Chamber and committees

I accept what it says in relation to local government funding. Mr Kerr is perfectly aware of how that works, so I will not get into it just now, in the interests of time.

So, you would like me to go through the local authority funding settlement—

Yes.

I am sorry—could you repeat that?

Yes. I have figures in front of me. However, those tend to fluctuate, so I do not necessarily want to put an exact figure on it and say that that will be the case going forward.

There are currently five under-18s in young offenders institutes and, as of 2 May, there were seven places vacant. I know that those figures changed during the lead-up to the committee meeting, but they have generally been around that level.

As far as I am aware, that is not going ahead at the moment, but I have said that it can be looked at.

The Scottish Government’s key priority and commitment is to keep children out of prison. The key word is “children”—we are classing 16 and 17-year-olds as children. The hearings system is not based on a specific offence or age; secure care already deals with some of the most serious offences and is already equipped to deal with children—at the moment, aged under 16—who have committed serious offences. I know that the committee has heard strong evidence from secure care that it is equipped and able to deal with 16 and 17-year-olds who have committed those serious offences.

I go back to what I said at the beginning, which is that, although I appreciate that concerns exist around that provision, the Lord Advocate still has the right to try a child in a criminal court, although it will end in a secure care setting instead of a YOI. As I said in my opening comments to Mr Kerr, it is about rehabilitation of the child and giving that child the best chance to not reoffend, and a secure care centre is definitely the most appropriate setting for that to be the case.

I agree that there should be uprating. As I have said to the committee, I will go through the financial details in greater detail at the Finance and Public Administration Committee next week, so I encourage members to tune in to that for more information.

MRCs are obviously designed to be less restrictive than secure care. Expanding the circumstances in which MRCs can be used will mean that more children can be supported in that way, although I appreciate that the member has concerns about that. The conditions will be imposed where that is deemed appropriate. The safeguards that already exist under the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 will still apply, so I do not feel that they need to be added to the bill. A children’s hearing is not a sentencing tribunal—it makes decisions to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare throughout their childhood and not necessarily to punish a child for their actions. Therefore, MRCs, like any measure that comes through the children’s hearings system, can be imposed only if doing that is better for the child than not doing it.

Yes. As I said, it will be deemed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the circumstances surrounding that child.