Chamber and committees

Thank you, convener, I will be very brief, because I will get an opportunity to ask further questions. Are you content that 100 jobs could be lost? I take the point that the losses are not a direct result of the £26 million cut, but the letter that we received from the college said that it was as a result of the sector’s budget cuts over several years. It is not fair to the people who are losing their jobs just to say that it is not because of the £26 million.

Before I go on to the questions that I was going to ask, I have a very short supplementary question based on what Ruth Maguire asked.

We have already briefly discussed the issues at City of Glasgow College. When you meet the principal to discuss some of those issues, will you discuss which courses might have to be cut and will you be carrying out an impact assessment?

I am being quite specific, particularly in relation to City of Glasgow College.

I have a short final question. Sheriff Mackie noted that restorative justice allows victims to participate and the hearings system does not allow that. What can you do to make that happen so that victims can feel that justice is being served?

Yes, it was about the cross-border gap. A lot of the secure care centres have said that the cross-border placements sustain their service, as my colleague Willie Rennie has highlighted. How are you going to fill that gap?

I have two small points on what has been raised.

Minister, on the point about transferring funding from justice to other services, how do your justice colleagues feel about that?

I have listened carefully to the responses that have just been given. The committee understands that the pilot to fund and retain the last bed in secure centres will be extended to March 2024, but there is nothing on that in the bill. How will that be addressed?

I suspect that my colleagues will pick up more on the finances, but, given the answers that we have just had, I am worried about the financial sustainability of the system, because I do not see much about the necessary backfilling in the financial memorandum.

The committee has heard from victims of offences that are committed by children that they are not given the breadth of information that is afforded to victims of offences that are committed by adults. Has the minister considered whether a more equitable approach to providing such information to all victims of crime should be taken?

Okay. My other—

Thank you, convener. My other question is on inaccuracies that Social Work Scotland has highlighted. It has referred to inaccuracies in uprating, which means that the financial memorandum is out by £0.5 million.

What is your view on updating the estimates for inflation before a bid is made for budget in order to avoid the situation that arose with the Carers (Scotland) Bill in 2015, which missed eight years of inflation by 2023? Social Work Scotland has asked specifically for that. Are you prepared to commit to doing it?