Official Report 196KB pdf
Item 2 concerns our previous interest in the prisoner escort and court custody services contract. Members should have a paper that has been prepared by the clerks, which lays out what has happened since our meetings and subsequent developments. I want to ascertain from the committee how it would like to proceed. The suggestion is that we await the report from the group led by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland or the report from the Auditor General, at which point the committee may wish to consider matters further.
The clerk's suggestion is the right one. All committee members have a considerable interest in this important issue, to which we want to give further careful consideration, but at the moment we do not have all the information that we require to be able to deliberate and make recommendations. We should wait until the Auditor General and ACPOS have reported, then we can consider whether we require to revisit the issue and take further evidence. We should definitely keep it on our agenda.
Do we have any idea when the reports are likely to be produced?
I am not sure that we do, mainly because they are outwith our control as they are under the control of external bodies.
I just wondered whether we had had any indication at all.
I have not received any information.
The ACPOS report was originally due during the summer, but that was extended. I believe that it is now with ministers—or it will be with them imminently—but we do not know when it will be published.
We should come back to the issue as soon as possible. It should not be delayed indefinitely.
If the committee desires, I can write to the Auditor General and to the Minister for Justice to ascertain whether there is any information on timescales.
That would be helpful.
On that basis, is the committee happy to proceed as outlined by Karen Whitefield?
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