Chamber and committees

Are we talking about things such as online abuse?

Yes. I just wanted clarification. Thank you.

Jamie Greene is right. This is exactly the sort of issue that we would have drilled into in the previous Justice Sub-Committee on Policing. We definitely need to set aside some time to try to get answers.

I want to put on record my delight that the not proven verdict will be abolished, as we heard yesterday. That is good news for victims, particularly of sexual crimes. It is a historic and radical change, but one that is long overdue.

The response basically tells us what we already knew, so I am not sure that it is helpful. What we were asking was whether the framework is the correct one. We were not saying that the national health service should not be involved; there needs to be more connections on a number of issues. The response is quite short and it basically tells us what we already know. It would be good to probe a wee bit further into how the arrangements could work better.

I have nothing to declare.

We know that this is not the first time that Police Scotland and the federation have had differing opinions. That is a regular occurrence.

The reality is that 440 of the 735 officers who have retired or are about to retire have 25 to 29 years’ service. They are perfectly entitled to retire. That is the situation; it is just the demographic. There is nothing that we can do to stop that because it is their right. Police Scotland says that it will try to recruit more than 300 probationers a quarter—I am sure that it will make every attempt to do that—and consider opportunities for transfer from across police forces so that people who do different functions could come into Police Scotland.

That is happening not only in Police Scotland but in many public services, such as the health service. We are at the point at which a lot of people with a lot of service are retiring. That is just the reality of the situation. I appreciate the concerns that members have expressed, but we should not hit the panic button, because Police Scotland will sort the matter out. People are perfectly entitled to take their pensions when they have done that length of service, and I do not think that anybody would deny them that.

Thank you. Finally—and you might not be able to answer this question—have you had any indication of when to expect the code of practice to be approved by ministers?

Is that an operational decision? Does Police Scotland have the capacity to do that, or have the police just decided not to?

Good morning, Dr Plastow. I want to pick up on the thread that Jamie Greene and Pauline McNeill have been following, but I also have another question on a different subject.

My first question relates to facial recognition. My colleague Fulton MacGregor will back me up here but, in the previous parliamentary session, the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing took a lot of evidence on facial recognition, particularly with regard to its accuracy. There were, for example, problems with the software recognising people from ethnic backgrounds.

However, I am now a bit confused. Can you clarify your comment to Jamie Greene about the police using retrospective images from previous custodies and so on? Was the new technology, on which the sub-committee took a lot of evidence, just never implemented? Are the police using it or not?