Chamber and committees

That was something that I had flagged in my own head. I would be interested to know a wee bit more about what that £5 million reform budget will be used for. A wee bit more detail would be very welcome. We will incorporate that into our correspondence.

Yes.

We will pull the discussion to a close in a moment but, to go back to the Prison Service, we can ask for some detail on the £97 million spend, which is set out as the capital budget for modernisation, taking into account the comments that Katy Clark and others have made.

Are members happy with that follow-up?

Members indicated agreement.

That is fine. Thank you very much.

Our next agenda item is consideration of a negative instrument: the Parole Board (Scotland) Rules 2022. I refer members to paper 2. Do members have any questions on the instrument?

Thank you very much. That concludes the public part of our meeting, and we will move into private after a short comfort break.

Thanks, Jamie. I will come back to the issue of the wording in the cabinet secretary’s response to our report. Rona Mackay has her hand up, so I will go to her first.

While we are on the subject, my interpretation of the comments that the cabinet secretary made in his reply, which are at the bottom of page 3 of paper 1 and go into page 4, is that it is more about the interpretation of the wording that was recorded in the Official Report of that meeting, which is replicated in our budget scrutiny report. What he said is reflected accurately in both of those documents—the Official Report and our budget scrutiny report. However, he referred to the fact that, in paragraph 77 of our report, we paraphrased what he said—as Jamie Greene has noted. My view is that there was no intention to mislead in regard to the exact phrase that he used or to misrepresent what he said in committee. However, it seems to have resulted in him feeling that it was necessary for him to highlight what he felt might be interpreted as an inaccurate account of what he said. It was my intention to raise that with members.

Jamie, you have set out your views on the wider issue of the police budget. Pauline McNeill, would you like to come in on that point?

My interpretation of the cabinet secretary raising the issue is that, as Rona Mackay said, it is ultimately an operational decision for the chief constable to make. The cabinet secretary said in the evidence session that he had

“no intention of overseeing a budget for the police force that results in 4,000 officers leaving.”

The concern that the cabinet secretary raises is that the paraphrasing of that statement misrepresents what he said. I do not want to get caught up in the minutiae of what is in our report by way of a paraphrase set against what he actually said. If there are still questions on the budget, I am happy for us to go back to the cabinet secretary with those questions, because it is an important issue.

Stephen Imrie, do you want to come in with anything over and above that?

Quite a range of issues were covered there. Are there specific points that you would like the committee to go back to the cabinet secretary on, or did you just want to put those points on the record?

On the issues that Russell Findlay raised about the Scottish Prison Service, I am happy to write back with further requests for clarification. The point about private sector contract costs and some of the challenges that are linked to inflation and increasing prices is reasonable, because that is having a significant impact. I am happy to write about the other points that Russell Findlay raised about HMP Addiewell and HMP Kilmarnock.