Chamber and committees

I have a follow-up question that relates to that—it might stray slightly from the subject of the budget, but I am going to ask it anyway.

You gave some examples of interactions with healthcare staff and prison staff. My slight concern is that, in certain care settings, overdigitising and the overintroduction of technology can sometimes separate staff from people who are in their care. I have personal, family experience of that. I am interested in your views on decision making when it comes to making improvements and efficiencies and, at the same time, maintaining the really important elements in the prison setting, one of which is face-to-face interaction with staff.

Yes.

Committee members are particularly interested in the issues around the capital budget and the prison estate. I will ask just one follow-up question. Thinking ahead about budget provision into the next year, what are your main concerns about the older section of the prison estate?

Very quickly, because there are a number of other questions.

That is noted and on the record. Speaking of information on the record, I should also highlight that the reported cost of the eight-year contract with GEOAmey for prisoner escort services was £238 million.

I thank Wendy Sinclair-Gieben for a very informative evidence-taking session. If members have any other questions that they wish to ask, we can follow them up in writing.

We will have a short suspension to allow the witness to leave.

Thank you very much, everyone. Those comments have been helpful, and it is important to get members’ views on the record.

I very much recognise the concerns that members have expressed about what went wrong, and I note that Ruth Charteris says in her letter that she is very committed to supporting

“future public accountability, including the expectation that there will be a form of judge-led inquiry in due course.”

My view is that we should wait for the outcome of that and perhaps find out a little bit more about the timescales for it.

In response to Jamie Greene’s point, it is important that we seek some reassurance about who is paying for all this. I note that the cabinet secretary is coming next week, and we might be able to ask him some questions in and around the issue.

That would be my proposal at the moment. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

That completes our public business. Our next meeting is on Wednesday 16 November, when we will hear from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans as part of our pre-budget scrutiny and in relation to the United Kingdom Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill.

As previously agreed, we now move into private session.

I will just bring the session to a close—

Collette Stevenson has some questions about transport.

Thank you, Wendy; that is really interesting.

We are almost at the end of the hour but, if you are happy to bear with us, there are more questions that members would like to ask. I will hand over to Rona Mackay, who will pick up on mental health.