Chamber and committees

You touched on the Allan Marshall case a couple of times. I do not know whether you have any reflections on this, but one of the things that struck me was that some of the recommendations of the fatal accident inquiry into Allan Marshall’s death were not implemented. Therefore, the fact that recommendations arise from an FAI does not necessarily mean that those will be agreed to in all cases by the Scottish Prison Service—and that is what happened in that case, was it not?

I want to place on record our thanks for your forthright evidence this morning, chief inspector. That has been very helpful to the committee in our consideration of the Audit Scotland report.

You mentioned correspondence that you had about the GEOAmey contract and some information that might be more up to date. If you are able to share that with us, that would also be extremely helpful.

That is great. Thank you very much indeed for your time and your evidence.

I will suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses.

May I take you back to an issue that you will be able to answer on, Auditor General? You mentioned, and the deputy convener asked you about, the economic leadership group, which is not yet in place. Who is it envisaged will be members of that? Is it an internal governmental powerhouse or does it draw on external business people, trade unions and economists, for example? What would it look like, if it was created?

Do you think that that is an operational matter? Is it not a human rights matter?

I will move on, but I will come back in later. I now invite Colin Beattie to put some questions to you.

Willie Coffey has some questions on Barlinnie and the estate.

If you want to do that, that would be helpful.

One of the themes in the Audit Scotland report is the importance of collaborative working. A lot of the challenges that have been described by you this morning are amplified in the Audit Scotland report. The risks that are faced by the prison system will only be solved, in the view of the Auditor General, by better collaborative working between the Scottish Prison Service, justice partners, the Scottish Government and so on. Do you have a view about how you think that collaborative working relationship should be?

Good.

Can I turn now to the vexed subject of the Scottish courts custody prisoner escorting services contract—SCCPES—which goes beyond simply escorting people backwards and forwards to court, does it not? It goes into health appointments and so on, which again you have alluded to.

When I was preparing for today, I read your annual report as a reference point. It came out in September 2023, and in it you covered some of your concerns about that. You said that there have been some “serious issues” with prison transport, which “remains a key concern.” It feels as though you have gone a bit further this morning, chief inspector; you said that it is truly shocking.