Chamber and committees

So, even on a flat cash settlement, have you factored in a pay rise or not? Does the calculation include a percentage pay rise?

We asked in June. We are not asking something new.

I am happy with that.

To follow on from that point, there are different bits of the bill and the implementation will come at different periods. Obviously, there was a rush to get the bill through to deal with the issue of proxy purchase and supply. I am not entirely convinced that people understand what that is or what it means. For example, parents out there might be thinking about buying fireworks. Does it mean that they cannot use fireworks in their household or if their children are there?

We understand the more obvious problem that existed, and that the bill was trying to address. However, I am concerned that, although the practice becomes illegal in five days’ time, there has been no public awareness raising. That is despite calls for that in our report and throughout the process; indeed, amendments were lodged to try to push the Government to do that. I would need to go back and check the Official Report, but I think that we were given categoric reassurances, and I am pretty sure that the Minister for Community Safety asked us not to move some of those amendments on the premise that the Government would be robust in its public awareness-raising activities. However, I have not seen or heard anything on television or radio or in ambient media—there has been zero coverage. The worry is that people will carry on doing what they do and find themselves falling foul of the law, having not known that the measure is coming into play.

There are other aspects. The other side of the coin is that people might think that we also banned fireworks, which we did not. There has not been much awareness raising on what we actually passed into law and what is happening this year versus what is happening next year.

I ask the Government to reflect on that. We are going into recess, so we will not be able to look at it until after 10 October. We are also looking at the letter only today, just a few days before the implementation of the SSI, which is not ideal.

I am content with all that, but perhaps we could be more explicit about what we want the Government to say in its response. If not, we might just get another letter that says, “We note your concern; don’t worry, we’re dealing with it.” We could ask straightforward questions about the funding barriers, the legislative framework that might cause problems and the contractual arrangements—within reason, and without delving into commercial sensitivities. I trust that the clerks could come up with reasonable questions to which we could ask the Government to respond, one by one.

This is one of the items on our tracking radar of Government actions, and the letter says nothing that we did not already know. The cabinet secretary kicks off his second substantive paragraph with:

“As you will have appreciated from the previous correspondence”.

In other words, we are to expect repetition. He goes on to say:

“the matter is not ... straightforward”.

Well, we know that. We asked what the Government was doing to resolve the not-straightforward issues.

The cabinet secretary then lists a number of barriers to making a scheme happen but does not expand on them. He talks about

“existing contractual arrangements that are in place”.

What are they? He talks about

“the potential funding resource that could be required.”

How much would be required? He says that there is

“a wider question around the existing legislative framework, and the extent to which that might need to be amended.”

Which laws does he mean?

I see no plan for how the Government might deal with those barriers, if they exist. If the Government made a robust case that the barriers are onerous—for example, because the approach would cost £20 million and there is not enough money, or because we are locked into a contractual obligation for five years, which we cannot break—that would be a fair answer and I would hear the cabinet secretary out. However, what he said sounds wishy-washy and is not acceptable, given the scale of the fees that victims of quite horrific sexual offences are asked to pay. The tone of the cabinet secretary’s letter, if not the content, does not suggest to me that the cabinet secretary will look further into the matter any time soon.

I would like us to follow up the issues that the cabinet secretary raises in his second paragraph and get a bit more of a plan from the Government on how it will navigate its way through them and come back with a solution and timescale.

I just think that, if we write in generic terms to say that we are still watching the Government on the issue, we will get a generic response. If we ask specific questions, the Government can choose whether to respond to them, but at least we will be starting to delve into the barriers to progressing the issue.

The letter flags up two issues that we were already acutely aware of, one of which is the disparity of provision across the country. The processes seem to be very different, depending on which national health service board you are in and which prison you are leaving. I understand that that is a by-product of having different NHS boards. Since the responsibility for healthcare has passed from the Scottish Prison Service to NHS boards, it seems that we are left in a mishmash of a situation.

The second issue is much wider and is one that I have been acutely aware of since I came into the Parliament: the lack of digitisation of that type of process. People have a prescription that is generated by a specific pharmacy along with a handwritten letter to their general practitioner—if they have a GP—and some prisons then have to print GP10 forms, which are then signed by somebody, presented to somebody else and then taken to a chemist.

The whole process is quite complex, and given all the money that has been spent on national NHS data systems and content management systems, I cannot understand why the NHS, in conjunction with the SPS, cannot come up with something digital that actually works. That might involve rolling back or blurring the lines of responsibility, but surely they could work together. There are not millions of people in the prison population. I appreciate that it could not be done overnight for the wider population, but surely they could come up with a digitised solution that works for the prison population.

Those are my only two comments, and the letter lays that case open again. It is something that the committee has been aware of.

Good morning, minister and colleagues. I have a couple of quick questions. I appreciate that the SSI before us specifically concerns the payment of legal aid fees and the consequences of the pilot for that, but I want ask to ask about the pilot in a wider sense.

Would it be fair to say that the purpose of the pilot, or one of its potential outcomes, is to reduce the number of cases that proceed to a trial diet? What might be the benefits or consequences of that? I ask because it appears that it might encourage lawyers to sit in a smoke-filled room and do deals together rather than proceed cases to trial. Might we see an increase in the number of deals done in private meetings? There is already a feeling that there is a lack of transparency around what is discussed in those meetings and the outcomes that are delivered from them. The committee has heard numerous concerns from victims and victims’ organisations about the consequences of not being kept in the loop on such deals. What are the Government’s thoughts about the pilots and how they will be received?

Thank you. It answers it, partially. I can read between the lines of what you said about the current arrangement and why it may not necessarily benefit both parties to resolve cases in the way that is being suggested, rather than in the traditional fashion, but it still raises a flag about who it benefits most. You said that it benefits the accused, but surely we should not make any changes to the system that benefit anyone in particular; the system should be fair and transparent as appropriate. What are the parameters for the types of case that it would be appropriate to deal with in that way? If we move in that direction, would certain types of case be excluded, and who would make decisions on whether a case would be resolved in that more informal setting?

The policy notes state that

“No public consultation was carried out due to the technical nature of the proposed regulations,”

but I would say that this is not just a technical move but quite a substantial shift in how we try and clear the backlog of cases by dealing with them in a more efficient but, perhaps, less public way. Could you comment on that?

That is helpful.