Public Audit Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Official Report 475KB pdf

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Public Audit Committee Report

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“An overview of Scotland’s criminal justice system”

Agenda item two and a half is the convener’s apologies for not noting apologies at the start of the meeting. We have apologies from Tavish Scott, and from Mary Scanlon for being late—which she was only momentarily.

Item 3 is “An overview of Scotland’s criminal justice system”. We are indebted to our clerks, who have looked at and collated into a summary the responses to the committee’s report that have been received from the Scottish Government and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. We have to consider the responses and decide how to take things forward. I open the discussion up for colleagues to comment.

The Justice Committee, which Colin Keir and I sit on, received an identical response from the Government. That committee’s convener, Christine Grahame, is writing to the cabinet secretary for clarification. It might be worth discussing that with the clerks to avoid duplication. There were a number of identical responses to the recommendations, and there will be a long letter from the Justice Committee’s convener to the cabinet secretary, seeking clarifications and updates.

We can certainly discuss that, but it is incumbent on us to decide whether we want to seek further clarification, which is one of our options.

I would be interested in more information about the pilot project, which has run in a number of courts, including that in Airdrie. We have a meeting next week—

We do indeed—a visit to the Crown Office on Wednesday at 9 o’clock.

I am happy to take up the matter with the Crown Office then.

That is certainly a possibility.

I was pleased to read the response on community justice authorities and to find out about the plan to provide some kind of framework for assessing their performance. That is encouraging, because such a framework has been missing over the CJAs’ lifespan to date.

Mark Griffin mentioned the pilot scheme in Airdrie. That is helpful because, as members will recall, in some circumstances it is not known that prisoners are already in detention when they are called to court for another case. I am surprised that that situation has existed for so long, but it is good to know that the issue will shortly be ironed out.

I have looked at the response from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service on the victim and offender journeys, but I am not entirely clear that victims of crime are always informed about progress and outcomes at every stage. I can perhaps take that up as an individual member. My understanding is that victims are not routinely informed of outcomes, although I know that that has happened in several cases.

We can certainly ask about that on the visit to the Crown Office.

Yes—I will probably pick that up. That is the one issue that I was unclear about in the response, which was a good and substantial one.

One option that is open to us, which is a relatively new idea, is to identify issues that we would like to be included in the progress reports that the committee will receive. The next progress report is due a year from now, in 2013, which seems some way off, although I guess that some of the issues will not be addressed overnight.

It might be a reasonable approach for the committee to identify matters on which we would like to receive a progress report a year from now. One of them could well be how the victim journey is dealt with; another could be what progress there has been on the intermediate outcomes framework. That is just a suggestion for how we proceed.

That is a good idea. A lot is going on in the making justice work programme and frameworks are being developed, so that would be a good way to proceed.

Another point to note is that the Auditor General has programmed in a report on reducing reoffending, which obviously is relevant. As part of our work programme, we will consider the issues further.

Can members suggest any other items that we could or should ask to be included in the progress report?

To return to reoffending, one point that has arisen is that the reoffending rate in Scotland is significantly higher than the rate in England, although I believe that the gap has closed a little over the years. I am not sure whether we have ever really found out whether there is an underlying reason for that. Is there something that we are not doing or something that we are doing differently or wrongly? Are there lessons that we can learn?

Is there a way in which you would like that issue to be taken forward?

I suppose that the only people who would know about it would be the Scottish Prison Service and perhaps the Cabinet Secretary for Justice.

We could write and ask.

It would be interesting to know.

Well, let us write and ask them about that.

Would members like any other things to be included in the progress report?

We should keep a watching brief on the CJAs.

That is covered in the draft outcomes framework, is it not?

Yes.

I think that the same applies to the pilot project that you mentioned.

Another issue that we might want to keep an eye on is the reintegration of offenders. The CJAs will want to develop integration pathways, so it is worth keeping an eye on that.

We could ask for that to be included in the progress report, too.

That is what I would like. Many of the issues will come out in the second phase of the reducing reoffending programme.

That relates to the shared-needs screening tool that feeds into a community integration plan for each prisoner. We could ask for information on that to be included in the progress report.

Yes. These programmes have really sexy titles.

Absolutely.

Aside from asking that the various aspects that members have highlighted be covered in the next progress report, sending a letter to the Scottish Government on Mr Beattie’s point and contacting the Justice Committee about the further information that it seeks, is the committee content to note the responses?

Members indicated agreement.