Chamber and committees

If you have any more information on that scheme, I kindly request that you write to us with any data that you have. I would find that really helpful, as we proceed with our post-legislative scrutiny.

It would be the Crown, not ministers. Okay—thank you.

That is also worrying.

Good morning. Some of you—perhaps all of you—sat through the previous session, so you will have heard some of the issues that were raised by the organisations that support victims of domestic abuse. I want to focus on the procedural issues about how we get from the point of someone reporting an incident through to a successful conviction, and the pathway that that incident will take.

My first question is an overarching one, and I ask it only to get a feel for your views. About 20 years ago, around 33,000 domestic abuse incidents were reported to the police in Scotland each year and, 20 years later, that number has almost doubled to 65,000. There has been a lot of conversation about whether that is good, bad or indifferent. There is a school of thought that, as a result of a series of education and public awareness campaigns and a shift in social concepts, people are more willing to report incidents today than they were two decades ago and that is good news. Equally, however, there could be concern that there is an increase in incidents.

That is the issue that I tried to raise with Dr Marsha Scott. Do you have a view on that? There has been a trend, and the number has been on the rise. There was a small decrease of 1 per cent last year but, overall, the number has been rising considerably, and especially during the past seven to eight years. Clearly, that is of concern to the committee and to those involved.

There is a dichotomy: we can analyse statistical data and take a view on that, but the anecdotal evidence, of which we have taken a lot, is equally important to us. I refer to a recent Women’s Aid blog, in which it is made clear that survivors of domestic abuse express

“significant concern that the investigation, prosecution and sentencing for domestic abuse offences, did not take account of the sustained level, severity, or impact of abuse they had experienced.”

It is very clear to many of us, through case work that we do, evidence that we hear in private and public and from the organisations that work with survivors, that many people in Scotland still feel really let down by the whole system. That is not to disparage the officers who deal with tier 1 reports, the advocates who pick up the cases or the judges considering the evidence before them—or indeed the juries if it comes to that. It is clear that the whole system is letting people down and they are not being supported. How do you respond to that criticism?

We look forward to that.

We have covered a lot of ground, but I want to pick up some issues that have not been touched on, one of which is the regional disparity that exists in the prevalence of domestic abuse in Scotland. According to our papers, areas such as Dundee, West Dunbartonshire and Glasgow city have a much higher rate per 10,000 of the population than other parts of the country. What more could be done from the point of view of education or policing, for example? Where do the problems lie? That might be a question for our academic friends in the room. I am slightly concerned that the west of Scotland, which I represent, is disproportionately affected. Why is there such regional disparity in the prevalence of domestic abuse cases?

Marsha, as you are online, I will come to you first, if that is all right.

Especially when people have had the guts to come forward, pick up the phone and make the call to the police, possibly for the first time, after years, only to find, at the end of a torturous three-year journey, that the perpetrator is given a community sentence or a fine, it is no wonder that so many feel let down by the system.

Is there a palpable sense of frustration in the police when officers are called out to households where there are repeat offenders whom they have seen before? Is there frustration that not enough is being done to support victims?

So, who would give the authorisation?

That is what I was trying to unearth: how successful the scheme here has been in comparison. We know that there is a sex offender register, but there is not a centralised domestic offender register, as such. However, there are other data sets that people can access through the scheme, which might be helpful.

So, that helpful safeguard exists.