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I have a quick question on paragraph 16, to which Jamie Greene and Rona Mackay both referred. There is perhaps a more fundamental issue about the creation of Police Scotland, which is coming up to its 10th birthday. The short history of both the SPA and Police Scotland has been tumultuous, to say the least. At the very beginning, there were serious questions about both the ability and the willingness of the SPA to hold Police Scotland sufficiently to account, and indeed, in the early days, about political meddling, which has now been pretty much acknowledged.

I go back to the specific issue. In May 2021, the committee raised the issue of officer suicides. In September 2021, we got a letter in which the SPA said that, based on the information that was available at the time, there was nothing to suggest that any of the recent cases was caused directly by the pressure of work.

The SPA took the information from Police Scotland—it took Police Scotland at its word. That response was disingenuous, to say the least because, in some of those cases, the officers had made known their difficulties with the on-going processes that they were being put through.

That one brief letter highlights the problem of the SPA showing a lack of curiosity, or robustness, in respect of holding Police Scotland to account and asking difficult questions about difficult subjects.

I do not want to sound negative or as though I am always complaining, but we have asked these basic questions of witnesses in this committee. We have asked how many virtual trials have taken place, what the nature of the crimes were, and what the disposal rate was and how that compared to disposal rates in the non-virtual courts. However, it is only now that we are finally getting something like what we have been looking for and getting some data, and it is slightly underwhelming. It perhaps reveals what we suspected, which is that there is a kind of half-hearted attempt to do this.

It is worth bearing in mind that the SCTS could spend millions of pounds creating all the bespoke centres with all the best technology available, but if the judiciary and the defence lawyers do not like it, it will not happen. That is the very point that is being made in the paragraph that Jamie Greene identified at the outset. It may be that I am wrong; it may be that they are all for it and it is just that there have been technical difficulties. However, I think that it has probably been because of a reluctance on the part of the judiciary and defence lawyers and that, frankly, is where the power lies. I do not think that the SCTS can force anyone to embrace this.

I will go back to the point that Jamie Greene made. I presume that the number of people who seek transcripts is not huge, so would it really have made a significant difference to the cost of the contract? It is maybe an academic question, but if we are writing to the Government anyway, and unpicking or asking for details about the tender, it is perhaps worth including questions of that nature.

Going back to the contact, was that conversation instigated by Government officials?

Was the call from the justice directorate?

The representation that was made to you was more general—as in, “We have these concerns”—and was not a suggestion that you should act in a certain way.

And it explained that the justice secretary and the First Minister had concerns.

I would like to raise a couple of things. On page 4 of our note on the rules, there is reference to a provision whereby the Parole Board for Scotland could consider whether people convicted of murder or culpable homicide make known the whereabouts of their victims’ remains. My colleague Jamie Greene has been calling for such a provision, as have I, and it indeed will form part of his forthcoming bill.

What puzzles me is that the note goes on to say that

“this matter may be considered where relevant, but does not change the underlying test for release applied by the Board”.

It is effectively a superficial tweak. The rules say that the Parole Board can consider that, but it will have absolutely no effect. That begs the question: why bother? That should either be done with intent or not done at all. It seems to be a bit of a sop. I know that such cases are rare, but there are a significant enough number of them, and there are families who, right now, do not know where their loved ones’ remains are, while prisoners serving a sentence do know. If there was a meaningful way of motivating prisoners to disclose that information, by virtue of what has been called in Scotland Suzanne’s law—it has other names elsewhere in the UK—it should be deployed.

I have a second point, regarding victims, who are referred to page 5 of our note. I have two things to say. First, I underlined the part that says:

“these changes are intended to prevent any victim getting information or contact that they do not wish to have and which may cause distress or disruption.”

In my experience at the committee, I have not heard any meaningful evidence that that is really an issue; the issue is largely about crime victims having to battle to get information, even where they have engaged with a victim notification scheme, which the Government admits is not doing its job and which is subject to an on-going review.

The evidence that we have heard is that there are barriers, and people have to be proactive. It is all very impersonal, and there is sometimes almost a sense of hostility towards victims trying to get basic information. It would be interesting to see when the victim notification scheme review is due, and it would be curious to see what the Government says about it. Clearly, it is not working.

Convener, could you come back to me, if that is okay?

The issue is what the cost will be, and from when that will apply.