Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
I welcome Betty Bott, who is the project manager of the victim liaison office, and Dr Alastair Brown, who has become the most regular if not the predominant attendee at our committee meetings. I welcome both witnesses and thank them for taking the trouble to come along. I believe that you will make an introductory statement, Dr Brown.
Dr Alastair Brown (Crown Office):
Yes, convener. As I know that you have time pressures, I will take as little time as possible over my opening remarks. I am the deputy head of policy at the Crown Office and, as such, the departmental committee liaison officer. Betty Bott is, like me, a senior depute and is currently project manager of the victim liaison office. Each of us has more than 20 years' experience in prosecuting and in all aspects of the work of the service. However, I should point out that victim and witness issues have been a very significant theme in much of what Betty has done throughout her service, which means that she is particularly well placed to help the committee on such issues.
I read with much interest and some concern the Official Report of the evidence that the committee has received over the past three meetings. I am keen to make a short opening statement for two reasons. First, I want to flag up some issues that have arisen, although it is up to members whether they want to follow them up. Secondly, I want to put several points on record. We will obviously be happy to expand on any of my comments during questions, but I want to be quite concise in my opening remarks.
We accept that there is room for improvement in our relationship with victims and witnesses. The committee can read what we have to say on that subject on page 16 of our substantial written submission. Some of the evidence that the committee has received over the past three weeks or so suggests that the situation is improving, which is encouraging. We want to build on the practices and developments that have led up to that point.
Other evidence suggests that we have some way to go. Some evidence suggests that there is confusion about our role. For example, it is not the case that the prosecutor is the lawyer for the victim. I doubt whether it was a member of our service who suggested that. The prosecutor's role is to prosecute independently in the public interest. Undoubtedly, there is a relationship with the victim and with other witnesses, and there are duties associated with that. However, the relationship and duties are by no means the same as those in a solicitor-client relationship.
More fundamentally, some of the evidence about communication with victims and their families highlights the effect of different points of view on the whole process. First, it should be remembered that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is a single organisation. It is organised on the basis that the fiscal's office has the direct relationship with the victim because it is local and the fiscal is the link. The notion that some mentioned that the Crown Office High Court unit should communicate directly with the victim as well as the fiscal doing so would introduce the potential for confusion. It would also add to the already substantial burden on High Court unit staff.
Next, the fact that the victim does not find the information that we give them satisfactory does not necessarily mean that we could have given more. There was evidence about someone who was said to have been writing to the Crown Office monthly for eight years. A few of the files that I handle in the policy group are like that, although I am unable to identify particular cases. In cases like that with which I have been concerned, I have given full information. The correspondent is unwilling to accept either that I am telling him the truth or that the matter that he is seeking to raise is perhaps not an issue for the Lord Advocate and I cannot help him. There are issues of perspective involved.
In one case that I could identify, you were told that a particular letter, sent by a named person, had been dismissive and insulting. Having looked at that letter, I can say that it was four pages long, it gave individual answers to 13 questions, it was identical to a letter written by the Lord Advocate—
It would be helpful if you could tell us what letter you are talking about.
The letter that was said to have been sent by Susan Burns.
Thank you.
The letter was identical to the letter that was sent by the Lord Advocate to the MSP and the Lord Advocate is not dismissive or insulting to MSPs. I hope that that is your experience; it is certainly mine.
I know that the letter was written wholly in Susan Burns's own time. She devoted a whole Sunday to getting the information out. The point of view that sees fiscals as high-handed fails to take into account the commitment that many of our people give. A lot of the issue is about points of view. We have to recognise that what we do and achieve might not be what we are setting out to achieve. At the same time, that does not imply a certain attitude.
The letter contained some jargon, which has since been explained. Plain English in documents is desirable and the committee has heard evidence about that. However, it is worth pointing out that, in at least some of the documents that we send to witnesses, we are bound by the rules of court.
I think that I have said enough. Those are not all the issues that came up in evidence, but they are the ones on which I felt it important to comment. We are now at your service.
Thank you. Before I ask members to indicate whether they have a question, I will say that I was aware that you wanted a chance to reply to some of the evidence and that that was why we agreed to an introductory statement. For the record, the committee can tell what is witnesses' opinion. However, we felt that the inquiry would not have seemed real if the committee did not hear from individuals about their experience. We committed ourselves to drawing anything that seemed to be a general issue out of witnesses' evidence and we have said that we will not dwell on individual points.
I understand that and am grateful for that assurance. Frankly, I was concerned that a person had been named and criticised. I felt it important that the position was made clear on the record. I understand and appreciate the approach that the committee will take in relation to its report.
I am more than happy for you to have made that point. There is a point of principle in relation to fairness—if someone is named, someone should be able to reply on their behalf. You have done that and that is only fair. However, I must emphasise that what you heard was an individual's experience and we can draw whatever conclusions we want from that. The committee is not confused about the role of the Crown Office, although individual witnesses might be.
Indeed.
We put to the families the whole question of the independent nature of the Crown Office. The committee is quite clear about that.
I am sorry if I seemed to suggest that the committee was confused.
Okay. It is useful to get that out of the way. I assure you that we will be taking general points of principle from that evidence. We feel that we had a good session as some important issues came out of it. We pressed Victim Support Scotland quite hard on its recommendations for improvement. I have written to Victim Support Scotland asking for a more specific response on how practical some of the suggestions are. We support the general idea—as I know you do—that more should be done to provide information. I recognise that we are heading in that direction. However, I assure you that the committee has been quite hard on the witnesses in getting them to give more thought to how that could be done in our busy criminal justice system. We hope that that dialogue is about to begin.
I will follow it with great interest.
Dr Brown has brought to my mind a metaphysics course that I did at university many years ago. For a term, we studied Gilbert Ryle's book on perception and reality. I have often encapsulated this idea by saying that what matters is not what one does or thinks, but what people think that one does. That is something that we might do well to bear in mind.
The victim liaison office says that it provides victims and witnesses with specific and general information about criminal justice systems. What sort of information have you provided to date and what information have victims asked for that you have not been able to provide or it was not proper for you to provide?
Betty Bott (Crown Office):
I have brought with me the remit of the victim liaison office for the committee's interest—it is just one sheet of paper. At the moment, we provide case-specific information for the victims. For example, in a domestic violence case, where a woman—although it can be a man—has reported their partner and that partner has been taken into custody, the custody list would be available to the procurator fiscal and the victim liaison officer. It is the duty of the victim liaison officer to consult the procurator fiscal every morning, look over the list and find out what cases are victim liaison office cases. As soon as a referral is made and accepted by the victim liaison officer, the victim liaison office will begin procedures. The officer will find out whether the procurator fiscal intends to oppose bail and the general attitude towards the case.
When the victim liaison officer has collected the bail information on all the cases that he is involved in—from now on, I will use the word "he", although we have a male and a female victim liaison officer—he will go back to his office and prepare a piece of paper that specifies the cases in which he is interested. That piece of paper is faxed to the custody sergeant in the court, so that the sergeant is aware of the interest of the victim liaison officer. At the end of the hearing, the custody sergeant sends the victim liaison officer a fax detailing what has happened in court and includes a copy of the bail order—if the accused has been placed on bail.
The victim liaison officer writes by first-class post to the victim, advising them of what has happened and whether there was a plea of guilty or not guilty. If the plea was not guilty, they are told the dates of the trial and intermediate diet. They are informed whether it is an indictment matter and whether there is CFE—committal for further examination—or full committal. If there is a bail order, it is copied, minus the address of the accused, and sent to the victim with the letter, so that the victim is aware of the bail conditions and whether they are standard or special bail conditions.
In some areas, such as Grampian, the police have domestic abuse liaison officers, who prefer to contact the victims by telephone. We have not intervened with that arrangement. In those areas, we contact the domestic abuse liaison officer, who will probably telephone the victim. However, there have been occasions where the officers have been busy and have asked the victim liaison officer to make that phone call. There are no domestic abuse liaison officers in Strathclyde police; in Hamilton, if we have the phone number of the victim, we will try to phone. The victim will get a phone call, followed up by a letter by first-class post, including a copy of the bail order with the bail conditions.
In addition, the victim will receive our general leaflets, which say what services we provide and give contact addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. They also receive a copy of the agencies that we think would help them. For example, in a domestic abuse case, they will receive details of the local Victim Support Scotland and Women's Aid, other local voluntary agencies and, in Hamilton, the Eva project. For domestic abuse cases, we have a leaflet that explains that the Crown understands that domestic abuse is sometimes a difficult crime for the victim to report. Victims often feel unsupported and the leaflet offers support. We have general leaflets on domestic abuse, sexual assault, precognition and deaths. There is a draft leaflet on racial awareness. We have a number of leaflets giving general information. We send the victim the leaflet that we think is relevant to the crime that has been committed. That goes out in an initial letter.
We continue to give case-specific information—unless the victim says that they do not wish to receive that information—until the appeal stage. After conviction we say, "This is the result. If you wish to know about an appeal, please contact us." Otherwise, we give information at every stage of the criminal procedure. For example, in a custody case where an accused has pled not guilty, once we have told the victim about the intermediate diet and the trial diet, we get in touch to tell them what happened at the intermediate diet. At that stage, we give information about appearing as a witness. If the trial is adjourned or accelerated, we give information about that. If the accused pleads guilty at the intermediate diet—or at an adjourned or accelerated diet—we give that information. That is the case-specific information that we give in relation to the remit cases that we have, of which there are eight categories. The general information we give is according to the leaflets. We also give a lot of information over the telephone and information is received by phone and passed on.
It may interest the committee to know that the service extends to victims whether or not criminal proceedings are commenced by the procurator fiscal. If a case has been marked "No proceedings", it is part of the remit of the victim liaison officer to ensure that the victim knows that fact, which at the moment is passed on by the procurator fiscal and not by the victim liaison officer.
While I would not say that we are always able to give information that we are asked for, we give a vast amount of information. It is difficult to say what information we do not give that we are asked for. Generally, the initial letter generates a phone call and a lot of information is exchanged over the phone. Quite a lot of the process is to do with reassurance. I was acting as a victim liaison officer in Hamilton when one of my staff was on holiday and, in relation to a domestic abuse case, I sent out a letter to say that the accused had pled not guilty in his trial and to outline the current situation. The lady to whom I sent the letter phoned me to ask what the fact that he had pled not guilty meant. In conversation with her, it became clear that she did not know what those words meant. It was useful for me as a lawyer to learn that even the words "not guilty" are difficult to understand. She also wanted to know what his plea meant for her and whether she would have to give evidence and so on.
The lady asked whether the plea meant that her son would have to give evidence as he was the only other person who was present and, if he did have to do so, what could be done to help him give evidence. That example demonstrates that one letter with specific and general information about a case can provoke a request for a lot of information. The woman would have got that information later on, especially in relation to her son giving evidence, but being told early—the day after the accused had appeared in court—reassured her. She was glad to hear that the child would be supported in giving evidence, that there could be court visits and so on. My perception is that victims are assisted not only by getting information that they have never had before but by getting access to a dialogue that they have never had before. They can time that dialogue themselves.
I take from what you say that, although there is diversity in the way in which the initial contact is made with the victim—in Grampian, the domestic abuse officer does that and in Hamilton, a member of your staff does it—by and large, the victim is contacted by letter.
We always get in contact with the victim via a letter. Unlike Stewart Stevenson, I am not a metaphysicist, but I take the view that, if people are traumatised, they do not always take in what is said to them. A letter works as confirmation that can be read at the victim's leisure. It is better if everything is in writing. However, I also take the view that it is important for victims of crime to know what decisions are as soon as possible. Therefore, if we have their telephone number, we will try to pass information on by telephone.
I am conscious that we are a new service and that it would not be appropriate for us to stomp in big tackety boots over what is being done by a number of organisations, both statutory and voluntary. I have therefore tried to find out what relevant bodies exist in the various areas in which we operate and to work with them. It would not be appropriate for us to trample all over the strategy that is being worked on in Grampian, which has a domestic abuse liaison officer. Strathclyde does not have domestic abuse officers, so we make the phone calls. Grampian wants to make the phone calls, so, as we are confident that that contact is being made, we work with Grampian on that.
I am also keen for witnesses to know what a bail order says. If I rattle away to a victim about her husband's bail conditions, it is handy for her—or him, if the accused is female, which has been the case in a domestic abuse case in Hamilton—to have the bail conditions. A piece of paper that lists those conditions gives a certain reassurance.
There is a matter with which I suspect my colleagues might want to deal before going on to other matters. In what percentage of cases in which the initial response from you is by letter are subsequent responses by phone? In other words, how frequently do you establish a dialogue by conversation—by less formal means?
I cannot give you that information, because we do not hold such statistics at the moment—we are a new service.
Do you have a subjective feel for the percentage?
My perception is that the type of response depends on the case. Domestic abuse cases generate a lot of dialogue. I call cases involving children kiddie cases—I do not mean that as an insult to children, as I have dealt with such cases for about 14 years. We tend to have a high level of dialogue with kiddie cases and petition cases—which, of course, include murder cases. We have a lot of dialogue in death cases, too. Having said that, with some domestic abuse cases, we hear nothing at all. There are people who use the service a lot and there are people who do not take it up.
Perhaps I should go over the eight categories for members: victims in all serious cases, where the nature of the charges is indicative of solemn proceedings; the next of kin in cases involving deaths that are reported for consideration of criminal proceedings and fatal accident inquiries; the next of kin in all cases—including suicide and drug cases—that result in their being invited by the procurator fiscal to discuss the circumstances of death; victims in cases of domestic abuse; victims in cases with a racial aggravation or in which it is known to the procurator fiscal that the victim perceives the offence to be racially motivated; cases involving child witnesses; victims in cases involving sexual offences; and any other victim, next of kin or witness for whom the procurator fiscal and the victim liaison officer agree that, because of particular vulnerability, the provision of the service would be beneficial.
So we are talking about people who are vulnerable. Of course, the victim liaison office is at the start of the process. The categories that I listed are those on which we thought we would concentrate to begin with. Out of those, domestic abuse cases have the highest take-up rate and the highest level of dialogue. Next come kiddie cases, which are often sexual abuse cases—members can read a bit into that—followed by petition cases and cases involving next of kin.
Finally, you said specifically that you write to victims when there is to be no prosecution. It has come up that the Crown Office does not give reasons publicly for not proceeding. Does the victim liaison office give victims and potential witnesses such reasons?
The Lord Advocate has said in various speeches on the victim liaison office that people have a right to know what has happened in their case. Perhaps because of my procurator fiscal background—I have been a procurator fiscal for 24 years—I took the view that it is not appropriate for the victim liaison officer to advise victims of no proceedings. It is more appropriate for the procurator fiscal to do that.
My experience is that the victim wants to know first whether there are to be proceedings. Knowledge that there are to be no proceedings is hotly pursued by the question "Why?" It would not be appropriate for the victim liaison officer to give reasons. As project manager, I took the view that, in the category cases that I have outlined, we would ask the procurator fiscal to advise the victim that there are to be no proceedings and would offer our services at a meeting to facilitate any explanation that the procurator fiscal gives and the victim wishes for.
In my experience, procurators fiscal are generally fairly articulate. I hope that that is the experience of others. Victims are often not so articulate and, in any event, are overcome by their trauma and the questions that they want to ask. It is therefore useful for them to have someone present who understands what they want to know and who can help to articulate that for them in a forum that is not confrontational. The duty of the victim liaison officer is to be present at meetings at which a decision is notified to a victim. That victim may not be told of the reason for the decision, but is at least told that there are no proceedings. That is important.
I should say that, when the committee has time and examines the remit cases, it will see that they do not fall into a category of case in which there are a lot of no pro decisions. In cases on which a no pro decision is made, a procurator fiscal would make that decision carefully. In the time that we have been working, we have only had two instances in which a no pro decision has been taken in relation to category decisions. In each case, the procurator fiscal has written and offered a facilitating meeting.
When the procurator fiscal writes to offer such a meeting, we then write and say, "We understand that the procurator fiscal has written to you to advise you that the case is not proceeding any further. We offer our services as facilitators at any meeting that you might like to have." We have not been taken up on that offer, but we have made it. In death cases, we find that the next of kin take us up on facilitating meetings. We have on occasion been asked to attend to assist in information being given when the next of kin meet the procurator fiscal.
The committee might find it helpful to refer to the evidence that the Lord Advocate gave to the Justice 1 Committee on 5 December this year in the context of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill. In the course of that, in answer to a question that Donald Gorrie asked, the Lord Advocate set out his position on the giving of reasons for decisions to take no proceedings. I will not trouble the committee with the detail because it is in the Official Report, but he said that he believes that greater openness is desirable and:
"In very serious cases, we also try to explain the reasons for decisions to the complainer. We have done that for a long time in rape and sexual offences cases and are now doing it in murder cases."—[Official Report, Justice 1 Committee, 5 December 2001; c 2972.]
I do not want to suggest that that works uniformly well, but the Lord Advocate's position is set out in the report of that meeting and the committee may find reference to it helpful.
We would. That topic will be of interest to the committee in the course of its inquiry. Is the Crown Office's policy to give some kind of response automatically to victims or victims' families who ask for it? Is that systematic? Have you given any thought to that?
Do you mean specifically a response to a request for reasons for no proceedings?
Yes.
There are fairly clear instructions in the book of regulations about what one should do with such a request. The general rule is that reasons are not given. However, in specific cases, such as those that the Lord Advocate identified—cases of sexual assault and now murder cases—and also in many cases that involve children, substantially more information can be given. That is set out clearly in the book of regulations.
We expect that, in any case on which somebody has asked for reasons, the fiscal would at least reply to explain that the general policy is not to give reasons and to explain the kinds of considerations that go into a case. In the cases in which we have departed from that general policy, it is expected that the fiscal would give more detailed reasons. The circumstances of each case have to be considered. I have been involved in cases in which to give a full, or even an adequate, explanation to one victim will mean breaching the privacy of another victim. That has to be handled with great care. If I have not been the decision maker, I tend to fudge the issue by saying, "I cannot give the particular reason in this case, but if I had been making the decision, I would have been exercised about those sorts of things." A bit of sensitivity has to be used in each case.
The short answer is yes, we would expect a response when a request is made. However, as I tried to indicate in my opening statement, the response that we can give will not always satisfy the person who is asking. There are some cases in which that discrepancy is intractable.
It is appreciated that there are sensitivities and there has to be some discretion.
In relation to past practice, would you say that the Crown Office is going to make progress and give more people answers?
The Lord Advocate said:
"I am a believer in greater openness in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Greater insight into what we do and how we conduct our business would be helpful. The service has been damaged by recent events, and greater openness might help to restore confidence in it."—[Official Report, Justice 1 Committee, 5 December 2001; c 2970.]
As I read the Lord Advocate's evidence to the Justice 1 Committee, I think that we are moving in that direction. However, he did not articulate a general policy of giving reasons in all cases. He stopped short of that.
I appreciate that Colin Boyd has a commitment in so far as he has spoken to the Justice 1 Committee and the Justice 2 Committee about being more open. What concerns me is that it should not be up to individual personalities in the role of Lord Advocate to say whether the system should be more open. We are looking for a policy change at the Crown Office that would apply no matter who was in the post of Lord Advocate. I am not arguing with all that you have said about sensitivities, but we would not want there to be a situation in future where there is a different Lord Advocate and we go back to square one on the matter.
The former Justice and Home Affairs Committee received various petitions from murder victims' families who had been given the public interest as a reason for no proceedings. That is the bottom line and is not acceptable. To me, that is no information at all. I worry that, if the Crown Office does not have a specific policy, the situation could be changed at whim. There should certainly be a commitment that families in which someone has died should have more detailed reasons than "in the public interest".
I understand that, convener. So far as an issue not being in the public interest is concerned, we have now—at least in the prosecution code—expanded that and given a lot more detail about what kinds of issues that phrase covers. However, I recognise that that will still leave individual victims wondering what is meant in their particular case.
Where a general Crown Office policy is concerned, we need to remember that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is a civil service department. Ultimately, policy is made by the minister. To an audience such as the one we have today, that must be quite clear. That must mean that a change of minister in any department could mean a change of policy and one that could be radical. We, as civil servants, are not in a position to entrench a policy in such a way that, if we got a minister who disagreed with that policy, he or she could not change it. That is just the way the system is set up.
More positively, the current Lord Advocate has made his position clear and is setting that agenda. We will see change along the lines that he has indicated so far as he wants change. Once that happens, it will be rather difficult to move back from it. I am reasonably confident that we are not going to get into a situation in which a future Lord Advocate would take a view that was completely insensitive to victims' needs. However, I am ultimately in the hands of my political masters, as are all civil servants.
Perhaps we will debate some of those points another day.
I want to make the point that, in the past, we have not told people when there has not been any decision. There has already been a move forward because, in such cases, there is an agreement that the victims should be told at least that the case is proceeding in the sheriff summary district court by a means other than prosecution or that there will be no proceedings. My experience is that people have found that better. Victims are being told what the decision is in all victim liaison offices. The victims may not be given a reason for the decision—there may be reasons why they are not being given the reason—but at least they are being told the decision. That is a step forwards.
Are you in a position to tell us whether you believe that the victim notification scheme has been successful?
I am not in a position to tell you that. We have not been running very long and it is not something that we have been particularly involved in.
Who could help us with that?
I think that you are interested in those aspects of the scheme that involve, for example, the victim being told when someone is liberated on bail or from prison. The victim is invited to indicate whether they want to know whether someone is liberated from prison and it is not the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service that implements that—it is the Scottish Prison Service.
The Scottish Executive justice department might have information on how successful that has been. Information about whether someone has been liberated on bail is provided, but in the light of the evidence that the committee has heard, I would not dare say anything other than that success has been patchy. Sometimes we are able to get the information to the victim and sometimes we are unable to get information to the victim until after she has seen the accused in the street. Perhaps she was at work when he was released from court and we were unable to get in touch.
Under the pilot victim liaison office projects, the sending of a letter with a copy of the bail order should be an effective form of communication with the victim. That should also tell the victim the conditions of bail. I have read some of the evidence that you have heard and it seems that an absence of information about the limitations on the accused's behaviour has been an issue. There are pilot projects in two regions at the moment, but they are going to be rolled out. I hope that I can predict greater success in that.
As far as the two pilot projects are concerned, we provide not only information from the local court on a daily basis, but information from the bail court in Edinburgh. We have a similar system. It is not always easy for us to know that an accused person has applied for bail. In Hamilton and in Aberdeen, the sheriff clerks, with whom we have liaised, advise us immediately when an accused person who has already been remanded makes an application for bail. We then fax that information to the bail unit in the Crown Office in Edinburgh. After the bail court hearing, the bail unit faxes information to us immediately. We then follow the same procedures that we follow in the local court. If the victim is on the telephone, we telephone them so that they know. We follow up that contact with a letter and a copy of the bail order, which we get from the bail unit in Edinburgh.
We immediately tell the procurator fiscal's office—we find that, in practice, we often receive the information before the Procurator Fiscal Service does—and the police. In Aberdeen and Hamilton, a victim should know within a few hours, if they are on the telephone, and certainly within 24 hours if we have an address to which we can write. We share Alastair Brown's view that the last thing we want is for a victim to meet the accused in the supermarket.
In both locations, the system is working with, I hope, 100 per cent success. As I go from region to region, I try to ensure that the same arrangements are in place. I have had no difficulty with trying to do that. All the agencies with which I have liaised have been very positive about assisting us to get information to the victim as timeously as possible.
I have found it interesting to listen to your comments on the pilot schemes. There was to be a formal evaluation of those schemes. Has that evaluation been undertaken and, if so, when will the committee be able to see it?
We are talking about pilot schemes—the point of the schemes is to learn from them. The scheme in Aberdeen has been interrupted, if you like, because the victim liaison officer resigned from the service and returned to the social work department. From memory, we were without a victim liaison officer from the beginning of July until the middle of October. We kept the office going, but there was no official appointee. An interim evaluation of the Aberdeen office has been conducted, but it was agreed that that evaluation should stop, pending the appointment of a replacement victim liaison officer. The evaluation should recommence once that person has their feet under the table and the office is working again.
I keep talking about Aberdeen, but the committee will recollect that the service covers Aberdeen, Banff, Peterhead and Stonehaven—we are talking about a bigger area. I mention that because I like to think that our approach in Aberdeen has been fairly innovative and modern. The lady who has been appointed as the victim liaison officer was a serving police officer who was pregnant. Her baby was due around the time that she was to take up her appointment. She will now take up her appointment on 1 March. We then appointed a gentleman as an interim victim liaison officer to cover Aberdeen, Peterhead, Banff and Stonehaven until 1 March. Thereafter, the victim liaison officer will cover Aberdeen and Stonehaven and the interim victim liaison officer, who will have his office in Peterhead, will look after Peterhead, Banff and the islands. We have been fairly innovative, both in our choice of people and in the work that we are doing.
The Hamilton office has not been evaluated yet, but, as the project manager, I have been evaluating what happened in Aberdeen with my project team. We have taken the lessons that we learned in Aberdeen and put them into practice in Hamilton. The evaluation of the Hamilton office will commence once the final draft of the contract has been agreed. The same company that evaluated Aberdeen and which is involved in the feasibility study—Lambda Research and Consultancy Ltd—is going to do the Grampian and Hamilton evaluations.
I am sorry to hear about all the difficulties up in the north-east, but that is useful information. Clearly, the evaluation is being undertaken and is well under way, in particular in Hamilton. The "Scottish Strategy for Victims" document indicated that there should be a VLO in each region by spring 2002. Will that happen?
I am working in Glasgow and Kilmarnock at present. We have just completed the appointment of people for Glasgow and Kilmarnock and are waiting for them to take up their appointments. I understand that quite a few of them have done so. The accommodation is being prepared in Glasgow and Kilmarnock, so we are well ahead. I have started to liaise with the various statutory and voluntary agencies in those areas. I hope that the Glasgow and Kilmarnock offices will be up and running by the beginning of February.
I have noticed from some papers that I have read that the committee is interested in training. The committee will be reassured to know that before they take up their appointments, all victim liaison officers will have at least a fortnight's inductive training. I hope to do that training for the Kilmarnock and Glasgow staff in the first fortnight of February. I should say that all the voluntary agencies, and indeed the statutory agencies, will be invited, as they were in Aberdeen and Hamilton, to participate—to give the training, so that we learn about them, and to learn from us what we do. That invitation was taken up in Aberdeen and Hamilton, and I anticipate that it will be taken up in Glasgow and Kilmarnock.
As far as Edinburgh and Dundee are concerned, we have accommodation in both locations—in the fiscal's office in Edinburgh and in Dundee in accommodation adjacent to the fiscal's office, literally through the wall. We are going to make a hole through the wall so that they can run to and fro. Accommodation is a big thing. The pilots showed clearly that it is imperative for the victim liaison office to be co-located with the procurator fiscal's office. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Accommodation has been found, and plans are going ahead. We have not started recruiting yet; we will start in the new year. The director, as members know, has been appointed, and she will be taking up her appointment on 1 March. We will see what will happen.
My own view—and I must be candid with the committee—is that it will be the late spring when the Dundee and Edinburgh offices roll out, simply because getting together the Glasgow and Kilmarnock offices will be a huge piece of work. If I may explain, in the other offices we have just two people: a victim liaison officer and an assistant liaison officer. Getting them to work together has not been a difficulty—I mean difficulty not in the sense of a problem, but of a challenge.
In Glasgow, we have a team of eight victim liaison officers and two assistant victim liaison officers, who are from different disciplines. At the moment we have people from social work, voluntary agencies, the Procurator Fiscal Service and the police. Bringing all those people together and expecting them suddenly to work as a team is not realistic. To bind them together into a team and to train them to work at a completely new job will take quite a bit of time and concentrated tender loving care. That is what must be done, in my view, as the project manager. I have to get them together, get them to work as a team, get them to understand what they are doing and get the other agencies to understand what they are doing. Glasgow and Kilmarnock will delay things slightly.
Perhaps I am talking a bit out of turn, as I have not addressed a note to that effect to the Lord Advocate, but I think that, realistically, we will be talking about the late spring—although it will still be the spring—to get the offices in the six regions up and running. Of course, we will have an added office in Peterhead, for which we had not planned, but I am pleased about that. I was procurator fiscal in Inverness for 16 months and I appreciate the difficulties of working in Grampian and the Highlands and Islands. I am delighted that we have an additional office in Peterhead, where there will be a High Court. The Peterhead officer will try to do things for the islands on that side.
Unfortunately, we must stop at this point. We are encouraged by what we heard this morning, but we would like to know more. I suggest that, with the help of Dr Brown, we come to the Crown Office and discuss further the outstanding issues, analysing in more detail the evidence that we have had. Is that agreeable?
Certainly.
We need to get our heads round the victim notification scheme and who runs it, but we can do that in other ways.
I thank both of you. We are grateful that you took the trouble to come along. We appreciate that and we are encouraged by what we heard.
Thank you. As a regular attender who does not intend to be here again before the end of the year, I presume to offer the committee and its staff a merry Christmas.
We wish the same to you. Pass on to your Crown Office colleagues that we wish them all the best for Christmas and the new year. We look forward to your attendance again some time next year.
I am sure that that will happen.
I am conscious of the time, so I will speed through the remaining business. Members should let me know if I go too fast for them.