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Yes, of course.

Thanks, Peter. The place of organised crime in all this will come up later, as will the issue of people accessing drugs for the first time while they are in young offenders or adult detention institutions.

I thank our first speakers for sharing their personal experiences. I know that it is often difficult to speak about such things in public, but we value hearing about them.

A common theme seems to come through the answers. There always seems to be a trigger, if you like, such as when you were trying drugs for the first time or you might have been coerced or felt pressurised by your peer network in some way. What intervention do you think could have been made at that time so that the first time did not lead to the second, third or fourth, and the addiction that it created thereafter? What could have been done at that point to prevent that spiral from starting in the first place?

That question is open to anyone; you can just wave your hand if you want to answer.

I will try to make my question clearer. There has been a year-on-year increase in the number of diversions from prosecution—there are arguments for and against the approach, but that is not the point of my question. There has also been a year-on-year increase in the number of people who, sadly, have died as a result of drug use. The number of diversions doubled from 500 to 1,000 in one year alone, which is a substantial increase. Is it too early to say whether the policy is working, from a public health point of view, or do we have sufficient data to make a correlation between the policy and the health outcomes?

What savings are required to maintain the financial balance that you talk about in your submission?

We are running out of time, so I will be brief. Do you see your organisation’s role as facilitating the administration of public money that goes to the legal profession, or are you more consumer facing? Many thousands of people are going to Citizens Advice Scotland, and we know that many of its services are being cut or have been lost recently. Is that a warning that people will no longer have an idea about where to go to seek advice and help? Could you play a better role by being more consumer focused, so that people would know who you are and where to go for direct advice from the body that administers the finance, rather than going to the third sector?

I will touch on the issue of financial sustainability as part of your medium and long-term plans, which is linked to the budget. I refer specifically to your second submission to the committee. There is a lot of wording in there. Earlier, I asked more about the numbers, but my questions now are more about strategy. I have some cause for concern that I hope you can alleviate.

You talk about your current five-year financial plan and how you will maintain sustainability. You indicate that the plan will maintain current levels of policing but that that is dependent on four key factors. That strikes me as a key point. One of the factors is

“receiving funding increases in line with the commitment to real terms protection”.

What do you mean by “real terms protection”?

You also refer to “managing the workforce size”. What do you mean by that? Surely an increase means higher expenditure. You mention “managing non-pay pressures” and

“receiving compensatory funding to support lost income as a result of COVID-19.”

Those are big issues. What is the risk in relation to those four key determining factors that will allow you to maintain current levels of policing? How has the Government responded to those asks?

I want to be clear on the pecking order. You would obviously rather just get the cash from the Government to let you do what you want to do. The second choice is to sell off the family silver and, in the worst-case scenario, you could go and borrow the money. Is that what you are saying to us?

I am sorry to interrupt, but why are we resourcing the police to budget and not budgeting to the resource needs? With respect, it sounds to me that every answer that you have given me has been about how you balance the budget and not how much it costs to adequately police. That is a very different approach from what we are used to.

I want to take a step back and look at the wider budget. I will drill into your submissions, and specifically some of the numbers, because this is pre-budget scrutiny. You talk a lot in your submissions about the five-year capital investment plan, and the figure of £466 million crops up quite a few times. However, you say that the Scottish Government’s capital spending review suggests that there will be a shortfall of £218 million over the next five years. That is quite a jump from what you are asking for. You have partially set out your case as to what will happen if the call for £466 million is not met. You say:

“we will not be able to modernise our asset base to the minimum levels set out in our strategies.”

If you do not get the £466 million five-year capital budget that you are asking for, what will you not be able to deliver?