Agenda item 2 is our final evidence session as part of our inquiry into purposeful activity in prisons. I welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, who is supported by Joe Griffin, deputy director for community justice in the Scottish Government, and Colin McConnell, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, who is before us for another time. You smiled at me this time, Mr McConnell, so I am improving, but do not relax too much.
The Scottish Government believes that offenders should be sent to prison as punishment, but that our prisons should also be about the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders back into society as contributing citizens. The Scottish Government’s justice strategy describes how justice agencies should contribute to a range of outcomes by providing better life chances for offenders and their families through rehabilitation.
Is there something in the post that I do not know about, cabinet secretary?
I apologise—it was my prison mindset.
Don’t tell that to my committee!
To conclude, convener, I want to give some examples of our work to improve access to purposeful activity and options to promote rehabilitation and reintegration.
I do not mean to be pejorative, cabinet secretary, but I have to say that we did not find the situation to be so rosy on our various prison visits. I do not think that anyone went to HMP Greenock, but perhaps we should have done so. I know that we were only dipping our toe in the water, but we got a sense of the temperature.
Good morning, cabinet secretary. I am interested in hearing a bit more about the mentoring process that you mentioned, which I think sounds promising. What exactly is happening in that respect?
I will ask Colin McConnell and Joe Griffin to comment in a moment but I can tell you that a variety of things are happening. John Swinney and I have allocated £7.5 million from our budgets over the spending review period to create the reducing reoffending change fund, which will provide for mentors to support ex-offenders as they work to sort out their lives, to stay away from crime and to start contributing positively to their communities.
This is a continuation of our previous discussions, convener, but I am grateful for the opportunity to expand on what has already been said. We recognise that, despite our best efforts while offenders are in custody, as they pass back into the community, the risk of reoffending is quite substantial, particularly for short-term and high-turnaround offenders. Support for those who are most at risk as they cross the threshold back into the community is absolutely crucial. I am sure that Joe Griffin will want to comment on the strategic aspect of this, but I want to give you some real, hard evidence of what we are doing now to address the issue.
That is what we like.
Let us focus on Greenock, which the committee might wish to review. The SPS is doing work there without any additional funding, using the skills and resources that are already in the business. We have both men and women in custody in Greenock. The governor there is pursuing an initiative, with the support of the SPS and community-based statutory and voluntary organisations, to help women in particular as they transition from custody back to the community. The initiative is a pilot at this stage, but it provides really good evidence of what we are doing and where we might go in the future. The pilot will expand to involve men as well as women in custody. It gives offenders 12 weeks of focused support: six weeks leading up to release, and six weeks after release. That might not seem a lot at this stage, but the research tells us that the three weeks after leaving custody are when individuals are most at risk of reoffending.
Surely that must require extra staff from the SPS.
As I have said before, the Scottish Government has made sure that the SPS is properly resourced for the work that it is doing. Governors have been able to work efficiently and effectively to make sure that resources become available to pilot such initiatives without having to go to the Government or other bodies for additional resources. It is an efficiency gain, if you like, and I think that there is a real opportunity for an effectiveness gain to be made in due course as well.
As the cabinet secretary and Colin McConnell have said, as policy makers we have been struck by the work that certain groups have done, particularly third sector groups such as the routes out of prison project, Sacro and the Youth Community Support Agency—which is a small organisation that works with young ethnic minority men in particular—to mentor people after they have left the prison gates. Mentoring is a response to what we know from service user feedback about the lived experience and how being released can be difficult, particularly if it is a Friday afternoon, when few services are available and there are few people around to support someone on their release. A mentor can make appointments for someone, and then give them a reminder by text and go round to their house and get them out of bed to get to the appointments. A mentor can help that person through that difficult process.
I am intrigued by the use of ex-offenders in the process. I assume that they are taken on through third sector organisations. Roughly how many are doing that job nationally? Can you narrow down the detail to places where such projects are set up? How effective have the ex-offenders been?
I do not know whether Colin McConnell has the figures for the schemes that are running at the moment. I think that they are confined to a relatively small number of institutions, including, from memory, Barlinnie, Polmont and Cornton Vale. We want to use the £10 million to expand the approach and ensure that it is followed consistently across the piece. Ex-offenders are recruited by third sector organisations into their schemes. I do not have information about the number of ex-offenders involved.
Do you have an idea of how effective they are?
Yes. We have interim evaluations for schemes such as the routes out of prison project, which has shown quite promising potential, and the YCSA. The individual schemes have decent evaluations for the work that they are doing.
Are those interim evaluations publicly available?
I do not know. I am sure that we could share them with the committee.
That would be useful.
Mr Griffin, you said that you were about to make a decision on the change fund allocations. When we went round the prisons, it was clear that although the piecemeal interventions that were happening were probably all quite good, there was no sense of an overarching strategy. Could the decision making on the change fund fit alongside the review timescale so that we would start to see a strategy coming forward and things being funded in that way? Will you comment on that?
Sure. I suppose that we are a little bit constrained in that we have the money for the next financial year and the year after, and it is quite important to get that money out of the door and get people up and running to a decent timescale so that they can sustain things. The Prison Service is part of the panel that is making the decisions, so it has that input and involvement. However, it is a good point that when the schemes are chosen and are up and running, we need to help people through that process, and we need to mentor the mentors so that they are able to deal with the strategic landscape. We also need to learn from them and feed that into the organisational review.
Mentoring is a fantastic idea, particularly for short-term prisoners. We were told that prison governors are the ones who say what projects will happen in their prisons. Obviously, the project in Greenock prison is a one-off. Is it your intention to see the programme run throughout all prisons in the long term?
Yes. That would be wonderful to do if we were convinced that scaling-up the programme showed as much potential as international and local evidence suggests it should. We set up the change fund on the basis that the funding can be sustained and that the positive outcomes that we believe can happen will be demonstrated. We need to see how that scaling up would work.
What is the timescale for evaluating the pilot?
Funding for evaluation is built into the scheme. The projects will be up and running over the course of this financial year and the next financial year. There will certainly be an evaluation at the end of that, which will take some time. Off the top of my head, I guess that there will be a comprehensive evaluation three years from now. Sometimes the timescales are a little bit too long, so I think that we will build in interim evaluations too, to get a quick and dirty understanding of how the projects are progressing. However, I do not have a specific timescale for that work at the moment.
I appreciate that the announcement has been made at the committee. It would be useful if you could let the committee know the timescales once you have an idea of the staging posts, as it were. We all had anxieties about the piecemeal approach, but we know that not every prisoner leaving prison can be mentored. Although it is a good approach, not all prisoners will be mentored.
I welcome the announcement that has been made today, which follows through on a great deal of the evidence that certainly I, as a member of the committee, have gathered over the past couple of years.
Obviously, we want to see a continued reduction in reoffending, which is why we welcome the fact that we are down to a 13-year low in reoffending rates.
Do you have a percentage figure by which you would like reoffending to fall, such as 5 per cent, 10 per cent or 50 per cent? Have you set such a target?
No.
I have two practical questions. At a previous committee meeting, Mr McConnell indicated that, in his view—as I understood it—prisoners should be able to access television as they wished, 24 hours a day. He also rehearsed a notion about access to telephones in cells.
Those are fundamentally operational matters, and I will let Colin McConnell comment if he wishes.
What about telephones? Do you have any comments about those?
Telephones challenge us all. I had a trilateral meeting with the Minister of Justice from Northern Ireland and officials from the Department of Justice and Equality in the Republic of Ireland, as Alan Shatter was not able to attend because of illness. We face similar problems.
To cut to the chase, the question was more about the hardwiring of phones into cells so that prisoners could get direct access to them.
I would require some persuasion on that. Technology changes and develops. I am currently struggling to master an iPhone. There was a time when prisoners did not have access to phones at all. However, at present, we face significant challenges with mobile phones. We work with colleagues south of the border on that. We also look to work with colleagues across the other Celtic countries to determine whether we can achieve some economies of scale, given the cost and complexity involved.
Mr McConnell, you took a bit of flak for what you said last time. I thought that you put forward a reasonable point but that you were misrepresented, but—hey—is that new for the press?
You cannot see them, convener, but the bandages are still on after the previous conversation.
I have a question for the cabinet secretary.
Is it on a separate issue?
It is connected; it is about how one encourages prisoners to engage positively.
That is fine.
When he gave evidence previously, I raised with Mr McConnell the notion of encouraging prisoners to engage, because there seems to be some difficulty—particularly with short-term prisoners. I asked Mr McConnell about the feasibility of making available internal prison reports to court appearances to assess a prisoner for involvement in programmes and so on. The notion is that if a prisoner knows that their engagement in prisons will be reported positively or negatively at a future court appearance, that will have some influence. What do you think of that? Is it worth taking forward?
There is merit in that and we would want to liaise with the judicial studies people on it. I am sure that Sheriff Welsh would be happy to take that on board. We would need to ensure that the judiciary would wish to engage, and consider in what format and in what instances we would like it.
A member wishes to ask a supplementary on the phone issue. I ask whether any member is planning to raise the issue of family centres. If not, I will ask about that next.
I have a brief point of clarification, cabinet secretary. On your work with colleagues in England and Northern Ireland on the Scottish Government’s policy on phones in prisons, will you clarify how that works?
I was at a trilateral meeting. We meet at least once a year, although the next one will probably be in six months, because Mr Shatter was ill. We had a variety of matters on the agenda, including human trafficking, the border issue at Cairnryan, the European Union presidency and the concern that all three jurisdictions have regarding the European arrest warrant. One of the Irish—I cannot remember whether it was Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland—asked to put on the agenda matters relating to phones in prisons. Blocking involves a great deal of complexity. We have discussed that with the Home Office. It can result in wiping out the mobile phone signal for people who live in houses proximate to prisons, and we do not want to do that. There is also a security issue for those who work in prisons and who need to have access to electronics. Blocking is also very expensive—it would be remiss of me not to say that that is an issue.
Is that an argument for the union, cabinet secretary?
I do not think that the Republic of Ireland was arguing for that. Indeed, the officials from the Republic of Ireland took a different view, as they welcomed having the current presidency of the European Union. I say with envy that this is apparently the eighth time that Ireland has had the presidency of the European Union. If only that were the situation for Scotland.
Let us return to the point in hand. We have considered a legislative consent motion that related to mobile phones and we have discussed the issues and the difficulties with blocking.
Thanks very much for the opportunity to expand on that. In some ways, we are beginning to explore a new future for the SPS, in the context of the wider community and what we have to do to reduce reoffending. I am grateful that you use the term “family centres”, although we are sort of calling them “family help hubs”, because that better describes what the approach is about. We have something of a visitor or family centre at Perth, Cornton Vale and Polmont, and we have a visitor centre operating at Edinburgh. I do not want to be demeaning but, for the most part, they are like stop-off points. It would be churlish to call them bus shelters, but members will get the idea.
But you did not mention Polmont, Mr McConnell. The governor’s one plea to us was for the establishment of a proper family centre, which was felt to be key—particularly for young men who might be caught in a certain cycle in a family because of their inability to establish relationships. I was astonished to discover that a quarter of the young men at Polmont were fathers, and I have to say that I am very concerned that you did not mention it.
I was hoping that the issue of Polmont would be raised separately, convener, but I will deal with it directly.
I will leave the matter there for the moment.
I have a number of questions on unrelated matters but first of all I note that the HMIP report on Polmont says:
The chief inspector is absolutely spot on. I suppose that it is seen as fashionable and often necessary to look down on smaller business units—in this case, Polmont—and to find fault locally. Although I wholly welcome the chief inspector’s views on the lack of training, the lack of a particular management approach and so on, I see the problem more widely and as being more connected with how the service itself moves forward as an organisation.
Moving on to other matters, it is clear to all members on the committee that there is a variation in purposeful activity in the places that we visited, and elsewhere, and we touched on that during our first evidence session. What can you do to level the playing field for purposeful activity across the estate, and what can the Scottish Government do to assist that?
My perspective on that goes back to the earlier discussion that we had. I am concerned that the measurement of purposeful activity is too blunt. It is a big number that we celebrate and if we have a bigger number year on year, that is somehow better. I am not actually sure that it is. It gives the sense of a sheep-dip type of approach rather than an approach like the one for children, getting it right for every child.
How would you compare and contrast purposeful activity in prisons and alternatives to prison such as community payback orders and the activities that might be undertaken in such schemes?
Joe Griffin or Colin McConnell might want to comment on that. It seems to me that such activities can be more flexible outwith prison. Prisons do an outstanding job in dealing with health, education and purposeful activity for prisoners, but we should remember that prisons are built to keep people in and keep them secure. They are not built to be hospitals or care homes, colleges or schools. The prison staff do an outstanding job in an environment that has to be able to cope with keeping people secure, but as well as punishment, we have a duty to rehabilitate, although we must be realistic about what we can do. It is easier to give prisoners more purposeful activity in the community, which is why the community payback order offers so much more by tying the punishment to the hours of unpaid labour that the offender is required to provide. It also gives us the ability to focus on how offenders might come to be able to be treated at a proper college, care centre or whatever as opposed to an institution that is built primarily for security.
Purposeful activity is at the heart of the community payback order. If we look at the numbers of community payback orders for 2011-12, we see that 76 per cent of them had an unpaid work element, and the committee will know about examples of good practice all over the country that is varied in its nature. If someone remains in the community, it gives them the opportunity to maintain relationships and access to services and trusted individuals that they might have in their lives. At certain times, prison is an inescapable option for the judiciary, but the Government’s policy is to have far more people serving their sentence in the community, with purposeful activity at the heart of their sentence, instead of having short-term prison sentences for which the evidence is much more dubious.
But purposeful activity is not just work. The cabinet secretary mentioned health. One concern is that, for some prisoners, purposeful activity involves applying themselves to get rid of their drug, alcohol or drug and alcohol addiction but, on the prison visits, we heard that many of them do not have a general practitioner—they are not on GPs’ lists, perhaps for very good reasons—so all the good work that is done with them to address their problems in prison is completely lost when they leave it.
Colin McConnell may wish to comment on specifics, but on the wider policy matter, that is why we agreed that the national health service should become responsible for prison healthcare. When I first came into office, there was a separate and distinct prison health department and organisation. We recognise what you are quite correctly driving at. There must be a clear link: things have to continue when people leave prison. That is why we took that direction under Dr Andrew Fraser when he was in charge of prison health and social care, and that is what we require to do.
I accept all of that, but I want to get back to the particular issue of so many people not having a GP, which is a simple thing. We know about prisoners being released on Fridays, there being nobody to see them then, their inability to get housing and all of that. The issue is a practical one as well. What is being done to address it? There are no simple answers, but what is being done to address the fact that a lot of good work is being done in prisons, but prisoners come out of them and have no contact whatever with the NHS, in any shape or form?
Part of the problem is that the onus and the responsibility are on the person who is leaving prison to—
I know that.
I was going to explain how I hope we can help with that.
I want to cut to the chase, because we know that it is up to the individual. The meat of the matter, though, is how we turn the situation around.
The Polmont report was circulated to us this morning. I have been a number of times to Polmont, where many staff do terrific work. Many of the offenders in Polmont are supported, which we need to acknowledge for fear that we write everybody off as having failed.
Absolutely. The point that I made earlier to Mr Campbell—I am grateful that Mr Pearson has touched on it—is that I am not at all associating myself with criticism of prison officers or the governor. They use the tools that we corporately give them, and they work on the priorities that corporately we ask them to work on. I welcome both the plaudits and the criticisms in the chief inspector’s report. Mr Pearson’s point was well made; if the SPS and other partners cannot be effective at the stage at which individuals are still forming their views and can still be influenced, then we are failing in our duty to contribute more productively to reducing reoffending.
What is the SCCJR?
I am sorry. The SCCJR is the Scottish centre for crime and justice research. It is a conglomerate from Scotland’s leading universities. We are engaging with the SCCJR so that we better understand the research, and it will support us in developing a revised education and training programme for all staff in Scotland, and in considering the issues that we need to focus on, particularly regarding women and young offenders.
I wish to say—I am sure that Alison McInnes will want to associate herself with this—that we have huge regard for the prison staff, officers and, indeed, the governor at Polmont. There has been a huge churn in governors there, which must be part of the issues around staff morale, training and so on. I want that on the record. The comments that I and others have made about Polmont are not a reflection of the staff or of the current and previous governors. However, points were raised that people there wished us to put to the panel.
We have heard a lot of evidence about failings in literacy and numeracy. The spokesman from the Prison Reform Trust spoke about the need for education and communication skills. The representative from the Association of Visiting Committees for Scottish Penal Establishments said that there are many retired teachers who could usefully be brought into the system to improve numeracy and literacy, particularly among remand and short-term prisoners. What steps can we take that would make a major impact in that regard?
I will talk about the Prison Service. Joe Griffin might wish to speak more about the justice strategy. I reiterate some points that I made in response to Mr Pearson. We are setting about a fundamental review of how we can effectively turn Polmont into a training and education college that is secure. HMI has made good points and serious criticisms about that. We should, of course, reflect carefully on the issues that you have raised, but that review will also take on board the views of colleagues and partners in the wider community and the local community, and the views of specialists in education and health. They might all raise issues that we should consider.
I want to broaden out the discussion from Polmont to discuss short-term and remand prisoners, who are doing very little at the moment. If they could improve their literacy and communication skills, that would be a big step forward for them in the wider world.
We must carefully reflect on the question: what is a short-term offender? That takes us into a number of other discussions. We spoke earlier about a comparison with GIRFEC. In general, we need to become more able to consider the specific needs of individual offenders, rather than just trying to sheep-dip everybody.
John Finnie is next. You have been very patient, John.
Thank you, convener. My question is for Colin McConnell, who talked about individual needs. I found fascinating the community integration plan for a prisoner that was sent to us. I do not know how typical that prisoner is—the plan is certainly for a long-term prisoner with a challenging background. The convener and Mr Griffin talked about the on-going consultation on Dame Elish Angiolini’s report. Who is the plan shared with and when is it shared?
For a statutory offender—generally speaking, that is the only commitment that we have, although we try to do more—the plan will be shared with the individual and the nominated criminal justice social worker who takes on the case. I am not aware that it is shared much more widely than that.
I appreciate that the plan that we were sent relates to a long-term prisoner and that it begins with information from a number of years ago. What is the expectation of the criminal justice social worker with regard to their receipt of this report?
I am afraid that I am not really sure what you are asking. I did not follow the question.
The report starts in 2007. The information was shared in 2007 with the criminal justice social worker who was allocated to the individual, but with what expectation?
I do not know what their expectation would be; I cannot answer for that worker. My expectation would be that the integration plan would be followed through and that the necessary support, engagement and resources would be made available to manage the person as they migrated back into the community.
I think that the problem for the witnesses is that the paper that we were sent was not made public, because there were concerns that it might be possible to identify individuals from it. It was sent to us as an example.
I will take a slightly different tack. The avoidance of reoffending is not entirely within your gift; it requires the engagement of other agencies including housing, employment and addiction services. By and large, you know when someone is going to get out. Is timely receipt of information part of the plan? I am trying to understand whether the plan just sits in a filing cabinet somewhere or is a meaningful document that is acted upon outwith the prison walls.
Joe Griffin might also want to comment, but I will first top and tail that. The plan is not something that just happens the day before an offender is released. We try to get as many key workers involved as possible and we even try to get families involved. In a sense, what you have in your hand is a summary of what has been discussed, what has been considered to be necessary, what services need to be put in place and what resources need to be lined up as the individual passes out from custody. If the impression has been given that somehow the planning is done on the last day before somebody goes out, I can tell you that it is not like that at all; there is a process that builds up to that point.
So, quite the reverse is the case; it is apparent that planning has been done years in advance of a prisoner’s release, but I am wondering to what end, when the person is given £67, or whatever it is, at the prison door. There are issues around continuity of healthcare and there are significant issues with housing. It seems to me that the plan is an interesting record—I have to say that the one that we were sent is extremely interesting—of the individual and the challenges that staff have faced along the way. I do not know quite where to go with the questioning now.
Mr Griffin is going to come to your aid.
The jargon, or the technical term, is “throughcare”—what happens to someone after they leave prison.
None of that would remove the statutory obligation—[Interruption.]
Could you repeat the question? There was some interference behind me.
The microphone is not on.
None of that would alter the statutory obligations of the local authority to provide housing or of the health board to provide healthcare. There are significant failings in the present system, are not there?
Yes there are. One of the reasons why we are reviewing voluntary throughcare is that there is evidence from service users that that connection is not there. As we discussed in relation to GPs, part of the problem is that the obligation lies on the released prisoner to access those services. We are doing things to try to bridge those gaps and we can, of course, improve the current situation. The people who leave prison are entitled to those services as citizens, as much as they are as ex-prisoners.
Having made a negative comment, I commend the situation as I found it at the prison in Inverness, where there has been a welcome improvement in addiction services as a result of the transfer of the health obligations from the SPS to the local authority. The provision of those services is felt to be a lot more integrated.
Sandra White was making faces at me. Do you want to ask a supplementary?
No, convener. I would like to come in after Alison McInnes.
Sometimes I have to be a bit of a face reader.
I have a few discrete questions, but first I must comment on the inspection report on Polmont, because it is highly significant. We need to invest our greatest efforts in turning round the situation at Polmont.
I do not disagree that, in some cases, Brigadier Monro’s comments on Polmont were pointed and harsh. Equally, we must consider his report in the round. He also pointed to some aspects of good practice and good policy, as he has done in previous reports. I take from his report that work is in progress.
Do you agree that if you want to turn round reoffending in the way that you have spoken about this morning, your active leadership, as well as the leadership of the SPS, is important?
Absolutely.
I turn to the evidence that we received in writing. We had a useful and thoughtful representation from the College of Occupational Therapists, which pointed out the lack of involvement of OTs in the prison system in Scotland. It sees it as a failure that we are not drawing on that important professional experience. I would be interested to know why, historically, we have not involved OTs and what opportunities there are to do so in the future, particularly in relation to the design of services at the new HM Prison Grampian.
That is a point well made. I am not an expert on what occupational therapists can do, but from my limited knowledge, I think that there is some potential for them to make an impact in helping people along that change journey.
I have had discussions with occupational therapists. The problem that they perceive is one of articulation and an inability to be clear in respect of vocabulary. That is an on-going issue. John Carnochan of the violence reduction unit made the point to me that if young men in particular are unable to express what they think, sometimes they do it with their fists. It is about getting people to count to 10 and enabling them to say what they mean without resorting to violence. Some of that is on-going tangentially, through violence reduction classes in Polmont and other institutions. It is an issue that we are happy to look at.
I suggest to Mr McConnell that he talk to the governor in Aberdeen. Robert Gordon University’s occupational therapy department has been working with the prison on some interesting processes. You might be able to draw on that work. I would urge that the guidance panel that you are setting up draw on that worthwhile professional experience.
I do not think that I can necessarily explain that. I am a supporter of art therapy and the outstanding work that organisations such as the Koestler Trust do in prisons. Indeed, I have seen what is going on at several institutions and have visited many exhibitions; I believe that there was one at the Tramway in Glasgow just last year. I recall—
I should point out that we are running short of time, cabinet secretary. Is selling art not subject to prison rules?
I was not aware of any inconsistency in that respect, but those are certainly the current rules.
I think that it is a matter of prison rules, Alison.
Finally, there seems to be something of an office-hours culture with regard to purposeful activity, which tends to be provided 9 to 5, Monday to Friday with very little happening at the weekends. Are you going to look at that in your comprehensive review?
Absolutely, but it all comes back to how we measure these things and how we have structured what we have decided is or is not purposeful. We certainly need to take a fresh view on the matter.
I call Sandra White to ask a short question.
I do not know how I can possibly make this short, convener—
We can have a short question and a long answer.
I will try to make it short, convener.
We are not actually looking at long-term prisoners—
I am talking about short-term prisoners, convener.
You said:
A lot of concern has been expressed about the ability of short-term prisoners to access meaningful activity. Will you be looking specifically at that?
Sandra White is absolutely right. The traditional focus—not just in this jurisdiction, but in a number of others—has been on longer-term offenders, by which I mean those who serve four years or more. We recognise that peaks in reoffending occur with shorter-term offenders and that we not only need to ensure a better balance of provision for long-term prisoners, short-term prisoners and those in custody awaiting the court process, but must be more specific about the services that we are providing to meet the individual needs that have been identified. I doubt that we will ever provide a Rolls-Royce service to every offender who passes through our care, but that is our ambition.
I do not want to curtail the questioning, but I think that we have had quite a whack at this. I should also say that I have let things run on a bit longer to allow us to bring in the additional information that was provided in the separate report on Polmont.
We are back in business. Item 3 is also on our inquiry into purposeful activity in prisons. Following our evidence sessions as part of our short inquiry, we will now consider how we want to take the issue forward. For example, do we want to formally report our findings to the Parliament through a committee report, which is an option, or do we feel that a letter to the cabinet secretary to highlight the key issues that arose in the inquiry would be more appropriate? A committee report would give our views higher status than a letter, but we would receive a response from the Government under either option. If we publish a report, we will have the option of asking to have a debate in the chamber. That would extend consideration of the issue, which would be useful.
There would be benefit in our writing a report. We have unearthed quite a lot of information, and it is clear to me that cracking the business of purposeful activity is key to cracking reoffending, which is of wide significance to what the Parliament is doing. It would be worth while for us to write a report.
I am conscious that we have a new chief executive, and a number of commitments have been offered to us over the past couple of evidence sessions. It would be worth while asking for a report back in nine months’ time on what the developments have been, and perhaps we should bring witnesses back in a year’s time to go through the evidence of any changes that have been delivered.
That is certainly my feeling. Does anyone dissent from that?
I agree with Graeme Pearson.
I also agree.
I think that it would be extremely useful to publish a report. As I said, it will perhaps allow us to have a debate on the issues in the chamber. It would almost be like an interim report, in that we could go back to it.
I see that the formal definition of purposeful activity includes
Yes. We have to make it clear that it is not just work that we are talking about.
We were told that we would get an update on what is happening at Greenock with the 12-week mentoring. I would like to see that looked at and mentioned in the report. I asked whether that programme will be rolled out.
We should include something about a secure college and something about a national guidance panel.
We should mention the need for strategic—
Can I take you one at a time, so that it is not all muddled, as we are discussing this on the record? Alison, you want to mention—
The need for strategic direction from the SPS across prisons.
I would like to include something that focuses on young offenders. We should also address the need to humanise—that is an awful word to use—or normalise people in prison, particularly young offenders, through contact. One of the witnesses said that the walls of a prison should be porous. That was a lovely metaphor. The idea of continuing contact beyond family centres is extremely important, and that was certainly raised with us.
We should include the issue about the number of hours for which meaningful activity is taking place and at what time of the day. During our visit to Edinburgh, a lot of comment was made that, after a certain time, the prisoners are just in their cells and they are bored.
Unfortunately, I do not think that we asked about measuring and what is meant by meaningful activity. It should not just be about ticking a box and doing the hours. We did not challenge that. The measuring should not just say that the prisoners sat for five hours in a classroom, for example.
We took evidence on that from earlier panels. It would be worth exploring that.
Is there anything else? I am sure that the clerks can come up with other issues.
We should flag up the position of remand and short-term prisoners.
Yes. There is a separate issue about remand prisoners. I seem to remember that there was some inhibition to remand prisoners taking part in activities in case that in some way prejudiced the court. There are other inhibitors for remand prisoners.
To add to that, we should include something about the encouragement of people who do not want to take part in meaningful activity. That is important, particularly among short-term and remand prisoners.
There was also the issue that, although a plethora of good work is being done, it does not seem to be co-ordinated. Lots of third sector organisations are involved, but the work is not co-ordinated.
We will probably want to deal with community engagement and things such as communication with local employers.
Yes. We heard about that in evidence.
On encouragement, there was the notion of using prison reports at future court appearances. We should see whether there is any progress on that in the next year.
That is a good point. I will need to look at the Official Report, but I seem to remember that, in passing, there was mention that the committee could write to the judicial studies people to seek their response on that additional information going to the courts.
We should include something on the problems that the regime has with studies, and the fact that the management is more concerned with security movements than with getting people to classes.
Yes.