Chamber and committees

I have a number of members who want to come in. I will come back to you, Russell, but first I will bring in Rona Mackay and then Pauline McNeill.

We recently visited a third sector organisation that supports individuals who are at the point of leaving prison. What came across very strongly to me was the issue of timing and the value that seems to be placed on the likes of third sector organisations being able almost to insert themselves into prison prior to an individual walking out of the gates. I found that very powerful; the organisations are catching somebody, as it were, before they walk out of the prison and potentially become lost to services or difficult to engage with. That made complete sense to me, and I would like to explore your views on that a little bit more.

I will come to Nancy Loucks first.

For the record, the Crown is coming in next week to give evidence. Some of our discussion today has referenced that organisation. It will be interesting to hear some of its commentary.

Before I bring the session to a close, we have not really had a chance to cover part 2 of the bill. Our second panel of witnesses, who have joined us in the public gallery of the committee room this morning, may be interested in that. Before we finish, I would like to ask whether you have any specific views on part 2 of the bill in respect of release from prison—particularly Friday releases, the power to release early, and the key issue of release planning. I will do things in reverse order. I will bring in Stuart Munro first. I will then come to Joanne McMillan, and I will finish with Fred Mackintosh.

Our final panel consists of one witness, as, unfortunately, Chief Superintendent Gordon McCreadie has submitted his apologies. We have with us Chief Inspector Nick Clasper, policy and partnerships, Police Scotland criminal justice services division. You are on your own this afternoon, chief inspector, but a warm welcome to you. We have about 45 minutes for the session. We may have to cut it short a little owing to the previous panels’ overrunning, but we will see how we go.

I will start by asking you a very general question about the information that the police include in police reports that inform the fiscal and the court around decision making on bail. Clearly, Police Scotland officers have a role to play in informing that process. It therefore may be helpful if you were able to set out the type of information that is included in police reports around bail in particular and tell us whether you, as an officer, recommend that bail be sought or otherwise. Over to you.

Following on from that, one of the issues that we have been looking at closely is the voice of victims, complainers and witnesses. To what extent do you include information from, for example, victims in the police report?

This is really helpful and interesting, and it certainly fits with what we observed on Monday on the use of supervised bail. I am also interested in the information that is provided to the court by criminal justice social work and, potentially, others—we may come on to that later—to inform bail decision making and a decision on the potential for supervised bail.

I will let you back in, Jamie.

That is interesting.

I will continue with the release theme. Earlier, we heard evidence about the value of the third sector and other organisations starting throughcare support before an individual is released. Is there a pre-release role for Police Scotland that is not already in place that fits within the provisions of the bill?

Jamie wants to come back in, and then we will probably bring the session to a close.

Thank you very much, chief inspector. There are no more questions. This has been a nice, neat panel with which to end our morning. We appreciate your time.

That concludes the public part of our agenda. We will now move into private session.