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Agenda item 2 is the final oral evidence session in our inquiry into female offenders in the criminal justice system. The remit of the inquiry is
It is fair to say that some Justice Committee members took a different view from mine on which offenders should be imprisoned and on other issues. However, I welcome this opportunity to explain our approach to women offenders in the criminal justice system, and I look forward to our discussions. If the committee agrees, I will first reiterate what I said in the covering letter to our submission.
One of the major issues in our inquiry has been the impact of short-term sentences, on which—it is fair to say—there is conflicting evidence. Was a specific equality impact assessment carried out on the provisions on short-term sentences in the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill and, if so, how did it inform the bill?
In response to that question, I should first lay on the table our apologies. An equality impact assessment on the provisions in the bill relating to short-term sentences and community payback orders was done in February. We had thought that the assessment had been posted on our website, but we have discovered through discussions with our clerk, and after making further inquiries, that it was posted instead on the Government intranet, which is the internal Government website. We are arranging for it to be published on the Government website along with other bill material. There is a statement, which we will get to the committee.
You have had some logistical problems. Can you tell us how the impact assessment influenced or informed the bill?
As part of the impact assessment, we considered the benefits of bringing out into the community on community disposals a number of offenders who would normally receive short-term custodial sentences. For a start, outside agencies would have the opportunity to work with those people and to ensure that they were still integrated into their communities. Services for women offenders could be more holistically driven: women's complex needs could be met by different agencies rather than solely by the resources in the prison in which they had served their short-term sentences. Moreover, using community disposals for these offenders could help to tackle the problem—which has been highlighted in evidence to the committee—of women falling through the net when they leave prison. Health services and the like could actively engage with them for longer than a community disposal or, indeed, a short-term prison sentence would allow.
As a precursor to all this, the Government and the McLeish commission were driven by two questions. Who are we dealing with and what do we do with them? As I said to your Justice Committee colleagues, it is clear that women offenders have greater needs, if I can put it that way. As the statistics that you will have received from other sources clearly show, they tend to be victims of abuse and to have greater mental health and addiction problems. As a result, they form a much more vulnerable category of prisoner.
We will go into more detail on much of what you have just covered. In the evidence that you gave to the Justice Committee today, did you cover the aspect that you have just mentioned?
Yes—in part. The questions were different but I made it clear that, in the main, we want an end to the free-bed-and-board culture, and we want people to make reparation for the harm that they have done. It seems that on occasion—as will have been picked up from my evidence to the Justice Committee—women are sent to Cornton Vale because it is thought that it will be therapeutic and improving for them.
I would certainly welcome—as would the cabinet secretary—fewer women being sent to prison as a result of the bill. What is the most likely form of disposal for those women? For example, what would the balance be between community payback orders, greater use of provision like the 218 centre and supported accommodation, or other options?
To some extent, it is about what works. We are very supportive of the 218 centre, which does a remarkably good job. However, the centre operates in a large conurbation, so it might not be possible to replicate what works there in other parts of Scotland.
Such an approach is not appropriate in every part of Scotland, but is there greater scope for use of 218-type sentences in other urban centres, such as Edinburgh?
Absolutely—there is more than one way to skin a cat. It is about joining up services. The point has been made to me that some services should not be for women offenders only.
We have heard conflicting evidence: one school of thought is that short-term sentences cannot, because of their nature, deal with underlying problems, but can offer sanctuary and access to services. Could the CPO address the underlying questions? How does it compare with short-term sentences?
If prison is providing sanctuary, then there is something wrong with the system. The question that springs to my mind is this: If what we are really doing is removing women from domestic violence, why are we prosecuting them in the first place? Secondly, if we are providing treatment, the purpose of prison is first to protect the public and then to seek to rehabilitate and reform—that cannot be done in three months. Prison officials tell us—I will ask Tom Fox to comment—that it takes almost eight weeks to get someone into the system, and eight weeks to prepare them to go out, because if they have an addiction it is necessary to ensure that they have, when they get out, access to methadone or whatever else. The SPS does not exist to provide respite care. I am not being flippant when I say that if that is what you want to provide, it would be cheaper and better to do so at Stobo castle or similar than at Cornton Vale prison.
Before we leave the issue, I will say that my question related in particular to issues such as the underlying problems of domestic abuse or childhood sexual abuse. What, in that respect, will be positive in the CPO, and does not exist in how those women are dealt with now?
If the person is a victim of domestic abuse, why are they in the criminal justice system? Are not they the victims rather than the perpetrators? Mike Rumbles frequently goes on about the level of domestic violence by women against men: I know that it happens, but I have never been persuaded by his rationale or argument. If we are talking about women who are victims of domestic violence, that is clearly a matter that we as a society have to tackle by protecting them. If we fail them, why should they have their agony compounded? That does not excuse their going—
Can I stop you there? How will the CPO help to protect them and address the underlying causes of their behaviour?
Sharon Grant would like to comment.
We have started to do some work around supporting or taking forward community payback orders. Although it is not yet in legislation, we have to start preparing for what it might look like when it comes out of the Parliamentary process. As part of the offender management programme, there is a work stream on community penalties. The CPO sits in the centre of that. As members know, the Scottish Prison Commission's report recommended that we must consider the needs of offenders and address their needs holistically. The Government and all the other agencies—the health sector, mental health services, addiction services and so on—are working out how we will support people on CPOs.
I understand all that. However, the point has been made that prison may act as a sanctuary, to give the woman protection. Can the community payback order perform that function?
A residence requirement can be attached to a community payback order: the court can require the offender to stay at the 218 centre, for example, or in a local authority's supported accommodation. The willow project centre in Edinburgh is not a residential centre, but the City of Edinburgh Council has supported accommodation that can accommodate women who attend the centre but do not have a permanent address, or who have had to leave their permanent address for whatever reason.
Sharon Grant is right about what we must do. However, it would be manifestly perverse for someone who is being knocked black and blue by their partner to have to commit an offence to be given some sanctuary. It is the responsibility not of the criminal justice system but of wider society to protect such people from the crime of assault that is being perpetrated against them. They should not have to have recourse to offending in order that they can get some respite care. The issue must be addressed through the measures that the justice department is taking to deal with domestic violence. Great progress is being made in that area, with particular drives by the chief constable of Strathclyde Police. Other departments, agencies and organisations must also ensure that victims of domestic violence are protected before they perpetrate offences.
The committee welcomes the developments in relation to domestic abuse and the good intentions that exist. However, we have taken a great deal of evidence and have discovered that women offenders are never asked whether they are victims of domestic abuse, although they are asked about engagement in prostitution. It has been suggested that, when it would have been appropriate for women in Cornton Vale to be asked about domestic abuse, that did not happen. Their needs cannot be recognised, because they are not asked whether they have a problem.
The SPS has identified that problem and is in the process of putting in place a draft domestic abuse strategy, which is referred to in written evidence that has been submitted to the committee. Domestic abuse is a serious issue in Cornton Vale. Daily, a very high percentage of the women who come through our doors have been subjected to some form of abuse, either in their past or immediately prior to their offending behaviour.
Many of the changes in relation to short sentences—of which the committee is, broadly speaking, supportive—will transfer the burden of responsibility to other aspects of our society. How much additional resource will be given to the various other organisations and partnership developments? Will the change of responsibility have a negative impact on the Scottish Prison Service budget?
No, it will not have a negative impact on the Scottish Prison Service budget. However, if we persist in the direction in which we are heading as a society, we can build as many prisons as we like but we will not be able to provide the health care facilities and schools that we want. I announced at the Justice Committee that £5.5 million will be put into sorting out the community payback orders in the next two years, with £1.5 million immediately and £4 million next year. That work will not simply be about ensuring that things run smoothly. It involves progress hearings, which have to be resourced. As we know from drug treatment and testing orders, with people from dysfunctional backgrounds, the approach of keeping them on a tight leash—sometimes challenging them and sometimes praising them—works. There is also a need for electronic monitoring to provide some fallback when breaches occur. As I said, £5.5 million is going into the community payback scheme.
That is all very positive but, from what you say, there are as yet no definitive figures on the likely impact of the new measures on the various bodies, such as health boards and local authority social work departments, that will look after people who are currently looked after in Cornton Vale.
We have been considering where we are heading and that issue has been touched on. We do not expect a big bang overnight—it is not as though, at midnight on a certain date, we will change immediately from short sentences to community payback orders. We are putting in additional resources so that we can meet the increased need. Some of the matters are more about the existing statutory obligations of partner agencies. We need joined-up working and working with COSLA to ensure that particular matters and needs are dealt with. Not all the issues are within the domain of criminal justice social work services, which the justice department funds although they are provided by local authorities. We need to ensure that the partner agencies are involved—that housing is available through the local authority and that the required health treatment is available. That is for other partner agencies to comment on.
You mentioned other agencies. Will the measures to which you referred be reflected in the detail of any forthcoming new concordat between the Scottish Government, and COSLA and local authorities?
I have not given any thought to the specifics of the concordat. We have simply sought to work with our partners, whether that is me working personally with Harry McGuigan, or our work with the Association of Directors of Social Work and the community justice authorities. We are all in it together. It is a societal problem, although it manifests as a criminal justice issue. People have to pay and face the consequences of their action in the criminal justice system. However, the solution is not simply a criminal justice matter; it is also a social and health responsibility.
I have recently taken over responsibility for community integration on the justice side. Part of my job is to work with other departments, such as health and housing services, to join up a bit better than we have done in the past. Obviously, the concordat enables us to do that much more easily. The equally well strategy, which is an umbrella strategy that covers all the other strategies, recommends that every member of the public in Scotland should have equal access to public services. Offenders are no different; they are members of the public. Indeed, when the health service and other agencies look at how they spend their cash, they look at the whole population and do not discount the prison population just because prisoners are locked away. Services are willing to join up, and part of our remit is to help them to work together so that we use resources better and avoid duplication.
Does that mean that the funding that the Scottish Prison Service currently allocates for health care will be transferred to the relevant part of the health service, or will the health service be expected to take on that workload without the additional resources that are required to deal with the prison population?
We anticipate that there will be some transfer of funds when that happens. Obviously, as Sharon Grant mentioned, the important thing for us is to ensure continuity of care for prisoners when they progress back into the community. That is an issue at the moment, although it varies across Scotland. Particularly for prisoners with mental health issues, continuity of community care when they move on from custody is a very serious matter. We believe that integration with the NHS will facilitate a much smoother passage for individuals when they move into and out of custody.
The matter is rather complicated and will take time because of the need to negotiate with the unions on employment rights, for example under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981. The transfer will not be immediate, but that is the direction of travel.
The transfer is referred to in the Scottish Government's submission, paragraph 40 of which refers to "NHS integration".
The transfer of prison health care is a specific example that involves, I imagine, fairly limited funds. More generally, under the policy, are significant savings expected from the Prison Service in the long run? For example, if the number of women prisoners in Cornton Vale—or in any other prison to which it might be thought appropriate to send women—reduces significantly, will that eventually lead to a transfer of resources from the Prison Service to community services?
I do not know that we will ever see a transfer of resources, as a great deal of the Scottish Prison Service's expenditure is currently on building new prisons to replace an estate that has been, in some instances, Victorian, and, in others, Napoleonic, in that it was built to deal with prisoners as they were dealt with in Napoleonic times. As Tom Fox mentioned, if we can reduce prisoner numbers in Cornton Vale from 400 down to the more manageable level for which the prison was constructed, we will not necessarily save any money but we will be able to work with the remaining prisoners who are on lengthy sentences and have significant problems. The excellent prison staff can then do their job. Some consequent savings might be achieved, but a great deal of prison expenditure is simply on building the new prison estate. The increased cost of having additional prisoners tends to be paid in what can be done with the prisoners rather than in the increased charges for supplying 400 rather than 200 breakfasts.
We have spent a lot of time on short-term sentences, which are a huge issue, but I have another question before we move on. In informal evidence from the sheriffs—and in the evidence that we heard from a visiting committee, an ex-offender and an academic—we heard that not everyone agrees with the generic view that no work can be done with a prisoner who is on a short-term sentence. We heard that resource issues were stopping some very worthwhile work on literacy and numeracy, communication skills and the other underlying problems that short-term offenders might have. Will you comment on that?
I think that the real experts on that are the people in the Scottish Prison Service who do the front-line job. Someone from outwith the prison can say what should or should not be done but, frankly, if someone is in prison for only eight or 16 weeks, by the time that they have been processed—and given the need to deal with prisoners who are in for serious offences and have significant problems—I do not see how the Prison Service can deal with their literacy or drug addiction problems.
It might surprise you to learn that the ex-offender from whom we took evidence said that she had asked to be put on a course but was told, "That is not for short-term prisoners, so you don't have access to it."
I meet many ex-offenders, and they often tell me that they go into prison for an element of respite. It gets them off the street, it keeps them out of difficulties, it gets them out of bad company, they get their teeth done, and they get three square meals. Frankly, however, that is not the job—
That ex-offender wanted to access a programme, but it was just not available.
That is not the job of the Scottish Prison Service. Its job is to keep our communities safe from those who commit crime. When the SPS has those people, it seeks to work with them and to do what it can to deal with them—
Are the resources there for the rehabilitation of short-term prisoners?
That is a matter for Tom Fox.
The short answer is yes. We have sufficient resources but—it is a big but—the numbers that we are facing at the moment are putting prisons under tremendous pressure.
Can I stop you there? You are going down the line that people are there for respite, but we heard informally from sheriffs that they sometimes have no other option. If bail has been breached many times, they have to put people on remand and, in effect, give them the equivalent of a short-term sentence. In those circumstances, can literacy, numeracy, communication skills and other things be addressed, and are the resources in place to allow that?
I made it clear in my evidence to the Justice Committee earlier that the failsafe option will always be imprisonment. If somebody will not do what they are given as the alternative to imprisonment, they will face the possible sanction of imprisonment. People cannot cock a snook at society. You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. As I told the Justice Committee, we have a presumption against short sentences, but if a sheriff believes that an individual offence merits a short sentence, we will respect that and they will be able to impose such a sentence.
In those circumstances, do people have access to meaningful programmes on things such as literacy or numeracy, even if they are just a start?
The SPS's position is that it will do what it can under its statutory responsibility but, frankly, as Tom Fox said, it cannot do as much as could be done elsewhere. Can a literacy programme be provided in eight weeks, or four weeks? Such things take time, so there are challenges. The SPS has a duty to every prisoner—be they a short-term prisoner or one with a long sentence—to do what is appropriate. As I said, there are limits to what can be done, and there are consequences for the prisoners with whom we really need to work.
We will come on to those things.
Cabinet secretary, I bring you back to specific equalities issues rather than the wider justice issues that we have concentrated on for the past wee while.
We need to be honest. In the past, we have not been good at looking at that. We have met our legislative requirements under equality duties and so on to bring in orders that, on the surface, do not look as if they impact on people. However, the evidence that has come out in the past few years and our work to support women offenders have taught us that we have to be much smarter. A woman might be subject to a community payback order, but there might be issues around access to unpaid work. We should not demand something of the woman that she cannot meet.
Where will the equalities impact of a sentence be assessed? Will that be done during the CPO process or after it? Will it be done as a follow-up—an observation almost—to the community payback order? How will we know that the outcome for women is just?
At the moment, where social work is dealing with probation orders and so on, there are line management responsibilities. Supervising social workers report into a line management structure, which should be overseeing how the supervising officer is dealing with the person on the order and considering the potential impact. It is about trying to prevent anything unforeseen from happening. It is about looking ahead at all the possibilities and all the downsides to someone being supervised on an order. I do not think that I am explaining myself very well.
I want to clarify something that you just said; I think that I picked it up correctly. If a sheriff imposes a community service order as an alternative to custody and it is breached, the sheriff is obliged to return to the original offence and not deal with the breach. I understood you to say that that will no longer be the case. As I understand it, that would require a change to the legislation that is extant. Have I picked that up right?
The sheriff will look at the order at the moment—that applies to the CSO and the CPO. However, with the CPO, there is a slight difference, in that the sheriff can call for a review of progress on the order.
That was helpful—that clarifies the matter.
You have already answered quite a bit of what I was going to ask, but I will give you a chance to tie together a few bits and pieces. On the reform of existing community penalties, we were interested to note that there is a feeling that the current penalties are not always gender appropriate, either because of problems related to child care or, perhaps, because the woman has been physically or sexually abused and does not want to work with half a dozen men, for instance. I would be interested to hear how you might consider more gender-specific community payback orders.
You are right to make that point. Penalties will be rolled out—many of them already have been—by criminal justice social work departments. It comes back to the ethos of our response to the McLeish commission, which was on the theme of fast, fair and flexible. We want the penalty to be fast, and we want it to be fair, taking into account a variety of circumstances. Referring back to the point that Mr O'Donnell raised, there should be an element of flexibility. There are some instances in which a breach is serious and must be dealt with, because it is unjustifiable and action must be taken. There are others in which the sheriff must have the flexibility to recognise that it is not desirable to go all the way down the snake, as it were, to the beginning of the sentence.
In your earlier remarks, you acknowledged that women often need help from a wide range of social service providers. We have heard evidence to suggest that, if a woman is in prison for a medium-term or long-term period, it is a fairly straightforward matter and there will be engagement with the service providers, in physical health, mental health, drug addiction or whatever.
It is a matter of working as a joined-up society. That is the benefit of the willow project in Edinburgh, for example. It is also a matter of health boards recognising their obligations to deal with offenders; that ties in with the work of Sacro. I do not think that there can be one prescribed way of dealing with community service; it will have to be different in different areas. As I said to the members of the Justice Committee, Glasgow and other urban areas have specific pressures because of the volume of people. In the more rural areas of northern Scotland or the south-west, significant pressures arise for criminal justice social work departments.
This is the Equal Opportunities Committee, so we are interested in knowing whether differences specific to gender are taken into account when services try to get men and women involved.
I would hope so, but that question is more for the CJAs and the criminal justice social work departments. Because of what has been enshrined in law, and because of equality impact assessments, all the agencies have responsibilities. It is for the professionals at the coalface to do what is necessary; our responsibility is to set a legislative framework that reflects the views of society and the will of Parliament, and to ensure that the professionals are adequately resourced.
Although we would want fewer women to be in Cornton Vale or similar prisons, we would accept that some women will inevitably be there. We have heard some disagreement over whether women should be concentrated in Cornton Vale—which has advantages because more services can be provided—or whether they should be held nearer to their communities.
There will have to be a balance. We are travelling in the direction of having more community-facing prisons, to ensure that women do not have to be taken all the way down to central Scotland from Aberdeen or Aberdeenshire. The Grampian prison will replace Peterhead and Aberdeen prisons, and it will allow some women offenders—those for whom there is no alternative to custody because of the seriousness of the offence—to be closer to home. The intention will be the same with Low Moss or Bishopbriggs. We must consider local sensitivities, so I think that it will be Low Moss.
Most people will not be in new community-facing prisons. How are things working out in Greenock? Because of overcrowding in Cornton Vale, did you have no alternative but to use Greenock? The prison was not designed for that, so is the arrangement satisfactory?
The situation is not ideal. However, because of the numbers that we have to cope with, using Greenock is better than continuing with the overcrowding at Cornton Vale.
That is helpful. The question has been put to us by at least one witness of what concentration of services is necessary. Given that many fewer women will be in prison, what number of prisoners do you have in mind for a viable community-facing prison? It seems to me that there would have to be a limited number. You said that a critical mass would be required for a viable unit, but the overall number of female prisoners is shrinking significantly. It does not sound as if you intend to have a large number of facilities.
We hope that the overall number of prisoners will shrink significantly. Deciding what size of prison population is viable in the sense to which you refer is a difficult judgment call. If we had community-facing prisons in Inverclyde, Highland, Grampian and the central belt, we could put together relatively small units that would have, say, 10 to 20 women. I do not know about that, though—we will have to see how the prison population goes. However, we believe that there will always be some female offenders who will need specialised skills and facilities. There will also be a need in the long term for a national facility, at Cornton Vale or elsewhere.
We took evidence on an equal opportunities issue that is worth flagging up to you. It is about keeping women offenders as near to their families as possible, then dispersing them. Apparently, in another jurisdiction, women started their sentence in a prison like Cornton Vale that had all the appropriate services, including specialised services, then they were moved. However, that was the subject of a legal challenge, because women were unable to access the same level of service as before. Has that aspect been considered?
We have to be watchful with regard to such issues. Malcolm Chisholm made a valid point in that respect. Our Administration has signed off on the investigation into having prisons in Inverclyde and Highland to replace Greenock and Inverness prisons. However, any plans will take many years to come to fruition and we will probably have to make a judgment call on them. The general direction of travel of the SPS and the Government—although it might be a future Administration that eventually deals with the issue—is towards having community-facing prisons.
I would like to take things a bit further. It seems that having units with 10 to 20 women is the right way to go, but I realise that that is in the future. However, what about equal opportunities and young female offenders? Is there not already a difficulty in Cornton Vale with young women mixing with adults because of a lack of critical mass? I am not encouraging their numbers to grow, of course.
There are problems. Statutory requirements to do with ages apply in separating prisoners, which cause problems. Given the number of women prisoners that there are, one can imagine a scenario in which one might not want to have a young girl separated on her own. We are not seeking to put people in solitary confinement. If the numbers go the way that most people hope that they will go, one would not want such a scenario.
The point about socialisation is important. It is not a positive thing for very small groups of prisoners—groups of twos and threes—to be effectively held in isolation. A balance must be struck between providing for particular groups and taking a more holistic approach—to use one of Sharon Grant's phrases—and asking what is best for them. Such judgments are best left to the people who deal with them at the time, as they must take decisions that are based on the circumstances as they see them at that moment.
I know that we do not have much time, but I am interested in exploring why what has been described is not always to the disadvantage of females, but is not done at all with males. That issue is not for our inquiry, but I am interested in it.
Let us stick to the inquiry.
I return to the 218 model, which we have received a lot of evidence about. Could some female offenders—rather than being imprisoned, or even having community payback orders imposed on them—be dealt with more effectively in a community-based building that provided a combination of appropriate services? We have received a lot of supportive evidence about the 218 centre and the willow project, but local authorities have made very few inquiries about them. It seems to be accepted that the 218 model cannot be replicated, but we need to replicate its methods. Do you have plans for doing that?
Our purpose is to support and encourage. The willow project, for example, did not come from the justice department, and it certainly did not come from the SPS; rather, it came about through Sacro and health board work. We are keen to learn from the 218 project, because we think that it is good. We are evaluating it to identify best practice, which can be shared with the CJAs. Thereafter, we can try to do what is appropriate with the resources that are available to deal with the needs and advantages and sometimes the disadvantages of areas and communities.
Do you envisage more centres like the 218 centre in Scotland?
We are evaluating the 218 centre. We certainly support what it is doing, and we want to ensure that we work out where it is doing well. If there are areas in which it is not doing well, we want to learn from that. We are also keen to support and promote the willow project. Some schemes are not top-down schemes; rather, they are bottom-up schemes.
My concern is for the rest of Scotland.
As I said, we are seeking to share information with the CJAs, to pull them together, and to say what is working in areas. It might not be entirely possible to replicate measures in certain areas, but we are on a journey. The CJAs are now established, and we expect them to deliver. From going round them, I think that they are getting to grips with the jobs of work that require to be done.
Could centres provide services to women who are at risk of offending? In other words, could they help a broader section of the population?
They probably could do. The services that are run by the willow project, which deals only with women who are in the offending cycle, as far as I am aware, and by 218, which runs a day service, would probably be viable for women who are at risk of offending or who have been subject to abuse, addictions or other experiences that might lead them to offend. There are advantages to be gained if non-criminal justice services join up to provide a more person-centred approach.
The committee heard that the 218 centre is good at supporting women who have been given a structured deferred sentence. That might be of interest to the cabinet secretary.
The committee heard that when a woman in prison misbehaves, privileges can be withdrawn. We understand that that might be necessary, but we were concerned to hear that communication or visiting rights can be affected. We were particularly concerned to hear that children might not be able to visit their mother or that their visit might have to take place under different circumstances. I would be concerned if a woman's punishment affected the rights of her child. There is plenty of evidence that having a mother in prison damages a child, and further damage is done if the mother loses the right to telephone home or the child cannot visit or must visit under less pleasant circumstances. Will the witnesses comment on the issue?
You made a good point, which the SPS has acknowledged. We are drafting a new women offenders strategy, and the issue of the orderly room—discipline of women who infringe prison rules—is a strand of that work. We are aware that orderly room decisions about female offenders might have a disproportionately negative effect on them and on their extended family. We are actively considering how we can enforce discipline—we have to be able to do that—without there being a concomitant negative effect on other people.
The committee would appreciate hearing your conclusions when the work is completed.
The issue has been identified. I do not want to harp on about the same issue, but it is hard to overstate the impact of the numbers that Cornton Vale is currently dealing with on the ability to provide such support.
Women who have become institutionalised after serving long sentences or who have mental health or communication problems have difficulties when they leave prison and have to deal with social work services and other groups. Before a woman is released, is an assessment made of her ability to communicate her needs? If so, and if she lacks skills, is an attempt made to provide someone who can communicate for her, so that she does not find herself in a lot of difficulty because she has not managed to organise things?
Prison staff engage with all categories of prisoners. When necessary, they can perform an advocacy role for prisoners. You are right to identify a particularly acute problem with the group of offenders that we are discussing. Staff at Cornton Vale work hard with partner agencies in the community to try to provide such support. If you are asking whether that support is as effective as it should be in every circumstance, the answer is probably no. However, staff do a marvellous job in building up relationships with community partner agencies to try to ensure that offenders receive the support that they need when they move back into the community. We are well aware that many such women cannot be advocates for themselves. Staff do their bit—along with partner agencies, social work and local authorities—to try to ensure that women's needs are met when they return to the community.
That topic is important.
My understanding of the consultation process is that the staff who are developing the strategy have worked with partners in social work and community justice authorities—
Are they SPS staff?
Yes. SPS staff have worked with CJA staff, local authority staff and other bodies such as those in the voluntary sector to sound out views about the best way to develop the strategy. We are still at an early stage. We will require to put in a considerable amount of work to get the strategy right.
That would help—thank you.
The variability of data about the success or otherwise of a range of programmes has come to light in a lot of evidence. That kind of takes us into throughcare, which Marlyn Glen will cover. How do we evidence meaningfully the success or otherwise of programmes? Given the SPS's critical role, and notwithstanding its worthy vision statement, should the SPS have a statutory obligation or duty to rehabilitate?
I do not know, but I am happy to consider and reflect on that. The SPS already seeks to rehabilitate, but what can be done or tested is to an extent limited. Part of the SPS's mission statement is to keep communities secure from those who must be put in prison and to work with prisoners to try to reform and rehabilitate them. I do not know whether a statutory duty would assist.
What about the statistical information to assess the success of programmes?
What you refer to is why we are evaluating the 218 centre, for example. We are keen to point out that we are dealing with individuals. They share many common traits—a history of abuse, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse or whatever else—but they are also individuals. What works for some does not necessarily work for others. Some like the company of many, whereas some are fairly solitary. If schemes are evaluated as operating well, we need to ensure that the CJAs know of them and—I hope—have the resources to deliver them. I ask Sharon Grant to comment, but I think that the aim is to be ever vigilant to ensure that information is available.
As you know, in the Scottish Government we generally pilot something and decide whether it has been effective before rolling it out. In recent years, some of that analysis has been based on the number of offenders who go through the system, but the Government's analytical services division has told us that we need to get better at identifying quality and what works in programmes. When pilots are carried out in the future, we will try to pinpoint which part of a programme works and which part of it delivers on quality.
That is encouraging. Thank you.
I am aware that the cabinet secretary has to leave by half past 1. Is that correct?
Yes.
In that case, Bill Wilson can ask a supplementary, as long as it is brief and the answer is brief, too.
It is on statistical data. At various times, there has been some discussion of whether females might be punished more harshly than men for some offences. Is there any intention to carry out a statistical examination of equality in sentencing?
I am not sure that we have any statistics that show that women are punished more harshly than men. We have no evidence to show that if a woman breaches an order, for example, she will be punished more harshly than a man would be, but we could speak to our analytical services people about that.
In her evidence to the committee, Baroness Corston outlined the difficulty that she has experienced in establishing who is in charge of meeting the needs of women who offend or who are at risk of offending. Is there clearer accountability and responsibility in Scotland?
I think so. Clearly, the justice department has that responsibility and we work with partner agencies. I have not read Baroness Corston's report all the way through, but we welcome it and will be more than happy to learn from any jurisdiction, whether in the UK or elsewhere, if that will help us to do what is right. Some of the problems that we are discussing are shared south of the border.
Who is in charge of meeting those women's needs is a really important issue, especially when it comes to women offenders with mental health problems, for example. I appreciate that it is not the place of a sheriff to know about a woman's mental health problems and that it is perhaps not the place of her defence lawyer to know about them, either, but will her social worker know about them? Who is in charge of such matters? The responsibility aspect is vital. You talked about CJAs sharing best practice, and Sharon Grant talked about bringing people together to work and share best practice, but I am keen to find out who is in charge of ensuring that that happens.
The offender management programme that the cabinet secretary mentioned is not just about processes. It aims to take an offender-based rather than a process-based approach so that we consider the needs of the offender in addressing payback and so on all the way through the system. We are probably talking about a pathway that will identify different people as having responsibility for an offender at different times on their journey. People change—they recover from addictions, for example, and move on to require different services, at which point the person who has responsibility for them might change. That is the system that operates in mental health—the mental health system looks at care pathways. We want to do something similar in offender management. I do not want to pre-empt anything that is happening in the area, but we should concentrate on the needs of the individual offender, rather than the process of chuntering someone through. We are trying to get people to take ownership of different parts of the process.
We are concerned that people may fall through the gaps. It sounds to me like you are saying that the system will still be gender neutral. However, Baroness Corston's report points out that no one is in charge of the needs of women who offend.
Every work stream of the offender management programme will look at what suits male offenders and what suits female offenders. In the past few years, because we have been looking continually for new ways of reducing overcrowding, we have tended to pigeonhole people; we cannot do that any longer. We are now trying to reverse the system and to make it fit for purpose for the different groups of offenders within it.
We are pushed for time—we have nine minutes left. I ask Willie Coffey to keep his question brief.
My question follows on from that of Marlyn Glen and is connected to the theme of pathways. At previous evidence sessions, we were given examples of information not being passed into the prison system. For example, a prison may not be informed of a woman's dependence on certain medication, so it may take some time for that medication to be administered to her after she has been admitted. How will the system be improved to ensure that the pathways approach that you described captures such issues at an early stage?
One aspect of the offender management programme is information sharing across the criminal justice system and between agencies in and outwith the system. Across the board, there will be a focus on information sharing, the difficulties associated with that and how we can overcome them, bearing in mind the data protection and ECHR issues that we face. We will examine how we can use the legislation effectively to address issues associated with information sharing.
Throughcare is hugely important, so we will take the time to get all our questions on the subject answered.
We heard evidence from one woman that she was unable to complete her social security arrangements before leaving prison. That had nothing to do with the communication problems that were touched on earlier. After leaving prison, she got accommodation but had no way of paying for or maintaining it, because social security arrangements had not been made in advance. It has been suggested that it should be standard practice for people to go into prisons to help offenders to set up arrangements in advance, so that they do not fall through the gaps when they get out. It seems to be a general problem—Quarriers gave evidence that children leaving care fall though the same gaps. Is there any way in which we can tackle the problem, apart from by assisting people to complete the form?
Significant progress has been made on the issue in prisons over the past decade, through the provision of links centres that bring people from the community into prison to discuss with prisoners social security, local authority, housing and other services. I am confident that such services are available to prisoners across the prison estate. If individuals are falling through the gaps, that is a cause for concern. One of the major things that we want for people leaving prison is somewhere to go and the opportunity to interface with someone in the community about their wider needs, such as medical issues and employment opportunities. Ensuring that such contact takes place is a priority for us. We can take up that specific issue later. As far as I am aware, such opportunities are available to prisoners in all prisons in Scotland, to ensure that the circumstances that you described are prevented.
The opportunities are available, but we heard that accommodation and even crisis loans take a long time to kick in. For example, we heard a graphic description of how one offender had to make repeated phone calls. If she had not received support from her family, she would have considered committing a crime to support herself. Could numbers be available for women in prison to phone several weeks before they are released, to ensure that services are in place in time?
We can certainly consider that.
That would be great.
Jobcentre Plus has told us that it is reviewing all its processes with its prison advisers, with the possibility that benefits for prisoners might be fast-tracked. That might not necessarily be the outcome of its review, but it is considering ways of improving the system.
Such a move would be very welcome.
Have you made any projections on the likely impact of the reduction in the number of short-term sentences on the cycle of female reoffending and on what Tom Fox called the churn?
We have not made any such projections. However, our information is that those who are given short-term prison sentences are more likely to reoffend than those who are given community service. That is why we are approaching this matter on the basis of what is effective and what works, instead of simply labelling particular approaches as tough and penal or soft and liberal. We have clear statistical information about what works and the justice directorate and the Department for Work and Pensions have a clear direction of travel about what is needed, but, as I say, I do not think that we have made any projections as such. After all, we are dealing with individuals with difficult and chaotic lives.
Do you have any aspirational targets?
No, we are not target driven but, like other elements of Government, we are looking for outcomes. For example, we want our communities to be safer and stronger; we want these women to address their offending behaviour; and we want to address their wants and needs and try to get them off their addictions. Simply put, we want to help them and make our communities better.
Sacro and others stressed the potential benefit of a mentoring service for female offenders, but highlighted a lack of relevant funding. Do you have any comments on that view?
I support mentoring, which can be beneficial. What keeps female and other offenders out of prison is having a home to go to and someone to keep in touch with, whether it be a granny or whoever else. The mentoring project that we funded in south-west Scotland has had clear benefits. That said, there are limits to what we can do when so much money has to be spent on the prison estate.
Is that project being evaluated?
Yes.
And we will share the findings with the committee.
Various witnesses have called for earlier intervention with female offenders. I suppose that you can go back as far as you like in that regard; indeed, some people argue that many types of criminal behaviour are best dealt with through intervention in the first three years of life. What scope is there for more early intervention with female offenders?
You are right to suggest that this is all about breaking a cycle of behaviour that can affect generation after generation, and I certainly do not think that you are being flippant in saying that such behaviour can be most effectively addressed before a child is three years old. On the other hand, certain young offenders can simply spiral out of control, and their behaviour can be picked up and addressed in school or elsewhere. Such issues are being dealt with through "Preventing Offending by Young People: A Framework for Action", our early and effective intervention programme, the getting it right for every child programme, the children's hearings system and so on. To stop people ending up in Cornton Vale, we need to intervene as early as possible and have fallbacks all the way down the line. One approach is not necessarily any better than another; because we are dealing with individuals, each approach is equally important.
I want to pick up on one other issue that was raised in the cabinet secretary's written submission. When we visited Cornton Vale, we were left in no doubt that some inmates were very unhappy with the toilet arrangements in the area for remand prisoners and in the Bruce and Younger blocks. I was intrigued to see in the submission that, to address the problem, the SPS has introduced cameras and has improved the system of communications with the electronic control room. Will you tell us how the changes work? One of the prison visiting committees from which we heard evidence told us that, were the same type of facility put in a male prison, the prisoners would be out on the roof protesting.
The facility is not desirable; none of us would say that it was. There is an electronic locking system and, by pressing a button, prisoners can request egress from their cells to use the toilets. The cameras are to ensure that only one person is in the common area at any one time. Similar systems have been used before in a number of prisons, and such a system was certainly in use in Polmont until fairly recent years.
That concludes our questions. Would any of the witnesses like to add anything?
No, but thank you very much for inviting us. We wish you well.
I thank the cabinet secretary, and Sharon Grant and Tom Fox very much. I thank the cabinet secretary in particular for coming hotfoot from the Justice Committee. He has had two quite gruelling evidence sessions in a row.
Meeting continued in private until 14:09.