���˿���

Who is headquarters? Is it a person or a chain of command?

Somebody must have signed off the decision.

Okay, so the buck rests at the top—I understand that.

I understand that, but I do not think that it really answers the question. I will put the question directly to the cabinet secretary. Is that a temporary measure, or will it become a permanent feature of how the process works?

Good morning. I will open my questioning with some consensus on what the cabinet secretary said about the fact that we need to be careful not to stigmatise an entire community for the actions of a small group within that community. However, we are perfectly entitled, and it is entirely appropriate, to ask specific questions about what has happened, given the very understandable public interest in the matter.

I might be a bit more simple and direct in my line of questioning in the hope that we get through this more easily. I ask quite straightforwardly: who made the decision to house Isla Bryson in the female estate?

Therefore, given the current policy and any future changes, as that individual is no longer in that location, were you in effect overruled by Scottish ministers on a decision that you were ultimately in charge of?

I am looking for clarity on funding and on whether they would be a feature of every institution.

Yes. It is all about officer numbers. What we want to know—or what we should want to know—is whether we are still looking down the barrel of a reduction in officer numbers, or will there be a flat settlement to maintain officer numbers? Indeed, is there sufficient budget to increase officer numbers? It would be welcome news if that were the case. However, we do not know.

My first point is maybe a wider point. This is quite a big SSI and we are looking at it in the context of the negative procedure, which, as members know, gives us limited options. For example, it is impossible for us to amend it; such matters are outside of our control because of the primary legislation that the rules are connected to. Had the instrument been subject to the affirmative procedure, we could have heard from the cabinet secretary and his advisers on it, taken evidence on it and done other things with it rather than being left with the only option of annulling it, which is unhelpful, because there is some good stuff in it.

However, there are things in the rules that are not so good, and that is what I wanted to point out. The point that my colleague Russell Findlay made about matters that the board may consider around release was absolutely correct. The issue is specifically about someone who has been convicted of murder or homicide and whether they have failed to reveal the location of a victim’s body. This is a real missed opportunity. The issue will feature in my member’s bill, which is yet to be drafted, unfortunately, and it featured heavily in my consultation. The overwhelming response to that was that there should be an overt rule on the matter with regard to the test for release. The policy objectives just say that the rule

“does not change the underlying test for release”

but revealing a location might be a factor that is taken into account. I presume that it already was a factor, so the rules do not seem to make any change there.

Had I been given the opportunity to amend the rules, I would have made them stronger. The Government has missed an opportunity to introduce Suzanne’s law through a simple procedural mechanism that would go a long way towards serving justice to the families of those victims.

The second point is about the final paragraph on page 5 of the policy note, which talks about changes to the rights and roles of victims in all of this. The provision simply allows for victims to observe parole hearings. Again, that is a missed opportunity. It still does not give victims the opportunity to make meaningful representation during those hearings, which is a long-standing issue. The rules could easily have been altered to allow victims to speak or have a voice during parole hearings, and I have felt strongly about that for some time.

Furthermore, that paragraph talks about those who are registered with part 1 of the VNS who do not want to be involved with the Parole Board process. I question the evidence on that. How many chose not to be involved in that process? How many victims or their families were subject to poor communication from the VNS and were notified so late or out of the blue that they were unable to participate in the process, or unwilling to because of retraumatisation? We know that uptake of the VNS is poor because of its opt-in nature. Again, there is a missed opportunity to look at opt-out versions of the scheme.

We also know that a number of people who asked to participate in—when I say “participate” I mean “observe”—parole hearings were rejected. I would have liked to have seen some numerical evidence about that. How many people asked to attend a parole hearing and were rejected? I have only anecdotal evidence but the figure is certainly in the dozens, and I have tried to get some more information about that in the past few months. A number of people were denied access to those hearings, especially when the process went online.

Should the Parole Board rules be explicit and make it clear to victims way in advance and up front that they have the absolute right to observe hearings unless there is good reason for them not to or a reasonable objection is raised? It should not be a matter of discretion for the person who is in charge of that Parole Board hearing. I have more questions about that.

I am disappointed that we are being asked to shoo through a negative instrument when it concerns important matters that could have empowered victims of crime and is failing to do so.

I have a few different items to discuss, but I do not want to impinge on other members’ opportunities to speak. Perhaps I can kick off the conversation on some of them, at least. The first one is the cabinet secretary’s response in relation to the budget for the Scottish Police Authority and police budgets. I want to probe a little bit into that.

There is quite an important clarification from the cabinet secretary about the part of our report on police budgets. When we took pre-budget scrutiny evidence, it was made quite clear to us that there would be a direct knock-on effect on police numbers in proportion to a flat cash settlement or a real-terms cut in the budget, depending on how you phrase it. It is an area I probed into quite vociferously. In the cabinet secretary’s response, he writes that, in the committee’s report,

“you stated that I said that I have no intention of cutting police officer/staff numbers.”

We put that in the report in the context of the evidence that we took that there would be a reduction in front-line officers or back-office staff. The cabinet secretary has replied that he thinks that that is an “inaccurate reflection” of what he said.

I need to look at our report to check what we wrote, but that was certainly the essence of what he said in committee. We might have misquoted him, or he might think that we did, but that was very much what I thought he said. I believe that other members thought that as well, which is why we put it in our report. The cabinet secretary has come back and said that, actually, what he said was that he had

“no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 23 November 2022; c 12.]

That is welcome, as that is not a position that any cabinet secretary would want to be in, but that seems to fall quite short of a commitment that there will not be a reduction in police officer numbers. It is unclear whether that leads us to surmise that there is a potential reduction in officer or staff numbers and whether, if that were to be the case, the cabinet secretary would be content with that, given that he has watered down his position.

I appreciate that the next part of the cabinet secretary’s response says that an additional £80 million of resource has been allocated to policing. I presume—and this can be clarified—that that is resource budget and not capital budget. It is unclear whether that is intended to meet any percentage pay rises that are asked for or settled on, given that we do not know the final outcome of negotiations on that.

My fear is that, even with the £80 million, we do not have evidence of what it will translate to. If the £80 million just gets swallowed up in an inflationary pay rise, we will be left with a static number of police officers. If that amount is not enough to cover any pay rise, there will still be a reduction in the number of police officers; we could still lose front-line police officers. That situation needs to be looked at percentage by percentage, by which I mean what would pay rises of 4 per cent, 5 per cent, 6 per cent and 10 per cent look like?

It is a matter of concern, and it is not clarified by just chucking a number into the response and diverting away from it by saying that those are operational matters for the chief constable. Although they are, we should be evidence led when we scrutinise budgets, and I do not see how we can marry up that statement. There might not be 4,000 officers leaving, but a substantial number of officers still might leave. I do not know what effect the money will have, where it will go in the service or how it will be spent. It is a bit late, now, of course, but the letter has provided more questions than answers.

I have other comments on other parts of the response—specifically around the Scottish Prison Service and legal aid—but I will stop there in case other members want to talk about the police budget.