Chamber and committees

A number of Working Groups have been set up to support and inform the Lady Dorrian Review Governance Group on specific areas or aspects of the recommendations, share accountability and ownership of action, and encourage stakeholders and organisations to work together.

In the context of broader terms of reference to support the Governance Group, the Single Judge Trial Pilot Working Group has been set up specifically to:

• Identify the key areas for development in order to make recommendations to the Governance Group on how to progress the consideration of a pilot. This may include aspects of feasibility and potential challenges (legal and other) of a pilot;
• Identify what other information, research, evidence may be needed to assist the consideration of the issues arising from the recommendation and any pilot;
• Consider how the progress, consideration and evaluation planned in relation to recommendation 5 and ‘steps to enhancing the quality of jury involvement’ might impact on the scope of any planned pilot.
• Identify policy and operational development required to further the consideration of a pilot and key opportunities/challenges to building consensus given the division of the Review Group;
• Consider what might be included within a public consultation document to gather views on the recommendation;
• Look at any other issues relevant to its considerations;
• Consider the implications of progressing of this recommendation in light of the work on the other recommendations within the Report, bearing in mind the independence of certain recommendations identified in the Report.

The Working Group is expected to report its findings to the Lady Dorrian Review Governance Group in Autumn 2022.

The review, Improving the Management of Sexual Offence Cases , led by the Lord Justice Clerk, Lady Dorrian, developed proposals for an improved system to deal with serious sexual offence cases, including recommending consideration of a time-limited pilot of single judge rape trials. We have committed to give careful consideration to all of the Review’s recommendations.

We have established a Governance Group to further explore the recommendations on an individual and collective basis. The Group established a short-life working group to consider the specific issues involved in any potential pilot of single judge rape trials. In addition, we launched a consultation on 12 May to gather wider views on the recommendation and other proposals to improve victims’ experiences of the justice system. Decisions on whether to proceed with legislation to implement a pilot will be informed by the outcomes of the working group and the consultation.

In addition to the Scottish Government, the working group includes representation from the following organisations:

• Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
• Faculty of Advocates
• Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
• Victims Support Scotland
• Scottish Legal Aid Board
• Rape Crisis Scotland
• Law Society of Scotland

The Scottish Government is committed to developing a new Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy that takes a whole system, public health approach to achieve the very highest standards of care right up to the end of life, and ensure that everyone who needs it can access seamless, timely and high quality palliative care. We are currently taking stock of the leadership, resources and partnerships we need to deliver this.

We will continue to plan a series of engagement events with partners across the sector to think strategically about improvements and priorities across the wide range of services and support. This will contribute to a holistic, integrated and multi-disciplinary approach which will ensure access to palliative and end of life care wherever and whenever it is needed, and which has the person and their families and carers at the centre. Development of the strategy is likely to continue into 2023 to enable meaningful engagement and ensure alignment with the development of the National Care Service.

Everyone needs a safe, warm place to call home, but I know that news of energy price rises will cause many people to worry about their fuel bills. My foremost concern is for households who are affected by these price rises, particularly those who are in or at risk of fuel poverty.

I also know that many energy consumers have seen their direct debit payments increase during this time, some to an excessive degree based on their usage. Unfortunately, regulation in the gas and electricity supply markets remains reserved to the UK Government meaning the Scottish Government’s potential actions are limited.

Within this context we have remained in contact with the UK Government and the energy regulator, Ofgem to raise the concerns of Scottish consumers in light of the large scale changes we are seeing in the energy market.

The various review strands are continuing to make progress. The review work will be proportionate and will be led by what is being found in the initial phases.

Review of Open Cases

Users of the system were asked to review their caseload of open cases, to look at prevalence of the risk scoring/level issue or the alcohol/drugs scoring issue. The Scottish Government have now completed that user led review of the nearly 12,000 cases that social work recognise as their open caseload on the system. Based on the responses by social work practitioners, they did not identify any immediate public protection risks related to these two scoring issues. The open cases review did substantiate that there are cases where the risk scoring levels have not matched. All the cases with the risk scoring error are also being reviewed by the Risk Management Authority (the RMA) as part of their determination of whether there was any material impact on the management of the case as a result of the scoring error.

The open cases review was also an opportunity for social work to identify any wider prevalence of the errors or any new system issues in respect of system functionality. There were not any new errors related to scoring identified through this route.

The open cases review identified some practice issues, around cases not being timeously closed on the system. Therefore, we are undertaking a further phase of this exercise to ensure that closed cases or cases in the process of being closed are indeed closed off on the system, and returns are completed for us on those. That work is likely to conclude in mid-August. Once that phase of work has been completed we will be able to provide a final picture of cases where either the risk scoring or the drugs/alcohol scoring issue (or both) were present. Those details will be cross checked against the RMA lists of affected cases, to consider if these need to be added into the RMA review of any material impact on the management of the case. Our expectation at the moment is that the open case review findings will largely tally with the RMA lists, but we cannot confirm that until the open case review process fully concludes for those cases needing closed off on the system.

The open cases review also provided an opportunity for social work to check and if necessary amend any entries that were not correct on the system. This work on amending individual cases was a key part of the work needed before the system can be brought back into operation. In the meantime, users of the system continue to make use of the paper based version of the process where LS/CMI is needed.

RMA led review work

The group continues to meet and will report on all phases. This will include recommendations and an action plan, to be communicated to Ministers and the Justice Committee. It is anticipated an update on the first phases of the review will be provided in August 2022 with all work now scheduled for completion by the end of October 2022. These timescales will be reviewed at each stage.

Phase 1

As previously reported to the Justice Committee by letter on 12 May 2022, phase one of the review is complete, which significantly reduced the number of cases that required further review.

Phase 2

Phase two commenced on 4 May 2022 and has involved Social Work, Scottish Prison Service, Parole Board for Scotland and MAPPA coordinators considering the material impact of how cases were handled. The timescale for this review was extended to allow for robust validation to be undertaken by agencies. There has been substantial collaboration by partners in order to provide returns and the RMA will be reviewing these in order that the LS/CMI review group can consider the outcome of the first two phases by August 2022. At this point the review group has agreed to review its terms of reference and provide interim findings.

Phase 3

The RMA, Care Inspectorate and HMIPS continue to develop the methodology and focus of the external validation which will provide assurance on each stage of the review. Subject to the outcome of phase two, this work is scheduled to commence in August 2022 and the review is expected to conclude in October 2022.

LS/CMI IT system

The Scottish Government appointed a third party provider to work alongside the managed service provider for the LS/CMI system. This was for the purpose of conducting an end-to-end review of the LS/CMI system prior to any re-introduction for use. The Discovery phase of that work is now largely complete, with areas of dysfunction within the system identified that we believe have led to the known scoring issues. This process has resulted in the production of a detailed functional specification of the system, along with updated user guides. It is likely that going forward, resuming use of the system will require some technical fixes, as well as some training and practice improvements. What will follow is a stage of triaging and remediation, to prioritise what will be done and applying the fixes.

The Scottish Government have also been in the process of tendering for a managed service provider for this system. This process pre-dated the discovery of the IT errors, and it was delayed as a result of the errors being found. Following announcement of the outcome of that process, it is likely that any triaging and remediation of the system will be conducted under the new contractual period, which, on current planning would likely begin in August.

While the review work has taken longer than originally envisaged, it is being conducted thoroughly, and with positive engagement from justice partners as these review demands are being managed on top of existing workloads.

The Guidance on due diligence: human rights for investment sets out recommendations on how we, our executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) should undertake appropriate due diligence on companies, including their human rights record, before entering into an investment relationship with them. This advice aims to enhance existing due diligence checks, and is referenced in the Scottish Public Finance Manual. The majority of private investment relationships are entered into, and managed, by Scottish Government agencies and NDPBs. It is for the accountable officer of each agency and NDPB to ensure that their organisation complies with guidance issued by Scottish Ministers. The Scottish Government does not maintain a record of the number of checks carried out.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09421 on 23 June 2022. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Resource Spending Review provides the broad financial parameters for portfolios over the four-year period. The Scottish Government will collaborate with the Scottish Funding Council and tertiary education sector stakeholders to develop more detailed financial and organisational planning ahead of the next Budget in Winter 2022.