Chamber and committees

The bill requires the Scottish Prison Service to comply with the new principles on trauma-informed practice in its work with victims and witnesses. The SPS mainly interacts with victims through the victim notification scheme, which has been subject to a full, independent review. The Minister for Victims and Community Safety and I will come forward with our conclusions and our response to that review either by the end of the year or at the turn of the year. That review focused on communication with victims and how there could be a more person-centred approach, as well as people’s rights to engage with particular processes.

Other work that is relevant in that regard includes a workstream under the victims task force on communication, specifically written communication. That is important for organisations including the Crown Office and the Scottish Prison Service because we will all have heard testimony about the nature of written communications which, at times, can be somewhat impenetrable. More broadly, the Scottish Prison Service is involved with the “people at heart” approach to communication. Although the trauma-informed approach for prisoners is not in the bill, which is about victims and witnesses, it is part of the SPS corporate plan.

They are not specific to the legislation, but they are specific to the issue of integrated domestic abuse courts.

That is a good place to start, convener. In response to your question, I want to reiterate and expand on what I have said about the case for a victims and witnesses commissioner and the support for our proposition. I also want to acknowledge some of the concerns about costs and your point in relation to the Lord Advocate’s powers.

We are all operating in a fiscal reality, of course, but there are provisions in the bill that enable the victims and witnesses commissioner to share back-office functions. A number of commissioners already do that.

The bill does not disqualify an existing commissioner from being appointed to the new role. Any commissioner would need to comply with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body around things such as the office location. Many commissioners are located in shared premises in Bridgeside house in Leith, in the existing Scottish Government estate, or in the existing public sector estate.

On the case for a commissioner, the bill is about the need for an independent voice and a champion who will challenge criminal justice agencies. In my opening remarks, I mentioned that the role also brings an additional statutory mechanism that enables voices and experiences to be heard. A key role of the commissioner will be to monitor compliance with the victims code and the standards of service, including the requirement for agencies to actively demonstrate trauma-informed practice, and, in that manner, to monitor how the rights of victims and witnesses are being respected. The commissioner will, of course, be accountable to Parliament.

The proposition has been developed over a number of years through the work of the victims task force, which produced a paper back in 2020. Victim Support Scotland produced a paper entitled “Making the case for a Victims’ Commissioner for Scotland”. Its case hinged on the need for victims and witnesses to be heard and to be able to influence systemic change and change at the strategic level.

I was also struck by the correspondence on the bill from Lynn Burns. She said that the role was an opportunity for a commissioner to represent all victims, which is different from the role of individual agencies, and that, in many ways, it would be a “first step”—that is probably why it is in part 1 of the bill. She described the role as a “conduit” at a strategic and systemic level between Government, justice agencies and people who are affected by crime.

With regard to the Lord Advocate’s powers, I am clear that there is nothing in the bill that in any way interferes with or disrupts the Lord Advocate’s constitutional powers with respect to prosecution decisions or her other functions. The bill simply acknowledges the role of the Crown Office and the fact that it has functions that have an impact on the treatment of victims. In my view, a victims and witnesses commissioner should be able to make recommendations, but only in respect of the Lord Advocate’s functions in relation to the treatment of victims, not in relation to those powers that only the Lord Advocate has the constitutional authority to undertake.

The legislation provides for a distinct role of victims and witnesses commissioner; it does not disqualify an existing commissioner from taking on that role. I ask our lawyer or perhaps Lucy Smith from the policy team to confirm that I have articulated that accurately for the record.

The money is going to have to come from somewhere and, after the session that we had last week on pre-budget scrutiny, I think that we are all well apprised of the challenges that we face. I still contend that there is added value and, therefore, merit in investment in a victims and witnesses commissioner, because it will hold criminal justice agencies to account on how they implement and put into practice trauma-informed approaches.

Again, we have carefully looked at that, bearing in mind the operational independence of our courts and prosecutors, and that it is not in anybody’s interest for those processes to be interfered with. Ultimately, the victims and witnesses commissioner is about amplifying the voices of victims and witnesses to ensure better and consistent system-level change.

The commissioner can engage with individuals and can consider the individual experiences of people, but that is to improve understanding of the national picture. Bearing in mind the discussions that we have had so far about concerns about duplication and costs, I am satisfied that the commissioner, as is the case with other commissioners, will not take on or intervene in individual cases.

Thank you, convener, and good morning.

The Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill puts victims at the heart of the justice system. Parts 1 to 3 of the bill are essential to the delivery of that ambition. I will briefly go over the aims of those parts.

Part 1 of the bill, on establishing an independent victims and witnesses commissioner, will give victims an independent voice to champion their views and hold justice agencies to account. Part of the commissioner’s role will be to monitor how agencies are complying with the standards of service and the victims code.

There is long-standing and clear demand for the role from victims. The issue has been discussed at the victims task force for a number of years, and our public consultation revealed that there is strong support for the role. The bill delivers on a commitment that was made to victims and the wider public via our manifesto and our programme for government to establish such a post. The role will benefit victims and witnesses of crime by providing a statutory mechanism for their voices and experiences to be heard.

Part 2 of the bill aims to put trauma-informed practice at the heart of decision making in the justice system, to improve people’s experiences of justice, and to help them to participate effectively.

I have followed the committee’s scrutiny of those parts of the bill with interest, and I am pleased that there has been universal agreement among the committee’s witnesses that the justice system must operate in a trauma-informed way.

The committee has heard from experts about the ways in which trauma can affect people, and victims and survivors have spoken powerfully about the lasting impacts of trauma and how the justice process itself can be retraumatising. We cannot remove all risk of traumatisation from the justice system, but the bill will put in place measures that aim to minimise that risk. If people are treated in trauma-informed ways, that can help to keep them engaged with the justice process, help to ensure that trauma does not prevent them from participating effectively, and help them to give their best evidence. As well as significantly improving the experiences of witnesses, that can improve the quality of the justice process for everyone involved.

The bill builds on work that is already being done by justice partners, and it aims to embed the principles of trauma-informed practice within our justice system. It includes a definition of trauma-informed practice to help to ensure a consistent understanding and a consistent approach. It requires justice agencies to make efforts to reduce retraumatisation and to publish standards on trauma-informed practice.

The bill also requires the judiciary to take trauma-informed practice into account when scheduling court business, and it empowers the courts to set rules that are designed to ensure that proceedings are conducted in trauma-informed ways.

Part 3 of the bill covers special measures in civil cases. Special measures protect people in court who might be vulnerable. The provisions are a reflection that domestic abuse can arise in civil cases as well as in criminal cases. The existing legislation on special measures covers civil cases as well as criminal cases, but there have been requests over the years to improve the legislation on special measures in relation to civil cases. The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 includes provisions to enhance special measures in some cases. That act was, of course, about just family cases. The bill is an opportunity to extend the provisions to cases generally.

The bill is central to the delivery of our vision for justice. It brings forward proposals for transformational change to the system, which have emerged from respected review processes and directly from victims. The Government is acting on the evidence and on what we have heard from people with experience of the system. It is important that the bill is the Government’s response to what we have heard from victims.

I look forward to the committee’s questions.

When a financial memorandum is produced, it is based on the detailed evidence that is available at the time. I stress that we have engaged extensively with our stakeholders and partners, who will ultimately have operational responsibility to deliver many aspects of the bill.

We were very transparent and up front about the financial memorandum. The costs are far easier to define for parts 1, 2 and 3, which we are discussing this morning. There are other parts of the bill—Mr Findlay is right to point to that—for which estimates and minimum costs have been given. That is in recognition of variables and operational decisions that have yet to be made.

That is an on-going process. I have received correspondence from the finance committee in that regard, and we will continue to engage.

There are a number of issues there. I acknowledge that, in the same way as households up and down the country are challenged because of the cost of living crisis, public services across the board are challenged on the back of a decade of austerity. I should point out the Scottish Government’s record of investing in justice and that we have continued to make year-on-year increases in investment—