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I will save my other questions for later, if we have time.

You might need a pen and paper for this question, which is a question about the prison population that we should have perhaps covered at the beginning. I am keen to hear how you forecast the model for that and what the forecasts look like. I appreciate that you are a demand-led service. The reason that you might need a pen and paper is that the statistics are quite stark; there is a backlog in the courts of more than 50,000 cases and we have heard evidence this morning that there will be a 50 per cent increase in indictments over the next two years. We know that 70 per cent of High Court cases relate to serious sexual crimes, and it is natural to assume that non-custodial sentences might not be the outcome for such cases. Against that backdrop, do you expect that the prison population in Scotland is likely to massively increase over the next five years and, if so, by how much?

Presumably, that is capital underspend on new-build projects that are going beyond their expected timescales, but we know that those projects are also going over budget—HMP Inverness, for example—so that does not quite tally. Surely that relates only to the capital budget on new build? We know that there is quite heavy underinvestment in the area of prison estates, and I will come on to that with some specifics. Why are you, in effect, saying to the Government “We will be spending less than we forecast this year”, given that we know that so many projects will still require spending?

I am sorry to push on this, but it is really important from a budget point of view.

Surely, as a service, you must have numbers. I appreciate that there are lots of moving parts and lots of known unknowns, but there are also the knowns, some of which have been expressed today. We know the reoffending statistics, for example; we know how many people end up back in custody within one, two, three or four years of leaving it. There are trends and statistics that you can draw on.

You have limited capacity—a limited amount of space and a limited number of people who you can hold in the system—so surely some modelling must have been done in order to know whether you will reach that capacity at some point and, when you do, what happens then. That is so important, because we know that we are 10 or 15 years away from having new prisons in some parts of Scotland. That is why I am pushing for the forecasting.

Are we going to hit record highs in the prison population, and is there physically enough space to accommodate all the people you are asked to keep under your care?

That sort of does not answer the question, but I appreciate the reasons why you cannot.

That is noted.

Good morning, Lord Advocate, and thank you for attending the committee. I put on record our thanks to staff in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, who have worked under tremendously difficult circumstances to keep our judicial system operating fairly and justly.

I want to drill down into some of the comments in your written submission. On your asks for the Government as we scrutinise the forthcoming budget, the third bullet point in the section on “Looking ahead” says:

“additional funding for court recovery must be sustained. It will take many years to remove the trial backlog”.

Can you give the committee an indication of the scale of the backlog, the potential time that it will take to clear it and, more important, the analysis that has been done by the COPFS on the cost of clearing the backlog? It is clear that it will require a year-on-year uplift in the budget. The uplift was 17 per cent last year. What percentage will you need this year to ensure that you are able to clear that backlog quickly, efficiently and fairly?

Thank you. I will forgive the lengthy answers, because the question was a high-level one.

You have touched on an important issue. We are talking about budget numbers and finance, but people lie behind them. You have made that point eloquently, and I know that the committee will discuss those areas in more detail. However, the numbers are important, too.

It sounds as though the backlog situation is extremely worrying, and it sounds a little as though you are facing a perfect storm. You had a rising number of cases before Covid—it is clear that the pandemic has added to those challenges—and rising levels of vacancies. People have struggled to recruit and fill posts, given the time lag that is required to take new entrants into the profession and train them to levels to manage very complex—and increasingly complex—cases.

I want to ask about that. Perhaps people and places are the biggest costs to you at the moment. Your vacancy rate is currently 12.8 per cent, and you have stated that that will be down to 0.2 per cent by March 2022. That is only five months away. How realistic is that? What will it take to get that 12.8 per cent down to practically nothing, which is what you are forecasting?

For the benefit of the record, I was not implying that the proposed changes were financially led—I was merely raising the question.

I am glad that you mentioned HMP Greenock, because it and Dumfries are probably the most criticised parts of the estate. HMIPS said that the establishment breaches the human rights guidelines on cell size, is expensive to maintain and has limited surge capacity. Are you disappointed that the programme for government did not include any announcement of new capital budget for the replacement of HMP Greenock or Dumfries prison? What would your asks be of the Government on that front?