Item 4 is on the committee's work programme. I refer members to the note that sets out the forthcoming work programme, and remind them that the majority of the work programme has been agreed previously. However, this is an opportunity to review it prior to the summer recess and to remind ourselves of the work that we have agreed to undertake.
I am happy with the suggested change to the witnesses who will give oral evidence. Indeed, the change is entirely reasonable, given the timescale and the fact that we will have other opportunities to speak to certain individuals and groups.
So our evidence-taking session with the chief inspector of prisons would have a dual purpose. We would question the chief inspector about his report and also take evidence from him for our inquiry.
Yes.
Can I have a copy of the work programme that has the second page? I must have lost the other page; I have so many papers.
Given the Justice 2 Committee's recent experience, I suggest that, when we invite witnesses from the Scottish Prison Service, we make it quite clear that we want people who have the relevant expertise and experience to comment on the issues that the committee is examining.
I presume that we want the SPS's expert on the programmes that are available in prisons to educate us on what the SPS is trying to achieve, how it has arrived at the programmes that it is running and so on. You are quite right to point out that, given the short time that we have available, we must ensure that we get the right person from the SPS. We will come back to members with the name of the person or persons from whom we will hear.
Given my constituency interest, I am a bit concerned by the suggestion of taking north Edinburgh drug advice centre out of the list of individuals and organisations that will give oral evidence. Last week, I was in Saughton prison in Edinburgh—as you can see, they let me back out again—to see its Fairbridge project. However, when I spoke to the prisoners, the issue of the effect of drugs on their lives and their offending came up time and time again. I appreciate that time is limited, but that aspect is obviously central to the issues that we have to consider. The staff to whom I spoke said that one of the key reasons why people reoffend quite quickly after release is that drug services are not set up to deal with them speedily. They might have to wait a month before someone is available to discuss their problems, drug rehabilitation and so on. However, without a job or any means of support, people reoffend within that time to get money for drugs. As I have said, I think that the issue is absolutely central to our inquiry.
The clerk's note contains an annex that lists the individuals and organisations that, given the time available, we would call to give oral evidence. The Edinburgh throughcare centre is on the list of organisations to be included in our fact-finding visits and external meetings. As a result, the committee would still meet people at the centre and make a report. That information would still be available to the committee, so those places will not be excluded from the process—far from it. The organisations that we have chosen to visit have all been chosen for practical reasons, such as the time available to us and the convenience of getting to them, with the possible exception of HMP Peterhead, which we could visit as time permits.
I still suggest that it is important to take oral evidence on the effect of drugs. I do not have a problem with the fact that some of us might want to visit the north Edinburgh drug advice centre outwith a committee meeting, and I think that such informal meetings are quite useful, but the issue of drugs is central to what is happening in a lot of people's lives and to why they cannot get out of the cycle of reoffending. It is important to be able to question people on the record about that. Other witnesses may touch on that when they give evidence, but it is a central issue and I feel that we would benefit from hearing from people who deal with drugs issues all the time.
It might be helpful to get a better idea of how we intend to frame the inquiry. I am looking at the list of suggested witnesses for oral evidence during what could be described as phase 1 of our inquiry. I suspect that, as a result of the evidence that we receive from those witnesses, some issues will be flagged up and we may wish to probe into the evidence in closer detail. That may bring us on to looking at the work that has been done by specific projects. For example, I am sure that the Scottish Prison Service will go on at some length about the drug rehabilitation service that Cranstoun Drug Services provides. It may then be appropriate for us to hold discussions with Cranstoun to look at what is happening on the ground, and the same may be true of the north Edinburgh drug advice centre. If there will be scope to probe more deeply into specific issues, it would be helpful to have clarification about that. Representatives of some of the projects could then be brought forward to give evidence at that stage.
Michael Matheson makes a good point. This is not the end of the inquiry process, but merely the start. As he says, we may want to revisit certain projects and to hear evidence in future from representatives of projects other than the north Edinburgh drug advice centre.
You ask a reasonable question, but I do not have a breakdown of how members envisage dealing with the witnesses or of which witnesses would come to which session, so it is quite difficult for me to answer. I just feel that the issue of drugs is absolutely central to our inquiry. I am not wedded to the idea that we have to hear evidence from the north Edinburgh drug advice centre, but I think that we have to take oral evidence from somebody who is able to answer our questions about the importance of drugs and of proper drug rehabilitation services in tackling reoffending behaviour. As I said, I am not wedded to the idea that that oral evidence must come from the north Edinburgh drug advice centre, although it would be useful to visit that centre.
I do not think that anyone disagrees with the point that you are making.
I am quite happy with Michael Matheson's point that there could be a second phase that would take us into more informal meetings. I just want to ensure that on what I consider to be a central point—the importance of the drugs issue—we are able to question somebody who is among the first set of witnesses for oral evidence. That would allow us to get to the bottom of the matter and find out what services are being made available to people and whether that is one of the reasons why there is a revolving-door issue for a number of people with such problems.
I agree with the point that you are making, but I have to remind the committee that our inquiry is about rehabilitation in prisons. We must be absolutely certain about who we think are the experts in determining the impact of drug misuse on the rehabilitation of drug users in the custody of the Scottish Prison Service. For example, the time-out centre, which is in my constituency, could make those arguments, and I would prefer it to give evidence on the record. The committee might also benefit from visiting the centre, which deals with a lot of drug users and offers an alternative to custody.
Paragraph 7 of the clerk's paper notes that the committee will hold an evidence session in Glasgow. Margaret Smith said that she is not wedded to taking oral evidence from a particular organisation—the north Edinburgh drug advice centre, in this case—so perhaps, if appropriate, we could hear from the time-out centre at that meeting. That would fit into the timeframe that the clerks say is appropriate, so it might be a way forward.
For clarification, would the meeting in Glasgow be one of the four evidence sessions, or would it be additional to those meetings?
Annex C of the paper on the work programme shows the timetable for the inquiry. The first evidence session will take place on Wednesday 15 September and the last will take place on Wednesday 6 October in Glasgow, at which meeting the clerk's paper schedules in evidence from local authority criminal justice and social work services, a panel of academics or independent criminologists and the Minister for Justice, who is usually invited to give evidence at the end of the process.
It is difficult at this stage to identify an agency or organisation that could address the issues that Margaret Smith raised, which include drug abuse and rehabilitation. As is always the case with inquiries, when we start to take evidence it will become apparent that it would be helpful to call certain organisations to give evidence. The list of proposed witnesses in annex C is comprehensive for the purposes of an initial sweep across the issue. We can consider later whether it would be relevant to hear evidence on specific matters from other organisations. There is a range of drug rehabilitation organisations that we could invite, but it might become apparent in the course of evidence taking that we should focus on a couple of those organisations.
We will take evidence from the Scottish Prison Service on 15 September. I note Michael Matheson's point about the need to hear from the right people at that meeting, and it might be useful to invite the service to give us its views on drug rehabilitation. We normally give witnesses two or three weeks' notice, so it would be possible to revise our witness list on the basis of what we hear at that meeting. We could then invite the Edinburgh prison throughcare centre or any other relevant organisation to give evidence on the rehabilitation of drug users.
From the breakdown, it appears that the most obvious meeting at which to slot someone else into a panel is that on Wednesday 29 September. I hope that any organisation worth its salt would be happy to take on the challenge at a couple of weeks' notice. I want to ensure that we cover the issue of drug rehabilitation for prisoners on release. From talking to prisoners, prison officers, Fairbridge staff and people from Edinburgh prison throughcare centre and other organisations, I have a sense that that is a big contributory factor in reoffending. Much good work is being done in prison to get people ready for release and to get them to think about what they will do when they are released. However, when they are released, one of the first issues with which they have to deal is the fact that they have a drug habit.
To which specific issue of drug rehabilitation should organisations speak?
The issue that we are considering is the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes in prisons and the work that is being done in prisons with people who have a drug problem. One difficulty seems to arise at the point of release—what kind of throughcare is put in place for people in relation to their drug habit? I understand that there is a gap. It may be a gap of only a week, but we have been told that it is extraordinary for it to be that short and that there is more likely to be a gap of something like a month between people receiving rehabilitation in prison and their getting it in the community. There does not seem to be a smooth transition from what is being done to tackle drug misuse in the prison context to what is being done in the community. We probably want to hear from organisations that work both in prisons and in the community.
You are suggesting that we deal with this matter under the heading of throughcare. We must start by examining rehabilitation in prisons, because that is what the inquiry is about. However, we will inevitably have to consider the issue of what the Scottish Prison Service does for prisoners on release. It has some responsibility for the matter, and the rest is picked up by others. That is as far as we can go. We need to be careful not to stray further than throughcare. We must stop short of dealing with the community aspect of the issue.
I am talking about situations in which work is being done with someone in prison, but there is absolutely nothing there for them when they walk out the door. One of the first things that seems to happen is that such people offend to feed their habit and end up back in prison straight away. The people who have worked with them in prison are left feeling frustrated. The issue is immediate throughcare, rather than how people are dealt with three or six months down the line.
You are talking about throughcare on release.
Yes.
I wanted to be clear about that. If we agree to evaluate the issue, we must decide which other organisations we need to call to give oral evidence under the heading of drug rehabilitation for prisoners on release. If Margaret Smith is happy with that, we will review the matter after we have heard from the SPS on 15 September.
I am happy with that approach, as long as the issue is dealt with.
I raise one further issue for consideration. I know that we have already carried out some post-legislative scrutiny of the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001, but it might be worth considering the Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) (Scotland) Act 2002 next, in the light of press reports about its operation. When that act came into force, it had the effect of introducing a preliminary hearing—like the Bonomy hearings—in advance of trials, to consider any evidence about the victim's sexual character or history. There is anecdotal evidence of complaints from solicitors and advocates about how the act operates and recent press reports have said that there will be a challenge to the act under the European convention on human rights because the act might be seen to be unfair to the accused, as the reaction of the victim to the questions being put before the judge cannot be tested. I do not understand all the issues, but it might be wise for the committee to consider picking that up in future, if issues arise from it.
I do not disagree with any of that. My only concern is work load. Consideration of that act would be a big issue, and we have just had a lengthy debate about trying to squeeze in one additional panel to give evidence on one additional day. I wonder how it will affect the overall timetable if we open up a serious and large issue; it might throw out nearly everything. I am not against the idea, but how, in practical terms, would that fit into the timetable?
We would consider the Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) (Scotland) Act 2002 only once we had concluded our work on the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001—it would simply sit there until we had time to consider it. I merely suggest it at this stage as a kind of postbox heading. We could keep in touch with any developments in relation to the act and thereafter pick up anything that we considered to be vital.
Under the heading "Legislation", the paper says that it is expected that the committee will be designated lead committee on the forthcoming family law bill. It has not yet been confirmed by the Executive when that bill will be introduced. Is there more information on that, because it will also affect the timetable? On a personal note, I am rather disappointed that the committee did not get the Fire (Scotland) Bill, which was published on 28 June.
We do not have a timescale for the family law bill at the moment, but I am happy to write to the Executive to ask it to clarify when we can expect it.
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