Justice Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Official Report 541KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (Support for Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2019 [Draft]

Item 2 is consideration of the draft Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (Support for Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2019, which is an affirmative instrument. I welcome the Minister for Community Safety, Ash Denham, and her officials from the Scottish Government. Lucy Lawson is a senior policy officer, and Katie McGarvey is a lawyer. I refer members to paper 1, which is a note by the clerk, and paper 2, which is a private paper.

I understand that the minister wants to make an opening statement

I thank the committee for inviting me to speak in support of this affirmative instrument, which will place appropriate adult services in Scotland on a statutory footing.

As the committee will be aware, the role of an appropriate adult is to facilitate communication between the police and vulnerable adults during police procedures. Appropriate adult services in Scotland have been delivered on a non-statutory basis since the early 1990s and they perform an essential function in the criminal justice system.

To ensure that those vital services remain sustainable, the Scottish Government included provisions relating to appropriate adults in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016, including enabling powers that have resulted in the regulations that the committee is considering today. Those regulations confer duties on local authorities to deliver appropriate adult services and provide training for practitioners. Local authorities currently carry out such functions on a non-statutory basis and so will be well placed to undertake them as part of the statutory service. The regulations also place a duty on the Care Inspectorate to assess the quality of provision of appropriate adult services. That will create a new level of quality assurance and ensure that appropriate adult support in every part of the country will be of a high standard.

The regulations will be underpinned by detailed guidance, to which local authorities must have regard. The Government has shared a draft of that guidance with the committee to assist it in its consideration of the regulations. The guidance will ensure that every local authority has a clear understanding of what is expected of it in discharging its functions. It will also help to ensure consistency in key aspects of provision across all local authority areas.

To support the introduction of the statutory duties, the Government is providing additional funding of £1 million per annum for local authorities. We have already allocated £500,000 in this financial year to assist local authorities in preparation for providing the statutory service. We have agreed additional funding of £180,000 per annum to assist the Care Inspectorate in undertaking the quality assessment function.

Appropriate adults play an important role in helping to safeguard the rights of vulnerable individuals in the criminal justice system. By supporting the regulations, the committee would ensure that this vital service continued to be delivered to a consistently high standard right across Scotland.

Thank you. Do members have questions for the minister?

Good morning, minister. I warmly welcome the statutory instrument and the provisions that you have just laid out.

You mentioned the additional funding that is being provided, including £1 million to local authorities. That is welcome. Can you reassure the committee that there is a mechanism in place to ensure that those resources will keep pace with changes in the cost of maintaining the provision and the training that is required?

As I said, we have allocated £500,000 to enable local authorities to make preparations but, in most cases, local authorities are already delivering the service, albeit on a non-statutory basis. We have agreed to provide funding of £1 million per annum for the next three years. After that time, the amount will be reviewed. I cannot give any more detail at the moment.

In a sense, the amount of funding that is provided will be subject to local authorities coming forward with a needs case for the costs over a three-year period.

Yes.

I have a similar line of questioning. The £1 million is to help local authorities. What will it cost local authorities to deliver the service in each year over the next three years?

We have estimated that it will cost around £1 million a year to deliver the service but, as I said, most local authorities are already delivering the service. We imagine that the demand will increase once we place a statutory duty on the police to use the service. An additional £1 million is being provided to local authorities to make sure that we have the service that we want. We want that service to be consistent across the country, and we will take steps on quality assurance to make sure that we have the quality that we expect.

As there are no more questions for the minister, we will move on to item 3, which is formal consideration of motion S5M-19844. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has considered and reported on the instrument and has no comment to make on it.

Once the motion has been moved, members will have an opportunity to have a formal debate, if necessary. I invite the minister to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That the Justice Committee recommends that the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (Support for Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2019 [draft] be approved.—[Ash Denham]

Motion agreed to.

I thank the minister and her officials for attending. I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a change of witnesses.

10:07 Meeting suspended.  

10:08 On resuming—