Chamber and committees

I agree with everything that Clare Haughey set out. As you say, there will be greater public awareness of some commissioner roles, such as that of the members of the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, and less awareness of others, such as the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner. Why would the public know about that last one? Having said that, his work is highly relevant to where we are going with biometrics.

I concur with Clare Haughey’s comment that it would be good if your committee could consider the public’s general awareness of commissioners and their roles, purposes and responsibilities. I am sure you will do that in your work around scrutinising the landscape.

I would be happy for that to be explored. We are perhaps at a point where we need to look at models that promote best practice. I suspect that one size does not fit all. I am not familiar with the position of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, but I would welcome that, and I expect that that will be part of your committee’s scrutiny of the issue.

We were coming from the evidence that we heard. There was a lot of support for the proposals for a victims and witnesses commissioner, particularly from some organisations that already work with victims, less so from those that work with witnesses. We tried to reflect the reality of the situation that we are in financially and recognise the existing support for the post of commissioner.

Again, it comes back to the fact that there is an absolute acknowledgment across individual sectors, Parliament and the Government that things need to change.

The committee came to that conclusion as an option in the event that the Scottish Government is clear that it wishes a commissioner post to be established.

No. Thanks again for the opportunity to meet the committee today.

As you say, we suggested that, should the Government establish a commissioner, one option, given the current landscape, would be to make the post time-limited, with a view to a piece of work being done to evaluate and scrutinise its effectiveness. We did not particularly consider a time period, as we felt that that could perhaps be refined in the further stages of the bill, once there had been a consideration of an optimum time that would allow the commissioner enough time to embed, and for outcomes to be seen and the value of the role to be established. However, as you quite rightly say, there is a financial aspect as well.

Thank you very much, convener, and thank you for the invitation to attend your meeting this morning.

As you have said, the Criminal Justice Committee engaged in fairly extensive scrutiny of the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. It is a significant bill of six parts, part 1 being the proposal to create a victims and witnesses commissioner, and we took evidence from a range of witnesses, including organisations already involved in supporting victims and witnesses, bodies in the justice system and a number of lived-experience witnesses. A few issues that came out of the evidence led us to conclude that we, as you have said, remain to be convinced about the case for creating the victims and witnesses commissioner post.

Perhaps I can run through two or three of those issues. The first was duplication. As I have said, a number of bodies already do significant support work, particularly with regard to victims of sexual crime, and it was suggested that there was the potential for a commissioner to overlap with—or perhaps intrude on—the extensive work of those existing bodies. In fact, Scottish Women’s Aid commented that it felt that its relationships with the likes of Scottish Government policy makers were already very good and productive. In fact, Scotland is held to be a bit of a standout in that regard.

The next issue was cost. The financial memorandum sets out start-up costs of around £640,000, I think, with recurring costs after that, and there was certainly a feeling that that money could be put to better use. Sandy Brindley from Rape Crisis Scotland said that she would prefer to see resource going to supporting legal representation for victims than perhaps to supporting a victim and witnesses commissioner.

The third of the key issues that came up in our evidence was the potential overlap of a victims and witnesses commissioner with the role of existing commissioners, specifically that of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. In fact, in her submission to the committee, that commissioner highlighted some concern about her role in supporting children’s rights and interests overlapping with that, potentially, of a victims and witnesses commissioner.

Obviously other issues were raised, convener, but I would say that those were the key ones.

Before I bring in Sharon Dowey, I will come back to the point about training and performance. I was interested in your exchange with Rona Mackay on that. I get quite exercised about the issues around training and how that links to performance, and the link to some of the issues about the bill that we are looking at today.

We referred earlier to HMICS’s inspection of organisational culture. The chief inspector’s report on that came out last year and made some recommendations. This is possibly putting you on the spot a little, but recommendation 3 said:

“Police Scotland should ensure that the probationer training syllabus is more reflective of actual frontline demand”.

Recommendation 4 said that

“Police Scotland should prioritise the completion of an organisational maturity assessment of continuous improvement”

and organisational learning, which we have spoken about. What is the process for those recommendations being actioned by Police Scotland? I am interested in anything that you can share with the committee on that report.

Before I bring in Fulton MacGregor to ask some final questions, I will pick up on the exchange around the barred list, which we have heard some comments on. I would like to get panel members’ views on the benefit of a barred list and on the proposals around an advisory list.

Chief Superintendent Hay, I invite you to start, and then I will take the other panel members in turn. Do you have other comments to make on ASPS’s position on the proposals for a barred list or an advisory list?

Pauline McNeill, do you want to come in with a supplementary?