Chamber and committees

Thank you for coming.

I will stick with Ian Bryce for a moment. Earlier, you spoke about blockages of older prisoners, and access—I wrote this down—to some of the offence-focused work that they are required to undertake. That work is important for the Parole Board in terms of your ability to assess risk.

What are the pinchpoints there? Can you expand a wee bit more on that? Is it just as simple as the pressures of the prison population, or is there a wee bit more to it?

I have a couple of questions. The first is on a practical issue relating to the release process. Although we know that the plan is that there will be four tranches of release, we are not sure what the numbers will be. Obviously, that will apply across Scotland, and I cannot remember who, but somebody anticipated that some prisons will have greater numbers than others.

We have spoken a number of times about the lessons learned from previous release processes, not least those that happened during Covid. Paula Arnold and Phil Fairlie, based on your previous experiences of release, what are your views on what needs to be put in place to make the process as smooth as possible and, importantly, to minimise the likelihood that somebody comes back into prison because of reoffending? Are there any arrangements that are key to have in place so that the release process causes the least disruption to the function of the prison estate?

The update from the cabinet secretary says that the first tranche is due to be released on 26 June, which does not leave long for planning to be put in place.

Finally, I will ask about an issue that we have not covered: access to healthcare in the prison estate. I know that that can be challenging at the best of times, but I am interested in what impact the significant rise in the prison population has had on the provision of healthcare. I put that to Phil Fairlie and then Paula Arnold—and then to Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, if there is anything that she wants to add.

Do want to add anything, Paula?

We will now close this evidence session. Thank you very much, Wendy, for contributing online in the middle of your inspection. I thank everybody for that really informative session.

I know that members have a lot of questions, so I will bring in Katy Clark and then Russell Findlay.

Good morning, and welcome to the 23rd meeting in 2024 of the Criminal Justice Committee. There are no apologies. Fulton MacGregor joins us online.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on whether to take in private agenda item 4, which is a discussion of the evidence that we will hear this morning. Do members agree to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I would be interested if you could expand on that. Will you give an example of the sort of activity that staff would normally support and assist with, which is now challenging, if not impossible, for them to deliver?

Do you want to comment, Wendy? I know that you look at these things very closely. Do you have any final brief comments?