Chamber and committees

What about the legal profession?

Dr Hill, I am interested in the opening part of your written statement, which Sharon Dowey referred to. You said:

“a Commissioner should not be brought in—at considerable expense—to act as a substitute for real action in improving the experiences of victims and witnesses, such as consistently scaling up the Bairns Hoose model”,

following the recent very welcome opening of the first bairns’ hoose, which was the subject of my colleague Rona Mackay’s debate in Parliament. We all know that money is tight, so what is the priority?

Would it be fair to conclude from what you have said that, if you had a choice over the same pot of money, you would put it into a bairns’ hoose rather than a victims commissioner?

Thank you for that.

I hear what you say about the lack of references to the perspectives of children in the policy memorandum and documentation. What do you think the victims commissioner could do that the children’s commissioner currently cannot do in asserting the interests and protecting the rights of children?

If there is a route to pursue some of those issues through the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman if it is considered that the standards of service have not been applied, there is an argument that we need to have a victims commissioner because the SPSO is not effective, which would play into the hands of people who think that we are creating another commissioner to deal with the fact that a commissioner that we are already paying for is not that effective. Do you see my line of argument?

I want to follow up on the exchange between Mr Scott and Fulton MacGregor. I think that Mr Scott was making the point that, with regard to those who should carry the obligation to be trauma informed, the bill needs to have a wider scope. I put to Mr Scott the question that I put to the previous panel, as to whether the list of persons to which those obligations should apply needs to be expanded. Again, for the record, the 2014 act lists:

“the Lord Advocate ... the Scottish Ministers ... the chief constable ... the Scottish Court Service”

and

“the Parole Board”.

If he believes that that list should be expanded, does he have anyone else in mind?

I have one further question. In the 2014 act, the obligation to pursue the principles that I talked about is applied to

“(a) the Lord Advocate,

(b) the Scottish Ministers,

(c) the chief constable of the Police Service of Scotland,

(d) the Scottish Court Service”

and

“(e) the Parole Board for Scotland”.

Does that cover sufficient organisations?

Is there a role for a victims commissioner in that?

The bill includes provisions that will amend the standards that various organisations have to put in place to ensure that trauma-informed practice is pursued. Looking at the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014, I see that it includes significant obligations to ensure that, for example,

“victims should be treated in a respectful, sensitive, tailored, professional and non-discriminatory manner”.

That is just one of the principles in section 1A(2) of the 2014 act, but we all can see—or, at least, I offer my opinion—that that is not always being applied. If that is not always being applied and we are providing for trauma-informed practice in the bill, that raises a question for me. Does the bill have sufficient bite to ensure that we will genuinely embed trauma-informed practice in our legal system? I am all for it—I am 100 per cent behind it—but I want to be convinced that the provisions will be effective and emphatic.

I am interested in hearing your observations on my point about the obligations that are already in the system under the 2014 act and whether the provisions in the proposed 2024 act will be sufficiently obligatory.

I move to the question of accountability around the legal profession, because other committees in the Parliament are looking at the regulation of the legal profession.

Strong messaging has come to the Parliament that the legal profession’s absolute independence cannot be intruded on. All of that is very important, but it strikes me that some of the issues about how defence solicitors interact with victims raise an awful lot of questions about conduct, actions and standards. I am interested in how a commissioner can apply accountability for the legal profession’s conduct, given that the legal profession strongly represents to the Parliament, in quite strident terms, that its independence must be maintained.