Macpherson Report
Good afternoon. Some committee members have yet to arrive, but as it is just after two o'clock we shall start. I have received apologies from Tommy Sheridan, Marilyn Livingstone and John Munro.
I welcome Jim Wallace, Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice, and Jackie Baillie, the Deputy Minister for Communities with specific responsibility for equality issues. The Deputy First Minister is with us until 3 pm. I understand that he will make a short statement and will then take questions from committee members. The Deputy Minister for Communities will remain until 3.45 pm to deal with the more general aspects of equality. Jim Wallace will kick off.
I welcome this opportunity to meet the committee to discuss the important issue of the action plan for Scotland, which is the Scottish Executive's response to the Macpherson report on the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.
Since the action plan was published, on 20 July, there has been a period of consultation, which closes on 30 September. I understand that the committee intends to respond to that consultation. During that time, officials in my department have been working with the Commission for Racial Equality on the membership of a steering group, which will consist of representatives of interested bodies such as the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the police associations and independent members. I hope to write to prospective members in the near future and to make an announcement shortly thereafter.
It is envisaged that the first meeting of the steering group will take place in the second half of October, which will allow some time for analysis of the responses to the consultation exercise. The first meeting will consider the group's terms of reference, its priorities for action and some initial time scales. Members will also want to give their reaction to the proposals in the action plan and the responses that have been received.
As a result of that, the ways forward proposed in the action plan will develop during the next couple of months. For some recommendations, our proposals may require expansion. For others, we may choose to take a different direction.
As I have said before, the action plan is a first step on a journey that will require a considerable amount of work from a variety of bodies and people. The Equal Opportunities Committee and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee will take a great deal of interest in the progress that is being made. We will want to keep members informed of significant developments when the steering group makes progress. I welcome the opportunity to meet members of the committee, to listen to your concerns and to try to answer some of your questions.
Thank you. Members of the committee will now ask questions.
We broadly welcome the thrust of the report. In particular, we welcome the fact that the Scottish Executive took the time to draw up an action plan. We know that it was not obliged to do that and we felt that it was important to recognise that step. Overall, we have some areas of concern, particularly in relation to time scales and the way in which the delivery of the action plan will be monitored. Do you have any general comments about that, Deputy First Minister?
I welcome your welcome. Although many of the Macpherson recommendations were specific to the Metropolitan police, what was then the Scottish Office took the view that action should be taken if there were lessons to be learned in a Scottish context. However, it was also obvious that the relevant issues would be devolved matters, so it was left until after the election and the establishment of the Administration to address the publication of an action plan.
At the time, I was conscious that there was considerable pressure to publish an action plan sooner rather than later. That meant that there was no opportunity for widespread consultation before publication. That is why, in many respects, the plan resembles a consultation document.
I have referred to the steering group, which will have responsibility for setting time scales and timetables for the proposals. It will also be responsible for holding to account the organisations that are identified in the action plan as the lead bodies. I also expect the steering group to exert pressure on the Executive, although I intend to chair the group, as an indication of the seriousness with which the Executive approaches the issue. I expect the group to exert pressure on the Executive to ensure that it maintains progress and reports to Parliament and to the committee. I am sure that the committee will not hold back if it feels that the Executive is slipping on its timetables.
I will explain that the committee nominated a reporter and set up a small group to consider the issue. Michael McMahon was the reporter to that group.
I was aware of that.
Minister, you talked about the consultation process—obviously this is part of that process—which ends on 30 September. However, you used today's visit to the committee as an opportunity to launch the announcement that you are reviewing the Scottish police complaints procedure. I want it on record that I am not particularly happy about ministers using the opportunity to speak to a committee—particularly as part of a consultation process—as a means of launching their own campaigns.
I also find it strange that the minister should make such an announcement, given the fact that the consultation process is still under way. That you were not willing to wait until the consultation process ended makes a mockery of the process. Perhaps you can explain the timing of the announcement.
An independent police complaints authority is obviously a major issue in the Macpherson report. One of the key recommendations is for a feasibility study. You said, minister, that you would wait until the feasibility study for England and Wales was produced in April 2000. I find it strange that you made that announcement: how does it fit in with the feasibility study recommendation? Will there still be a feasibility study into an independent police complaints authority? If so, why can we not have a feasibility study for Scotland now, rather than wait until April 2000?
Shona Robison has asked a number of questions. I will try to answer them as fully as I can. If I omit any, I am sure that members of the committee will wish to return to police complaints, which is widely recognised as one of the key issues. It attracted considerable attention when our action plan was published in July.
The issue of police complaints goes beyond the question of race relations; it concerns a range of police activities. I am conscious of the comments that have been made and I was anxious that we should be able to address them. I think that the committee may have had more criticism if I had met it today, not let on about this matter and then made some announcement later this week or next week. In many respects, that reflects how important I consider coming before this committee to be. An announcement of this nature is relevant to the committee's deliberations, and it was important that I put it into the public domain.
It is important to emphasise that, in our action plan—perhaps contrary to some of the bigger-print headlines at the time—we said that we would accept the Macpherson recommendation to consider what steps could and should be taken to ensure that serious complaints against police officers were independently investigated. The Macpherson report laid considerable emphasis on not just what happens, but on the perception of what happens.
In our plan, we said that we would liaise with the Home Office on its feasibility study. I confirm to Ms Robison that that is still our intention. Its study, which is being carried out by KPMG, will produce options with costs that will inevitably inform future decisions. It therefore seems sensible to take advantage of such a study and not duplicate that work in Scotland. It is estimated that the results will be available in April next year, which will, I think, be well within the time scale for considering the options that we want to take forward in Scotland.
It must, however, be recognised that we have a different system in Scotland and that a solution for England and Wales may or may not apply here. It is conceivable that aspects of it would not be entirely relevant in Scotland. Significantly, there is no police complaints authority in Scotland with the power to supervise investigations or take decisions on disciplinary proceedings. We therefore have to carry out separate work in Scotland to complement the study being carried out by the Home Office.
As a first step, the chief inspector of constabulary, Mr Bill Taylor, will carry out a thematic inspection of complaints procedures in all Scotland's police forces. He will consult police authorities on their contribution to the police process. The report from that is also expected in April next year. We will be able to consider its conclusions on the current system with options identified south of the border and the responses to the consultation exercise on the action plan. In the light of all that information and the responses to the consultation, we will be able to consider what policy options or proposals we want to advance.
The thematic inspection will commence next month, when chief constables will be asked to provide information. That will be followed by visits to forces. The inspectorate will carry out a detailed examination of a sample of complaints and will interview police staff, police board members and other interested parties.
The fieldwork will be carried out by Graham Power, the assistant inspector of constabulary, and Graham Harcus, the lay inspector. The final report will be published prior to April 2000. The terms of reference will cover identification of good practice and weakness in current procedures, the role of police boards in overseeing matters, specific recommendations to achieve continuous improvement in the effectiveness and perception of the system. It is intended to inform and provide a specifically Scottish overview of what is going on, which it is hoped will inform what recommendations or proposals we want to advance, in tandem with the feasibility study being conducted by the Home Office.
This question is about the role of inspection. The Macpherson report recommended that Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary consider all aspects of the police service. However, the minister specifically rejects consideration of police authorities in Scotland. Can he explain why?
Police authorities comprise elected members. At the moment, they are inspected by the Accounts Commission. Mr McMahon is right to say that there is no proposal to extend the role of the inspectorate to cover police authorities. Police authorities set budgets using public money and the role of the Accounts Commission is therefore relevant in assessing value for money. Police authorities are responsible for appointing chief officers and, as I said, they have a role in monitoring how police forces deal with complaints.
Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary has no statutory role or responsibility for monitoring that aspect of police authority work. However, given the fact that there is an interface between the work of the police authorities and that of the forces themselves, I am assured that the inspector can be quite robust in asking authorities questions about forces' responses to complaints. When he presents his report, however, I have no doubt that he will do so in diplomatic terms. It would be wrong to think that police authorities are entirely compartmentalised with regard to HMIC, although I stress that the inspector has no statutory responsibilities in that area.
The minister has made great play of perception and consultation. Before he made his announcement today about the recommendations, whom did he consult?
The minister said that there were lessons to be learned in a Scottish context, but I must confess that I am a little confused. He rules out a Scottish feasibility study for an independent police complaints authority, but he wants to wait for the Home Office to publish its report and tinker with it from a Scottish dimension. Why should there not be a feasibility study in Scotland for an independent complaints procedure for the Scottish police service? As yet, I have heard no good reasons.
The minister stated that perception as a whole is an important part of the problem. Does he consider it appropriate that a very senior member of the police force should be responsible for the review, given that we want to ensure that the report and the review will be perceived as impartial?
The proposal to undertake a thematic inspection has come from within my department. The response to the initial publication of the action plan raised a number of points about police complaints and it is not unreasonable to say that it was the recommendation that attracted most publicity. That point has been followed up by others who have made their views known, and I thought it proper for us to respond to the recommendation.
No policy proposal emerges from what I am announcing today. However, we want to ensure that when we come to consider policy proposals, we will have the advantage of the feasibility study that is being undertaken at the behest of the Home Office—I shall return to that in a moment—and important Scottish information from a thematic study carried out by HMIC.
I think I am right in saying that it was a previous thematic study that lead to the current complaints arrangements, where there is a role and a locus for the inspectorate.
Mr Matheson asked why we cannot have a separate Scottish study. It would have been theoretically and technically feasible, but we were aware that the Home Office was embarking on a feasibility study and that its time scale for publication, April 2000, was relatively short.
I will describe the areas that the feasibility study will cover. It is being undertaken at arm's length by KPMG. The aims of the study are: to establish whether and in what way changes should be introduced to the investigation of police complaints; to determine whether, in terms of public confidence in the complaints investigation process, openness and transparency is a more significant factor than independent investigation; to suggest possible organisational structures and to identify the practical, structural and resource implications of alternative systems for investigating police complaints.
That work is being done, it is being funded and we thought it not unreasonable to take advantage of it. Bearing in mind that there is a different regime in some significant respects in England, it is important that we have a Scottish contribution as well. The feasibility study and the thematic report will be valuable in informing policy and where we want to take this matter.
I said in response to Ms Robison's question that the field work will be carried out by Graham Power, the assistant inspector of constabulary, and Graham Harcus, the lay inspector. I am sure that Mr Matheson will know that in many cases in the past the inspectorate and Her Majesty's chief inspector of constabulary have not been held back by the fact that the chief inspector comes from the force. He has issued many robust reports on policing and I do not think that anyone seriously questions the robust and independent way in which he carries out his duties.
Did I hear you say that there is a role for the inspectorate in the current complaints procedure? If so, will you clarify what it is?
The previous thematic study on complaints was in 1992. It led to some changes. There is independent oversight, which is provided by the police authorities and the inspectorate. It is possible for dissatisfied complainants to make complaints to the chief inspector of constabulary, who will investigate. He does not have powers to intervene. The Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994 gave the inspectorate an additional role, to examine the manner in which a force investigated complaints if a complainer was not satisfied with the outcome. The inspector cannot investigate the action taken against any officers involved or re-investigate the complaint, but if he finds that the complaint was not properly investigated, the inspectorate can direct the chief constable to re-investigate the complaint and instruct the chief constable to take into account any further information that has been brought to light.
Scottish ministers and the police authority can require copies of the inspectorate's report to be provided to them. I am advised that, since the provision came into force in 1995, 30 to 35 cases a year have been referred to the inspectorate. There has been only one formal direction so far, but that relates to the inspectorate's policy, which is to encourage forces informally to reconsider cases rather than go to the formal stage. As I said, that followed from the previous thematic inspection of complaints procedures.
Is the Executive genuinely open-minded about an independent complaints procedure, or is it still minded to reform the current system?
I have already said that we have accepted the Macpherson committee's recommendation, which was to
"consider what steps can and should be taken to ensure that serious complaints against police officers are independently investigated."
That indicates our open-mindedness. We want to be well informed before we proceed, because this has implications not only for race relations, which was the subject of the Macpherson report, but for police activities more generally.
The minister has an advantage over me, because I am not aware of the announcement that was made today, having been stuck in a meeting all morning.
Are you able, minister, to say anything about the consultations that you have had so far? Has anyone taken the view that the complaints procedure should remain in-house instead of going out to an independent body? Given what emerged from the Stephen Lawrence case, and given the police's recognition of institutional racism, do you accept that perception is important? A strong independent body, far from being something that the police need be anxious about, would support them in their work. Are you worried what message we would send out if complaints continued to be dealt with by the police? This has nothing to do with the integrity of individuals, but is about sustaining public confidence in this area, which, you will accept, has taken a severe knock recently.
As Sir William Macpherson made clear in his report, perception is important. This is a case, perhaps, of justice not only needing to be done, but needing to be seen to be done. Only a handful of responses have been received, although I am aware of some high-profile responses calling for change. I accept that perception and openness are important.
It is fair to point out that this problem cannot be solved simply by creating an independent body. If members will pause for a moment and reflect—as I have had to—they will realise that the people best trained and qualified to mount a thorough investigation are the police. That is not an irony—it is a fact of life that has to be addressed. However, we are open-minded on this issue and want to ensure that, when we come to make policy recommendations, those recommendations are well informed.
I want to pursue Johann's point about restoring confidence. I know that police authorities are subject to inspection by the Accounts Commission. However, is the minister aware that none of the indicators that the commission uses assess performance on racial equality? Surely performance cannot be adequately assessed in the absence of such indicators. What thought has been given to rectifying that?
We want to ensure that we are as open and accountable as possible in developing racial equality performance indicators for the police. That will form an important part of the consultation. It should be noted that the inspectorate already examines race relations policing and progress on equal opportunities as part of its regular inspections of Scottish police forces. However, I have no doubt that more can be done to refine performance indicators. That is one of the reasons for having the action plan and one of the matters that the steering group will want to address in police forces as well as in the police authorities.
I am a bit concerned about your argument that the police are the best people to investigate race crimes. If we accept the Macpherson report and Lord Hardie's statements, the police are institutionally racist. So is not your argument a bit like saying that the best people to carry out a review of theft would be robbers?
I do not think that you picked up exactly what I said. I said that if there are complaints that require a thorough investigation, the necessary skills and techniques of investigation very often lie with the police—I did not talk specifically about complaints related to race, although I accept that many of them are—and I would much rather have the police investigating thefts than robbers.
You talk about institutionalised racism and the Lord Advocate's comments. It is worth reminding the committee how Macpherson defined institutionalised racism.
"The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."
The Executive has endorsed that definition. We want to ensure that all organisations avoid the complacency that they sometimes fall into and guard against institutionalised racism. We made it clear that we were not pointing accusing fingers at any individual. But the moment that we become complacent and think that it is impossible for racism to exist in our ranks—bearing in mind the fact that that definition includes unwitting prejudice and ignorance—we do a disservice to the promotion of good race relations and to the ending of racial discrimination in this country. That is why we have endorsed the definition and indicated that, within every organisation, unwitting prejudice, ignorance or thoughtlessness can exist. Without disparaging anyone, I think that each one of us here has to be conscious of the need not to become complacent.
I think that I also heard you say that the police were the best equipped to investigate themselves, which perhaps pre-empts not only the outcome of the review but the outcome of the feasibility study in your own mind, and I am a little concerned about that. How many substantiated complaints of racially discriminatory behaviour have there been in the past few years?
I want to correct you on something. I do not have a closed mind, as you appear to be suggesting. I was simply making a practical point: the police have considerable investigation skills and techniques. There is no point in ducking that fact. We all have to address it, especially those who want us to move towards having more independent investigations of complaints against the police.
I do not have the number of substantiated complaints to hand, but if it exists, we will make it available.
Perhaps I can help you out. There have been none. What is your response to that?
I am advised that we have figures on complaints, but that they are not broken down with regard to racial elements. I note the figure that you said, and it may well tell us something. People may not be coming forward—but I cannot say that that is why there have been none. We do, however, have figures for the reporting of racial incidents as they are defined at present—and you will be aware that the Macpherson committee report has proposed a definition for a racist incident. The figures have gone up. Under the present criteria, there were 376 such incidents in 1989, and, from the figures collected across the forces, 1,271 at the end of 1998-99.
You can read a number of things into that. Perhaps the number of incidents is increasing, or perhaps there is greater awareness of incidents of a racial nature and more are being reported. I would expect that, when the Macpherson report definitions and criteria are in place, the number of reported incidents will continue to rise. I hope that people will feel the confidence to report incidents. We would be failing if the numbers continued to rise for ever, but there will be a period where seeing an increase in reported incidents might be evidence of the policy beginning to have an effect. People will feel more confident and able to report incidents. Then we would want the numbers to flatten off and to fall. That is the challenge: we must ensure that people from minority and ethnic communities in Scotland have the confidence to report incidents.
Do you think, minister, that the confidence of ethnic minority communities in Scotland will be increased if they know that the review is essentially being carried out by the police on the police? That is no criticism of Bill Taylor, who is a respected individual, but that is the public perception—you have used the word a number of times yourself. Do you believe that the ethnic minority communities will want to use the police complaints system when the perception is that complaints are not independently investigated?
I also indicated that the feasibility study which is being done south of the border, at arm's length, will inform policy recommendations. The lay inspector of constabulary will be involved in that, and I know that Her Majesty's chief inspector of constabulary intends to consult the Commission for Racial Equality on his complaints inspection. There will be plenty of opportunity for people such as the CRE to have input into that. To repeat what I said earlier, there are examples of the chief inspector of constabulary making robust reports. There will be other evidence too, including the feedback that we get from consultation. This thematic report will not determine policy—that must be done by the Executive as a result of consultation—but it will inform policy.
Minister, I think that you would agree that whether racial incidents are recorded or unrecorded, they represent a distressing experience for a significant proportion of our population. I hope that the Scottish Parliament will be able to address that and make it a matter of urgency that such experiences should not occur. If confidence is at the heart of the likelihood of someone reporting a racial incident, and we make it the heart of our policy to increase confidence in the system, will an independent body scrutinising what the police are doing increase or decrease people's confidence?
I think that I indicated that that is one of the specific things that the study undertaken by KPMG is looking at. To repeat, the study says that it will
"determine whether in terms of public confidence in the complaints investigation process openness and transparency is a more significant factor than independent investigation."
It will be useful to have that kind of information. That is why we want this consultation: to get information and evidence. It would be wrong to prejudge the process when outside work is being directed to that end.
It struck me as an odd either/or: arguing in favour of an independent body or in favour of openness and transparency. I presume that we would have openness and transparency through an independent body, or a guarantee of openness and transparency from the police system itself. If we are to believe that confidence in reporting incidents has arisen from the fact that we are taking such matters seriously, do you not think that having an independent body carry out these investigations would be more likely to increase people's confidence in the independence of the scrutiny?
I understand that there is an argument to that effect. We are consulting on the matter, to allow that argument to be examined and weighed up. I repeat, for the third or fourth time, that there are no closed minds on this issue. As far as I am concerned, it is open for discussion. I am willing to weigh up and give weight to that kind of argument, together with the other information that we receive.
There is no dispute over the outcome that we all want. We want to ensure that people throughout the community, and specifically those from minority and ethnic community groups, feel confidence in the policing system in this country. That is our objective. I would be interested to hear the views of this committee, and of others, on that. Those views will be weighed up when we consider the best way forward. The door is certainly not closed on an independent police complaints authority.
I am pleased to hear that. I would like an assurance that the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland will not be the only judge of the delivery of policies on equality strategies within the police force. Surely some outside help will be required in the setting of indicators. Who will monitor the effectiveness of the delivery of equality strategies in general police practice, and the investigation of racist crimes, if the police are to be the sole arbiters in deciding what is acceptable and what is not? That would pose problems.
A racist crime—I want to broaden that out to a racist incident, as there may be incidents that, for one reason or another, do not constitute crimes, but which are nevertheless deemed to be important. A racist incident is defined in the recommendations as
"any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".
That definition has not been determined by ACPOS or the police; it is a recommendation from Sir William Macpherson that the Executive has accepted.
The whole of our response to the Macpherson report is part of our commitment to fighting racial discrimination generally. ACPOS will not be the sole deliverer of equality policies. It has been identified as having the lead responsibility in an action plan for addressing the recommendations—which is right, as those recommendations require expertise in police procedures—but the matter will be overseen by the steering group, on which there will be representatives of different groups and individuals.
ACPOS has been identified as the lead agency, but it is by no means the sole agency. One of the important functions of the steering group will be to have that overview. Implementation and the question of whether the right markers, benchmarks and indicators are being set may be the sort of issues to which this committee will want to return.
Minister, you raise a point about the role of the steering group. Whom did you consult prior to establishing that group and the forum? What level of consultation exercise took place?
The aspect of the action plan that was flagged up to me early on was time scales and resource allocation in implementing some of the key recommendations. Of the recommendations that have an impact on the police service, which will be seen as good practice, and which will be seen as mandatory and will have to be implemented? There is probably some concern that, unless recommendations are regarded as mandatory, they can easily be marginalised and frustrated. It is my understanding that that has been the case in some other reports, particularly on race issues.
I have not yet announced the steering group, principally because there is still consultation to take place. The group will consist of representatives of the Scottish Executive, of ACPOS, and of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, as well as independent members who have a professional or personal involvement and interest in the criminal justice system and the police. We are consulting the Commission for Racial Equality on the membership of the group.
Before you go further, can I take you back to the question: whom did you consult before establishing the steering group? Did you consult any organisations to find out whether that was the most appropriate way to take the action plan forward?
Do you mean whom the minister consulted before announcing the steering group, as it has not been established yet?
Yes.
My recollection is that it was thought that establishing a steering group was an appropriate way of ensuring that this agenda was driven forward. Indeed, it was what had happened in the response that the Home Office gave to the Macpherson report—the Home Secretary has taken personal responsibility for the steering group there. As I recall, the thinking was that anything less in Scotland would send the wrong signal—that this issue was being taken less seriously here than it was south of the border.
I welcome the opportunity to put this on the record. Establishing a steering group was intended as a clear signal that we considered the Macpherson report to be very important, and that the Executive wanted to tackle racism and racial discrimination in Scotland seriously. The steering group, which will be widely representative and which I will chair, is an indication of the seriousness with which the Executive takes this issue.
That almost answers the second part of your question. It is certainly my intention and that of my ministerial colleagues that these recommendations should not be marginalised and allowed to gather dust. Tackling racism in Scotland goes to the heart of what this Executive and Parliament are about. If we do not tackle racism and racial prejudice, we will let down very seriously some of our fellow citizens, who will not be able to contribute all that they can to the community of Scotland. That is a loss for all of us. This Executive is determined to root out racism, to tackle racial prejudice and to address racial disadvantage. That is why we will not allow these recommendations to be marginalised, and why the steering group will have the important responsibility of setting time scales and ensuring that those who are identified as holding the lead responsibilities live up to them.
Michael Matheson asked about the race equality forum, for which Jackie Baillie is responsible.
Jackie Baillie will answer about the race equality forum.
I strongly believe that there has been a long-held view about the need to have a mechanism in place so that people from ethnic minority backgrounds can access Parliament and its committees, and the Executive. The purpose of the race equality advisory forum was, as a short-life working group, to devise a strategy to tackle race awareness in Scotland, to develop action plans to tackle institutional racism and—perhaps most important—to advise the Executive and the Parliament on how we establish the most appropriate long-term mechanisms for consultation.
In formulating the membership of the forum, we consulted widely: we consulted, for example, the Commission for Racial Equality, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, racial equality councils, the Confederation of British Industry, the voluntary sector and the health sector. We deliberately adopted a sectoral approach to ensure that the forum would cover every aspect of the Executive's portfolio.
No one was consulted in regard to the establishment of them at the time, not even the Commission for Racial Equality.
That is not correct.
I am going from Jim Wallace's comments.
I am giving you mine as we are dealing with a different area.
Informal contact was made and the establishment of the forum was broadly welcomed. I hope that you will welcome the forum too.
We are running out of time, but I hope that you can see how strongly we feel about the independent complaints commission.
We should develop the theme of consultation. We are keen that there should be as much participation and consultation as possible. Will the performance indicators be consulted on and will there be an indicator that covers consultation?
Training is crucial. How much time do you think should be allocated to training on these matters for the police? Will there be training in relation to racist incidents?
I welcome your suggestion that there be a performance indicator on consultation. As I hope that I have made clear, the purpose of developing performance indicators for the police is that the process should be open. It is a matter that the inspectorate will take forward as it examines race relations policing, and the steering group will also be involved.
Training for racism awareness is one of the important recommendations in the report. I know that doubts are often expressed about some racism awareness training. Fears have been expressed that the training can reinforce stereotyping. Evaluation of training is therefore important, not just its provision. I understand that the level of training that has been provided across the police forces has been variable but the forces have accepted that there is a need for improvements and that there should be national guidance.
The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland has the lead responsibility in this area. In November, it will produce a national equal opportunities training strategy, which I and the steering group will want to examine. Training is a very important part of the process and there is progress to be made.
I would like to comment on what Michael said about consulting about consulting about consulting. The situation is of a chicken-and-egg type, but we have to start somewhere.
We have talked a lot about tackling institutionalised racism in the police, but we have to tackle racism at the outset. Prevention is better than cure. Nobody has mentioned the importance of education in stamping out racism in children but to deal with that would be to tackle the disease, not the symptom.
Aside from the police, other groups of people—social workers, those on children's panels—have equally important responsibilities and we should consider them.
I want to emphasise the importance of education, particularly as views can be established at an early age. Unlike in England and Wales, which is the context relevant to the Macpherson report, we have no national curriculum in schools. Our response to the report accepted the principle of valuing cultural diversity and preventing racism. Advice was provided by the education and industry department of the Scottish Office to ensure that similar points were contained in the recommendations that are made to education authorities and head teachers.
HM inspectors of schools monitor whether curriculum guidance, including guidance on cultural diversity, has been implemented. In addition, the recent HMI publication "A Route to Equality and Fairness" gives schools greater guidance on how to ensure that they are performing and will allow schools to achieve some degree of self-evaluation.
The wider range of public services falls beyond the scope of the Macpherson report, although I do not for a moment diminish their importance. We need to start somewhere. The broader issues will be addressed by Jackie Baillie's forum rather than by the steering group or in the action plan that arose from the Macpherson committee report.
Jackie Baillie will be able to cover those issues.
Four people have indicated that they want to ask questions. We will try to get through all of them before Jim Wallace has to leave.
The issue of resources was mentioned, but was never properly addressed. Has the Scottish Executive considered the action plan's resource implications for all public sector organisations and for the black and ethnic minority voluntary sector? I know that funding for Victim Support is to increase, partly to fund witness services in court, which is an area that is under-resourced and where there is a need for more expertise in Scotland. What percentage of the Home Office grant will come to Scotland via Victim Support?
I cannot give an exact answer to that question, but it will be noted, and if an answer can be given, we will write to the clerk with that information.
The action plan does not attach additional resources to any specific initiatives. No additional resources are planned at the moment, although I will come back to the specifics on Victim Support.
The aim of the Executive's policy is to ensure that issues of race and gender are built into our core business and are not an add-on. Jackie Baillie and her department are addressing the matter. She may want to add something about the funding of the voluntary sector, which is important. Equal opportunities must be seen as a core responsibility for public bodies and not as an optional extra.
On the question of Victim Support, three courts currently have witness support schemes. It is intended that that number will double in the relatively near future—I cannot remember off the top of my head exactly when it is planned that that should happen. Victim Support Scotland receives £1.5 million annually.
The partnership agreement indicates that we want to address the issue of victims in our justice system. That is one of the Executive's policy objectives.
The reporters group, under the section on prosecution of racist crimes, raised the issue of disclosure of information to families. The Macpherson report recommends:
"That the CPS ensure that all decisions to discontinue any prosecution should be . . . recorded . . . and that save in exceptional circumstances, such written decisions should be disclosable to a victim or a victim's family."
The Executive's response says that the matter requires further consideration and that reasons for disclosure
"are recorded at the moment but are not disclosed because of sound public interest reasons".
The Executive's response goes on to say:
"It is not proposed to change this position at the moment".
Does that mean that victims and their families in England and Wales will be entitled to a lot more information than victims and their families in Scotland, if it is decided to discontinue a prosecution or if a charge is reduced, for example, from murder to assault? It is distressing for people not to understand why a charge has been dropped or changed.
I will start by referring to the areas for which I have responsibility. We intend to try to improve the provision of information to victims on the progress of a case. We plan to introduce a system that will automatically inform victims and, in relevant cases, next of kin, about key dates in a trial, including any decision not to prosecute.
The second part—the crux—of your question deals with a matter that is the responsibility of the Lord Advocate who, as is well known, operates independently of the Executive in terms of prosecution policy, and rightly so. He was asked that question by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee—not in the context of the Macpherson report but more generally in the context of decisions not to prosecute and of why certain charges are changed. Rather than interpreting his words, I should draw this committee's attention to his answer to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
I ask Michael McMahon and Malcolm Chisholm to ask their questions briefly. After that, it will be up to the minister to decide how long he wants to stay.
When this committee was established, we realised right away that there was a glaring problem, as none of the faces around the committee table were black or Asian. We recognised the potential for co-option.
In the action plan, the Scottish Executive rejects a statutory duty for local authorities to reflect the local ethnic mix in its police authority. Minister, can you give me the reason for that decision? Is there not a good argument that local authorities should be able to co-opt if they are in the same position as us, which is that we cannot identify a black person to sit on this committee?
The very nature of police authorities lies behind that situation. Police authorities are constituted by local authorities and involve elected members. The local accountability of elected members who are involved in the police authority has always been an important part of the set-up.
As members will be aware, one of the themes of the McIntosh report—I have to remember to separate McIntosh from Macpherson—was that local authorities should reflect the communities that they represent. The Executive wishes to see a diverse range of councillors reflecting the communities from which they come. A working group under the chairmanship of Richard Kerley is considering a number of these issues, such as how we can bring about such changes in the composition of our local authorities. That is an appropriate matter for McIntosh to address.
A fortnight ago, I chaired a meeting of the Police Advisory Board for Scotland, which includes representatives of the police associations and of every policy authority. Among the latter were two representatives from the minority ethnic communities, so there is representation. I think that I am right when I say that the chairman of the Strathclyde police authority is from an ethnic minority background, as is the vice-convener—or convener—of the Grampian police authority.
Information sharing about racist incidents is an important proposal in the second main section of the action plan. However, the report says that there are problems of data protection, although the group that considered the action plan was led to believe that the problem was not too big. Can you expand on the problems, minister?
We wanted to flag up the fact that data protection could be a problem as there are limitations on information exchanges between agencies. One example that comes to mind is the difficulties that some police authorities now have in passing on names to Victim Support. It is okay if individuals approach Victim Support, but difficulties have arisen when the police have passed on names off their own bat. We are addressing those issues with the Home Office. Current legislation allows for ways of exchanging information, such as protocols on the protection of information. It was right that we flagged this up as a potential difficulty, but we would like to overcome it if it is legally possible to do so.
Thank you, minister, for coming to the meeting and answering members' questions. I have no doubt that, because of this committee's wide remit, we will ask you to come back in the future.
Thank you very much.