Chamber and committees

There is nothing from my entry in the register of members’ interests that I believe that I require to declare as relevant to the committee’s work. However, I must state that, as colleagues know, I served in the Scottish Government until March 2023 and participated in collective decision making on issues that will come before the committee during the current parliamentary term. In addition, for the period from July 2022 to March 2023, I personally took direct decisions on the Scottish budget, which is relevant to material that is before the committee today and is likely to be on other occasions.

I am interested in the part of my question that relates to our experience in society whereby crime is, comparatively speaking, now at a much lower level than it was. I am also interested in the implications of that and how consideration of such issues influences the size of the police estate. Points about police numbers have been raised this morning; I am interested in how that flows into your assessment of the degree of risk in society that has to be handled.

Thank you. Please see my line of questioning as encouraging.

However, you will understand where I am coming from.

We are sitting as a committee, and other committees in Parliament will hear about all sorts of issues to do with financial pressures. You are giving us concrete evidence of areas where no more money is required and the system is just undertaking improvements. I am pressing you on where else that can be done. When we consider the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, I suspect that I will come at it from the perspective of saying, “Why does this need to cost more? Why does this need to involve more resources?”

My first question is directed to Lynn Brown and to the deputy chief constable. I am interested in the interaction between the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland on the design of the policing model and its sustainability, given the extraordinary pressures of inflation that public finances have been wrestling with. What role does the Scottish Police Authority take in scrutinising and challenging the plans and propositions of Police Scotland? Given the fiscal context in which we are all having to operate at the present moment, to what degree is the authority satisfied that Police Scotland is properly and fully considering the appropriate approaches to policing and, flowing from that—this is where the question is perhaps relevant to the deputy chief constable—the process that is undertaken by Police Scotland to assess its role and capacity? Although we are wrestling with extraordinarily high inflation at the moment, we are also experiencing some of the lowest crime levels in more than 40 years. Perhaps Lynn Brown could start on that point.

That involves providing the necessary challenge to ensure that, from the public-interest point of view, policing approaches are commensurate with having exhausted every avenue for efficiency and effectiveness.

This will use up my slot, convener, because it is on exactly the same territory.

I do not want, in any way, to give off any non-encouraging tones here, but I am interested in why this has not happened before. I really welcome what is going on here, so please do not take anything discouraging from what I say. However, the COPFS submission, on page 19 of our briefing, states:

“This has been achieved without any additional funding or the need for legislation.”

Mr McQueen said that, in the pilot, there is now proper case management by sheriffs.

When I think about all that the criminal justice system wrestles with—the backlogs, the frustration around witness citations and the time that it takes for cases to be handled—it begs the question why this has not been done before and what else could be going on.

It did not sound like it, but it was meant to be.

I will follow up on that point. I assume that you have seen the submission that the committee received from the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents. The fourth paragraph on page 3 says that

“The Scottish Government do have clear Strategic Objectives, but the public services are not sufficiently linked in at the tactical and operational levels.”

I am interested in that point, because it throws up the challenges that police officers experience because of the wider social questions that they face. I appreciate and have seen at first hand some of those challenges, having spent time with your officers in my constituency. However, when I saw the point that was made by the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, it struck me that it is an area that is in need of further development. What is Police Scotland doing to drive the degree of connection that will be essential in ensuring that vulnerable members of the public can be supported through integrated services that stretch beyond what Police Scotland can do? How is Police Scotland enabling that?