Public Audit Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Official Report 599KB pdf

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Section 23 Report

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“Reducing reoffending in Scotland”

We are about half an hour behind schedule, so we need to try to make progress. We have an important session ahead of us, which will also be quite long, because we will hear from two panels of witnesses. I welcome the Auditor General for Scotland and Miranda Alcock and Kirsty Whyte, from Audit Scotland. I invite the Auditor General to speak to the report.

Thank you, convener. I will keep it brief, in view of your time constraints.

My remarks were not aimed at you. They were aimed at my colleagues on the committee—and at me.

It was a useful reminder, anyway.

The report considers the efficiency and effectiveness of approaches to reducing reoffending in Scotland. It follows on from the publication in September last year of “An overview of Scotland’s criminal justice system”. Members will remember that the committee took evidence on that report and asked Audit Scotland to consider a number of audit issues when we carried out the performance audit that we are considering. For easy reference, we summarised the issues in appendix 1 of the report, on pages 36 and 37.

11:00

I will focus briefly on the extent of the problem, on how much is spent on reducing reoffending and what we are getting for that spend, and on the effectiveness of the current arrangements.

As we highlighted in the overview report, reoffending is a continuing problem in Scotland that has a serious effect on communities, the economy and offenders themselves. Reconviction rates have remained relatively static in recent years: 30 per cent of people who were convicted in 2009-10 were reconvicted within a year, compared with 32 per cent of people convicted in 1997-98. The pattern is similar for people who were reconvicted within two years of their first conviction. Equally significant, in 2010-11, more than one in five people convicted—some 9,500 people—had 10 or more previous convictions.

The Scottish Prison Service, community justice authorities and the Scottish Government spent an estimated £128 million on reducing reoffending in 2010-11, which is less than a third of the £419 million that the bodies spent on dealing with people who were convicted in court.

There is a strong body of evidence on what works in reducing reoffending. The Scottish Government has made progress by publishing a directory that pulls together information about all the services that are provided for offenders, in prison and in the community. However, we found a mismatch between the services that are provided and what we know works in tackling reoffending. We also found that access to and availability of services varies significantly across Scotland. In particular, support for people who are serving short prison sentences needs to improve.

There is a particular challenge to the effectiveness of the current arrangements in that many bodies are involved in working with offenders, including the Scottish Prison Service, community justice authorities, the police, the Crown Office, the Scottish Court Service, the national health service and more than 100 voluntary and community organisations, together with sheriffs and procurators fiscal. That makes for a complex landscape to manage.

The eight community justice authorities were set up in 2007 to improve joint working and reduce reoffending. They have been successful in bringing people together, but the way in which they were set up and inflexible funding arrangements have limited their effectiveness. The funding for community justice services is particularly inflexible and does not encourage reductions in reoffending. Only a small amount is available for local discretion and the funding is based largely on historical activity.

More generally, the criminal justice system is demand led, and demand for services to reduce reoffending is increasing, with more people in prison and more community sentences being imposed. It is therefore even more important that what is spent is used effectively.

The report makes a number of recommendations for the Scottish Government and criminal justice bodies. In particular, we recommend that there should be a fundamental review of how offenders are managed in the community. We also recommend that there should be improvements in how community justice services are funded, how performance is measured and how services for offenders are planned, designed and managed.

My colleagues and I will be happy to answer questions that the committee might have.

Thank you. I told colleagues to keep their contributions brief, so I will try to do so myself.

CJAs were set up some time ago—was it 2005?—by a previous Administration, so they have been in place for some seven years. However, a key message of the report, on page 30, is that CJAs

“have had little impact on reducing reoffending.”

That is worrying. Moreover, in paragraph 118, you go on to say:

“the effectiveness of CJAs in reducing reoffending locally has never been systematically assessed.”

Whose fault is that? Who should have been assessing the CJAs? Surely Audit Scotland in its role with the Accounts Commission has a part to play in assessing the performance of local authority bodies such as CJAs. Is it Audit Scotland’s fault, the Accounts Commission’s fault or the Scottish Government’s fault? Whose fault is it that we do not know how effective the CJAs have been?

The CJAs were set up in 2007 and we think that their effectiveness has been limited by the way in which they were set up and their funding arrangements. Miranda Alcock will say more about the way in which that has had an impact.

We have provided an assessment in this report, but more generally we think that the Scottish Government has the role of putting in place, for any new policy, a clear set of arrangements for evaluating how effective the policy has been at an appropriate point in time.

I should clarify that the CJAs are not local government bodies but independent bodies, accountable to ministers, so in effect it is up to the relevant minister to assess their performance. That is who CJAs are accountable to. There is quite often a misconception that, because the boards are made up of elected councillors from constituent councils, the CJAs are a type of local government body, but they are not a local authority body. Auditors appointed by Audit Scotland audit their financial accounts, but for that purpose the CJAs are very small bodies compared with the big public bodies and their big budgets. The report looks in detail at the CJAs’ performance and how they have achieved what they were set up on a statutory basis to do, and what their aims and objectives were. As Caroline Gardner said, we think that CJAs have been constrained in how they could achieve the objectives that, ultimately, they were set up to fulfil.

The recommendation is very clear that the Government should allow the CJAs more flexibility on local funding to suit local priorities. Can you elaborate on that by explaining how much further you think that the funding balance should shift from a centralised system to one that allows the CJAs to get on with the job in their areas and do what they think is appropriate to meet the reducing reoffending targets?

As you will see in the report, the amount of money that the community justice authorities have to spend is relatively small. They spend that by allocating it to the local authorities within their area for criminal justice social work services of various sorts, but the amount of discretion over what that is spent on is further broken down by the core discretionary and non-discretionary elements that they have to spend. We think that aggregating some of that back up again, looking at the formulae by which the funding is allocated and looking, across Scotland, at the ways in which the needs of offenders can be assessed and matched to the services that we know have an impact—things such as family and relationship support or money and debt management—would be likely to have a greater impact than the current situation, in which the funding can sometimes appear to be spent in quite piecemeal ways that are driven by historical formulae rather than the needs of offenders now and where they are currently based.

Is Audit Scotland really saying that the system needs to be completely revisited and—as the CJAs make clear in their submission to the committee—that we need to sweep away the prescriptive system from the centre, sweep away all the controls on virements and all the rest of it and let the CJAs judge locally, in those eight areas, how they should meet the reoffending targets by coming up with local solutions to local problems?

We do not recommend that we sweep away all the directions and criteria that are in place, but we recommend a fundamental review of the way in which offenders are managed in the community. That seems to us an important issue that is constrained by the funding arrangements that are in place. Again, Miranda Alcock may be able to add to that.

The money is ring-fenced money that comes from the Government, and it is important to understand that there has to be some reflection of workload and demand. There has to be something additional that also recognises and encourages the successful services that will reduce reoffending among particular individuals in the local areas.

It is not just one thing that needs to change; in fact, quite a bit needs to change if we are to come to an understanding and develop services that take a holistic approach and are designed around individual offenders’ needs. Although those services are being developed, the funding prescription has been quite constraining about what can be developed locally. For example, if there is a big initiative or a particular problem with a particular type of offender in a particular area, the flexibility to meet such demand has been limited.

I agree, but I want to know what a better balance might be. It might be unfair to ask it to do so, but Audit Scotland makes no precise comment with regard to its recommendation that there be

“more flexibility to meet local needs and priorities”.

How does the committee judge the balance in this respect? Do we simply leave it up to the minister, if he so wishes, to come up with a new plan?

As part of the recommendation about a review of the management of offenders in the community, we have tried to come up with a principles-based approach. For example, we suggest that there be clear and shared objectives for reducing reoffending; that all of those who work to reduce reoffending have the appropriate powers to provide the services that are needed to share information, which can be a challenge when dealing with individual offenders in different parts of Scotland; and that there be clear accountability and a mechanism for demonstrating progress. Instead of setting out an approach that we think will work, we have set out some principles that we think should be applied in a review. We hope that that will provide the committee with a basis for assessing the success of future Government policy changes in this area.

I will finish on this question, convener. Why did Audit Scotland not consider it better to set out a clear funding alternative rather than what has been set out in the report? After all, you are called Audit Scotland. One might argue that ministers are meant to deal with principles and the overarching policy spread. If I may say so, your recommendations do not state exactly what might work. Will we be any better off in three years’ time?

It is a fine balance. I am prohibited by law from commenting on policy and policy areas—

Indeed.

If we recommended a system and then came back to audit it, we might be challenged on not being independent enough to come up with a clear view on its effectiveness.

It is a chicken-and-egg situation.

That said, we have set out principles that the current system does not meet very well and under which better alternatives might be considered.

As the matter will be referred to the Justice Committee, I, too, will be brief. I will say, however, that having made critical comments about others—the Registers of Scotland, for example—not reviewing services in seven years, I note that CJAs themselves have never been assessed or reviewed in seven years.

My question is supplementary to Tavish Scott’s question. You say that you do not make policy recommendations, but in paragraph 74 under the comment that

“The availability of and access to appropriate services vary significantly”,

you point to

“a strong body of evidence on what is effective in reducing reoffending”

and in that respect mention “relationships with ... families” and managing lives better. However, exhibit 11 shows that the approach that you say works is least on offer. I find that incredible. The Auditor General mentioned money and debt management, but that is offered by only one of the seven services; motivation, too, is offered by only one of the services, while families and relationships is offered by only three. I know that we are looking only at Tayside, but is it fair to take from the report that what works and what is most effective in reducing reoffending is least on offer?

We think that across the piece there is certainly scope for a much better match between the available services and the evidence about what we know works. You are right to point out that exhibit 11 provides only a snapshot for Tayside; however, the picture for the rest of Scotland looks similar, with the caveat that the directory of available services does not provide information on the number of places. As a result, it is difficult to carry out any fine tuning between offenders’ needs and the actual level of service that is being provided. In broad terms, however, there is certainly room to do more of the right things to reduce reoffending.

Are the CJAs—which, after all, allocate the money—aware of what works? If they are aware of what is effective in reducing reoffending, why are the services being funded according to the snapshot in exhibit 11?

The exhibit covers provision by both the community justice authorities and the Prison Service, and I think that that question would be better directed to the following panel, on which there will be representatives of those organisations and the Scottish Government.

Okay. That is fine. Thank you.

11:15

Perhaps I should declare an interest. I was on a CJA in Glasgow between 2007 and 2008. I think that Ms Alcock made the point that a CJA is not a local government body, but it felt like it was. Part of the problem is that, because the board is made up solely of councillors, it is very much driven by the local authority’s policy requirements, for example. I cannot speak for everybody, but that is certainly the impression of the CJA that I got. Would boards having a different make-up be a major way to help to break down that barrier?

We think that the composition of the boards is certainly not helping with the range of things that need to be done to reduce reoffending. Exhibit 13 shows the composition of one of the authorities. Councillors from four councils and a range of other participants from different statutory agencies and the third sector all try to consider what the needs are in their area and allocate relatively small amounts of resource with very small staff resources—typically, three or four people work for the authority—to deal with a significant problem and potentially prisoners in prisons throughout Scotland. That is a very challenging thing to do, and we do not think that the current arrangements are delivering the effective services that are needed. That is why we are recommending a fundamental review of the way in which offenders are managed in the community.

Can you clarify that the CJAs came into existence in 2005-06, but started running in 2007?

I ask Miranda Alcock to clarify that to ensure that we keep you straight.

The legislation was the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Act 2005, but it took a couple of years to set up the CJAs. They started on 1 April 2007.

I think that there was an advisory board meeting in 2006.

Yes. There were various national things to set them up. After the act was passed, it took a while for them to come into being.

You talk about families being important. Has any work been done on people from Glasgow possibly ending up in Inverness, or a long distance away, and whether they are more likely to reoffend than people who live locally?

There are two different questions there.

Exhibit 9 on page 23 shows a spread of people. We were struck by how people from different council areas were spread out in prisons throughout Scotland. I am sure that you will ask the Scottish Prison Service about that. I know that it is moving towards more community-based prisons, but we feel that it is very difficult for criminal justice social workers to be able to build up relationships with prisoners who are miles away from their area, and there may be only one or two of them. Prisoners are distributed a long way away from where they live, so giving them the appropriate support for when they return and building up relationships is very challenging. We absolutely accept that.

Has any work been done to see whether those prisoners are more prone to reoffend?

I am not aware of any such work, which would be quite difficult to do.

It is disappointing that CJAs have not made more of an impact in the time that they have been in place. Paragraph 111 of the report says that only nine single outcome agreements

“make reference to reducing reoffending.”

I am very surprised by that.

A key message on page 30 of the report is that

“Stronger leadership is required if reoffending is to be significantly reduced.”

Could you give a little more information about that? Where is that lack of leadership? Is it in the CJAs themselves, or is there a wider issue?

Our conclusion is that stronger leadership is needed at the national level—some of the services are so specific that it makes more sense to look at what is needed across Scotland to be cost effective—and, in some areas, stronger leadership is needed at the regional level and the local CJA level. We think that there needs to be more of a drive in both areas. Even within local authorities and community planning partnerships, there is room for more of a drive, because the problem is a community one. There should be more leadership so that there is more of a drive at the CJA and national levels. That is why we have said that, right across the board, there needs to be more ownership of the problem and more sharing of goals by the bodies that have a contribution to make. If reducing reoffending is to be a national goal or objective for Scotland, that must be reflected in all the bodies that have a contribution to make to it.

Were there any obvious examples of good practice? Were there any CJAs that you could hold up and say, “If only they were all like this”?

In all cases, there are bits and pieces of wonderful, fantastic service that is delivered in different parts of Scotland and is brilliant at helping offenders change their behaviour. Good practice is scattered throughout Scotland and we mentioned a few places in the report—some areas of good practice are referred to on pages 26 and 27. It is just that it is not everywhere. There are examples of really good practice in every CJA, but they are not always available to the people who need them.

Perhaps I should declare an interest in that I am a member of the Justice Committee, and some of the issues that have been raised here were raised at the Justice Committee meeting yesterday. I know that we will take the issues further, so perhaps it would be good for the Public Audit Committee to look at the Official Report of the Justice Committee’s discussions in that regard.

I want to nail a particular point. The legislation behind CJAs was passed in 2005—the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Act 2005. Through 2006 there was preparation for introducing CJAs and they were introduced in 2007. Everyone has said that the reason why CJAs are not working is the inflexibility. Can you clarify whether the inflexibility to which the Audit Scotland report and members here have referred comes out of the 2005 act?

I think that funding for criminal justice social work was ring fenced before the introduction of the 2005 act. However, we did not track the funding and the arrangements back; we looked at the funding since 2007. The formula was adjusted, but it predates the 2005 act.

I want to clarify where the inflexibility comes from. Is it from the 2005 act? I do not want to lay blame on anyone; I just want to know how we can go about changing things.

The funding arrangements, which are the basis of the inflexibility, were in place before the 2005 act; they were not introduced by that act, but they were amended. I think that the funding arrangements were in place even before the Scottish Parliament came into being.

They have been in place since 1999.

The arrangements have been modified, but there has never been a comprehensive, strategic approach to reviewing them.

It is confusing when you keep referring to 2007, given that you perhaps should have said that the inflexibility has been there since before the Scottish Parliament. However, the CJAs were set up by statute in 2005, but they continued with the existing rules and regulations, as you said, which is where the inflexibility comes from and why it is so difficult for the CJAs to work in the way that we would want them to work.

The Government distributes the funding, so that would be a good question for the Government officials who will give evidence next.

Yes. I am asking you the question because you are here and you keep mentioning 2007 in your report. It would have been helpful if we could have had a wee bit of background knowledge on that issue.

You also mentioned that £90.3 million was put into the CJAs to tackle reoffending and, in 2010-11, £99 million was put in. Was it a good thing to put extra money into the CJAs?

Again, it is not our role to make a judgment on the merits of policy or funding decisions, but we say in the report that the funding for CJAs has increased in real terms by, I think, 2 per cent a year against the different trend for most other public services in Scotland. I think that that is a recognition of the priority that CJAs have in the Government’s policy direction.

It is important sometimes to emphasise the positive and not always the negative.

I have one final point. You have mentioned that we want on-going partnership working to prevent reoffending. Certainly, everyone wants that. As we have heard, the reoffending rate has gone down from 32 to 30 per cent, so there has been improvement. I know from my work on the Justice Committee that the Government is considering throughcare partnerships.

Health has been mentioned. The issue is an holistic one that involves not only the Justice Committee. I think that Audit Scotland has studied the fact that responsibility for healthcare in prisons has moved from the Scottish Prison Service to the NHS. It might be helpful to consider the reports that the Justice Committee has received on that to find out about improvements that have been made. That involves working together, which is exactly what Ms Alcock has talked about. It also relates to Mary Scanlon’s point about some prisoners not being able to access employment and health services. On the particular issue of the transfer, people seem to be working together. Are you considering any further work on that?

You are absolutely right that responsibility for the healthcare of prisoners moved from the Scottish Prison Service to the NHS last year, during 2011-12. We have not done any work to evaluate that, but we will keep it under review as the arrangements bed in. We will consider the impact on reoffending and the cost and effectiveness of the Scottish Prison Service and the NHS.

I will leave it there.

Mr Scott has a quick supplementary question.

I want to pursue Sandra White’s point, just to be absolutely sure about the funding formula. The funding formula is not in statute, is it?

No.

Like Sandra White, I am a member of the Justice Committee, although I will try not to make this sound like a subject question.

Although there are critical issues, we have had decent results, with a 37-year low in crime and, I think, a 13-year low in reoffending. The report comments on discussions with sheriffs about short-term jail sentences. My view is that such sentences lead to problems and are probably the least effective sentences. Reoffending rates among those who have had short sentences, particularly young males, are incredibly high. The report notes that sheriffs said something along the lines that they felt that they had no option but to send people to jail for such lengths of time because of their background. Will you elaborate on that?

We met quite a few sheriffs, both through the Sheriffs Association and through interviews with sheriffs. The strong message that came through was that sheriffs are fully aware of the ineffectiveness of short-term prison sentences, but often feel that they are left with no option because of the number of breaches of a community sentence that an offender has committed.

As the commission on women offenders pointed out, in the drugs courts, there is a different dialogue between the sheriff and an offender who is on a drug treatment and testing order, which can be more effective, and there is a higher completion rate. That should be explored in considering what happens once an offender gets to court. For example, community payback orders could have a review system. If an offender goes back to the sheriff for a review of the CPO, that might have an impact on whether the CPO is completed. There are indications that such an approach helps. The CPOs are a different type of community sentence and were only introduced in February 2011, so we have not had time to look at their impact on reoffending. It would be interesting if CJAs were to look at how sheriffs are using CPOs, as I am sure that that use varies across the country and across different courts. The sheriffs strongly felt that there needed to be a different approach because what is happening is not working.

11:30

Thank you, Mr Keir. I apologise, Mr Coffey; I jumped over you in the queue. It is your turn now.

Not at all. Thank you very much.

There was some discussion about when the CJAs were established. The former Minister for Justice announced the establishment of CJAs on 3 April 2006. The work was certainly well under way and was very much appreciated when I was elected in 2007, certainly in respect of the south-west of Scotland CJA. I was able to engage in some of its early work at Bowhouse prison, just outside Kilmarnock.

Although this will put me at great risk of incurring the wrath of the Auditor General, I see some positive things in the whole message about criminal justice and reoffending. As Mr Keir said, we are looking at a 37-year low in crime rates in Scotland and the lowest reconviction rate in 13 years, which at 30 per cent—as I think it says in your report—is among the lowest compared with neighbouring countries. In that climate, I am confused as to why we would want a fundamental review of how we manage offenders in the community.

Some statistics are difficult to get out, but a few are worth noting. The reduction of reoffending in the under-21 age group has been 6 per cent, which is quite encouraging, and there has been a drop of about 16 per cent in reoffending by those who are on drug treatment and testing orders. Those are very encouraging statistics that do not automatically come out of the work of the CJAs; however, I firmly believe that because of the interventions of the CJAs and other partners those things are happening. Those are the benefits that we are reaping. I am very encouraged by the work of the CJAs and others and we are seeing the benefits in society generally in terms of reoffending. Will the Auditor General clarify why she believes that a fundamental review is required?

I am happy to do that. As the Auditor General and the accountable officer for Audit Scotland, it is useful for me to put on record that we do not do wrath. We are interested in getting on the record the evidence of how public money is spent and what we get for it.

You are right that the figures on the performance of the criminal justice system are complicated. Across the past 13 years or so, although both one-year and two-year reconviction rates have moved up and down, they have stayed pretty steady. They are a little bit down this year compared to the starting point, but they have gone up in between times, which paints an interesting picture. Crime levels are certainly down, but at the same time the number of people in prison is at a record high, I think. A complicated set of things is going on, which I am not sure that any of us fully understand. Getting better at managing reoffending and building on the good practice that you rightly say exists seems to be a critical way of tackling that.

As Miranda Alcock said, there are some very good examples of services that are making a real difference. We have the introduction of community payback orders and the possibility of much better engagement between the justice system and individual offenders, which may have an impact. That may also bring some higher costs; we do not know yet, so we need to understand how those costs and benefits work together. There is also scope to make better use of the new options for sentencing that have come into play.

The question of the fundamental review of offender management is really about the interface between the Scottish Prison Service, the community justice authorities and councils’ criminal justice social work departments. We need to make sure that they are working together at national level in order that they can understand what needs exist and what services should be in place, and at local level so that they can understand the needs of offenders and how offenders can get access to the services that would make the biggest difference to them. We are not putting any particular emphasis on the dates on which the CJAs were introduced or anything else in the process. We are saying that the area has over a very long period had a significant impact on Scotland’s economy, society and communities. There is scope to do better in tackling that particular bit of the problem, in ways that would benefit all of us.

Thank you very much for that.

Does the greatest opportunity for gain lie in short-term sentencing? There are statistics and evidence to suggest that the reconviction rate among those who are sentenced to three months or less is pretty high—58 per cent—whereas the rate for those who are given community service orders is about 24 per cent, which is significantly lower. In that regard, there has been a significant change in what has happened in Scotland over the past few years. Is that an area in which we can look for further gains as we move forward? I did not see that the impact of the focus on short-term sentencing is covered in the report.

We make the point that short prison sentences are the least effective intervention and that reoffending rates for people in that group are higher than they are for people who get longer prison sentences or those who get community sentences.

That is certainly an important focus for tackling the problem, but we do not think that it is the only one, partly because of the mismatch that exists between the evidence on what works and the variability across Scotland that we see in access to the services that are available to tackle reoffending. I am absolutely sure that it is possible to tackle the issue, but we think that the current structural and funding arrangements do not support that as well as they might.

Thank you very much. I thank Mr Coffey for mentioning the drugs courts. We are obsessing about when they started; I am happy to say that I started them some time ago. Modesty forbade me from raising the issue, but I was pleased to see the courts’ success registered in the report.

I thank the Auditor General and her colleagues very much. We will pause for a moment while we change panels.

11:36 Meeting suspended.

11:39 On resuming—

I thank colleagues for making slightly quicker progress; we need to keep that up.

I welcome our second panel on the “Reducing reoffending in Scotland” report. Leslie Evans is director general of learning and justice at the Scottish Government. Colin McConnell is the chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service. Joe Griffin is deputy director of the Scottish Government’s community justice division. We also have with us Councillor McNamara, who is the chair of the community justice authority conveners group, and Howard Llewellyn, who is the chief officer of Tayside community justice authority.

We have three different bodies with us so, when we get to questions, it will probably be helpful if colleagues say for whom their question is.

The Audit Scotland report provides a helpful snapshot of progress to date, but rightly focuses on what still needs to be done by all partners as we strengthen joint efforts to reduce reoffending. I said “joint efforts” because success in tackling reoffending is highly dependent on the key players playing their roles individually and collectively. That means that all the partners—the eight community justice authorities, the Scottish Prison Service, other national agencies, local authorities and many third sector bodies—will need to continue to deliver joined-up services that are tailored to individual and local need if we are to make a real step change in reoffending levels.

For our part, the Scottish Government has the unique advantage of seeing the whole system. With that comes the responsibility to challenge the status quo; to drive collective, cohesive and strategic leadership across Scotland and across policy areas other than justice; and to set the performance bar high.

We have solid foundations on which to build. Reconviction rates are at their lowest since 1997-98 and recorded crime stands at a 37-year low. However, challenges remain, and the Audit Scotland report focuses on four areas for Scottish Government action. First, it recommends that the Scottish Government improve arrangements for funding community justice. From April 2013, the community justice authorities will enjoy more flexibility in how they spend Scottish Government finance and will fund activities that evidence tells us are most likely to make the biggest difference in reducing reoffending.

Secondly, the report recommends that the Scottish Government improve the range of performance measures to assess the effectiveness of the SPS, CJAs and councils in reducing reoffending. There is undoubtedly more to be done here. We are working with stakeholders to develop a national performance framework to assess performance more effectively. We can discuss that more.

Thirdly, the report wants us to review current arrangements for managing offenders in the community. That is significant. Progress in improving aspects of community justice has been more in spite of the current structural landscape than because of it. The committee heard a bit about that in the previous evidence session. We need to redesign the community justice system in order to ensure strong and visible leadership, with transparent and robust accountability and evaluation arrangements. In the near future, the Scottish Government will seek views on the redesign of committee justice structures.

Fourthly, the report recommends that the Scottish Government work with our partners to ensure that services are designed and delivered to meet best the needs of offenders. By April, we will have established demonstration projects in several prisons to test the impact of different support packages for offenders as they leave prison. The results will inform future practice.

Finally, and crucially, research tells us that even the most successful programmes produced relatively modest reductions in reoffending. As the Christie report emphasised, we need to invest effort and resources in prevention rather than in intervention. Compared to the general population, people who are in prison are 13 times more likely to have been in the care system and are 10 times more likely to have truanted regularly. Intervening early is vital in order to divert individuals from making the wrong choices and impairing their life chances. Investing in parenting and early years, equipping children with the skills to make a positive contribution through curriculum for excellence, and the whole-system approach to youth offending, which was piloted in Aberdeen, are all specific examples of that preventative approach.

As accountable officer for justice, and with my colleagues, including the accountable officer for the Prison Service, we stand ready to discuss the Scottish Government’s role in and commitment to reducing reoffending, and the support that we are providing for others to play their roles.

I do not have a written statement. Leslie Evans’s was eloquent and well put.

I am interested in what the committee was discussing earlier and I would like to engage with you in those discussions.

11:45

As someone who has been involved in CJAs since 2007, when I became the first convener of the south-west Scotland CJA, I have to tell the committee that it was not easy to establish trust and confidence in the agencies that we are going to discuss. You can imagine what happens when you tell the Prison Service, “You need to change the way you deal with prisoners on release”; say to those in criminal justice social work, “You need to do better out in the community”; or ask the judiciary to play its part. Although I have been convener for six years now, it was only last week at our conference in Kilmarnock that we had for the first time a sheriff sharing his experience of his bench with social workers, and social workers engaging with him. He learned and we learned from the experience. The problem is that there is a learning curve. None of it happens overnight; it takes time.

Nevertheless, I and the seven other CJA conveners are prepared to make the required time commitment. I have recently been elevated to the high post that you heard about, and I am looking forward to the challenges that it will bring. Ultimately, however, we want to engage in the kind of early intervention that the Christie commission report talked about. Unless and until we start to identify and support families, especially the young single women with children, we will only be cultivating another generation of young people who might well end up in the criminal justice system. We need to do an awful lot more. I am certainly up for the challenge and look forward to our discussion.

Will you say a bit more about the redesign that you said has been undertaken. The report and the previous evidence that we received implied that there are problems with the structure—or what has been called the “institutional landscape”—that we were looking at, and you have said that the Scottish Government was looking to redesign it. Perhaps our Justice Committee colleagues know about this already, but what is the scale of that redesign? Are the CJAs to be swept away? Are you working from a blank sheet of paper?

Even before we heard the conversation that you had earlier in the meeting, we were acutely aware of the flaws in the current institutional landscape. Although many CJAs have done some really splendid work in addressing reoffending, their infrastructure does not work as effectively as we need it to in order to address current reoffending levels. As a result, a couple of weeks ago, Mr MacAskill announced that he was seeking a redesign of the landscape and system, the various options for which were, I think, mentioned earlier in the meeting.

I do not know about CJAs being “swept away”, but if we were to remove them we would be looking for a more localised or regional structure. It would certainly be different to the status quo, which—as I think Mr MacAskill said—is simply not tenable; indeed, there might be a national structure. We have already spoken to CJAs, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other colleagues about our intention to start a formal consultation process, which will be announced in the next couple of weeks and will provide an opportunity to look at a redesign that will take account of what we have learned from our experience of working with CJAs, of knowing what works, and of knowing about some of the constraints under which we are working. Those constraints are not just financial but relate to the importance of the interdependency and interoperability of national as well as local institutions.

Given that any national, regional or local change to the structure will require legislation, no change will be made quickly. Nevertheless, we are intent on making a change. In the meantime, it will be important to continue to make progress and to address the performance and outcomes that we seek.

Before I ask my substantive question, I note that paragraph 118 says:

“the effectiveness of CJAs in reducing reoffending locally has never been systematically assessed.”

You say that you have found flaws in the system, but why have you never assessed the performance of CJAs in the five years that they have been operating?

I question the suggestion that they have never been assessed. CJAs are responsible for reporting on their own performance; they do that.

Those are not my comments. I am just quoting from the Audit Scotland report.

I absolutely understand that, but in response to such a comment we say that CJAs are responsible for their own performance.

In addition, I point out that CJAs have recently carried out some very good work on standardising a national performance framework, which I think came out last April. My colleagues might say a bit more about that.

The CJAs report to us every year, and we look carefully at their reports. In addition, we publish data—some of it is quite granular in its detail—on the reoffending levels in CJA areas, which are broken down at regional level. Most recently, the Angiolini commission has given a clear view on the effectiveness and collective impact of CJAs.

I challenge the view that there has not been substantial consideration, both annually and more recently, of the performance and impact of CJAs. The CJA representatives might want to say a little about how their performance regime operates at a CJA-specific level.

That is fine. I just wanted clarification.

I will put another point on the table. It is worth mentioning—and important for us to consider—that the Scottish Government estimates the total economic and social costs of reoffending to be more than £3 billion. In addition, the prison population is greater than 8,000.

On page 4 of the report, the Auditor General states:

“Reconviction”

within one year remains

“relatively static ... at 30 per cent”,

which means that it has come down by 2 per cent in 13 years.

When the CJAs were set up—and more money has since been invested in them, as colleagues have said—did you expect a reduction of 2 per cent over 13 years? I know that the CJAs were not in place for all that time. That is my first question, and I do not want pitch it at one person and deny someone the opportunity of pitching in with their wisdom.

My second question is the one that I asked earlier. Paragraph 74 of the report states:

“There is a strong body of evidence on what is effective in reducing reoffending”,

and notes that one of the main factors is the need to

“improve relationships with ... families and ... manage ... life skills”.

Exhibit 11 on page 25—which I appreciate is a snapshot—refers to

“prisons and councils where most prisoners from Tayside are located”.

However, if we look at the outcome heading “Families & relationships”, which is one of the things that we know works, we see that those services are available in only three out of seven areas. If we look at the “Money/debt management” heading, which the Auditor General mentioned earlier, we see that the service is available in only one out of seven areas, and the same applies to the “Motivation” heading services.

I make the same point that I made earlier, when some of you were in the room. We know what works, but it seems that what works is what is least available. Whoever wishes to answer that question can do so.

I am happy to start off, certainly on Mary Scanlon’s first question about performance and the percentage-point change over the past 13 years. It is true that the one-year offending rate is at the lowest level since collection of records began 13 years ago, and that there has been a 1.7 percentage-point reduction. That is not huge, but it is a step in the right direction.

The reduction has been 2 per cent over 13 years, despite all the money.

Yes. However, there is another—perhaps more sensitive—piece of data, which is the frequency with which people are reconvicted. That gives us a more sensitive understanding of individuals and the way in which they are operating in the reoffending landscape.

Over the 13 years, we have reduced the frequency with which people are reconvicted by 12 per cent. Again, that is not a huge amount, but when we plot that against the £3 billion cost to the Scottish economy that Mary Scanlon quite rightly cited, it amounts to a saving of £366 million.

We are by no means complacent. We cannot afford to be, not least—as Colin McConnell will discuss later—with regard to prisons, which are bulging at the seams. That is one of the most important policy areas—if not the most important—for the justice portfolio.

There has been some progress. In response to Mary Scanlon’s second question, she is right to say that we know what works. We have spent a lot of time working with partners, including CJAs, on analysing and collecting data and evidence—including international evidence—about what works.

The point that Mary Scanlon makes about families and relationships is very pertinent, in that—

I am sorry, but it is not the point that I am making. It is the point that the Auditor General makes.

Yes. Sorry. It is the question that you were asking.

It is made in paragraph 74.

Quite right.

I just do not want you to think that these are my views.

Not at all. The point that you were making about—

I quoted from the report and from a previous evidence session.

Absolutely. Your point is about exhibit 11 and the issue of family relationships.

One of the initiatives that we are starting—Joe Griffin might like to say a little more about it in a moment—is a programme of funding through the reducing reoffending programme to specifically address mentoring and build mentoring relationships. It will provide opportunities for people who leave prison to be offered mentoring, which we know makes a difference to the way in which they regard their post-offending lives, including their behaviours, skills and attitudes. That is one aspect. We have made real strides in trying to get a national approach, in funding terms, for local mentoring services.

As I said, Joe Griffin might like to say a little bit more—

I am sorry, but with respect, you did not answer my question. I welcome the mentoring, which is fabulous, but my question was about the fact that what works, such as the work on families and relationships, appears from the snapshot to be what is least available. Why is there a mismatch, as the Auditor General says, between what is available and what works and makes a difference in reducing reoffending? That was my question.

Of course. I suppose that I was answering, perhaps rather clumsily, by talking about one of the initiatives that we are now funding, which is to develop a mentoring service that will enable offenders to regard their relationships, the way in which they operate and their lifestyle with greater clarity. That should help with their relationships with the wider community and indeed with their families.

I do not know whether my community justice authority colleagues want to give their response to the question as well.

I will try to answer the question. We recognise that the audit report criticises what we do and we know that we have to do an awful lot more. Local decisions are being taken about what the priorities are in local areas. In my area, we set up a programme called women in focus—Mr Coffey will know about it—to target particularly vulnerable families. We got £100,000 for that. By the time the programme was set up, we were six months in. Six months later, the £100,000 was finished and only eight young women had been affected, but the programme was working. We then had to go and argue for extra resources to tackle this serious problem, and we are still doing that.

We should be participating in what works. It is important to get the political input that is required. We talked earlier about having four local councillors, and that is another difficulty. I have four councillors—one each from the SNP, Labour and the Liberal Democrats and an independent—and they all have different priorities and different areas of work. Getting them to work together was yet another coup, I think, in our area. The position is similar throughout Scotland. Ultimately, we want to reduce the reoffending that affects our communities. Unless and until we all buy into that, including all of us round the table, there will be a difficulty. It is not just about what happens out there. It is about what happens with all of us and how we engage.

In certain areas, the priorities that have been set are about families, but there are other priorities. In other areas, work on drugs and alcohol might well have been set as priorities.

Mary Scanlon’s question demonstrates the complexity of the landscape that the CJAs have had to deal with. The eight CJAs have had to deal with 32 local authorities. They were previously autonomous, and they remain autonomous in a governance sense. The projects, initiatives and programmes that they have delivered have grown up historically, perhaps for the reason that has already been addressed, namely that they had a specific need for the offenders in the area. Until now, there has never been a coherent and co-ordinated drawing together of what works.

It has been difficult for us, having received the research document that shows what works, to then filter that down to the local authorities, because they have become, for many good reasons, entrenched and settled in the work that they are delivering. Their practitioners are trained in whatever their programme is. Any programme, whether it focuses on money management, families, resources or mentoring, requires an intensive delivery of training to practitioners before they can deliver the services that will produce an outcome.

In some areas, CJAs have managed to draw that together and produce some very good work. Perth and Kinross Council’s right track programme mentored people, but it operated only in Perth and Kinross. It was rolled into other areas of Tayside under different names and made to fit the services that were already in place there. The problem that the CJAs have is that they are accountable for monitoring and reporting on those works, but they have no authority to direct. On an assessment that is agreed nationally, I would love to be able to say that when a programme works it will be used in each of the areas. At the moment, I cannot do that.

I do not know whether that has answered the question.

12:00

If we look at families, relationships, money and debt management, can you not allocate the money on the condition that the services that you want to be provided are provided? Do you just allocate the money and hope for the best? It is slightly worrying if you know what works but there is no direction.

The authority for the direction is not there. That is the difficulty. As Howard Llewellyn has said, I would love to be able to go to a local authority and say, “By the way, this has worked in Tayside and we want to roll it out across Scotland”, but I would be told that I do not have the authority to do that.

Ultimately, I am responsible to the Government so I could snitch to the Government, but the elements of confidence and trust would go out of the window and people would not want to work with me. It is all about working together. I would love to have the power to instruct and say what we are going to do, but I do not have it.

In the coming months, I hope to engage in the consultation exercise. It should not be about sweeping anything away but about recognising what works and putting it into practice. That is the most important thing. I am more about outcomes than structure.

I have a supplementary question on the effectiveness of spend. Paragraph 100 of the Audit Scotland report mentions a £7.5 million change fund, and says:

“The Scottish Government has stated that all the interventions receiving funding from the Change Fund will be subject to rigorous evaluations to ensure that they are based on what works and achieving their specific objectives.”

That is a pretty clear statement of a £7.5 million fund. Why does the Audit Scotland report then talk about a much larger fund of £128 million? Audit Scotland says that

“There is a strong body of evidence on what is effective”

and that there is a mismatch on what is being delivered.

We are talking about two separate funds, and you have differentiated between them correctly. We set up one fund as part of the reducing reoffending programme and, as I said earlier, it will be open for people to bid into. In particular, partnerships between strategy functions and third sector functions will be encouraged to bid and to agree what they will produce as part of that for grant aid while specifically addressing mentoring. That is the £7.5 million preventing reoffending fund. In fact, we have heard today that the Robertson Trust has just agreed to supplement that fund to nearer £9.5 million. That is very good news.

The other funding that we are talking about is that which goes directly to CJAs. It is ring fenced, and the committee discussed that earlier this morning. The money is ring fenced, but there are also stipulations about what it can be spent on. The ring fencing will remain, so the money and how it will be spent is secure. As accountable officer, it is important for me to know that it will be spent on reducing reoffending and that CJAs get that money specifically for that purpose.

From next April, we will remove the inflexibility within the funds and the way in which they are handed out. Instead of having to spend the money in one part of that allocation on only one kind of service, CJAs will be able to spend it on what they think is fit for purpose and required, and on what will be most beneficial according to the evidence base that Peter McNamara talked about. From next April, the constraints on that funding will be removed, which will allow CJAs to enjoy better and more flexible funding.

I want to link back to the consultation about changes to the structure that you mentioned. Why will that be necessary? If you have removed the limitations on the funding to allow CJAs to direct it to where it will be most effective, why does there need to be a change in structure?

We do not take decisions on such structural changes quickly or easily. As members around the table will know, changes in structures can lead to all sorts of difficulties and uncertainties, but it has become clear to us—as indeed it will have become clear to the committee, having read the report and heard the evidence in the previous session—that the structure that was put in place as a result of the 2005 act is flawed. Given certain accountabilities and in view of some of the opportunities that we have to direct instead of simply encouraging services to take account of the evidence base on reoffending that we show them—or indeed supporting them in that, or just hoping that they do so—we feel that this is not an easy landscape or a landscape in which we can have full confidence in the transparency, accountability and robustness of the services that we need to direct. The system is flawed, and the Angiolini commission, which I mentioned earlier, was very categorical that the current system did not serve the best interests of our pressing need to address reoffending.

We have not reached the decision lightly. After all, as Peter McNamara quite rightly pointed out, changing structures is not the answer to addressing outcomes. In this case, however, having spoken to our colleagues on the ground who are, as Mr McNamara has made clear, facing real challenges in encouraging local authorities to direct their resources where they need to go to address reoffending, we are convinced that a structural solution will help with some of the difficulties. Our response will draw on the experience of what we know has not worked, and we will return to the question whether the structure will be national, regional or local following the consultation process.

I welcome many of your comments about looking at the landscape and, in particular, the removal of funding constraints. As I said earlier, I was a member of a CJA between 2007 and 2008. At the time I complained that the board was made up only of councillors—and did so particularly because I was the only opposition member—and I still think that that is why we need such a substantial change. It is not enough simply to remove the funding constraints; we need to make other changes to ensure that we are not blocked at a local level by the kind of party politics that we touched on earlier and which happens across the country in different councils with different political make-ups. As a result, I think that there needs to be a review of and change in structure, and I really welcome the moves in that respect.

My question is probably for Howard Llewellyn and Peter McNamara. Do you agree that the configuration of the board should be changed or do you think that it is still a good idea for it to consist solely of councillors?

I believe that there should be change. I am certainly not against change, but I do not want change for change’s sake or people creating yet another structure. We need to look at accountability, spend and so on, but as far as I am concerned the question whether we need to create yet another structure, either with or without councillors, is up for grabs.

However, any structure needs democratic accountability. After all, we are spending a lot of money. When people say to me, “There’s £128 million going through CJAs”, I say to myself, “Well, that’s what’s being spent on section 27 grants.” The money gets filtered. I do not hold £127 million or £128 million; instead, it goes to the criminal justice social work department.

In my area, and other areas, we had agreements on how the funding would be distributed, particularly with regard to need. That was another difficult discussion involving four local authorities, all of which had an opinion on the need in their areas. Changing that fundamental mechanism required very difficult political manoeuvring; you could not, for example, say, “South Ayrshire’s got a real drugs problem, so let’s shift all the money from East Ayrshire to South Ayrshire”, because all the East Ayrshire councillors would be up in arms. Instead, we argued that a specific proportion of the money should be shifted to areas of greatest need, and we managed to be successful in that approach. Yes, there needs to be political input and yes, there needs to be democratic accountability but I am not enthused by structural change. A national CJA, for example, does not excite me. After all, I believe in the Christie commission report’s conclusions about what happens locally and the sort of local impact that can be made.

This is no criticism, but I note that Howard Llewellyn is described in the agenda for this meeting as representing “Tayside Criminal Justice Authority”. He is actually representing Tayside community justice authority. Five or six years on, I am still trying to convince people that CJAs are community justice authorities and that reflecting our communities is the most important aspect of what we are trying to do.

Speaking for the officer wing of the CJAs, I would say that the people who are involved in the delivery of the CJ service endorse what Councillor McNamara has said about the enthusiasm for change and the recognition of the need for change—it is absolutely essential. I echo his thoughts and expressions about our not supporting change for change’s sake; it must be effective and produce effective outcomes that are about reducing reoffending. The difficulty that the CJAs have had—forgive me for repeating what I said a little earlier—is that they have not been accountable for that which they have had authority over. The points about moving, sharing and, dare I say it, transferring resources from one area to another have been a real element of sand in the machine for the local authorities—you will all understand why.

Whatever the new structure is, unless we are in a position to engage in a directive sense—to say what works and to identify a shared need, which may be not in our local authority but in a neighbouring authority or in an authority with which we are in a partnership—we will not be able to reduce reoffending as effectively as the report says that we should. The issues are accountability, authority and the ability to direct resources where they are needed when we have identified what the best resource is.

I do not imagine that any of you wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am sure that everybody is aiming for the same thing, which is to reduce reoffending.

Paragraphs 100 and 101 talk about the relationship between CJAs, the CPPs and the alcohol and drug partnerships not being all that it should be. Is there anything that you can do within the existing model to change that, or do you need a change in structure to make it better?

I can speak only for Tayside, although I have some knowledge of other areas. There is very good engagement on the ground with practitioners who work with each other every day. They work in real time with real offenders who have real issues, and they are doing very good work on that front. However, there is still evidence of silo working with ADPs and CPPs. I will give you an example of that. In Tayside, the CJA is a full member of two of the three CPPs in Tayside but not the other, despite our continually knocking on the door, begging and pleading—however you want to put it. We have even occasionally put up a good argument for our being there, but it has not been received or responded to in a positive way.

The work on the ground is very good. I do not think that we can deny that, even though it may not be producing the outcomes at the level that we would like. However, there is an issue with the structures of working with the other organisations, the ADPs and CPPs, which I think will be addressed in the work that the Government is doing on CPPs. I suspect that part of that will be identifying what it is crucial for a CPP to consider for an area. A safe environment and community must be important to those organisations, and we engage with producing that.

I will supplement what Howard Llewellyn has just said. We have done quite a lot of work with community planning partnerships in looking at the role of community planning partnerships as a whole, not just within this portfolio. We have also made significant progress by looking at what goes into the single outcome agreement, which represents the Government’s expectations and the agreement with community planning partnerships. Very recently, we have added the reduction of reoffending as a key area that we expect community planning partnerships to address and focus their efforts on. It is the first time that that has been added as a key responsibility and point in single outcome agreements for community planning partnerships, and they have been perfectly happy to accept that.

There has also been some movement in the fact that NHS Scotland has been working with the alcohol and drug partnerships—I think that they met last week—to look at how the integration takes place across that bit of the infrastructure. However, the fact that we are talking about different parts of the infrastructure with different governance and accountability, different responsibilities and different funding streams shows the complexity of what we are working with and the importance of our having a fresh look at what will really work, based on our five years’ experience of CJAs.

12:15

We can well imagine that the committee wants the movers and shakers in health boards, the Scottish Prison Service and social work to play a part in all this, but in my area there are four local authorities and four community planning partnerships, so people would have to attend four meetings. I suggest that there would be a lack of enthusiasm for that. What we need is one focal point and one decision maker. Let us get round the table and get to business.

Many questions that I was going to ask have been answered, but I wanted to pick up on what Mary Scanlon said. In the Auditor General’s report, “Skills/learning—employability” comes first. I am not saying that work on skills and employability is any better than work on families and debt management, but that issue certainly comes first in the report. As Peter McNamara said, much depends on the local authority’s priority. We should not be insular and pick one or two issues out of the report in that respect.

I was interested in what Leslie Evans said. We have knocked on the head the structure of CJAs. The structure must change. It is great that things are moving ahead—Mr McConnell knows about that, in the context of the prison service’s work with the NHS. There is a huge task; we wish you well in it and we are hugely supportive, because without change we will not stop reoffending and help people in society who need help.

When Leslie Evans talked about consultation on changing the structure, she said that legislation would be needed. Can you say more about that?

Whichever structure we choose will require legislative change—I have given three options: national, regional and local arrangements, but we might come up with something much more imaginative; the main thing is that it works. We would need to build legislative change into the programme. Hence my comments about wanting to reduce uncertainty, work on the matter quickly and effectively and progress the consultation as quickly as possible. That is why we are launching the consultation in December.

It is important that we continue to make the current system work as well as it can do, not least for audit purposes but also because we cannot afford to take our foot off the pedal.

I agree with Leslie Evans. Significant changes will require legislative action. However, less significant changes are possible under the current legislation. The Government can make changes by statutory instrument. I do not suggest that any such change would necessarily be sufficient, but in the interim period changes could be consulted on and made more quickly.

The issue will go out to consultation in December. It is November. If a statutory instrument were made it might not come into force until about February or March, by which time the consultation would be well under way and opinion might be against the change that the statutory instrument was going to make. I make that point because it is important that everyone has a say in the consultation. Peter McNamara said that he does not want a national strategy; is the consultation the best way to change the habits of CJAs?

I like the idea of “habits of CJAs”—please do not minute that. They are good habits, I have to say.

I have been trying not to get into the discussion about structure in a public forum, because we will continue to exist for the next 18 months to two years and everything that we have been talking about creates uncertainty, insecurity and a lack of ambition. People think, “This is going down the tubes. I’m off to get a job somewhere else.” We have to contend with that uncertainty.

From my perspective as a political leader, I will do my utmost to continue to keep our foot on the pedal and to ensure that CJAs perform and indeed outperform, compared with how they have done in the past. We can do that only if there is certainty, security, trust and all the other things that I talked about. Talk about structure is meaningless until we—and that means all the different bodies—sit down round the table and say what we are trying to achieve.

I look on the arrangements as being a wheel that is made up of the Prison Service, the police, health boards and the voluntary sector. They are all around the edge, but we are the bit that makes the wheel start to turn. If that bit was taken away, the others would revert back to their own disciplines. I have not talked to the new Prison Service chief executive, but I believe that he is a big fan of community engagement. That is a plus and that is what we need across the board.

In view of the time, I will ask just one question. What stands out is the paragraphs from 84 onwards, which discuss short-term sentences and the need for better support. I realise that quite a few changes are being proposed to CJAs and so on, but will anything be done to address the needs of short-term prisoners? They are not getting support when they leave prison, which appears to be resulting in a higher reoffending level.

I ask Colin McConnell or Joe Griffin to say a little about what we have just begun to undertake on throughcare, which I mentioned in my opening remarks. That initiative is aimed at offenders who are serving sentences of four years or less, because offenders with sentences of more than four years are entitled under statute to such services.

Colin McConnell might like to say a little about a big programme of work that is just beginning in prisons, which is looking at points of vulnerability when offenders leave the prison estate and at the opportunities to provide continuity of service and support for individuals.

The points are well made. We have known for some time about the situation with short-term offenders. There is no ducking and diving; we cannot pretend that it has just come round the corner and hit us.

The fact is that for many years we have concentrated on the more serious offences that attract sentences of four years plus, and our jurisdiction is no different. The bulk of our focus has been on the statutory provision. In some ways, that is understandable, but the volume stuff is at the short end of sentences.

It has taken us time to get there, but we recognise that we really need to achieve a much better balance. We have—rightly—focused on addressing the serious end of offending, but doing so has meant a lack of attention on those who are spiralling through the revolving gate, not just year on year, but sometimes month on month. Now that the position has been recognised, the Scottish Government is driving a number of initiatives, which Joe Griffin might wish to touch on.

A couple of weeks back, I had the great opportunity of delivering the Sacro lecture, in the Signet library. I signalled clearly that the Scottish Prison Service must operate beyond the walls of prisons. The committee has heard that the Scottish Prison Service is moving to join up with its community partners to deliver the wider reducing reoffending strategy.

The Audit Scotland report has been a bucket of cold water for us. It demonstrated clearly for us that our focus has been primarily—and historically—on running prisons safely, decently and securely, and our performance at that has been impressive. Towards 80 per cent of resources are used on restriction, which is about public safety and confidence, which is understandable, and, within that, 71 per cent of our staff pay bill is for prison officers. Again, that is understandable, because that involves being safe, decent and secure.

However, our clear direction of travel is towards giving prison officers—who are well trained and highly skilled—the wider opportunity to take their skills out into the community, working with offenders on a throughcare pathway. We need to go on that journey with our community partners, to make an impact with short-term prisoners and reduce their likelihood of reoffending.

I just want to mention a couple of changes that we are making in respect of throughcare. One of the important things that we have done recently is stimulate the voice of people who have been through the system. We are now financially supporting a group called Positive Prison? Positive Futures, which is looking to establish a series of regional fora of ex-offenders who have been through the system and which can advise us, at the national level, on the development of policy, and colleagues who are commissioning regionally and locally on what really works, based on their experience of having been through prison or a community order. That needs to happen much more across the system and we are happy to support and stimulate that.

My second point comes back to mentoring and the change fund of almost £10 million that we will invest during the next three years to expand the range and type of mentoring services that are available. That is about providing support for someone’s motivation and psychological state when they are released from prison, and it is also a practical way of ensuring that they can access services to which they are entitled as citizens. They might leave prison, sometimes needing specific services as an ex-offender, and sometimes as a citizen who is entitled to housing and help with their drug problem or whatever their problem might be. A mentor can make appointments for them and cut through quite a lot of the bureaucracy, ensuring that the person who needs the services is brought to them. They can disentangle what can be a very complex landscape for ex-offenders, and we are optimistic that that can help us to improve how throughcare works.

Colin McConnell talked about the report being a “bucket of cold water”. Ms Evans made comments about service design, shall we call it. Perhaps if we did not have CJAs we would end up inventing them anyway. I have witnessed at first hand some of the really great work that has been going on and we should pay tribute to Councillor McNamara and Mr Llewellyn, whom I do not know, for some of the work that has been done and the achievements that have been made over many years. I am fairly confident that the work that you are doing will continue in some shape or form. The work that you have been doing is contributing to some of the positive statistics that we have shared today.

I have one point to raise, which is about the message that I picked up during my first meeting with the south-west Scotland CJA at Bowhouse prison. It was about the importance to everyone of prisoners being located relatively close to their families. Page 23 of the Auditor General’s report has a map that shows Tayside and how prisoners can be scattered all over Scotland. I am pretty sure that the picture is similar elsewhere. Ms Evans, might there be a view to making some in-roads into that situation and trying to locate prisoners, as far as possible and as best we can, close to their families? It seemed to everyone including Councillor McNamara, that an important factor in tackling reoffending is giving families more direct access to family members who are serving sentences.

I am sure that Colin McConnell will want to say something about that. There are two issues there. Some national and specialist facilities are only located at specific sites. That is not an overriding factor but it is significant for some offenders.

The Angiolini commission was also specific about the importance of that for women, but the great thing about the report was that a lot of what it said could be transferred to other vulnerable people who might be going through the Prison Service or the justice system. The commission said that regional units are probably the answer, although there could be a national unit for women who have complex needs or are high risk. We are looking at that report and acting on a majority of the recommendations, including that one.

Colin McConnell will testify that we have recently done quite a lot to move women out of Cornton Vale and into other prison areas.

12:30

Willie Coffey is right that exhibit 9 is fairly representative of what happens more generally. I am not defending it, but it is a fairly typical position across most jurisdictions. The sad reality is that prisoners are not a homogeneous group, and neither are prisons. Some prisoners require specialist interventions, and some prisoners who are serving very long sentences do not necessarily fit best in a local environment. The service is set up as a national one so that we can make the best use, for the most people, of the flexibility of the accommodation and services that we have.

That said, when HMP Grampian comes on stream towards the end of next year, it will be Scotland’s first community-facing prison. The emphasis in that approach—the ethos—is on trying where possible to keep offenders as close as possible to their local communities. That will be for most offender groups—men, women and young offenders. However, that is a really big ask for us and there will be a set of competing and complex needs. One real challenge for us as a community and as a criminal justice system—and, I suppose, as a social justice system—is to ensure that, as we bring the prison on stream, the whole-system approach is applied to ensure that all the services are balanced, connected and targeted to meet the needs of the offenders who, ultimately, will live and stay there for a short or a longer period of time.

That direction of travel is well understood. The Angiolini report re-emphasised the benefits of it. It also ties in to the report on social exclusion from 2002, which has been touched on. However, in truth, it would be beyond us to keep every offender in the local environment and, in some ways, doing so would militate against reducing reoffending, as it might prevent access to specialist services.

I have one more quick point on that. Community integration units, for which the Scottish Prison Service deserves real credit, are another approach to the issue. I have been to the unit in Aberdeen, which is particularly impressive. Women who are in the last stages of their sentence at Cornton Vale are moved to the unit, where they have much more freedom and have access to the outside world to make appointments for things such as accommodation in the run-up to their release. That approach at least supports the intention of integrating people back into their community, given that we are not able, or it is not appropriate, to provide every prisoner with a place in their local community or family area.

I would be obliged if we could have a quick response from the CJA representatives on the issue of family connection.

Your point is well made. If a person is disenfranchised and separated from his family, of course that person’s circumstances will deteriorate, so they must have that support. On community-facing prisons, when I first started in my post, we advocated such prisons, but at that time the Scottish Prison Service had every reason why they could not happen. Having community-facing prisons, as Colin McConnell has just outlined, is essential. Where possible, we should try to house male and female prisoners as close as possible to family support. It is a big step forward that that principle has been accepted.

Colin McConnell referred to social justice. We tend to focus on criminal justice and forensic issues, but the issue is of course a social justice one. We cannot expect offenders or those who have not been integrated into society and who have acted accordingly to rehabilitate themselves if they are not given the opportunity to do so in the way that they need rather than in ways that others think are appropriate for them. Much of the work that prisons are now doing, and the work that will come on stream, will facilitate that, on the assumption that the community, through criminal justice social work, can engage with that. At present, the community cannot always engage, because of the issues that the committee heard about earlier to do with funding, accountability and authority.

We need to move to a time when every prisoner has a throughcare plan that starts from the moment the court report is written and does not finish until the person has shown, over a period, that they have integrated, rehabilitated and reduced their reoffending—they might not have stopped, as that can be difficult for those with chaotic lifestyles or with drug and other dependency issues. I think that we can achieve that but, until it occurs, we will be floundering a bit. As far as I am concerned, the object is to have a throughcare plan for every prisoner—man or woman—throughout their time in prison and into and after their time with community justice.

Thanks very much. Mr Keir is next.

I will pass, as my question has been answered.

Does anyone else have a question?

I have one on short sentences. Mention has been made of advances in throughcare and mentoring, which I have no doubt will improve services. When I visited Barlinnie, prisoners’ big concerns were about financial advice and housing when they left prison. A concern that short-term prisoners had about their time in prison was that they did not have access to programmes to increase their employability or to gain extra skills. How can we address the issue of short-term prisoners not having the same access to courses as others?

That is another of those rifle-shot questions. It is an extraordinarily difficult issue. There are a number of factors. We talk about the what works agenda. I am concerned about the view that exists that we are dealing with a series of jigsaw pieces and that if we just put them all together, somehow the magic picture will appear and an individual will not move on to reoffending. Sadly, it is not quite like that. I would much rather think about what helps than try to find something that works on every occasion.

Short-term offenders are not a homogeneous group. All that we are saying is that a short-term sentence is one that is less than four years, but some people receive extraordinarily short sentences—people are sometimes sentenced to days or weeks in custody. Regardless of how well intentioned or resourced the Scottish Prison Service is, our ability to engage positively with such prisoners and to encourage them to make positive choices about their future is seriously impaired—it might not even exist in the first place—by the fact that, in many cases, by the time we introduce someone to custody and do their basic screening, they are already about to pass back into the community.

That goes back to our previous discussion about the revolving door. The reality is that there is little positive action that we can take with offenders who do not spend a significant number of months in custody if we are trying to change attitudes and to encourage positive decision making through positive role modelling, in particular. As a professional jailer, I understand that, for many people, custody is absolutely necessary. It is not for me to chide the judiciary and say what is right and what is wrong, but we must be realistic about the capability and the capacity of custody. We can do many positive things, but we need time to do them.

Thank you very much. I thank all our witnesses this morning for—

I have an early Christmas gift that will be sent to you. All members of the committee will receive a video about desisting from criminality that was made by Allan Weaver, who is an ex-offender. It is a fantastic watch. I ask members to have a look at it and to give me their feedback. Have a nice Christmas.

We look forward to receiving it. Thank you very much indeed.

I will allow the witnesses, the press and the public to leave before we move into private session.

12:38 Meeting continued in private until 12:45.