Chamber and committees

Thank you. That is very helpful, and we will bear it in mind during our budget scrutiny.

I will bring this session to a close. I thank our witnesses very much for coming today. It has been an insightful session.

That concludes our public meeting, and we will now move into private session.

Our next item of business is consideration of two negative instruments. I refer members to papers 1 and 2. Do members have any questions on either of the instruments?

Members have no questions. Is the committee content with both instruments?

Members indicated agreement.

Our next item of business is an evidence session on food crime. I refer members to paper 3. I intend to allow about 60 minutes for this evidence session.

I am pleased to welcome to the committee Ron McNaughton, who is head of the Scottish food crime and incidents unit at Food Standards Scotland, and Ian McWatt, who is deputy chief executive of the organisation. I extend a warm welcome to you both and thank you for the helpful written evidence that you provided.

I invite Mr McNaughton to make some opening remarks.

You can ask one more and then we will have to move on.

I will bring the session to a close shortly, but I want to ask a quick question. We have spoken a lot about partner agencies. One that we have not referenced is the National Crime Agency. I presume that you link with it. Do you have a presence at the Scottish crime campus? Would that be helpful, and is it something that is being looked at?

We have a wee bit of time left, so I will come in with a couple of questions. The first is about overtime, which has been raised with other witnesses. It is fair to say that overtime is a not just a significant financial cost for Police Scotland, there is a wellbeing cost for police officers, with rest days being cancelled and overtime being required. We know that that is part of the nature of the role. Has the SPA been monitoring or looking at the impact of overtime?

I will bring in Superintendent Suzanne Smith now, but we can come back to you before we open up questions to members.

David Malcolm, do you want to comment on any of the points that Russell Findlay has covered?

We are just about out of time, but I have a question about body-worn cameras. We are aware that there has been a delay in the roll-out. What is your view of that? That question is for David Threadgold and then for Suzanne Smith.

I am glad that you spoke about prevention, because our earlier witnesses, particularly David Threadgold from the Scottish Police Federation, spoke about that. What I have interpreted from what has been said is about the value and importance of picking up on signs of change in somebody’s mental wellbeing earlier, in a preventative context. David Threadgold spoke about there almost being a separation between the work of operational officers when they are out and about doing their job and their contact with their immediate line managers, who are, invariably, sergeants. He was concerned about the lack of contact. Will that issue be considered in the reform programme?