Our next agenda item is a review of the correspondence received on the implementation of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. Members will recall that the committee undertook a short post-legislative review of the 2018 act and has been following up issues with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs.
The clerk’s note in paper 2 sets out the details of that and the cabinet secretary’s most recent reply. Do members have any comments?
On page 15 of paper 2, there are statistics from Police Scotland about the number of domestic crimes that were reported to it. It would be helpful to know, of all those reported, how many were subsequently reported to the Crown Office and what happened next. Of those reported, how many were diverted from prosecution and how many were prosecuted and, of those prosecuted, what was the conviction rate? It is all very well saying that the act has been successful if you are judging that on the number of cases that have been reported but, if we do not know what happened consequently, we do not know whether that success is disappearing into a black hole. That would be useful data to acquire, if we can.
On page 18, a contribution from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service seems to be making a virtue of the Aberdeen pilot for the domestic abuse court. From my memory of the evidence that the committee heard, it was quite difficult for us to acquire information and, when we eventually did, my memory is that only a dozen or so cases had ever gone ahead. Therefore, rather than the success that it is being presented as, it seems to have been underused, and the numbers were so low as to make it difficult to draw very much by way of a conclusion from the pilot.
If my memory is right, some of those queries related to the number of trials that were undertaken in a virtual format.
Yes. I think that the trials were virtual in their entirety; that was the purpose of the pilot. However, from what we could establish, due to reluctance on the part of the accused and their lawyers, that often did not happen, which might have explained—call me cynical—why it took us so long to establish that the court had been used so infrequently. Therefore, for it then to pop up in a letter as evidence of good work and progress is questionable.
I was not on the committee when the report was published, so I am not as expert on the matter as everybody else on the committee. Looking again at some of the responses to the committee, I go back to my previous comment about timescales and actions. I have heard a lot about the Caledonian system, which seems to get a lot of good press.
The justice partners round-table discussion is referred to. Again, the response says that areas of focus will be discussed over the next 12 months. There is going to be a lot of consideration and exploration, but there do not ever seem to be any firm actions or timescales for implementation. In the area that we are talking about, the quicker we implement the recommendations that the experts tell us will work, the quicker we will see results and improvements in the justice system for the people who need it most.
Again, we need timescales and actions. It seems that people are just talking about things rather than actually doing things.
There was another point that I forgot to mention about the cabinet secretary’s letter in response to our questions about an awareness campaign. When the act first came into force, there was a publicity campaign to let people know what it did, which was apparently quite helpful. We asked whether there were plans to do something else. In response, the cabinet secretary said:
“We are currently undertaking insight gathering”.
There is further documentation from Scottish Government, on page 13 of paper 2, that also uses the term “insight gathering”. I wonder whether it is worth trying to establish whether there are any concrete plans, because I do not quite know what that means. It either seeks to do something or it does not. It is a small point.
10:30
We can certainly follow that up, because it is a fair point to raise.
I found it. Just to give the context, page 13 includes the phrase
“insight gathering which could inform a future approach to communications.”
If they do not have any plans, just say so.
We will take that away.
The cabinet secretary talks in her letter about the round table and the working group, which meets again this month. She will feed back on the outcome of the discussion, including the finalised terms of reference for the group. We expect that to be imminent.
I am encouraged by a lot of what is going on. Different tasks in different areas of work take different lengths of time, obviously. I was particularly interested in the update that we asked for on the single court/judge model. There is a lot in that, but it was helpful to have it set out.
We will take away the points that have been raised, and I ask for members’ agreement that we continue to monitor the issue. It is highly appropriate that we do that.
Members indicated agreement.
You mentioned the single sheriff model for civil and criminal cases, which I have raised a few times. I found some of the reasons against that to be slightly questionable, if not spurious, although some of them were valid. Watch this space, because I think that that is being looked at.
That concludes our business in public. Next week, we will begin phase 2 of our scrutiny of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. We will take evidence on part 4, which is the part of the bill that deals with the proposed abolition of the not proven verdict and changes to jury majorities.
10:32 Meeting continued in private until 13:09.Previous
Deaths in Prison Custody