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I hope that my first question will link this session with the previous one. My colleague John Swinney’s line of questioning in the previous session was about joined-up thinking in the justice sector. It will come as no surprise to the witnesses—the point has probably been raised with you previously, maybe even by me at a previous session; I cannot remember—that we often hear from the police about the amount of time and resource that is taken up by officers having to attend the court. We all know about that. We have heard it many times, and we heard it again today; there was even talk about the impact of that on overtime budgets.

Is the SCTS doing anything to try to limit that? Is it doing any further work with the police to see exactly how that can be reduced? That would have an impact on the police budget, which we have just heard about, and I presume that, to an extent, it would also have an impact on the SCTS budget.

I am last but not least—I hope.

I have a couple of questions. My first question is for James Gray and David Page. James mentioned earlier that Police Scotland is looking at the issue of overtime. I probably will not be popular for asking this question, and I apologise to any friends in the police who are watching, because I know that they welcome overtime—as anyone would just now. How could that issue play out in your budgets? It would seem more sensible to reduce overtime in order to keep staffing numbers up. Are you looking at that? Can you expand on what the impact of overtime is, and say what the figures are and how savings might be made?

It sounds very positive overall. However, what discussions are taking place with defence lawyers, who will play a key part in making that happen?

Thanks very much. As I said, the police officers that were interacting with us last night were absolutely brilliant.

I have one further question on the police, which is again for DCC Connors, and follows on from Russell Findlay’s questions about the pilot. Your comments in relation to the assessment of risk of harm and vulnerability are sensible, particularly given the cuts that we are all facing across the United Kingdom as a whole just now. What would you ask of us as politicians? Would you ask us to be responsible when talking about it? When I first heard about it last week, it was certainly portrayed differently to the way that you have done today. What would you ask of us as politicians, across parties, and as a committee, in relation to that pilot and how we relay information about it to the public?

Thank you for that—it sounds really positive, because the issues with police officers’ time have been on-going for a number of years.

I was going to ask how the pilot that you are talking about might have an impact on resources across the board, so it is interesting to hear that there has been a decrease of up to 50 per cent in police witness citations.

However, do you think that that can really change the way in which we do things in courts? Will you be looking at the pilot project that the Police Scotland witnesses talked to us about earlier this morning? Will you be looking at risk and vulnerability, and the standardness—for want of a better word—of the case, and at where that can all be agreed early on in order to save that resource?

You have. You referred to this yourself, but it is also worth saying that, although you are the ones here today, the issue is not just in policing. Before I became an MSP, I worked in social work and a lot of the things that we have been talking about today reminded me that, back then, we were always thinking of ways in which people could be better supported and how it was almost a rite of passage for every children and families social worker to have a period off work with stress. I do not know whether I should be saying this on the public record, but I do not know a children and families social worker who has not had that. There are definitely similar areas across the public services.

That takes me to my second point. ACC Ritchie, I think that it was you who said that you do not know a single officer who has not had at least one and probably several such events. Given that that is a known part of the job, how much focus is given to it at the training stage, when your officers are at Tulliallan and places like it? Are they specifically told that it will be a part of their job—a difficult part—and are they provided with scientific and evidence-based research on how they might want to cope with it? That might be where the techniques that I mentioned could be brought in.

We could probably spend a lot more time on that subject, but I am conscious of the time.

Good morning to the panel. It has been a very tough session, and I thank you all for being able to speak about the topic.

A lot of the focus has been on the extreme end of the issue, and that is obviously why you are here today. I want to go back a wee bit and ask—this is probably for you, ACC Ritchie or Katy Miller—whether there are any plans in place to have a more wellbeing-focused approach across the whole service for every serving officer and serving member of staff, including you.

I ask that because, in the past few years, as organisations have become more aware of mental wellbeing and emotional health, I have been making more and more visits to organisations and businesses in my constituency that say that they now give a specific hour a day for wellbeing. Their employees have to go for a run or do some other exercise or meditation specifically for their mental wellbeing. Is there anything like that in there so that problems are addressed at an earlier stage and so that everybody can look after their own mental wellbeing? I am not sure who is best placed to answer that question. It is a wee bit different from the other questions.

Thank you for that very thorough answer.

My next and final question is about Mears. As the convener said at the start of the session, we have heard mixed evidence on Mears. The third sector organisations have been particularly critical, while the local authorities and statutory organisations have been a bit more supportive. We also heard evidence from Mears itself. I am looking for your opinion, based on what you have picked up through your work. I suspect that individual people who work for Mears will, on hearing the sort of stories that we have heard, want to react and do good, but do they have the power—or the green light—to challenge the UK Government, or do they live in fear of their contract?