“An overview of Scotland’s criminal justice system”
Item 2 is a section 23 report for the Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission entitled “An overview of Scotland’s criminal justice system”. The Auditor General, Robert Black, is accompanied by Angela Cullen, Sally Thompson and Miranda Alcock. I welcome all of them to the meeting.
Good morning. I echo the convener’s warm welcome to our friends from Kosovo, whom I had the great pleasure of meeting in Audit Scotland’s offices yesterday. We had a most interesting discussion. I hope that they enjoy their time in the Scottish Parliament.
Thank you, Mr Black. Will you clarify whether the £857 million spent on the criminal justice system excludes the cost of police?
It excludes most of the cost of the police service, not all of it. It includes elements of the police interacting with the court system, for example.
It is a staggering amount of money to keep our communities safe. Part of the problem that you identify is that, despite the large sums of money and although there are some examples of good practice, we are still making little progress in some areas.
It is difficult for me and my colleagues to give you any precise information on that because we are limited to what is in the audit report. However, we all know that repeat offenders have a range of needs, which we tried to capture in exhibit 10 on page 35. There are behavioural issues to do with attitudes to offending and lifestyle. There are emotional and mental health problems. There is serious abuse of dangerous substances. Those factors can all lead to problems with physical health. There can be difficult family circumstances, and housing and living arrangements might be difficult. Some neighbourhoods are more challenging than others and behavioural patterns among young people might be difficult to cope with. There are also issues to do with education, employment and training. In that exhibit, we try to capture all those factors, but we have not analysed them in detail. It is possible that, before long, Audit Scotland will examine repeat offending, given its importance to the system in Scotland.
A couple of points jump out from the report, such as the emphasis on inefficiencies in the system. For example, paragraph 30 on page 6 of the key messages summary report says that the IT systems that were developed for the individual criminal justice bodies are incompatible and there is poor sharing of information. There is obviously a cost to all that inefficiency, which is a theme that runs through the report. Page 7 of the key messages document highlights some of the costs of inefficiencies. There is a clear opportunity to create efficiencies in the system and save money that might be better invested in, for example, dealing with the unsatisfactory reoffending situation. Audit Scotland could look at certain aspects of this issue in a bit more depth and come up with some recommendations on how we might progress.
Returning to your comments about reoffending, convener, and the Auditor General’s observation that Audit Scotland could take another look at the issue, I note that paragraph 98 says that reoffending on release costs “£80,000 at today’s prices” and that, in an average year, 4,000—give or take—reoffend on release. Based on my rough mathematics, that comes to more than £300 million in a year or getting on for more than £1 billion over a parliamentary session. You make very good points about preventative spend, which we will no doubt hear more about in this afternoon’s statement on the spending review—and so we should, given that it is the right thing to do. Nevertheless, if my maths are even roughly right, does that not make paragraph 98 a damning indictment of what is going wrong at the moment?
That paragraph refers to a piece of work that was done for the United Kingdom in 2002, which makes it almost a decade old. We also make it clear in the report that neither the Scottish Government nor we have attempted to calculate the costs of reoffending to Scotland. These figures are simply an illustration of the amount of money that is involved, but I would say that your rough calculations are probably right.
Does that not make the case for the Government and Audit Scotland to take a pretty serious look at this issue? After all, if it is costing more than £1 billion over a parliamentary session, we must, as Mr Beattie rightly observed, be getting something pretty wrong. We are spending a lot of money on this that could be spent on many other things.
As the Auditor General mentioned earlier and as we say in the report, one of the purposes of overview reports is to allow us to identify other areas where we could carry out really good value-for-money audits. Reoffending and the inefficiencies that Mr Beattie mentioned are certainly two areas where we are considering carrying out further work. At this stage, we think that we can carry out both audits—although the first one will probably be on reducing reoffending as it raises a number of issues that we think we can examine.
In paragraph 101, you say that the
The team will provide more detail on that, but the short answer is that, for many years now—indeed, since the 1990s—that particular statistic has hovered around or gone slightly above 42 per cent. It is a persistent problem. The data in the report are about a year old, but I note that, a few weeks ago, the Scottish Government reported that the level has come down slightly, although the reduction is only very marginal against what has been a persistent trend around the 42 per cent mark.
It has been a trend that many Governments going back to pre-devolution have been dealing with for many years.
Yes.
Is it fair to say, then, that we simply have not grasped this problem?
The agencies are definitely trying to tackle it but, for the reasons that we discussed earlier and which we attempt to capture in exhibit 10, it is deep-seated and pervasive. I believe that Miranda Alcock has figures going back to 1999 and ask her to indicate just how persistent the problem has been.
For the two-yearly conviction rates, we take a cohort and check whether those in it have reoffended within two years. As the Auditor General pointed out, the levels have hovered between 42 and 45 per cent. Although they are therefore now at the lower end, in all the time the data have been collected the figures have never dipped below 40 per cent. Clearly, given the attempts over a number of years now to reduce reoffending, the problem is intractable. That is one of the reasons why we would be interested in looking in more detail at causes and the cost effectiveness of different interventions, to try to pull out where the money that is currently spent would be most effectively spent. We found that such information is lacking. A range of services across the country that are delivered by councils are purchased by community justice authorities. We need to look a bit further into how that money is spent.
That would be very welcome. I take Mr Black’s earlier observation that probably the last thing that we need is more legislation. However, the report makes a significant point in paragraph 107 about a legal requirement. You may not have considered this, but would the legal requirement to which you referred make any difference in this area at all?
Until we have done the study, we would not be able to comment on that.
When you looked at what you described as the intractable problem of reoffending, did you look for examples anywhere in Europe of success in reducing reoffending?
I will pass that question to the team who researched the issue.
For the report, we did not look in depth at any international comparisons. However, I think that we would try to do that if we did the more detailed performance audit.
The issue of reoffending rates is crucial. I note that case study 6 on page 38 discusses the Peterborough prison experiment in which a voluntary sector group is funded via social impact bonds to work with reoffenders. That is potentially a very interesting development, although it is at too early a stage for us to get results from it. However, if we are to tackle reoffending rates, we need much more innovative approaches than we have had up to now.
We still have to scope that. We referred to the Peterborough example in the report, so I think that we would pick up on alternative funding models. There may be others that we could investigate as well.
Unless anyone else wants to come in on reoffending, can I broaden this out, convener?
Does anyone want to comment on reoffending?
I realise that the overall figure for reoffending is about 44 per cent, but case study 5 on page 37 refers to the national statistics indicating that 47 per cent of women offenders return to prison. How significant is that? It means that the percentage of men who reoffend is lower than the percentage of women who do so. I realise that the audit may not have gone into that, but why do you think that is?
The average is 42 to 44 per cent, but the figure varies for younger people, for women and for older men released from prison, who are much less likely to reoffend. The statistics cover all that but, because the report is an overview, we did not go into that level of detail. However, the reoffending rates certainly vary according to someone’s age and gender, the number of years that they have spent in prison and the kind of sentence that they get. There is a range of variables. We would look at that in more detail if we did a detailed performance audit.
The differential between men and women seems quite significant. I would think that there is a explanation for that, although maybe not an easy one.
We have not undertaken any investigation into that. The Government has just established a commission on dealing with women offenders, which may do some further detailed work on that.
Let us return to the broader issue of the overall cost of the criminal justice system, which Mr Black touched on earlier. Page 19 of the report and the following pages detail the overall costs. You highlight the difficulties of the system being demand led and trying to manage demand. We are continually told that we have a 30-year record low crime rate, which I am sure is the case. Indeed, the statistics that you quote in paragraph 49 confirm that the number of cases being reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has fallen substantially. One would logically assume that the cost of criminal justice would be reduced if the number of offences were reduced, but that does not appear to be the case. Can you provide some background to that?
I will begin to answer that question and the team will help you more fully. It is a classic example of the numbers on the page asking more questions than they answer. In paragraph 49, we note that the number of recorded crimes and offences, the number of crimes and offences cleared up, the number of cases reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the number of cases registered for court fell, but the number of community sentences and the number of prison sentences increased. You stand back, as a citizen in Scotland, and wonder what is happening in the system. It is difficult to tell because it is complex and so many agencies are involved. There are issues to be addressed.
As the Auditor General said, some indicators of demand seem to be going down while some seem to be going up and we do not know why. There is evidence that the increasing complexity of some cases may have cost implications. For example, although the number of cases registered at courts has fallen, the number of sitting days has increased, and the Scottish Court Service says that that is because of the increasing complexity of cases. There are possible reasons for the rising costs, but we have not gone into them in huge detail.
That is an interesting answer. We all understand that there is increasing complexity because of scientific evidence such as DNA evidence, which requires much more money to be spent on the investigation of crime. Also, the complexity of crimes such as financial fraud means that trials can last a lot longer. It would be interesting if we could understand those issues better, as the contrast between a falling crime rate and rising costs requires further explanation.
The Scottish Government and criminal justice partners have a programme of work called making justice work that has various elements and strands, one of which focuses on improving how cases progress through the courts. That involves multi-agency meetings—all the bodies are getting together and are trying to understand the problems. They have identified a range of pieces of work on which they are starting, such as improving witness attendance at court and improving the use of IT, so that people do not necessarily have to move around. That work is at quite an early stage, but the issue seems to be the focus of the Scottish Government and criminal justice bodies.
On what timescale is that work operating?
The different strands have different timescales, but the hope is to achieve improvements by about 2013 or 2014.
Convener, we might want to follow up that work. The issue is huge and progress is years down the road.
I have a serious bout of man flu, so I ask people to bear with me as I croak out my questions, which relate somewhat to Mr Fraser’s point.
I will answer the first question. When we did the audit, the savings that the Government and criminal justice bodies hope to make from the making justice work programme had not been decided—the work was at too early a stage—but the bodies involved were looking to quantify how much they would save.
Do you guys have a mechanism for measuring what the impact of future efficiencies might be on community safety?
We do performance audit work and value-for-money studies. I will turn into an audit geek and say that the definition of a value-for-money study concerns examining the inputs, the process, the outputs and the outcomes. In a value-for-money audit, we would intend to consider all those issues. We would consider how much money it cost to achieve the outputs, the activity levels and the outcomes that a service delivered. In the current economic climate, we would also look at efficiency savings wherever we could. We would consider how much initiatives cost, how much they might save and the opportunity cost—whether the money could be spent on something else.
How do you weigh up the input and outcomes? If a report identified that £X million of savings could be made, but they might not reduce reoffending or might not have an impact on that, how would you weigh that up? Is your job simply to present the case?
Our job is to present the facts about the available options, on which decisions must be made. We would certainly try to highlight how much something had cost to deliver, whether savings could be made and whether a process had inefficiencies or productivity issues.
I suppose that that is what we are here for.
Page 24 of the main report refers to improving how cases go through the court system. I will follow on from what Murdo Fraser said. He is perhaps a classic example of how the legal profession takes so long to go through things—I thought that he would never get to the end of his question.
It is just as well that I am not charging by the hour.
Perhaps that is part of the reason why we are here.
Part and parcel of the making justice work programme, which the Scottish Government is doing with the criminal justice bodies, is about them trying to work together. Although they must have their different accountabilities and they must be independent in their decision making, they are interdependent in terms of process. Part of the making justice work programme is about trying to establish that ethos and to build a mutual understanding that if you do one thing, it means that I cannot do another thing, which impacts on the case. On page 27 of the report, there is a quote from a speech by the Lord President. He is Scotland’s most senior judge and he was very strong in saying that everybody in the system has a role to play to try to reduce the churn and the delays in the system, so that is also the Lord President’s take on the situation.
So, we are on a wing and a prayer at the moment. We hope that the legal profession wakes up and helps us out. You cannot answer that.
I will return to a point that Murdo Fraser made about inherent delays in the system, which my colleague George Adam also mentioned.
In the report, we have used some research that was done by the Scottish Government. People sat in court taking note of why a case was delayed and why churn happened. The most common reasons were that witnesses did not attend, the accused did not turn up or the procurator fiscal or the defence were not fully prepared. Some lack of full preparation could be because they have not met in advance. The system is complex, with so many things that can go wrong and so many ducks that must be in a row before a case progresses. There are many potential reasons for delays and, because this is an overview, we did not go beyond the top level.
I fully understand that and the point is worth making.
When we do the more detailed performance audit on reducing reoffending, a key part will be looking at what the CJAs have achieved since they were set up. Although there is not a separate body inspecting them, we will cover what they have been doing in the performance audit. We will look at it in a lot of detail.
Although there is no separate inspection body, we audit the CJAs and their final accounts and we could do value-for-money audits of them. As Miranda Alcock said, we intend to encompass inspection in a wider review of reducing reoffending and looking at performance, as well as at how much money the CJA is spending. We audit the CJAs and the Auditor General appoints the auditors.
One of the principal aims—which Tavish Scott introduced to the discussion—is to reduce and tackle reoffending. We must see some results over the next few years.
I was interested in case study 2 on police waiting time. Murdo Fraser touched on the time that is spent in a court setting before finding out that the case will not go anywhere because a plea has been accepted. I have experience of that: when I was 16, I attended court as a witness in an assault case. I sat around for almost half a day, waiting for the case to be heard, before being told that the guy had changed his plea. I was not complaining because I got a half day off school, but it struck me that there was a cost to the police and to the wider economy. People take time off work to appear as witnesses or to serve on juries. There will be a cumulative impact beyond the justice system.
On the first point, we acknowledge in paragraph 86 of the main report that there are wider costs, but we have not looked into them. It is not just about the cost to the economy, but about the inconvenience and stress that is caused to victims and witnesses when they turn up and do not know what is happening.
With regard to the current reforms, you are right to say that there is a lot going on, and—as we have highlighted—a lot has gone on over the past decade. We say in the report that it is too early to examine the switch to community payback orders. We would not have considered that issue in an overview anyway, but it is too early to tell whether the orders are making a difference or producing a different outcome to the sentences that they replaced. They may make a difference, but we do not know yet.
When we look at offending and reoffending, we focus on the justice input, but many other areas of public life and society have input, too. We need to keep an eye on things such as the education sector and the anti-poverty agenda, because those areas obviously have an impact.
Absolutely they do, and we acknowledge in the report that there are wider public sector costs, and there are contributions that certain areas make to reducing reoffending. We have not attempted to cost those, but you are right to mention the education sector. The health service also delivers many drug and alcohol treatment services that may contribute to preventing reoffending. However, our report is just a review of the criminal justice sector; it cannot affect the wider public sector.
I am interested in understanding where victims fit into the system. Paragraphs 22 to 26 discuss some of the issues relating to victims, but there is not an awful lot in the report. Is that because there is not an awful lot out there to measure?
You will get bored of hearing this, but because it is an overview report, we have just looked across the system. Our way in was to follow the public pound, and to identify the big areas of spend and what they are delivering.
I will come back to the victims issue, but on a related point, did you get any sense that the various agencies that are involved take seriously the economic impact that occurs outwith the justice system? The huge inefficiencies in how they operate affect other people, for example people who are not at work because they are sitting in court waiting rooms.
The agencies acknowledge that there is an impact when proceedings are delayed and there are long waiting times at court. They will seek to address that issue through the making justice work programme, from which they would expect to gain benefits such as less inconvenience and fewer lost working days for victims and witnesses.
There has not, however, necessarily been a great deal of work to measure that specifically. To return to victims, are there ways to involve them more in the process that would help us to address some of the inefficiencies? In other public services, we would regard such public interaction as a force for making the system more efficient—if people had to report on why the cases were dragging on for so long and why there were such long delays, there might be an incentive for those things not to exist.
The report makes the point that, although partnership working has improved, there is not much evidence of agencies getting user views which, as you say, would happen in other service areas.
We have expressed concerns about inefficiencies in the system and the financial impact of that. Paragraph 88 highlights the important point that, in a survey, only 38 per cent of adults were confident that the criminal justice system dealt with cases promptly and efficiently. Clearly, that is not a judgment on the outcomes, but it means that only a small minority had confidence in the way in which the system works. That is a concern, because we need people to have confidence in the court system. To me, regaining that confidence is another imperative that we should note in trying to improve efficiency.
That is more a statement than a question.
Although we have control over our justice system in Scotland, has any examination been done of efficiencies or inefficiencies in cross-border working? I am thinking of the UK Border Agency and anti-terrorism measures. To give an example from my experience, in travelling to Scotland’s airports, I have been stopped four or five times under schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. I have been through Home Office security and I regularly meet counterterrorism officials—as Mr Fraser did, I should say that I do so on a professional level. I have told them that it would save their time to have a simple note on their system saying that I am not a threat. I know of other people who have been stopped up to 20 times, so the savings would soon add up. However, the police say that they simply cannot do that, because their IT systems are not joined up to those south of the border, where the anti-terrorism unit is. Have such issues been considered?
Under our remit, we can look only at things that happen in Scotland and services that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. We did not look at cross-border issues or any of the UK agencies.
The issue is under Scottish control; there is a counterterrorism strategy. Although the UKBA is a UK body, some of its working is devolved to forces up here. There could be perceived inefficiencies in cross-border working.
Given that we are discussing an overview report, it would be unfair to ask Audit Scotland to comment specifically on such detailed issues. No doubt, if there is a further inquiry, that issue could be considered by the committee, but Audit Scotland cannot answer the question now.
I want to return to IT, which was mentioned earlier. I suspect that the problems will not be resolved by establishing compatible IT systems. Paragraph 31 in the summary report states that a third of prisoners who are called to court are already in prison, but the Procurator Fiscal Service does not know that, and the Scottish Prison Service does not know that they have been called. I suspect that, even if those bodies had compatible IT systems, they still would not know.
Yes—absolutely. The report picks up on the fact that there is an issue with incompatible IT systems, but also that sharing information is not as routine as it should be. The very busy exhibit 8 on page 25 of the main report tries to illustrate the complexities of sharing information. There are real gains to be had by moving to electronic exchange of information. We flag up the fact that only about 25 per cent of information is exchanged electronically, which means that a lot of paper-based transactions still take place. That has obvious inefficiencies and there are risks to do with loss of information. We need shared information and IT systems.
As Drew Smith mentioned, victims have to be given information from the beginning of the process to the end. I often find that victims are excluded from the process when they should be at the heart of it, in terms of information sharing. I hope that that is very much a part of the reforms that Sally Thompson mentioned.
As we have said numerous times, the report is an overview report. We have not made detailed recommendations because we did not have a strong enough evidence base. However, one of our recommendations is that there needs to be a significant improvement in how well victims and witnesses are supported and kept informed; we felt that we had enough evidence to at least say that, so we would expect some improvements to be made in that area.
I have a question that I forgot to ask earlier, when I was asking about interventions around reoffending. Paragraph 125 says that unsuccessful interventions in dealing with reoffending
I do not think so.
We found none that was as stark as that.
In the context of the £800 million or so that is being spent every year, and all the rest of it, something must be going wrong.
Yes. The funding goes to the individual bodies. Earlier in the report, we say that there is little information about unit cost. That is why we try to make the estimates.
That is why you made your earlier point about the need to consider the issue in more detail.
I am sure that we will return to this issue as a result of either this report or future reports. It is clear that, although huge amounts of money are spent on the criminal justice system—nearly £1 billion a year—the outcomes and successes are questionable and there is obvious scope for some improvements.