Chamber and committees

We might come back to funding and the extent to which it is additional. You mentioned the OECD report. Sharon Dowey has some questions about that.

I now turn to Willie Coffey, who, as I mentioned, is joining us remotely. Willie, the floor is yours.

We have a further series of questions covering the poverty gap and some of the funding aspects of that. Craig Hoy will begin on that.

My guess is that it probably will be after recess. I also thank Graeme Logan and Gayle Gorman for joining us online. I am sure that we will see you again at some point in the future.

Thank you very much. Without further ado, I invite Willie Coffey, who is joining us via videolink, to ask the first question.

It strikes me that the figures in the briefing are quite stark. In your introduction you mentioned that, for those who are imprisoned for a year or less, 49 per cent will be reconvicted within a year, whereas for those who are put on a community sentence, the reconviction rate is down to less than a third—30 per cent. We know that the balance between custodial sentences and community sentences has plateaued—that expression has been used already. A couple of years ago, the balance between community and custodial sentences was 59 per cent in favour of community sentences, which dropped to 55 per cent and then went back up to 59 per cent. Does the Scottish Government have a target that it wishes to reach in the balance between custodial sentences and community sentences?

I will now bring in Colin Beattie, who has a number of questions.

Thank you. If you come across any useful comparators where there is robust data, we would be interested to see that. I think that that might be a matter of public interest as well as being of interest to the Public Audit Committee.

Thank you very much indeed for your evidence this morning and for the report, which contains a clear analysis of where things are and what might need to change.

I thank Antony Clark and Nichola Williams, for joining us remotely, and the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, for being here with us at the committee.

I close the public part of today’s proceedings.

Our second agenda item is to look at the “Improving outcomes for young people through school education” report, which was produced earlier this year. This is an opportunity for us to speak to the accountable officer in the Scottish Government, Joe Griffin, whom I welcome this morning. I think that this is your first appearance before the committee.