Justice 2 Committee, 04 Sep 2002
Meeting date: Wednesday, September 4, 2002
Official Report
266KB pdf
Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill
I reconvene the meeting and thank Bill Aitken for taking the chair for item 1. Item 2 is the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. For the summer, we planned several possible visits in relation to the bill. One visit that took place was to the challenging offending through support and intervention—CHOSI—which involves young offenders and which is run by Barnardo's Scotland. Bill Aitken was good enough to make that visit, on which I invite him to give us a brief report.
Accompanied by a clerk, I visited the CHOSI project in Motherwell on 22 August. We were met by Kelly Bayes, who has given evidence to the committee, and by Debbie Noble, who is in charge of the project. The first session took place with them and two representatives of North Lanarkshire Council's social work department. The North Lanarkshire and CHOSI representatives dealt with ways in which they interrelated and the services that CHOSI offers to offenders and children who are at risk.
After that session and other discussions with staff, we met two of CHOSI's clients and representatives of the local children's panels. I found the visit interesting and I was extremely impressed by the dedication and commitment that was shown by those who are involved. The children's panel representatives seemed very supportive of the project.
Nonetheless, it was difficult to get to grips with the approach to dealing with young offenders. There seemed to be a fairly informal and relaxed attitude towards attendance at the project and I was not convinced that the project brings home to youngsters the seriousness and possible consequences of their actions. There seemed to be a great deal of talk and much counselling, but I was not totally satisfied that the figures projected for success are as they seem to be. The total cost of the project is £184,221 per annum, 70 per cent of which is obtained from the local authority. Some 30 youngsters are worked with at a time, which means a net cost per offender of £6,000. CHOSI points out that that is significantly less than the cost of secure accommodation or custody generally. However, bearing in mind the fact that seven members of staff are employed in dealing with those youngsters, it appears to be a fairly labour-intensive process.
The two offenders whom we met were quite different in temperament and outlook. One youngster was extremely outgoing, but he was on a methadone course and seemed genuinely uncertain of his future. The other, who attended with his partner who had given birth the day before, was a quite different personality. Unlike his colleague, he was unable to demonstrate ways in which he felt that CHOSI had benefited him. It was an interesting visit, and some of the ideas that CHOSI put forward are not without merit. However, my view is that that type of project works in certain cases only and I do not regard it as the type of project that could be applied in the majority of cases.
For the record, I thank the staff of CHOSI, who were exceptionally helpful and welcoming. I wish them all the best for the future.
Thank you for that concise report. Do members have any brief questions?
No.
I remind members that if they want to visit a similar project, we can arrange that. We hoped also to visit Reliance Monitoring Services at East Kilbride, which is the electronic tagging centre, but no one was available on the same day. We still propose to go ahead with such a visit, as it is important that committee members see how electronic tagging works. Quite a large part of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill deals with electronic tagging.