Chamber and committees

I have a supplementary question to that opening line of questioning. It is clear that you work in a very difficult area involving health, justice and prevention. To be frank, I dare say that some people would find the approach to be controversial. There is clearly a wider societal, moral and philosophical discussion about how to deal with people who have these kinds of thoughts or engage in such actions.

My understanding is that the National Crime Agency has given evidence in public that there are around 500,000 to 800,000, or possibly even 900,000, individuals who pose various degrees of risk to children. What sort of numbers do you deal with? I ask that because those numbers seem disproportionate to the number of people out there who could be helped. When I say that they could be helped, I am talking about those who have not committed a crime.

My understanding is that the instrument allows the Government to introduce its framework document, setting out the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s priorities and objectives, as it is required to do under the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005, following centralisation. The framework document was published and then subject to consultation, and a number of responses were received. It is unclear from our documents whether the priorities and objectives on which the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will be mandated to deliver are the same as those that were published prior to the consultation, or whether the framework document that sets out the objectives has been altered in any way as a result of responses to the consultation.

I am interested in that because some of the measures that had been suggested in relation to exploring new ways of working for the fire service were not entirely positively received by those who responded to the consultation. Has the Government reacted or responded to those responses by producing a document that is in line with the consultation feedback that it received? If it has not, the consultation was pointless. There is no Government minister here, given the nature of the instrument, but I would have asked that question of the Government had I been able to do so.

I apologise, convener, for my tardy arrival. The traffic has been unkind to me this morning.

I read the officers’ submissions last night. I was quite struck—in fact, I was very much saddened and quite distressed—by some of the anecdotes that they shared about the abuse that they have had to put up with and the effect on their own mental health, which I know we will come on to discuss.

For me, the theme that came out—and which I am keen to explore—is that, although we might have a conversation about whether more legislative powers are needed, it is abundantly clear that, more and more often, the police are being used as the first point of contact in the absence of other services being available, whether they be health or social care partners or the local authority. That might involve the police simply driving someone to hospital, spending hours on site trying to restrain or look after someone or dealing with a health emergency in a private environment where they have limited powers to intervene from a medical point of view.

I want to explore that further. Putting the legislative issue aside, can you say what further short to medium-term interventions the Government can make to alleviate the immediate burden that is resulting in so many police officers effectively having to become mental health workers instead of tackling crime? That question is for anyone who wishes to answer.

I have a basic question. Is it time for fundamental reform of how people access emergency services? That picks up on the point about 101 versus 999. I have gone through the experience of calling both numbers in the past month, and those experiences were vastly different from each other. The 999 call involved a medical emergency to which the police turned up because there was no ambulance, and the 101 call involved a police situation in which an ambulance that was not needed turned up—that was utterly bonkers.

Is it time for fundamental reform? Could we have a proper triage system that deals with non-urgent access to all emergency services and public services? Things could be properly triaged and filtered out to the appropriate public service, and that would be a 24/7 service, so there would be no need to fall back on the police. If so, who would need to lead the charge for that? Which minister in Government should we lobby for it, and—this is the most important question—which fund should resources for it come from?

I see that ACC Hawkins is smiling at me, so I will go to him first.

I have read some of the testimonies. Given that mental health hubs are pretty few and far between across the land, most people will be taken to accident and emergency or hospital in the first instance if harm is involved. There are stories of nurses having to ask the police to restrain people so that they can medically intervene.

What is your view on the role of the police in that environment versus that of the medical professional, whose job is to administer medication by whatever means possible? At what point are you asked to act as security guards and physically restrain someone who has become a danger to themselves? Indeed, there are examples in the evidence that I have read of officers and others being assaulted. When does the line get crossed?

Does anyone else want to answer? We are running out of time.

What is lacking, then? In your paper, you say that

“The key challenge ... is the lack of an overarching strategy to tackle online child sexual abuse”,

and that

“there is no government leadership with the issue straddling multiple government departments and Ministerial portfolios.”

In effect, what are you asking the Government to do? Would you say that the lack of take-up of your service is due to a lack of awareness among the community of those who might benefit from it or simply a fear of contacting you, because of what might happen thereafter if they pick up the phone or access a website?

I might come back with some questions later, convener.

Okay. I had lots of questions, but everyone has used up my time.

I will ask a slightly left-field question. Has there been a rise in vigilante behaviour from members of the public to try to—through online or physical approaches—capture, tackle or deal with predators, for want of a better word? Has there been a rise in people self-policing, in effect? If so, what has been done to tackle or prevent such activity?

Thank you. I realise that that is a slightly different area of questioning, but I wanted to raise the issue.

I have a final question for the NCA, which is about the complexity of the enforcement landscape. If an image is discovered on a site or through an app, whether we are talking about mobile or fixed-base internet service provider access, it is often not clear where responsibility lies with regard to escalation. Does it lie with the website operator or with the internet service provider? Is the process governed by Ofcom, the Internet Watch Foundation, ministers, the police or the NCA? That lack of clarity can be such that no action is taken. It is not always clear to the consumer how to escalate such a matter, other than by immediately reporting it in the first instance. If no action is taken thereafter, the path to escalation, whereby the ISP or the website can be held to account, is not obvious.

I appreciate that the issue crosses a range of policing and devolved and reserved matters, but could the pathway be tidied up a little more so that people know exactly who does what, who regulates what and what can and will be done if no one else takes action?