Justice Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Official Report 552KB pdf

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Justice Sub-Committee on Policing

Under agenda item 5, we will consider a report back from the most recent meeting of the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing, on 15 December 2016, when it discussed a draft letter to the Justice Committee on financial planning for 2017-18 in relation to the police budget. I invite Mary Fee, the sub-committee convener, to report back. Following her verbal report, there will be an opportunity for brief comments or questions. If members wish the Justice Committee to consider any specific areas of work in more detail, that can be discussed under the work programme item, at this meeting or at a future meeting. I refer members to paper 6.

The Justice Sub-Committee on Policing met on 15 December 2016 and agreed the content of our letter to the Justice Committee on Police Scotland and the SPA’s financial planning for 2017-18.

A copy of the letter is included in today’s meeting papers. As members will see from the letter, we reached conclusions in relation to the following issues: the forecast overspend of £17.5 million for 2016-17; communicating effectively with staff about financial plans; achieving efficiency savings; tackling new and emerging crimes; undertaking non-criminal work, such as assisting those with health issues; and VAT liability.

I hope that the letter speaks for itself, but I am happy to address any questions or comments. The committee has previously agreed that the letter will be included as an annex to its report to the Finance and Constitution Committee on the 2017-18 draft budget.

Do members have any questions?

After our discussion at last week’s Justice Committee meeting about having more information, I thought that the letter was very useful and that it provided a good summary.

The minute of the sub-committee meeting, which was tabled today, includes a reference to a division that took place. For those of us who were not at that meeting, can I ask whether the division was about Margaret Mitchell asking for the amendment to be included, while the other six members did not want that amendment to be included? Did the members vote against it because that was not said? Why did they vote against it?

12:30  

Last week’s sub-committee meeting was held in private.

Anything that happened in private—

Is the letter private?

No. The letter is tabled and it will be on the website as an explanation of what came out of that meeting. Any discussions that took place were in private, so it would not be legitimate for Mary Fee to be questioned about them at this point.

What can we do with the minute, then?

The minute is a matter of record and that stands. We are now looking at whether there are any issues in the letter, or areas that the sub-committee looked at, which we might want to include for discussion later in our work programme—I suspect that there are.

The sub-committee’s work should absolutely feed into the work programme of the main committee, and the main committee should give consideration to whether it wishes to draw the sub-committee’s attention to matters that it wishes the sub-committee to address. After all, it is a sub-committee of the main committee.

I remind members that we formed the sub-committee so that the whole Justice Committee could be informed and have a view on policing issues, which are very important.

The sub-committee will meet on 12 January and we will look at our work programme then. If members have any issues that they think that we should look at in our work, I will be happy to be told about them.

There is an issue that I had wanted us to look at as a whole committee. If you are not setting your work programme until 12 January, do we have to wait to see what you will look into further?

There is still some dubiety about the i6 issue in the letter about the sub-committee meeting. The cabinet secretary said that the i6 and IT savings were not included in the large savings that Police Scotland has to make, yet the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents said that there were issues with that. Can the full Justice Committee look at that, or does the sub-committee plan to look at it?

We can consider anything that is in the letter under our work programme.

We should look at that, because—from the sub-committee’s letter—it seems that there were differing opinions about where the IT savings are allocated and about how much public money has been saved or spent.

That is noted. Is the committee content with that approach?

I do not know that there is the uncertainty that Douglas Ross suggests about that issue.

It is very important that the sub-committee is seen as being inclusive and that no members of the main committee feel disenfranchised. Equally, we need to avoid duplication. However, if we are making bids for the work programme—the work programme will be on the record, whereas our discussion about it will not be on the record, unfortunately—I would be very concerned if attention was not paid to surveillance and undercover policing, either by the substantive committee or by the sub-committee. There are almost daily revelations about the impact of surveillance and of undercover policing—there were further revelations yesterday—and there is widespread public concern about that issue. People who are legitimately pursuing issues about being deceived are very frustrated.

That is duly noted. As there are no other questions, we will move into private session. I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a relaxing festive period.

12:34 Meeting continued in private until 13:05.