Chamber and committees

I am happy to finish there.

If it is all going so swimmingly, why are people hanging up? Are they waiting for too long? Are the calls not being answered? Is there a lack of resource in the call centre? Is it anything to do with the centralisation of the service? What is the Government doing to get underneath the root of the problem? So many calls are being lost.

People phone not for the sake of it but because there is an issue. Often, they are unsure as to whether they should call 101 or 999. We are trying to alleviate pressure on 999 calls; clearly, that is the point of the 101 service. People are not phoning for fun. If they are hanging up, or simply not getting through to someone, that is a matter of concern. We all know of the grave repercussions when call handling goes wrong. We have had that debate in the Parliament many times.

What exactly has the Government done to find out why so many 101 calls are not being answered, and what exactly is being done to improve on that? Just a broad commitment that it will get better is probably not good enough.

—in how you manage Government and how you and your colleagues manage public services. I know that you are keen to divert attention to England and Wales, but I am not. This is the Scottish Parliament, it is a Scottish committee and you are the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans in Scotland. If we could keep our focus on the budget, that would be great.

People call the police because they are desperate. They phone for an ambulance and are told to wait for hours, so they phone for the police to take them to hospital. They phone the police because they have phoned local authority social work departments that are closed out of hours. They phone the police because other public services have let them down. That is why people call 101 when they should not do so—because they are desperate, and the police are the first and last point of contact.

We have heard evidence from numerous officers, and from the SPA and the Scottish Police Federation, that the police have become a catch-all service. That simply adds to the pressures, and it is directly down to a failure to deliver the other vital public services that people need in an emergency. What conversations have you had with your Cabinet colleagues about relieving those pressures on the police?

If the political direction of travel is to send fewer people to prison and offer alternatives, that policy will rely on the adequacy of those alternatives and on there being not just public faith but judicial faith and confidence in them. We have heard from sheriffs and judges who do not trust that those sentences will be carried out or delivered properly. Therefore, that leaves them with little alternative but to send people to prison. We cannot simply divert people from prison if there is nothing to divert them to; otherwise, we will absolutely lose public confidence in the service. Are you mindful of that as well?

Good afternoon to our guests. This was not going to be the question that I was going to ask, but, after listening to that last exchange, I think that it should be.

Given that local authorities have statutory duties to perform these functions, in another model where a centralised nationalised service provides that service either directly by employing people—and becomes an employer of choice—or through some form of tendering, outsourcing or even direct awarding to preferred suppliers through a national contract or otherwise, it sounds as though the end scenario might be some form of privatisation of services that are currently delivered by the public sector. That sounds great if you are just about to buy shares in a private company that profits from that type of service, but not so great for those who currently work in it. My first question, therefore, is whether that is a genuine risk or just a perceived one. Secondly, what representations will you be making next to the Scottish Government, given all the concerns that you have voiced today and previously? I will start with Unison and then ask COSLA and Social Work Scotland to respond briefly.

Clearly, however, the loss of 4,500 officers would have a stark effect on Police Scotland’s ability to perform not just its statutory duties but its basic functions. We heard that the police simply would not turn up to certain types of crime—low-level crime, as it is often called—and would respond only to the most serious of events, due simply to being short of bodies, or boots on the ground. Clearly, that will be of concern to the public.

Therefore, the issue that the Government faces is that it must either concede to the demands for pay rises or simply say that there is a cap on how much money is available and accept the consequences. Those consequences could be industrial action, as we have seen already, officers leaving the force or, indeed, firefighters and other public service workers looking elsewhere for employment. How will the Government approach those negotiations, given that it is under substantial pressure to concede to the demands of not just the unions but others, too?

Thank you. I just wanted to check.

It certainly does—it was a very honest answer. Anil, do you have any comments?

My direct question to you, though, is: does this feel like we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut? You have talked about weaknesses and strengths in the system, but would it not be better to address those weaknesses directly and get to the roots of some of the problems that social work and criminal justice social work face before introducing into the process a new tier of management that will inevitably take work from local authorities and then just give it back to them? It just seems like an unnecessary and cumbersome step in the process.