Chamber and committees

We have slightly overrun. I would like to bring the session to a close with a question about your digital strategy, which we have not really covered so far. Your five-year capital investment plan includes continued roll-out and work in relation to your digital strategy. There has been some criticism of the call-handling side of the Police Scotland function. What will be the priorities and what will be the budgetary implications of ensuring that the strategy continues as planned?

Mr MacGregor, I was unaware that you wanted to come in.

I am delighted to welcome Mr Colin Lancaster, the chief executive of the Scottish Legal Aid Board. Thank you very much for your written submission, which is available online. I intend to allow about an hour for questions and discussion.

The session will be structured around a number of themes, starting with administrative costs, which Rhona Mackay will pick up.

Unless anyone has any specific questions on administrative costs, I would like to move on to looking at general trends around legal aid and the number of legal aid applications that are being granted.

During a previous session, we have spoken with you about how the trend has been downwards. There are reasons for that, such as the pandemic. I am interested in whether you think that there are other underlying reasons why we are seeing a downward trend. What might that mean in the longer term for legal aid budgeting and for legal aid firms offering legal aid work?

That is really helpful. I will hand over to Rona Mackay, who is interested in how to balance the budget.

Please do not.

The next agenda item is a round-table discussion on legal aid and legal aid reform. I refer members to papers 2 and 3. We will take evidence from a round table of witnesses, who will join us virtually due to social distancing rules at Holyrood.

I welcome our witnesses: Gillian Fyfe, strategic lead for strong communities, Citizens Advice Scotland; Tony Lenehen, president of the Faculty of Advocates criminal bar association; Ian Moir, legal aid convener for the Law Society of Scotland; David Fraser, executive director of court operations at the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service; Colin Lancaster, chief executive of the Scottish Legal Aid Board; Julia McPartlin, president of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association; Professor Alan Paterson, professor of law at the University of Strathclyde; and Dr Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women’s Aid. We appreciate the time that they have taken to join us, and I thank the witnesses who have provided written submissions. Those are available online.

I intend to allow an hour and 20 minutes for questions and discussion. I ask members to indicate which witness they are directing their remarks to, then we can open the floor to other witnesses for comments. If other witnesses wish to respond, I ask them to indicate that by typing R in the chat function on BlueJeans and I will bring them in if time permits. If they are merely agreeing with a point that has been made, there is no need to intervene to say so. Other comments that witnesses make in the chat function will not be visible to committee members or recorded anywhere, so if a witness wants to make a comment, they should do so by requesting to speak.

We now move on to questions. I ask members and our invited guests keep their questions and comments as succinct as possible to facilitate a free-flowing discussion. I will structure the discussion around a series of broad themes. The first theme is access to justice and the current experiences of users of the legal aid system, and I will direct some opening questions to Professor Alan Paterson and Mr Ian Moir.

Professor Paterson, you had an advisory role in Martyn Evans’s review, which resulted in the report, “Rethinking Legal Aid—an independent strategic review” in 2018. It brought out some key issues about simplifying the system, creating a fair payments system and making the system more accessible. What priorities do you see in the overall theme of accessing legal aid and how can we improve access to criminal justice legal aid?

I will bring in Mr Lancaster for a very quick comment, and then I will move to Mr Findlay for questions on other aspects.

I will now bring this evidence session to a close. I again apologise for the lack of time—there is so much to cover. Many thanks to all the witnesses who have joined us today. If there are any outstanding points that you would like to share with the committee, please feel free to follow up with them in writing, and we will of course take them into account as additional evidence.

My thanks again to all our witnesses for attending today.

Mr Greene, I am conscious of the time, and I would like the discussion to remain focused on the SSI. If you have any further questions in that respect, that is fine, but if not, I will move on to Mr MacGregor.