“Police Reform—Progress update 2013”
Are we scheduled to have a follow-up session with the board, the chief constable or the Government on the issue?
No, there is nothing scheduled, but we could invite them back if we wished. We can simply note the responses, request further oral or written evidence, refer the matter on to the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing or seek an update on any recommendations in the next Scottish Government progress report, which is due in May 2015. Those are the options that are open to us.
At the very least, we should have an update before May next year, which seems an awfully long time after the initial report was published. Is there an opportunity for us to have an update before then?
We could ask for a written response to Mary Scanlon’s question and an update on anything that has come out of the recommendations.
Is Audit Scotland not going to do a follow-up on police reform early next year?
I think that its next major piece of work will be on fire service reform.
We have a choice to make: do we wait until May, or do we ask for a more general update before then, which would embrace Mary Scanlon’s point? What would be the sensible and logical way for us to ask for that update, given the work that was undertaken—I was obviously not involved in it—and the process up to May or June last year? What timescale would enable enough progress to have been made for any evaluation to be of value to us in telling us whether sufficient progress has been made? If we wait until May 2015, that will have been a year. Should we ask, towards the end of the year, for a progress report at the beginning of the year, as a staging post?
Mary Scanlon has raised a specific issue. We could ask the Scottish Government or the Scottish Police Authority to get back to us by the end of the year on the detail of any progress that has been made by either of them. I would not want us to generate a series of responses for the sake of it. If we think that there is something for them to get back to us on, we should ask them to do that, but that is a judgment call for committee members.
We have covered the police quite well. We spent a lot of time on the report and took evidence from a lot of witnesses. My main concern is that fire and rescue services merged on the same day, yet we have done nothing on that. I would be happy if I could get an answer on the £25 million budget for ICT and perhaps a forward look at the SPA’s plans for next year. However—I know that I am being a bit previous, given the amount of work that the committee has in front of it—I would like to spend a bit of time on the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service when its plans are set out in February.
Does the committee agree to seek that specific information and to note the responses?
Members indicated agreement.
12:09 Meeting continued in private until 12:30.
Item 4 is consideration of a section 23 report, “Police Reform—Progress update 2013”. Responses from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Police Authority to the committee’s report “Report on Police Reform” have been circulated to members. Do members have any comments?
There seems to be an on-going issue with the information and communication technology system. In the capital plan for 2014-15, which we have discussed previously, there is an approved budget of £25 million for ICT. However, the spending to July is £802,000. Given that full-year forecast of £25 million, will the ICT system be fit for purpose in the near future? That seems to be the main issue.