Chamber and committees

We have about 20 minutes left, so I ask members and witnesses to keep your questions and responses as succinct as possible. We will now focus on the parole system, starting with questions from Russell Findlay.

Thank you, Ms Medhurst. Ms Mackay, I think that you have a couple of questions, before I bring in Wendy Sinclair-Gieben.

I am keen to move on as quickly as we can, as we still have a wee bit to get through. However, before we move on, does Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, have any final comments to make on these issues?

The minister outlined that the urgent review uncovered that some exclusions had been wrongly applied across Scotland. Can she outline whether there are further steps to be taken to ensure that exclusions are not applied wrongly again?

I thank Maggie Chapman for her motion and draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am a councillor for the Torry/Ferryhill ward in Aberdeen, within which St Fittick’s park is located. The park is also in my constituency. I support a just transition. We are at an urgent point with climate change.

St Fittick’s park, as Maggie Chapman said, is the mother ship of Torry. Generations of families have gone there to play, exercise or hit the reset button. It hosts cultural heritage and supports carbon sequestration and flood control. It is in an important local asset that has been restored and is valued by the community. The park is bounded by a harbour and an energy-from-waste plant, both of which are under construction, and a waste water plant. It is a precious green space for many.

In February 2020, St Fittick’s was included in the draft Aberdeen City local development plan, just weeks before the plan was approved, as an area supporting energy transition. I placed on record my support for an amendment proposing that the site be removed from the LDP and an alternative site found. The amendment was defeated in a vote. Literally hundreds of emails followed. Did I not realise that that was the last green space in Torry? Where are we supposed to go now? What is an ETZ?

The Friends of St Fittick’s Park and others have made a powerful case to save the park. I pay particular tribute to Dr Ishbel Shand, Lesley-Anne Mulholland and Ian Baird, among others, for their campaigning efforts.

The media coverage created some confusion. The project was described as “shovel ready”, but other coverage quoted local politicians and reassured the community that, just because it was part of the local development plan, that did not mean that it would happen and the LDP was not the end of the line for the Torry green space campaign. Which was it? Where are we now with St Fittick’s park?

The proposed development plan currently sits with the independent reporter, and it will be for Aberdeen City Council to consider any forthcoming planning application. In the meantime, there is a wider context.

The north-east is rightly positioning itself as a centre for energy transition. However, to date, the debate on energy transition has derived from an industry context. Professor Tavis Potts, who is interim director of the centre for energy transition at the University of Aberdeen, has highlighted that there is now a need for a community-orientated perspective in which areas are developed in a consensual way and meet both community and industry needs. He has observed that his research has uncovered a strong feeling of dispossession in Torry and that the community has had development imposed on it.

The Scottish Government’s response to the net zero nation engagement strategy identified that participation should be

“inclusive, reflective of all parts of society and not tokenistic.”

An ETZ is an important economic opportunity for diversification from fossil fuels and could have real value for the workforce in Aberdeen, but it must be underpinned by broader just transition policy principles so that communities such as Torry are genuine partners and derive real and meaningful benefit.

I welcome the commitment of Energy Transition Zone Ltd to community engagement and constructive dialogue, and I very much hope that all the decision makers who are involved in the project embrace the principles of strong partnership—not just consultation—community wealth building and creative approaches that genuinely benefit the people of Torry. Options are available in that regard, but there is only one St Fittick’s park.

Throughout the past year, I have been in regular contact with constituents who were vaccine trial participants. Will the First Minister provide an assurance that trial participants will be included in the forthcoming vaccination certification scheme?

Does the Scottish Government have plans for police recruitment, to ensure that all areas of the service, such as call handling, are sufficiently staffed?

I thank Mr Maybee for those responses.

I thank all our witnesses. It has been a long but very productive session. If the witnesses feel that there are outstanding points that they wish to share with the committee, I invite them to submit those in writing to the committee. We will take that evidence into account. Similarly, I am aware that members would have liked to have raised some other points. We will certainly afford members the opportunity to make those points in due course.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 15 September, when we will hold a further two round-table evidence sessions, on prisons and youth offending. We will move into private session for the final items on our agenda.

The next item is a round-table discussion about the impact of Covid on the justice sector and plans for recovery. We will take evidence from a round table of witnesses who will be joining us virtually. I say to them that I am sorry that they cannot join us in person; that is due to current rules on social distancing.

I welcome Tony Lenehan, president, Scottish criminal bar association, Faculty of Advocates; Ken Dalling, president, Law Society of Scotland; Assistant Chief Constable Kenny MacDonald, executive lead for criminal justice, and Chief Superintendent Barry Blair, criminal justice services division, Police Scotland; Eric McQueen, chief executive, Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service; Chief Officer Martin Blunden and Deputy Chief Officer Ross Haggart, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service; Teresa Medhurst, interim chief executive, and Tom Fox, head of corporate affairs, Scottish Prison Service; James Maybee, chair, justice standing committee, Social Work Scotland; and Kate Wallace, chief executive officer, Victim Support Scotland.

We very much appreciate your taking the time to join us. I thank those witnesses who have provided written submissions, which are now available online. I intend to allow around an hour and 30 minutes for questions and discussions, but we can go on for a little longer if need be, so that everyone can have their say.

I add that we have received an email from the criminal justice voluntary sector forum, saying that it wished that it had been invited today and providing us with some additional information on how Covid has affected its members. We will circulate that material to committee members. As we have further sessions coming up, we will see whether we can hear from that important body in the future.

I ask members to indicate which witness they are directing their remarks to, after which we can open the floor to other witnesses for comment. If witnesses wish to respond, I ask them to indicate that by typing R in the BlueJeans chat function, and I will bring them in if time permits. If they are merely agreeing with what another witness is saying, 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, nor recorded anywhere, so, if they want to make a comment, they should do so by requesting to speak. The BlueJeans platform shows only nine people at any given time, so witnesses may not be able to see themselves on screen; however, if anyone loses their connection, the clerks will advise us.

We move directly to questions. I ask members and invited guests to keep their questions and comments as succinct as possible. That said, I am keen to encourage a free-flowing discussion.

I will kick things off by asking our colleagues from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service a couple of questions on reform in that service. Before I do that, however, I put on my record my appreciation of the work that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has done throughout—and before and beyond—the pandemic. Mr Blunden and Mr Haggart, I very much appreciate the work that your service has undertaken over the past 18 months or so.

I start by acknowledging, as is important, the well-established role of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in local and regional partnership work in responding to emergencies—albeit that I think that everybody would agree that none of us was quite prepared for the Covid pandemic. However, I am sure that that sort of experience came into its own during the period of the pandemic. I notice that, in your written submission and in the chief officer’s recent report, you outlined some of the operational and organisational changes that were put in place, for example in supporting the Scottish Ambulance Service in some of its work. You also introduced some flexibility around your tactical response as things developed during the period of the pandemic.

I would like to ask about reform. Thinking about the opportunities that Covid presented from a reform perspective, I am interested to hear about how the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service might be able to embed some of those practice changes into the organisation. Yesterday’s programme for government announcement contained some reference—albeit brief—to modernising the service.

In your written submission, you note that a range of

“work packages have been developed and are being progressed”

as part of your recovery programme. You set them out, and they include

“Operational Strategy ... Technology ... Communications and Engagement ... Prevention, Protection and Partnerships.”

Among those packages, are there areas of work that you consider to be priorities? I am thinking about the opportunity for reform and renewal in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the actions that you might look to undertake in quicker time, while others may involve longer-term pieces of work.