���˿���

The bill requires the Scottish Prison Service to comply with the new principles on trauma-informed practice in its work with victims and witnesses. The SPS mainly interacts with victims through the victim notification scheme, which has been subject to a full, independent review. The Minister for Victims and Community Safety and I will come forward with our conclusions and our response to that review either by the end of the year or at the turn of the year. That review focused on communication with victims and how there could be a more person-centred approach, as well as people’s rights to engage with particular processes.

Other work that is relevant in that regard includes a workstream under the victims task force on communication, specifically written communication. That is important for organisations including the Crown Office and the Scottish Prison Service because we will all have heard testimony about the nature of written communications which, at times, can be somewhat impenetrable. More broadly, the Scottish Prison Service is involved with the “people at heart” approach to communication. Although the trauma-informed approach for prisoners is not in the bill, which is about victims and witnesses, it is part of the SPS corporate plan.

They are not specific to the legislation, but they are specific to the issue of integrated domestic abuse courts.

Yes.

That is a good place to start, convener. In response to your question, I want to reiterate and expand on what I have said about the case for a victims and witnesses commissioner and the support for our proposition. I also want to acknowledge some of the concerns about costs and your point in relation to the Lord Advocate’s powers.

We are all operating in a fiscal reality, of course, but there are provisions in the bill that enable the victims and witnesses commissioner to share back-office functions. A number of commissioners already do that.

The bill does not disqualify an existing commissioner from being appointed to the new role. Any commissioner would need to comply with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body around things such as the office location. Many commissioners are located in shared premises in Bridgeside house in Leith, in the existing Scottish Government estate, or in the existing public sector estate.

On the case for a commissioner, the bill is about the need for an independent voice and a champion who will challenge criminal justice agencies. In my opening remarks, I mentioned that the role also brings an additional statutory mechanism that enables voices and experiences to be heard. A key role of the commissioner will be to monitor compliance with the victims code and the standards of service, including the requirement for agencies to actively demonstrate trauma-informed practice, and, in that manner, to monitor how the rights of victims and witnesses are being respected. The commissioner will, of course, be accountable to Parliament.

The proposition has been developed over a number of years through the work of the victims task force, which produced a paper back in 2020. Victim Support Scotland produced a paper entitled “Making the case for a Victims’ Commissioner for Scotland”. Its case hinged on the need for victims and witnesses to be heard and to be able to influence systemic change and change at the strategic level.

I was also struck by the correspondence on the bill from Lynn Burns. She said that the role was an opportunity for a commissioner to represent all victims, which is different from the role of individual agencies, and that, in many ways, it would be a “first step”—that is probably why it is in part 1 of the bill. She described the role as a “conduit” at a strategic and systemic level between Government, justice agencies and people who are affected by crime.

With regard to the Lord Advocate’s powers, I am clear that there is nothing in the bill that in any way interferes with or disrupts the Lord Advocate’s constitutional powers with respect to prosecution decisions or her other functions. The bill simply acknowledges the role of the Crown Office and the fact that it has functions that have an impact on the treatment of victims. In my view, a victims and witnesses commissioner should be able to make recommendations, but only in respect of the Lord Advocate’s functions in relation to the treatment of victims, not in relation to those powers that only the Lord Advocate has the constitutional authority to undertake.

The legislation provides for a distinct role of victims and witnesses commissioner; it does not disqualify an existing commissioner from taking on that role. I ask our lawyer or perhaps Lucy Smith from the policy team to confirm that I have articulated that accurately for the record.

The money is going to have to come from somewhere and, after the session that we had last week on pre-budget scrutiny, I think that we are all well apprised of the challenges that we face. I still contend that there is added value and, therefore, merit in investment in a victims and witnesses commissioner, because it will hold criminal justice agencies to account on how they implement and put into practice trauma-informed approaches.

I do not, Ms McNeill. Those are distinct roles, which complement each other. I think that I have given some clarity about learning from how commissioners are established more broadly, and how we have made efforts to ensure that there is no inappropriate duplication. To be honest, in my experience as a minister, dealings with commissioners are always quite formal—a few times a year, at arm’s length, and with an exchange of correspondence—but engagement with stakeholders and front-line organisations is always more intense and more frequent.

We have started that early work. Colleagues will remember the debate that we held in the Parliament before the summer recess, in which we shone a light on the publication of the knowledge and skills framework. Members who took part in that debate—I am thinking of Ms McNeill, in particular—commented on the fact that that is a substantive document, which runs to about 250 pages. There is the toolkit and, as I am sure that the committee knows from the evidence that it has heard, many of our stakeholders and agencies are already running with that work.

That work does not depend on legislation. Legislation gives a permanency to change and cements change into the system. It imposes a duty on players in the system to demonstrate that they are meeting the trauma-informed objectives and are adopting that way of working.

We will always have an open mind and an open door when it comes to engagement on the detail. The only caveat is that it is important that legislation brings clarity of meaning and purpose, and it is important that changing the letter of the law does not have any unintended consequences.

As I intimated to the convener, the legal definition is closely aligned with the knowledge and skills framework and all the work that NES and Dr Caroline Bruce have undertaken. The definition in the bill is not exactly the same, word for word, as the definition in the framework because the bill does not exist in isolation from other legislation. The bill is adding trauma-informed practice to the list of principles in the 2014 act.

The Parole Board is a legal entity and has an interface with victims and witnesses. Therefore, like other criminal justice agencies, it will have to demonstrate its compliance with trauma-informed practice as per the provisions in the bill.

The other aspect of policy is the review of the victim notification scheme, which has a particular relevance to the work of the Parole Board. A review of it was undertaken, and that work was published in May, with around 22 recommendations. We are working through them, and I hope that we will be in a position to inform the Parliament of our response to that independent inquiry. Some of the recommendations are of particular relevance to the Parole Board.