Chamber and committees

The 93 per cent reduction in the number of 16 and 17-year-olds that are being sentenced is due to work that has commenced during the past decade.

Work has been done on when it is appropriate to shift young people into either alternatives to prosecution or alternatives to custody, which is related to the whole-systems approach to youth justice that commenced in 2011.

The reasonable point has been made that, if we expand the legal route so that all children who are under the age of 18 and in the system go into secure accommodation, that will increase demand on secure facilities. Today, there are six young people who are under the age of 18 in Polmont and there are vacancies, but we need to be vigilant that there is always capacity.

Some of the work is on funding. The Scottish Government funds one bed in each of the four independent providers, and, as you will see from the financial memorandum, there are plans for the number of funded beds to increase. That is part of that work that we are doing to ensure that we always have the right contingency arrangements in place. Notwithstanding that, there is further work going on—in particular, with providers and multi-agency partners—to ensure that we are in a position to put in additional support for any provider, should we need to.

The starting position for the arrangements is that, for the staff in the secure estate, this is their bread and butter. Staff deal with children from a range of age groups—the latest figures that I have seen show that the majority of children who go into secure are in the older age group: they are 15, 16 or 17—and they already work with a high proportion of children who have a history of committing assaults or using or brandishing weapons. They already have that expertise, which should give us confidence.

Irrespective of the route by which children go into secure accommodation, whether it is via the criminal justice system, via the children’s hearings system or under measures to do with their care and protection or the care and protection of others, there is an overlap between them, and a real similarity in their history of adverse childhood experiences. We know that 98 per cent of children who appear in court will have a history of being in the children’s hearings system and will have high levels of vulnerability. Children who reach the destination of secure accomodation via the children’s hearings system will also have had instances of conflict with the law. The research that the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice has undertaken demonstrates that the risks and needs of children in secure are not dissimilar.

Having said that, there are always exceptions, which is why we need to have contingencies and flexibilities in place. That includes the work in and around secure care plus, which enables us to make arrangements, if necessary, by which we can quickly support and facilitate additional staff or provide other additional intensive measures in a secure environment, or make adaptations to a property. We need to be able to do that.

Where secure care has an advantage over prison care is in its flexibility and the ability to respond to not only individual needs but individual risks that children present. Staff who work in secure accommodation are well acquainted with addressing the needs of an individual child while considering the context of the other children for whom they also have responsibility.

That is my understanding, but I am, of course, conscious that Ms Clark is a lawyer, and so I may want to defer to officials on that.

I would always be candid and say that there is more to be done on that matter.

Forgive me—I thought that I had said in my original answer that we have a good starting point and a good basis to go forward on.

This is stage 1 of the bill process. There are matters to do with how we amend and improve the legislation, but there are also matters that are more about policy and practice. We are currently engaged with providers and the sector to ensure that young people are given the best possible care, support and supervision. There are questions about what the best way is for young, vulnerable people to access on-going mental health support, and there are key issues about staff training.

To my knowledge and in my experience, the staff who operate in the secure estate are very well trained and they have a high skill base. However, we want to ensure that people—children, in particular—can access the right treatment at the right time. I give a commitment to look closely at the evidence that the committee has been provided with and at any recommendations that the committee subsequently makes in its report.

I will briefly add to that, Mr MacGregor. The children’s hearings system cannot operate after a child’s 18th birthday other than by exception, so there will continue to be a need for young offenders institutions. Again, at the discretion of the governor, young people can remain in a YOI until they are 23, before being transferred to an adult prison.

Given the view of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland on the inappropriate nature of young offenders institutions for children, if children are no longer committed to YOIs, that will give us opportunities to look at the care and support that is provided in them. I am also aware of the review on mental health services in YOIs.

Improvements can be made in various custodial establishments, but there are no plans to remove young offenders institutions because secure care—other than with the exceptions that the minister has outlined—applies for children up to the age of 18.

I will draw parallels with some of the innovations and changes that have been made in the women’s estate, because that probably provides a better comparator. In the women’s estate, there have been significant moves towards trauma-informed practice in custodial settings. The new women’s national facility will open in the summer, and two smaller units for women—one in Dundee, which I visited recently, and one in Glasgow—have already been established.

I am conscious of the questions about resources that members have raised, but there is an opportunity to think about the type of care, support and rehabilitation that we provide and how we better address reoffending in the context of a custodial environment.

With regard to the gravest of offences, the Crown Office and the Lord Advocate will, as with any case, have prosecutorial independence. In those gravest of cases, where the young person is progressed through the criminal justice system and, as can happen, a hefty custodial sentence is handed down, what happens in practice is that, if the young person is 16, they will spend the first few years of their sentence in secure accommodation, progress to a young offenders institution and then go to prison. What I would want to convey is that secure accommodation, with its levels of security, the intensive nature of supervision and other inputs, is an appropriate place for all child offenders who require such accommodation. That does not mean that they will not go on to serve the remainder of their sentence in the adult sector.