through the justice system. What further improvements to recording and reporting wildlife crime can be achieved within reason to enhance the quality of the annual report that we want to kick off? I am happy to kick off. Thank you very much for having us and allowing us to speak about all the developments and improvements that have been made in the response to wildlife crime collectively in the last year, since we spoke about the last report. In relation to the question about data, I am inclined to agree with you, not just to your opening statement that it is more designed to fit the operational needs than it is the needs of the committee and others that would wish to get information about wildlife crime, but it probably does not suit any of our needs particularly well. It is true that the way in which data is recorded is largely a product of the way that the different systems have evolved over many years. It is not unique to wildlife crime in terms of trying to examine or track anything that comes through the criminal justice system in relation to crime and incident data, how to identify those that are vulnerable and how to piece together different parts of the system. In some respects, frankly, it should be easier with wildlife crime to get a level of granularity and clarity, because the level of recording is so low. When you are speaking about several hundred offences, I think that the improvement that we can make is to go into a greater level of detail about each of the offences. That is what we have done during the course of the year, so I think that it has been highlighted in the report and correspondence from the minister that there have been some improvements and enhancements to that level of detail. I hope that we can continue to do that. I suppose that some more specific points about exactly what would be expected or helpful would assist with that. Finally, from myself, in relation to the point about some of the timing issues, that is how things happen. A crime that is recorded in one year might not be prosecuted until the next year, and therefore there are not some easy answers to get around how easily you represent that. I will take one or two others and then we will come back with some supplementaries after that. To build on Mr Graham's comments, there is work on going to try to further break down the data into the six priority areas for wildlife crime, both ourselves and our performance unit and the crime officer in the Government. We will have those quarterly breakdowns so that we can get a bit more granularity, as Mr Graham alludes to. That work is on going to improve that data and be more informative. In some ways, it is probably easier for COPFS to provide the data than for police or other organisations, because we are dealing with a relatively small number of cases. However, it is the case that the aspect of a case can change over time. An incident will occur and it may involve several people. That is then investigated and a report may be submitted to COPFS. The charges that are submitted by the police or any other reporting agency will be based on the reporting officer's assessment of criminality. COPFS will then assess the evidence and that may involve taking it on the face of the initial report submitted or after further investigation and making a decision as to what charges are capable of being proved and should be prosecuted. There is an on-going process of dialogue with reporting officers and obtaining further information that continues until the point of the trial, so the characterisation of the case can change subjects to the additional information that comes in. Of course, the conviction that comes out at the end of the day might be different from what was the perception of the initial person who saw the crime. It is a complicated area. We are not dealing with it. It is not like accounting, where you have a pound that you put into the bank and take a pound back out. Charges can be rolled up into complaints. Complaints can be rolled up together in prosecutions. At the end of the day, the criminal justice system is concerned with determining guilt of individuals and punishing those individuals where that is appropriate. The criminal justice system is geared to that, but behind all of that is this process of identifying incidents, reporting crimes and raising prosecutions. For example, the issue about only the main or most serious charges recorded in criminal proceeding statistics seems to me that that is a bit of a problem for us as we will come on to in some relation to why life crime and other things may go together. People want to ask questions about that in a bit, but is there any way of being more granular about that aspect? I am going with the Scottish Government and we are discussing it. I suppose that, in a way, the committee is interested to know about the activity that has taken place and the species that is being targeted by that activity. For example, section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it an offence to kill, take or injure a wild bird, covers things ranging from killing a golden eagle, trapping finches, poaching pheasants or even using a crow trap without a tag. There is a huge range of criminality and offending behaviour that is covered by that particular charge, but it is categorised for all of those as a bird offence. It would mean that, to get more detail, we need to delve down into the details of the individual cases. If we look at the figures for 2013-14, it suggests that 255 wildlife crimes were recorded by the police. 125 were reported to the Crown Office. 28 were marked for no action. I do not want to go into those figures in detail, because others will explore them, but my question would be this. Those are the figures that pertain to 2013-14. Inebitably, there will have been investigations continued into 2015 and there will have been resolution of those. I would just like a general feel for the figure of 255, ballpark. How many would not have been wrapped up in the course of 2013-14? How many percentage-wise would have been carried over into 2015? It is probably helpful. It is a good question to get to the previous point, as well, actually, because there is a difference in terms of the number of crimes recorded. It is not directly comparable with the number of cases reported. A case might have multiple crimes in it—in fact, many of them do—which is why there is a bigger gap between the 255 and the 120 odd than when I go on to say about how many crimes the police would consider or detected or cleared up. In that year, although it does not appear in this report, looking back—and, of course, this is a moving feast, as you have suggested—it is always a point in time when you look at detection rates, that it might be that you can delve back into previous years. It was approaching 70 per cent of those cases. My understanding of the following year, which is the year after the report refers to, but last year, in effect, it was 14-15 from the year that we were in, was that it had increased to almost 75 per cent of the crimes that were recorded being detected by the police. One of the things that, despite the excellent work that is done by both the police service and the procured to fiscal service—and, as you know, I have a particular passion for this, having been involved in it at an early stage of establishing POM, among other things—one of the issues is a public understanding of what wildlife crime is. One of the areas that reporting perhaps does not pick up on is the link to other criminal activity. That is a very important issue in terms of understanding wildlife crime. If the image of wildlife crime is still the odd aberration by an otherwise wonderful gamekeeper, it does not touch some of the things that go on. From all three of you, what might be done to get that issue across and whether the reporting system of convictions could assist us in helping the public to understand that it is often an action that is linked to other criminality and sometimes very serious criminality? I think that it is a fair challenge in terms of how we get that information across to people. I am not sure that, if we expanded upon or developed the system of either recording or reporting from crime data or conviction data, we might be able to speak about that picture that would necessarily come through. At the moment, although there is a link with other types of criminality and sometimes organised criminality, it is not in the majority of cases. I think that we want to push that hard because it gives us an opportunity to intervene and identify individuals through other means, as we spoke about last year and we might go on to speak about this year. Rather than focusing on the recorded crime data and the conviction data, we are probably better doing that through public information campaigning and around about the work that we would do in terms of either contact and engagement with other organisations or the work that we would routinely do in the media. For instance, last year we did a very high profile information campaign targeted around about the priority areas. It was about informing members of the public and other interested parties about what wildlife crime is, exactly as you described the breadth of it and the nature of it, as we understand it. Who is likely to commit wildlife crime offences and really an attempt to get a better understanding by members of the public so that they can identify wildlife crime as it is happening or before it happens and come forward and report it? The feedback from that campaign, which we hope to repeat with Government, to support this year now, has been extremely positive. That is probably a more fruitful way to progress this year that you raise. I will add to Mr Graham's comments. I have been in this post about six months now with that particular portfolio responsibility and I am happy to think of any of the incidents that have taken place in that time that have got links to organised crime in its classic sense of the word. Obviously, there is a development around the trading endangered species that people are aware of and that potentially cyber enabled. There is a start to see one or two more of these kinds of incidents that could potentially have international links. We have a number of inquiries on going just now in relation to that, but in terms of that link to other crime, if I understand your question correctly, Mr Russell. Those who commit some wildlife crimes may often be involved in other levels of criminality. I am not saying organised crime, but I think that that link is pretty well made usually in terms of wildlife crime, presumably you would agree with that. It is not an isolated incident. The public tends to think of wildlife crime as being something to one side. I think that it is important to see it within the mainstream, if I may put it that way, of criminality. I agree and I think that it comes back to the convener's question about identifying some way of exploring granularity of these cases. Depending on the type of offending the person who is committing the crime may have no criminal record and there may be no other type forms of criminality involved. However, it is not uncommon for a wildlife crime to be reported alongside other offences. Typically, an investigation may identify firearms offences. Some kinds of offending may involve threatening behaviour or assaults or other non-wadlife related charges. Of course, those are all prosecuted together because we are looking at the whole behaviour of that offender. Typically, some offenders will have a fairly significant and fairly wide-ranging criminal record that is brought to the attention of the court. I want to follow on from that point. I wonder if you have any evidence of something that I have heard that is going on. That is people hunting rodea, in particular, I think, in the environments of towns and cities with dogs, larchers and such, like both, I presume, for the sport, but also to sell a meat to either a restaurant or a butcher. That obviously has ramifications in relation to public health, if those animals are finding their way into restaurants through the kind of back door. I wonder if you have any evidence of that or what your comments would be in relation to that kind of practice. There is certainly intelligence about deer coursing with dogs, which we have picked up. I think that that is probably something that we had not heard of before, whether it is related to people doing it for commercial gain or entering the deer into the food chain is uncertain. I do not believe that we have had any successfully detected cases that I am aware of in relation to the intelligence that we have received. I think that it is highly likely that that is happening. I have been told that it is, and people are reluctant to report it, because the characters involved in that sort of thing are pretty unsavory, and you would not want to cross them. So there is a difficulty in getting evidence in relation to those things. Through your prevention processes and awareness raises, I try to encourage people to report that and have the confidence to do that. I would be more than happy to receive any intelligence that is important that comes our way in that respect and investigate it with the appropriate vigor. I have been in investigations, and that probably goes back to the previous point from Mr Russell about the wider connections into criminality. If people are willing to step over the line and break one law, then it is generally well held that they are more likely to break other laws, and that would be founded with academic research as well. I would experience generally people that are hunting with dogs. I am not talking about organised fox hunts, but I am talking about hair coursing, etc. I would read across into targeting badger sets, etc. The intelligence around that would be that it is potentially people who are involved in other types of criminality, as you suggest. That might be something that would dissuade people from coming forward. I fully accept that. Claudia Beamish Good morning to all. I am not sure who would be best to answer this question from the panel about the possible export of birds of prey or eggs for use for hunting in other countries, whether that is something that you have had any information about that is in the public domain that you could share with us, and whether you are able or are indeed working with customs officers on that issue. If the anecdotal information, rather than evidence, I have been given to be accurate, is the case. There has been again some intelligence about that, I believe. There have been cases where birds have been kept in bird of prey centres and there have been wildlife crime offences detected as a result of that, in terms of what is happening to the birds or what is going to happen to the birds. I do not believe that we have any cases where we have identified any international market or trade in either eggs or birds of prey that I am aware of in Scotland, although it is something that would be alive. We have close relationships with the border force and immigration around this area and linking it back into the endangered species issue, which is probably more prevalent in terms of both intelligence and cases that are coming into our attention, but you would identify potentially offenders through the same route. I do not have Sean's aware of any other cases that might not be the case. We have one or two investigations that are currently on-going, which broadly touch on that subject matter. In fact, in terms of that general development and awareness around those particular issues and that international connection, we are working with the UK border force to develop training to enhance our own training around awareness and linking it with them. There are meetings very shortly with them to develop our awareness-raising training. We have a couple of investigations that loosely touch on what you are talking about, but they are live. We will move on to the next point from Jim Hume. Obviously, we all appreciate the work that you are doing and we are seeing some improvements in convictions in the figures from 37 to 46 in the two different years. As mentioned already by Graham Day, the crime is recorded. It is a fairly similar ballpark figure that was reported to the Crown Procurator Fiscal Services as well. Previously, the committee was quite concerned that the percentage that is marked for no action was quite high compared to perhaps other crimes, about 21 to 22 per cent. In fact, no improvement has went slightly the wrong way from 21 to 22 per cent, so it is more or less the same. It would be quite interesting to hear all of the panel's views on why there has not really been that improvement that we would like to see what are the reasons that so many or a larger percentage are marked for no action. I will probably kick off on that question. In last year's report, the COPFS figures covered the calendar year 2013. This year, we have provided figures that are in line with the other organisations that contribute to the financial year 2013-14, which means that there is a nine-month overlap between March 2013 and March 2014. One of the consequences of that is that the number of cases that are concluded has increased quite significantly, and that is reflected in the increased convictions figure. However, in relation to the cases of which are marked no proceedings, they are substantially the same cases that you discussed last year. As I think was explained by my colleague, the reason for taking no proceedings in wildlife crime cases is almost inevitably because there is insufficient evidence or because, in fact, investigation identifies that no crime was committed. The percentage of cases that are marked no proceedings in wildlife crime cases is about double the percentage overall for COPFS in that same reporting period, but the proportion of discretionary no-pro markings is significantly less, which reflects the presumption that we apply that prosecution will follow if we can establish sufficient evidence. The difficulty with wildlife crime is that it is not always clear that a crime has been committed. For example, someone may report an offence on the basis that they see a bird in a trap or an animal in a trap or a snare. That may or may not constitute an offence and it is often only after an investigation that that is identified. The police will screen out cases before reporting to COPFS, but, based on our assessment of the information that is available and, more often than not, the further investigation that we require, we can identify that some cases even reported to us do not amount to a crime in terms of the wildlife crime legislation. In other situations, it may be that there is insufficient evidence that the crime was committed, but there is insufficient evidence to prove that the crime was committed or that there is insufficient evidence to prove that a particular accused committed the crime, and it is for these legal reasons, by and large, that cases are no-prod. There is a perception issue, but there is also a legal issue, which is partly about the difficulties in securing evidence, but partly about the fact that much of the wildlife crime legislation is subject to exceptions. To prove the offence, we need to take account of the fact that the exception may be satisfied. If it is satisfied, then, in fact, no offence is committed. I think that Tom Scott covered a lot of the legal issues. Why is it the case that it is difficult to get a sufficiency of evidence, which is the job of the police to gather all the evidence that is available and use every technique that is available for us to do that? The nature of wildlife crime does not lend itself either to being readily reported, as we have just spoken about around the recording issue. You do not have a victim that is going to come forward and report for themselves, because you are dealing with an animal or a plant. In the circumstances where sometimes it appears that it is a wildlife crime on the face of it, quite often it turns out that there are other explanations that would cast out on that. I think that, after that, when we do identify that a crime has occurred, identifying suspects can be difficult, because quite often wildlife crimes are identified sometime down the line after they have occurred. You are dealing with trying to look back at what has happened in circumstances where, if there were witnesses, they are more likely to have been involved in the crime than to have been innocent bystanders who would come forward, because people are doing this in a predetermined rather than in a random way. In all the circumstances, it does become quite a difficult crime type to gather evidence for. In the face of all that, it is quite remarkable that we managed to find ourselves in a position where, roughly speaking, two thirds of the offences that are recorded are thereafter reported to the Crown. The threshold for the police to do that is a high threshold in that we would have to satisfy ourselves. Firstly, that a crime had been committed, and secondly, that there was a suficiency of evidence technically for us to pass it on to the Crown so that they could assess whether it was suitable for prosecution. The police have built up a fair degree of expertise in this area. You have specialist wildlife crime officers. You make a judgment on whether you believe that there is a case to take forward, and yet there is still a high percentage being rejected. Is there not some sort of disconnect here between the Crown office and the police as to what is appropriate and what is not? I do not think that that is the case. That is probably not uncommon across a whole range of crime types. I deliberately said that we would make the assessment that there is a technical suficiency of evidence in our view. Of course, the job of the police and the job of the Crown is different, but we work very closely. In many of those cases, it would result in a decision being made that we would report a case—often a long-running or complex inquiry where there had been interaction between the police and the Crown during the course of the investigation—and then it would allow the Crown, in a considered way, to assess all of the complexity of the evidence, perhaps consult with other people and then make a judgment as to whether further inquiry was necessary or proportionate, or indeed whether a decision could be taken about prosecution. I do not see it as being in any sense a sort of failure or a breakdown that sometimes there is a difference in our assessment of technical suficiency, where we would err on the side of let us report it to the Crown and see what it takes to potentially get it into a courtroom, which is not the job of the police, as opposed to us making that judgment at an earlier stage and reporting less just so that the figures looked more aligned. Thank you, convener. It is a brief point, and I am sorry if I have missed it in the report, but for the record, are you able to say what proportion of those cases that are drawn to your attention do not proceed due to insufficient evidence and what proportion do not proceed because they are not in the end reported crime? I do not have that data. It might be that we could look at that for future years. The only way that we would be able to get that is to go through each individual crime. For instance, that is not data that we have available for other crime types, which obviously occur in far greater magnitudes than the incidents that we are dealing with here. However, I have a sense of being helpful to the opening comments from the convener that perhaps is something that we could look at to try to include in future years if it would be helpful to people given the relatively low number of crimes here, we could perhaps assess that. I think that it would take an individual look at every case. It would be helpful because it might have resource implications. If there is insufficient evidence, it might be that a future committee might make a decision or the Scottish Government might choose to make a decision to look at what forms of evidence are valid or whatever in discussion with yourselves. Dad, if it is assessed after investigation that a crime that has been recorded is not a crime and there is evidence to show that, it would be marked as not a crime and it would not be recorded as a crime on the figures down the line, although it might have been for a period of time during investigation. It goes back to that point about the dynamic nature of some of the figures, which is the ethical and most appropriate way of recording crime. It is based on your understanding at the time of what has happened and taking at face value the reports that people make whilst we go through the investigation. Just to finish this off, I am just talking about different crime types. The Crime Prosecution Service has stated today that the mark no action of crime cases is about double of normal cases, but Malcolm Grimm has mentioned that they are similar to some other types of cases, such as environmental crimes and so on. Is there any other crime that is similar to the fact that it is difficult to find evidence? In relation to detection rates, that is where we have identified a suspect and we feel that there is a sufficiency of evidence to report it to the Crown, the case would be marked as solved. If you look across all crime in Scotland, that figure would be less than 40 per cent of all crime. If you look across acquisitive crime like housebreaking, which again is often a very difficult crime to solve, perhaps for some of the same reasons, the figures would vary, but it would probably be around about that 35 to 40 per cent in most areas. If you look at serious sexual crime, for instance, rape, where we would receive about 2,000 reports of rape a year now, which has increased dramatically over the last three years from where it was at, we would solve about 75 per cent of those cases. Obviously, the effort that we put into that in terms of resource and technique in working and in glove with the Crown and other agencies is extensive to get to that stage. Going up to homicide where the figures are far lower, the impact is obviously huge in terms of devastated families. We are only talking thankfully about a number down to about 55 homicides a year in Scotland over the last two years or so, and we would expect to solve 100 per cent of those cases at the moment that we are doing. There are differences with different crime types, but I would suggest that wildlife crime is in terms of solvency rates, so it is sufficient to report to the Crown higher than the vast majority of other crimes that are reported across Scotland. That is very interesting. Claudia Beamish wants to start looking at penalties, I think. Thank you, convener. I would like to turn to the issue of penalties with the panel. Just to highlight something from the 2014 report for the record, which, of course, the panel will be only too aware of, there were 60 people with a charge approved, there was one custodial sentence, four community sentences, 43 were fined, and another penalty was given in 12 cases. There have been three custodial sentences in the five years from 2009-10 to 2013-14, with an average of 134 fines at an average. I emphasise that figure at the end—this is my own emphasis—of £420. That is the average. I have highlighted those figures because the question that I would like to ask you as a panel for your response is appropriate. Are the low number of custodial sentences imposed by the courts and the low levels of fines sufficient to act as a deterrent? As a supplementary part to that, if we could take that all together, what is your view on the proposals of the recent policy report to increase the maximum penalties for wildlife crimes? As you will know, the recommendations are that the increases should be quite significant. I would value the comments on that. I contributed to the report, so I obviously agree with the recommendations. The penalties for wildlife crime are variable, but for some of what I would regard as the most serious, they are significantly lower than you would expect to see in other areas of criminal behaviour. As the report explains, the maximum penalty that is available sets the tariff. I suppose for the very worst crime that can be committed by a persistent offender, so that is the starting point that the courts will take. If you are dealing with a first offender and taking account of mitigation, that explains why the tariffs that are imposed in practice are generally lower. I think that it was a significant development that in the last year a custodial sentence was imposed for raptor persecution, and I am sure that that will alter behaviours. In terms of acting as a deterrent, the deterrents will be influenced by the ability to detect crimes, the ability to enforce legislation and by penalties. There is a whole range of aspects that we need to consider. Increasing sentences will have an impact. I think that some of the legislative changes that have been introduced over the past few years have changed behaviours themselves. We and the police and SSPCA are working together to look at how we can improve detection and prosecution and conviction rates. I agree with that long enough in the tooth and a policing sense to know that it is never a wise position to start making comments about individual decisions of case disposals. Across the piece, I would agree with Tom again, contributing to the review, that it is a helpful deterrent that there is a profile against cases where it is seen that there is a proportionate outcome to a conviction. It is hugely positive that there has been the custodial sentence in the case that it received widespread publicity. I do not think that you need terribly many cases like that to get a very strong message across that that is what is likely to happen as an outcome to a case. I think that we are solving and reporting a sufficient number of cases that it is a deterrent. Again, that is not necessarily the case across the range of crimes that I discussed earlier. I think that the range of different disposals being proportionate to the crimes and the suggestion that a consolidation of the legislation in the future might assist with that are all things that we would heavily support. It has gone in the right direction. The penalty review group in the recommendations is the link of the wildlife crime to revocation of firearm certificates. Although that is a reserve matter for firearms legislations or a reserve matter for Westminster, we will be looking to use evidence where we can from wildlife crime cases to consider whether a firearm certificate should be issued or revoked as well, so that is another positive step forward. That is helpful. I think that another member will be pursuing questions around licences later in our discussions. I will move, hopefully seamlessly, from that question to my other question, which is about the resources of Police Scotland and the Procurator Fiscal Service. Can anyone comment, please, on why the annual report does not include information on resources available to and used by Police Scotland and the Crown Prosecution Service to combat wildlife crime? If you would be able to comment as well on what the pressures on these resources are in coming years and how you plan to respond to them. I am wondering particularly in relation to issues around training of officers and areas around the numbers of personal days involved in investigations and other issues that you wish to cover. I am happy to cover the police issues. I remember that we spoke about that last year as well. The wider context for me is that, although it is hugely important and it is a drive for other officers and organisations, we have the structure that we do with a centralised leadership through my shelf and Sean to co-ordinate with some limited support in that co-ordination, but very effective support. The structure is devolved out to local areas working within local policing teams to ensure that we are not creating some sort of centralised and national unit that is going to work in isolation given the very different natures that we have heard about threat to urban areas, the different nature of offending in different parts of Scotland and, indeed, the different way that policing operates in a partnership context in different areas means that I am absolutely certain that the devolved model of having a wildlife crime lays an officer in each of the divisions, some of which are full-time, an increasing number of which are full-time actually compared with last year and some of whom are part-time is the right model to go on, but every officer in Police Scotland who is deployed on the front line needs to know that they have a role in tackling wildlife crime and therefore there is a scale of training and awareness that we do and that we will continue to do. I do not feel that there is any increasing pressure on that. I think that the establishment of Police Scotland in the time that we have had since has seen a real improvement in grip around that national co-ordination, a clarity of our intent and purpose in relation to wildlife crime, an ability to co-ordinate and coalesce people for training in a consistent way and yet allow them to be deployed locally in supporting local officers to get on and do the work in the context of their local area. I believe that that is working well. It is working much better than it has done in the past and I think that we are getting the message through public awareness campaigns always have an internal aspect to them in terms of making sure our own officers and staff are aware of what is happening as well. In relation to your opening point about why is not that data recorded in the report, I was actually checking it and I thought that I had put something in about the resource in the Police section that we were offered and there is certainly no reason why we would not perhaps say that. I am sorry, I apologise. Is it that that you said? I do not think that it is. I was just trying to look to see but it certainly was not through a lack of intent or for any reason in our part that we would not have any sort of description of the policing model and resource that is dedicated and the expectation of that being a part of people's roles. I am very happy to include that in future years. I think that that would be helpful to the committee, thank you. I think that just to give the committee some reassurance as well around the training aspect, just again to build on Mr Graham's comments there. It will not be in there again, but in March last year we held the first wildlife crime awareness course at Police Scotland College that was attended by officers from every division, including British Transport Police. That was a basic introduction to wildlife crime. All detective officers on their initial investigators course now receive an input on wildlife crime, building it into probation of training as well, where a CPD event on 24 September, which again was for wildlife crime enforcement, all partners, Border Force, Crown Office, SASA and other SNH were there as well. So a number of areas covered there, a number of local training initiatives as well with partners across the country. I mentioned earlier on about our cities, our trade and danger species course, which we are developing with UK Border Force as well. Plus, we have all the information on our intranet guidance booklets, so there is a whole raft of education and training that is still on going on. That will continue as well into this year, so it is going to give you that reassurance. It is quite easy to indicate what the resource is. I am a member of a unit. Our team has four lawyers. It is an area that is of particular interest to the Lord Advocate and he receives fairly frequent briefings. We have direct access to Senior Crown Council, which is pretty unusual in the context of what is mainly summary crime. In terms of our caseloads, although I cannot pretend that it is not challenging, we are only dealing with less than 200 wildlife and environmental cases per year among the four of us, which compares with around 300,000 across the whole of COPFS. I think that we have something between 300 and 400 lawyers in the department, so there has been a significant allocation of resource to the units by COPFS. I think that it would be helpful to take up the offer of this being recorded for not only the future committee but the Parliament, the Government and the public as well. It might well be in future years, as members will be aware. They wish to turn us into a discussion about the wider future and funding pressures on Police Scotland, but it might well be that down the line, the whole operating model and resource pressures on Police Scotland do substantially change. However, at the moment, that is mainly led by Police officers and, as members will be aware, the number of Police officers in Police Scotland has been consistently high. It is about what we use the officers for, and that has already been described in relation to wildlife crime. Again, to your terms of our structure and our approach to wildlife crime, I attended the last UK partner against wildlife crime group down in London, which is chaired by Chief Constable Prince from David Powys, who has got that national lead and made comments again for minutes about how we invest the R of our structure and our approach to wildlife crime here, compared to our partners down south. That gives any reassurance that will pass on. I will add two supplementaries from Graeme and Jim. Obviously, we have the best will in the world, and whatever resources that Police has put to this, it is very challenging to detect and deal with wildlife crime. Mr Graeme, you touched on the issue of partnership working. I am just wondering what efforts, if any, have gone into engaging at a national level with the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, for example? What local initiatives might be developed to have gamekeepers assisting us? I am certainly aware of efforts that were made in the old Eastern division of Tayside Police to establish that. Is there any work going on there to help you in what you are trying to achieve? It is a hugely important area in terms of prevention and identification of cases. We will not be able to do it if we do not work with organisations that are leading the people that are at the heart of where most of wildlife crime arises from. Many of the partnership organisations come from very different perspectives in terms of their race and detrae in that particular area. It is sometimes challenging working collectively. It was mentioned earlier from Mr Russell about the establishment and continued contribution. I would argue about the partnership for action against wildlife crime, which were wholly committed to being a part of. Some of the organisations that you speak of are represented at that and some are not. There are, of course, some tensions and challenges between different organisations, our view being that we probably agree about 70 or 80 per cent of what needs to be done. Therefore, we need to get on and deal with that, as opposed to the points that perhaps people disagree with. In relation specifically to whether it is landowners or those that are using the land for gaming purposes, we are working very closely with all of those organisations to try and make sure that they are doing everything that they can. I think that we have probably seen a bit of a shift, perhaps not because of police pressure, if I am being honest, but because of some kind of public pressure and perception that some of these organisations either were not doing enough, or perhaps were more part of the problem than part of the solution. We have seen a willingness for people to come alongside and actively contribute to getting messages out to their members. Following up on training and the big training event, I wonder with the new recruits that are coming into the police force, if they are given awareness or training regarding wildlife crime, and if so, how much training that is or awareness? Thank you for that. I mentioned that earlier, and that is provasional training. There is a review going on of provasional training just now and I am looking at how we structure that, but that is certainly part of that going forward. Under the provasional detectives, there is a whole campaign of training to make sure that everyone knows what they need to know in terms of first responder and investigation. I would like to ask about the issue of hunting with dogs and fox hunting, which is mentioned in the annual report in the section on wildlife crime priority areas. Our last summer, we had a presentation to parliamentarians from the League of Dogs against cruel sports. Following the viewing of the video, the minister passed it on to Police Scotland asking for comments and looking for action. There are two questions following up. First, why there have not been any successful prosecutions in your view of mounted hunts for hunting foxes with dogs and what action the police have taken since the minister raised the issue with you in the summer of 2015? It has become a very live and current issue over the course of the last year or so, so I think that it is helpful that it is included in the report. In response to that, we have been doing an awful lot of work to recognise where the opportunities would be to identify where potential offences are being committed and, secondly, to do what we can to prevent that. In the first instance, Sean has dedicated a lot of his time and effort to working with the various groups, so I will ask him to speak about that in a minute. In relation to the point about information that was passed on, we have spent a lot of time and effort reviewing all of the material that has been given to us, but it would be safe to say that what was passed on was only part of the picture. Therefore, when we reviewed the wider evidence in the case, it has not led to us being able to establish a crime, because the nature of the legislation and what is required to prove offences needs us to look at all the available evidence, as we would in any case, and not just look at what evidence is presented to us by one particular party. In the cases, and it is a number of different cases now where that has been done, we have done it in conjunction with the crown, when you look at the whole circumstances, there has not been a sufficiency of evidence to prove that the crimes have occurred. It might well be the case that that does lead us down the route of the legislation not being as effective as it might be in terms of its intended purpose, and therefore we were pleased to support the decision further to be a review of the legislation, which is now under way and which we will look forward to seeing the results of. Perhaps I will ask Sean to say a bit about the specific work that we have done with some of the hunts and some of the other groups in terms of prevention and attempts to identify criminality. I suppose that one of the cruxs of this matter is the allegation, if you like, that the parts are not flushing to guns. That is one of the areas of main concern. I chaired a meeting with all the heads of the Scottish Mounted Fox sound packs on 29 October. Effectively, to work with them on a voluntary basis, let us demonstrate to the public that your fox control activities are legal, are well intended and that we are working with you to try to make sure that that appears to be the case. We are coming up with a voluntary protocol. We will have a single point of contact on the day of a hunt and they have an identified single point of contact that we can engage with. They will also declare who the guns are on the day so that, prior to the hunt, we can check and make sure that the individuals who are the guns on the day have firearms certificate holders or shotgun certificate holders and that the hunt can be conducted in a proper and legal manner. They were very receptive to that. That was facilitated by the Scottish countryside alliance in that particular meeting. Again, the legislation does not require them to do it but it is a voluntary protocol and it will continue to work with them to make sure that all matters appear transparent and legal. If I can follow up, it is good to hear about that partnership work. I suppose that one of the issues with the review that Lord Barnaby will conduct is the extent to which the way that the law is crafted deals with the issue of fox hunting. That work that you are doing with different groups is interesting. One of the things that has been suggested to me is that the absence of successful prosecutions does not mean that the law is not being broken but that the way that the wording of the law is that the flushing exemption might be being too widely interpreted, leading it to being really difficult to enforce that whole section of the law. It would be interesting for next year to see what that consultation delivers in practice. Nine out of the ten former mounted fox hunts are still operating in Scotland. I think that there is a lot of public awareness about this and a lot of public concern. I think that this is a positive step. I do not know if Tom has got any thoughts on that, the terms of the legislation from his perspective, but we will continue to engage and then we will see how things pan out. Since Lord Barnaby is going to be carrying out the review of legislation, I do not think that it is appropriate to express comments at this point. All I would say is that when we are assessing a case, we consider the evidence and apply it to the terms of the legislation that is enforced. If the legislation appears that the legislation is being breached, taking account of exemptions, we will prosecute. If not, then we will not. I think that a difficulty in what is perceived to be the intention of legislation was identified fairly quickly after the legislation was passed. However, as prosecutors, whatever our personal views of what the law is or should be, we apply what it is on paper. Perhaps one final point of acude is that, as you rightly say, there is a wide level of public awareness that has resulted in a significant level of correspondence and contact with the police about this issue. We are fully aware of that. From not just perhaps some of the groups or similar groups that you mentioned who would be against hunting but also from the hunts as well, who have a different opinion that needs to be equally considered in terms of the laws that stand, so we have been doing a lot of work around about it. I am acutely aware of the level of interest. I was very keen to get those issues on the record, convener. Obviously, with the timing, this is going to be for the next Scottish Parliament to look at. The key issue from the minister's letter was that there are clear offences in relation to flushing and killing of foxes, and that is probably the point that we want to focus on, is to make sure that that set of offences are being properly investigated and that the law is capable of being interpreted where those offences take place. I want to ask you something, because I was not involved in the first Parliament when the law was passed. Do landowners agree to the routes over which mounted hunts take place? On that you did. Do landowners over which mounted hunts take place agree for their land to be ridden over or to be hunted over? My understanding is that I do not have specific details on particular hunts, but I have not been made aware that any landowners are objecting to the hunts taking place. As I said, I can find out more, but I do not have that information. I was not thinking so much about objecting, but more indeed encouraging hunts to take place over their land. Are they encouraging hunts to take place over the land? I do not know. There is a point that perhaps Lord Bonomy might want to look at. I make that for the record purposes as well. Any other supplementaries on that? Yes, all you do. I was going to, and I was not going to, and I decided that I would like to again. I might come back again. That is a frame of mind this morning. I was convened by the committee when the original legislation went through the Parliament. It is important to recognise that there is an element of predator control involved and part of the reason for hunting, as it exists at the moment, is for predator control. The fox has no natural enemies other than man, and therefore I suspect that there are many landowners, farmers, tenants and others who are very keen to have a bit of fox control carried out on their land by whatever method it is. I just wanted to get on the record the fact that, as I think you have all said, there is a very keen level of public interest in this issue, and that is entirely understandable. Given that level of interest, I think that there is also a very high level of monitoring of mounted fox hunting activity by people with varying views on it. Given that level of public interest and the level of monitoring, can I just get it on the record that there is quite clearly no evidence to suggest at this point in time that the mounted fox hunts that do exist are acting out with the legislation as it exists at the moment? That is correct. That is all that I wanted to get on the record and I am grateful to you. Alex Ferguson mentioned the point about landowners encouraging mounted hunts over their land from the point of view of vermin control. I wonder whether, in fact, we have a previous in another area to do with raptors and so on the question of vicarious liability. The issue about crimes taking place via the mounted hunt or whatever is one thing, but the landowners who allow those potential crimes to take place on their land have a part in that as well, wouldn't you say? It probably goes back to Tom Dysart's comments that, although the review is on-going in relation to legislation, we should perhaps be best placed to let that play out and interact with that. If we get the opportunity rather than preempting if I get your question correctly, you might be suggesting that there could be a change in the legislation to replicate some of the responsibilities that there are in other parts of wildlife offences. I feel that Lord Bonomy will be listening to all sorts of evidence of perhaps some of the things that are said in this committee may contribute to his review. I'm sure that that will be the case. I want to move on a little bit to the next question. I want to deal with the suspension of general licences. I would just like to get the views of Police Scotland on that measure, whether you feel that it is a useful tool, whether it will, in some ways, go forward as a deterrent, and the practical perspective for the police on how you ensure compliance with the measures that have been brought in. I think that there are four cases so far. General, we are very supportive of the facility for general licence restrictions to be put in place. General licences allow landowners or land managers to carry out a range of acts that, if they did not have the licence, would not be legal. Therefore, the removal of that is a substantial restriction on their ability to conduct activities that they wish to commercial or otherwise. I think that that is probably a better deterrent than anything else that we have discussed previously in the nature of this field. I think that it is probably too early to judge in terms of effectiveness, because we have a very small number of cases that we have pushed hard with SNH to make sure that we have arrived at that position. Some of that is still subject to being tested through the courts, as you may be aware, in terms of the appeal process. In terms of monitoring, I do not think that we have reached that stage yet, but we would be keen to make sure that we are doing that once we get down the line. I am sure that you have given some thought as to how you would monitor it, because it would be quite challenging, I would suspect, to resource intensive, potentially. I do not know if Sean MacDonald wants to comment on any specific measures. Exactly that. It would be challenging. We are going to continue to work closely with Scottish National Heritage on that matter, but I think that realistically we rely on help from others to do that. We will be discussing and consulting with them over the course of the next year about the requirement for those who are using the licence to register with Scotland and, instead, require to register with SNH with access to that database. We will continue that partnership working in that regard. Can I ask you—I think that you have made reference to pushing SNH to get the four cases that you did. I think that there were 19 birds of prey crimes committed in 2014 without going into specifics, necessarily, by naming names. Are there any other cases pending in that regard? I have a number of investigations around birds of prey, and we are hopeful of positive action in the not too distant future. Obviously, there are live investigations, so I do not want to say any more than that, but we do have some positive action coming up. That is post 2013-14. What about the ones that occurred in 2013-14? Are any of those potentially going to be brought forward, or was there the four act for those 19? It is under a poor thing. I am not aware of any myself, I have to say. I do not think so. I think that we will go on from that to another matter related to birds of prey, just now, to Dave Thompson. Yes, it is to do with the cases up in Russia, the raptors. I have a couple of letters from Police Scotland in relation to this. I would just like to tease out one of our two little points in relation to this. It mentions in one of the letters that as a consequence of the use of a bond substance, and the belief that the raptors may not have been the specific target. The second letter makes it very clear that there are limited opportunities to progress this case unless someone comes forward with information. You will probably be aware that I have been asked for some kind of interim report into the initial handling of the case, and I have been told in the letter here that you do not do interim reports on live cases. Given that this case could be live for the next 20 years, we are never going to get an opportunity to have a look at how things were handled initially in relation to this. There are concerns in the local community and elsewhere that there was delay and that it was unnecessary and so on. Given the fact that there will be limited opportunities to progress unless someone comes forward with evidence, have you or are you planning to carry out any kind of internal investigation as to how the investigation was initially carried out? If so, have you learned any lessons from that? Would you be in a position at any point to make any of that public? I think that we had a fairly lengthy discussion last year about the current state of the case at that stage. Some similar points came out about the handling in the media in terms of press statements, if I remember correctly, and I desire to review our approach. What is at the heart of the letter is perhaps that it is not necessarily the best way to address the issues by the police producing a report, but I would be very happy to be involved in something going forward with a range of organisations and interested parties, yourself included, where we were able to sit down and gather what the concerns are. I think that we are aware of most of them, work through how we could do that differently in the future and I think that we could achieve that even within the scope of a live investigation that would not require the police to produce a report as such, which might not be the most effective way of doing it. We have, as we reported last year, done a number of things internally to review the investigation at senior detective level, which is unprecedentedly in relation to a wildlife crime investigation. We had what we call a major investigation advisory group meeting and process round about it as well. It has been subject to both peer and senior officer review, assessment and support, and notwithstanding all of that, we have not arrived at a position where we have been able to solve the crimes as it were. That is not to say that we will not in the future and therefore I would still be cautious about making sure that we do not do anything to prejudice any potential future cases. The final thing to say is that there is still a lot of information received about the case. A lot of that information reports statements similar to everybody knows who has done it or we all know what has gone on, everybody knows where the police should be going. I can assure you that we have followed up every one of those where we can identify the source of those individuals. That includes people coming forward to us, that includes people that we have been made aware of, making statements like that publicly or privately, where we get their identity and have followed up. You might have had some feedback that people are surprised that, after this length of time, people have come and visited them to get a statement. In all those cases, each and every one of those statements has turned out to be without substance, unfortunately. Although there is a general perception that everybody knows who has done it, there is not anybody—and I think that we have spoken to everybody that we possibly could—who is able to give us the names of who those people are. We will have to caveat some of that public concern about any perception of police in action with the huge amount of effort that has gone on and continues to go on to the inquiry. It is still sitting with a detective superintendent in Inverness as the lead investigator. I am assured by him, as recently as last week, that there is still active review and engagement around any potential lines of inquiry that come to light. Most recently, a short documentary produced that interviewed a number of people that were aired on the internet. Again, we picked up a number of lines from that. It was similar to previous statements that people asserted that everybody knew who had done it. Well, there was not anybody who was on the documentary that knew who had done it, because we have spoken to them all. You may be just to follow up that a little bit, convener. You were suggesting at the start of your answer there that some kind of meeting of a range of bodies, including possibly myself, would have to be before 23 March, because I am not standing again, but I am sure that whoever my successor is would be happy to take part. That would be useful, and I think that it would reassure people, because part of the concern is—I think that people accept that you are continuing to look into this, and you would like to get the evidence that would allow you to conclude the case. The public know that, but there were a number of questions in relation to how the police went about things at the beginning. It would be useful to get a meeting like that with a range of bodies where frank discussions could take place and things could be talked through without you having to divulge things that might prejudice the case as it goes on. If you are offering that meeting, I would thank you very much for that and welcome it. No, I am, and I will offer to do it before 23 March. Thank you. A supplementary at the moment from Graham Day. Thank you. Mr Graham, just to get this on the record and to get a feel for where we are at with raptor persecution, there is a view out there in some quarters that the extent of this is way beyond what the recorded figures might suggest. What I would like to get from you, where you experience—both of you gentlemen's experience in this area—is whether that is a fair view for people to hold and whether raptor persecution is on the increase or on the decrease at the moment, not just within the recorded figures but in a general sense. What is your feeling about this issue? We spoke about this last year to some extent and the scientific or expert evidence around the absence of certain species appears to be mixed. I am not an expert in that, but I am very happy to listen to those that are experts who would offer a view if the absence of species that you would expect to see in a certain area could be used as a very strong indication that there must be some form of crime happening to control bird species in that area. I am very interested to look at that in those areas and through the raptor group we have been doing that. It may well be the case that there is more work to be done with that particular issue. Set against that, there is a relatively low level of reporting in the context of all crime, not to dismiss the importance of every crime that is identified, every dead bird that is found or every crime that is recorded. The relatively low level of reporting, given the level of focus and dedicated focus from interested groups who have a specific role in terms of either bird conservation or preservation or indeed specific raptor groups, the very low level of information that comes to us either as intelligence or reports can only leave me thinking that, with all that effort, we are not missing the vast majority of what is going on here. I think that I had a discussion at the last meeting about the tip of the iceberg perception, and my view on that has not changed at all. More work to be done, undoubtedly a level of under-reporting and therefore under-recording, but I think that we are catching a significant amount of that. We are doing everything that we can to increase public awareness and to work with those who potentially would have a motivation to commit those crimes, to dissuade them from doing it and to make it an unattractive option for them. I think that it is increasingly likely that, if there is raptor crime going on, we are going to hear about it. Therefore, that would lead me in relation to your final point to think that this is not an increasing problem. In fact, it is more likely to be the case that we are hearing about a greater proportion and there is probably less happening. That is useful to get that on the record. Thank you, convener. That follows on really quite well from that point about how what steps could be taken to further identify and help to prosecute where crime, wildlife crime, has been committed. It goes back to March almost two years ago when the Government produced a consultation on looking on further powers for SSPCA. As you will all be well aware, various points of view were put forward. The committee, after its discussion of the 2013 report, wrote to the Government expressing sympathy with Police Scotland's view that there were issues around accountability if the SSPCA should be given greater powers. We concluded that letter by saying that we looked forward to the Government's forthcoming decision. We still look forward to the forthcoming decision because we have not had one yet. Are you aware of any further discussions that have taken place around that issue of further enforcement for SSPCA in the intervening time of those discussions? Is it still live or has it died in the water? There have been some on-going discussions, so we have spoken to the Government about it, probably more in terms of your opening comment. We still look forward to hearing about the decision as well, so perhaps not a huge amount more substance to be added to the debate. I do not think that anything has changed in relation to our view or the context that that view was placed in at the time that it was made. If I could just follow that up, convener, because one of the interesting or quite interesting statistics is that the report in table 11 shows that the number of cases reported to the Crown Office of Prosecution and Fiscal Service has reduced year on year from 30—sorry, this is the cases investigated solely and reported by SSPCA have reduced from 36 in 2009-10 and it is halved to 2013-14. Do you have any rationale for that reduction in statistics? I should probably mention that I have reviewed that figure against the number of cases received by COPFS in that period and, according to the reports received by us, we received 10 cases. During which period? In the period 2013-14. 10 rather than 18. All right, so that is an even greater reduction. Do you have any reasoning for that? I simply observed that the number of reports we received was 10, not 18. I was trying to reconcile our figures against those in the report more generally. Is there any other comment that anybody could make on that now? The figures come from the SSPCA via the Government report, so I cannot really add any value to them, my friend. Has that difference, if you like, been made up for in other ways? In other words, is that leaving a black hole in wildlife crime reporting or is that differential being taken up by people like yourselves, basically? I suppose that the number is so small when we look at the difference, even if it is the difference between 18 and 10 across the course of a year. To 10, which is over the five-year period, what the difference would appear to be? 26 cases in the scheme of cases that Police Scotland would deal with is not going to have a significant resource burden in terms of our approach, even within the scope of 255 or 300 reports, given that that has spread beyond a large number of officers. I am not aware that there has been any either perception or… It is probably a question of the SSPCA to be fair to them and to yourselves. It is maybe a little bit unfair to put it so. It might be something that the committee might want to follow up in writing, convener. Claudia Beamish. I appreciate that the Scottish Government has not announced its response to the consultation, but is it possible for any of you to comment on the possibility of further powers? I am a deputy convener of the cross-party group for animal welfare. We have had discussions and SSPCA is aware that there has been highlighted that there could be a conflict of interest in relation to them. I would have thought that there are so many challenges that have been highlighted today and last year in your report when I was on the committee over the years in relation to detection and in relation to prosecutions. I would have thought that an organisation's experience as the SSPCA would be a very valid partner to be working with you on those issues. Is there any comment on that at all? To be clear, we are absolutely not saying that they are not a valid partner. We are saying that they are a valid partner. We do work with them every day and we have an extremely good relationship with SSPCA, so I would not wish it to be characterised that are view in terms of the additional powers suggested otherwise. If there is any room for there to be an additional contribution towards the combined effort to detect wildlife crime in increasing volume, we would do everything we could to support that. As I went into, in some depth, last year in relation to our written responses to the SSPCA, that does not mean that the means to achieving that will always justify that end. We have to be very careful that, whilst we go down that route, we do not undermine the validity, the ethics and the credibility of the end results because of the foundation on which that is based, which is essentially the concerns that we have raised about the additional powers. There are lots of ways that we work with SSPCA. We would be very happy to look at other ways in which we could work with them and have good relationships with them, but that does not necessarily extend as members are aware to our support of the full extension to the powers that they had sought. Can you just clarify for us what the concerns would be about those possible additional powers? It is already on the record in terms of our open response to the consultation committee that we felt that the checks and balances in terms of governance were not in place with an organisation like the SSPCA that, potentially, again, their role and purpose did not necessarily lend themselves to being given the powers that would allow them to progress investigations in the way that they sought without there being some additional governance in the same way that would be suggested or would be in place over everything that the police would do. I think that we had potential concerns that there could be conflicts of interest and none of that is to say that they are not a really important part of what we do collectively, but I think that their effort and potentially the increased capacity that they could add to wildlife crime was overstated in their original submission and, therefore, the benefits certainly did not outweigh the concerns that we had. In terms of governance, that would be something that could be resolved if that was looked at. You are talking about a higher level or a different level of governance in order to for the consideration of additional powers to be possible. We are not looking into that in any great degree of depth, but at a superficial assessment, I think that that would be very challenging for a body that is constituted in the way that the SSPCA is as a charity. I would like to raise the issue of vicarious liability with you. This was a contentious issue at one stage that seems to have been accepted as a normal part of the armory in terms of dealing with wildlife crime, but in reality there have only been three successful cases, one of which somebody pled guilty and the other two were on conviction. The fines involved have been very low. One of the people involved went to jail, but the prosecution never led to a successful or a conviction of any sort of that individual for vicarious liability, because of the difficulty of identifying, as I understand it, the beneficial owners of the estate. I have two questions for you. One is, if vicarious liability is a useful part of the armory, as in other areas that we have already discussed, are the penalties still too low for it? Secondly, in terms of identifying who might be charged, would it be helpful to have more information than that? You would never say that it would be unhelpful to have more information, but would it be helpful to have more information? Would that result in perhaps more prosecution? Perhaps Tom would want to start on that issue. It is a challenging offence to establish, although that seems probably contradictory. The legislation is framed in a way that is concerned with the legal right to kill or take wild birds and the management or control of that right. The right to take wild birds passes with land ownership, so, in theory, whoever owns land is a person who has that legal right, but, in fact, the right to kill birds may actually be the subject of a sporting lease so that there may be somebody else who exercises the right. Identifying who owns the land may not identify the person who has the right to take or kill the birds. Because of difficulties in sometimes penetrating the ownership and management structure of the estates, identifying who controls the exercise of the right can be equally difficult. It is also the case that, where land is held in a trust or via a company, it becomes difficult to identify who has the beneficial interest in the sporting rights. I understand that there is now no possibility of a prosecution of the killed drummy estate. Was that because it was difficult to find out who were the beneficial owners? All I can say is that no report was submitted to COPFS and, therefore, we were warranted in a position to prosecute. I am aware that there was a fairly extensive investigation undertaken by the police, but I think that I probably cannot go further than that. Why? Because there is no possibility of a prosecution there. Because our general approach is that questions of guilt or innocence are determined in the courts, if we can with facts of a case—and that sometimes means canvassing difficulties and establishing facts—it results in trial, essentially, by media, and that is something that we would guard against. The fact of the case would be that there was no prosecution for the curious liability after the prosecution of Mr Mutch's employer was not prosecuted. That is right. In the case of Graham Christie, who was fined, you are pointing out the fact that somebody who has a sporting lease can have that the curious liability and can be charged, because Mr Christie leased the ground and was not the owner of the ground. More information might be helpful. More information might be helpful in terms of where the right to kill the birds lies, and perhaps sometimes about the control arrangements within the land holding. In terms of the curious liability, is this an area that you think can be made more yourself? First of all, I would agree that it is hugely useful as a tool in the armory. As you said at the start, the fact that we have had a number of prosecutions, guilty plea convictions in itself is fantastic. I think that it has sent out a very strong message, notwithstanding that you would highlight that the numbers are low. I think that the impact is high from what we have seen. In relation to the investigations that we have now conducted, it has been a learning curve. To go back to Mr Thompson's point, we are all seeking to improve. In the early stages of legislation, inevitably, you find your way with what the best way of gathering information is. I do not think that it was the absence of information that has been difficult for us in terms of the simple answer would be to provide more information. It is the complexity of some of the ownership arrangements, which is extremely difficult to arrive at a position where you can demonstrate who the individual or individuals are that would actually have the liability. As a result of the investigation that you highlight from Kildramie and other investigations, we are seeking to change the approach that we take and looking at ways of perhaps attributing that liability in a broader sense than our initial attempt in terms of legislation. We can always identify people who are connected with land and perhaps we have to follow that route more closely through liability than the end point being trying to achieve absolute ownership. Surprisingly, as it might sound, it is incredibly difficult, notwithstanding international efforts. I know that this committee would find it surprising, because one of the issues in land reform, of course, is to identify ownership. That appears to me to be a clear indication, and I am glad that you are nodding the scent. It is a clear indication that clarity on land ownership would be helpful in terms of prosecuting. Can I just follow up one point on vicarious liability? It is important, in many people's view, that somebody is seen to be responsible for what are called the hot spots of bird poisoning in Scotland and the map, the work that the media has done on identifying those and looking at the map. Presumably, the prosecution for vicarious liability, future prosecutions, would be mindful of those areas where there is a continuing problem, but no prosecution of those involved has yet been found. Is that a line that you will pursue? What can certainly speak for investigations are acutely aware of where the hot spots are, and we would not be confined to that, but, inevitably, the investigative trail will follow where the evidence is, and the evidence is going to lie where the hot spots are. That is where the investigations will be prioritised, absolutely, in terms of prosecutions. That is a matter for Tom and Nick Ryan. That would be, I think, a very useful message to send out, that vicarious liability is a tool to tackle those areas where there are a large number of bird poisonings, but nobody has been held responsible yet. One might say that the issue is not closed. Is that right? I think that the investigations that we have done round about the estates and question, that message has been very strongly landed with the individuals who are closely connected with and working on that land, if not perhaps, as we have previously said, ultimately those that own the land. To be honest, all the key permanent points have been covered by Tom and Mr Graham, but Tom and I were discussing it the other day. The strapline for this is legal transparency and land ownership is required there, clearly, absolutely, in that delineation. It would be eminently helpful if we could get to that point. That is very helpful, thank you. Quick point of clarification, if I could. Does there have to be an individual prosecution in order for there to be prosecution under the laws of vicarious liability? Can I just seek clarification on that, please? I can answer that. The answer is no. The person who committed the substantive offence need not be prosecuted and, in fact, could be used as a witness. We need to prove that the offence was committed. We need to prove the relationship between the person with the rights or control of those rights to the person who committed it, but there is no need for the prosecution and conviction of the person who committed the offence. I move on to another question from Angus MacDonald. Okay, thanks, convener. The panel will be aware of the Scottish Environment Links report, Natural Injustice, which was a review of the way four types of wildlife crime, persecution of badgers, bats, freshwater perms, mussels and raptors were being investigated. In the report, the findings noted that of the 148 confirmed wildlife crimes reported to the police between 2008 and 2013, 98 or 66.2 per cent are known to have resulted in a follow-up investigation, and of the 148 confirmed wildlife crimes, only 20 or 13.5 per cent resulted in a prosecution. In addition, a minimum of at least 111 crimes or 75 per cent failed to result in a prosecution. Links Natural Injustice report went on to make 20 recommendations, some of which were specifically addressed to Police Scotland and to the COPFS. Given the figures, what is your response to the findings of the Scottish Environment Links report that, among Link members, there was an overwhelming lack of confidence in the ability of the statutory agencies to adequately investigate wildlife crimes and also in the willingness of the judiciary to impose meaningful sentences that were a deterrent? I am happy to cover some issues with the Environment Links Scotland report first. It came out in February last year, almost a year ago. I can remember the day it came out, because I did not know that it was coming out before it arrived. I read about it on the news, and I thought that that was interesting. Here is a whole lot of information about wildlife crime that does not seem to bear any resemblance to my understanding of what is going on in Scotland. I will have to read the report more closely, in fact, on both reports. I was horrified when I read what was in there, not horrified because that was an accurate representation of what was happening, horrified because it was so inaccurate. We are here today speaking about the annual wildlife crime report that the Scottish Government is required to produce. We have spoken extensively over the years about the amount of effort that has gone into the quality of the data and the amount of effort that has gone into ensuring that there is credibility and validity to the data in the main that lies there and how we are seeking to improve that. We are working collectively on a range of organisations contributing with a governance structure and the incoming for parliamentary scrutiny, and none of that was applied to the Environment Link report. It was done in isolation by the organisations that are a part of that. I do not subscribe to the accuracy of the report either in the data that is there or in the assertions that are drawn from the data. Notwithstanding that, the organisations that are part of Environment Link Scotland will work with very closely. Although I was grossly disappointed about the nature of their approach and made that clear publicly at the time, as did a number of other organisations, including Scottish Natural Heritage, which issued a very strong public statement rebuking the way in which that report had been produced and, indeed, the quality of the data and the recommendations in it. Notwithstanding that, I met with the key members of Environment Link Scotland a short time afterwards and during that meeting they acknowledged that the way in which they had gone about producing the report and attempting to launch it publicly was not helpful in terms of our collective partnership approach to tackling wildlife crime. Indeed, we were happy to address some of the issues that they had raised through on-going work, which we continued to do. I did not feel that it was helpful to put inaccurate data into the public domain and then expect that you would hold organisations to account through media reporting. Indeed, that has not happened. At the time, the Lord Advocate issued a robust and unprecedented rejection of the report's findings and commented that it was ill-informed and based on flawed methodology. That is as much as I can say. Nevertheless, ill-informed or not, it did come up with 20 recommendations. I think that one has already been touched on by Sean Scott with regard to probation or training, which has now been given, but that could well have not happened anyway. Are there any other recommendations that Link suggested that have been taken on board from the report? Again, to build on what Mr Graham and Tom have said, one of the recommendations is for poaching offences to be removed from the wildlife crime category in that report, which is criticised by the NGOs and other partners in the pause. On the recommendations for me, and that predates my, assuming this particular role, all the work that we currently do with the partners against wildlife crime, all the work that we do in terms of prevention, all the work that we do around investigation is robust and as co-ordinated as it absolutely can be. Criticism, where it is due, yet absolutely we will take it and we will try to improve at every term. I have nothing more to say on that report other than what I have just said on Mr Graham and Tom. Thanks very much, convener. It was just to follow up those points of criticism, following the report. Did you go and discuss all the points of criticism that had been made by Link? The kind of suggestions that we have in the report in front of us were about delays in addressing initial incident reports, disappearance of evidence, failure to conduct, covert searches, premature disposal of evidence prior to toxicology examination. That is just an example of one or two of the things. Did you work through all those different criticisms and identify to what extent people had concerns that were valid or whether there were approaches that could be taken up in terms of consultation and liaison in the future? Yes. To repeat, although those were the assertions in the report and to Echo Sean's points, we are very open to constructive criticism. We are very accustomed to receiving constructive criticism, as you are aware, as a national police service. I suggest that we have grown and evolve towards responding to an appropriate, open, transparent and engaging way, because that is how we build a better service. It is not from a sense of, wait a minute here, people are saying that the police have not done a good job and we do not want to hear that. Nothing could be further from the truth. I met Eddie Palmer from Scottish Badgers and Ian Thompson from RSPB investigations, who were two people and organisations at the heart of producing that report. They were somewhat less critical at the meeting than the report was. They were full of praise for the changes that were brought about during the Police Scotland era. They acknowledged that the quality of the evidence in the report was at best ad hoc and anecdotal. They were not able to bring forward any instances that the recommendations were based on that I could then go and pursue to establish if changes needed to be based on that as a result. We did work through all of the recommendations, and at the end of that I was satisfied that they were reassured that, firstly, we were happy to work with them and listen to their complaints. Secondly, to produce an ill-informed report was not the most effective way of doing that, and thirdly, we would not expect to see another report like that produced in the future, because we would be working together to make sure that, if there are any one-off issues or issues that arise from time to time, they had a link in to pick up the phone and speak to us and we would get it sorted. Thank you. Is the NFU involved at long last or is it not at NFU Scotland? To remember you asked the same question last year, and I think I said last year that from a police perspective, we are a part of Paul as much as anybody else. We don't necessarily hold a leadership responsibility beyond that of any of the other partners. My own view would be that they would be very welcome to be a part of it. I am not aware that they are pushing their way to get in. It certainly has not come to my attention at any of the meetings, and if the suggestion is that they should be invited, I would be happy to pursue that with those that orchestrate the various meetings. On other fronts, from a policing perspective, we are doing a huge amount of work with NFU Scotland, particularly around the issues of rural crime that you might be aware of from other forums. Of course, there is from time to time an overlap, although rural crime is more focused at acquisitive crime that particularly affects rural communities. There is an overlap into the wildlife crime portfolio. The efforts that we have put in to address the concerns that were raised around rural crime. I should say that NFU Scotland's leadership in bringing those issues to bear and supporting the work, not just with its efforts and expertise but financial as well have been hugely appreciated and very effective to date. We would be a welcome partner around the table, as far as I am concerned. What is the position of the RSPB at the moment at Paul? The RSPB is on Paul, and I am not aware that that has changed. No, it did, because obviously the discussion about all those issues ought to be much easier because they are actually inside the tent. Thank you for all of that. Just a final question at the moment that occurs to us. The UK spending review is leading to a much smaller Scottish bloc. Within that police service may be constrained, as you hinted at earlier on to previous answers. Is the national wildlife crime unit based in Livingston in any way likely to be affected by any constraints on cash in the police service? I can answer that. I was down at the last UK Paul meeting, and that was discussed. The chief constable Prince and the chief inspector, Martin Simms, who runs the unit on his behalf, were meeting with the minister that day. There has been a proposal for looking for three-year funding for the unit, which the minister is considering just now. We have not had a final answer back as to what that is, but that has been considered. Our support for the wildlife crime unit within for this is deaf or sorry, but again it is that for the funding for the unit. Obviously we host the unit at Livingston just now and we will continue to support that for the time being anyway certainly for the foreseeable future, as well as supporting our second day into the unit, which is jointly funded with SNH. At the moment, the funding for the unit moving forward is still in the process of being decided, but that has been considered just now by the minister responsible. It will be interesting to hear about that just as soon as there is some direct information, please. Thank you very much. I think that that has been a good run round. We realise that sometimes it is the same things that we talk about year on year, but we thank you for your involvement and we hope that we can give you the kind of backing that you require to do your job on behalf of the country as a whole. Thank you very much witnesses just now. The new committee no doubt will wish to see you again in the future. I would like to say now that at the next meeting of the committee we will be considering subordinate legislation on microchipping of dogs, as well as beginning our stage 2 consideration of the land reform Scotland bill. I now close the public part of the meeting and the committee will move into private session, as agreed earlier in the meeting, and we will now have a short suspension. Thank you.