Social Partnership Funding
The issue of social partnership funding was included on the agenda at my request, because I am aware, through debates and discussions at the conveners liaison group, that money has been set aside—as an individual, stand-alone budget—to facilitate civic participation in the work of the Parliament. There will be similar provision in next year's budget and, probably, in those of subsequent years.
Before now, committees have not taken a terribly close interest in that issue, but I have considered with the clerk some ways in which we may choose to spend the money. It struck me that there were a number of interesting and useful things that we might do, which are outlined in the note from the clerk. They include consensus conferences, which bring together lay people and experts; citizens juries, where a group of randomly selected citizens take evidence from witnesses over a number of days, before compiling a report; deliberative opinion polling, where a random sample of 250 to 600 citizens are brought together to debate an issue, with an opportunity to question experts and politicians, before being polled for their views; and citizens panels, where a sample of a local population is used to access local opinion on a particular topic, either on a one-off basis or over time. We also have the options of appointing advisers, commissioning external research or having an expert panel.
One or two other committees have begun to make moves in that area. I would like us to discuss ways in which this committee might access social partnership funding and how it might serve as a useful adjunct to our deliberations. The clerk's note contains two suggestions that illustrate the possibilities that are available. Members of the committee might be able to think of others. I would like us to try, at least in a preliminary way, to begin moving towards adopting one or other of the methods, and to think about some of the subject matter that we would like to cover.
One example that I came up with was to commission a deliberative polling exercise about alternatives to custody, aimed at finding out what considered public opinion really is, as opposed to what some of the tabloid newspapers would have us believe it is. Any work that we did would feed into the wider debate and would itself become something that other bodies and interested parties might want to refer to. The alternative would be to assemble an expert panel to consider and report to the committee on the special problems and needs of women prisoners. In my view, the deliberative opinion polling would be more interesting and, ultimately, more useful in terms of the presentation of arguments.
There are also issues relating to the forthcoming land reform bill. However, in this instance I am inclined to suggest to the Executive that if there are one or two things that can usefully be done, it should put its hand in its pockets and fund them separately, rather than have that come out of the committee's budget. The Executive ought to be prepared to finance such work, rather than our taking it out of a much smaller budget for committee-oriented work. However, establishing a citizens panel is something that the committee could consider at stage 1 of the bill, if members thought that appropriate.
Some of that might be new to members who had not realised that £50,000 was sitting around waiting to be spent. I hope that we can agree quickly that we should consider ways of accessing that money. We might have a more lively debate for 10 or 15 minutes about what we choose to do with it.
That sounds like an exciting idea. I was relatively enthused when I read the papers last night and came across this item. From the agenda, I could not work out what it meant, and was pleasantly surprised when I read the clerk's background note and found cited examples of where we can use the money.
The idea of having alternatives to custody is good. The issue does not concern women only, and the committee has touched on the related issue of youth custody. I hope that we will return to the issue of fine defaulting and what is to be done about the number of women who end up in Cornton Vale for committing crimes that did not carry a custodial sentence in the first place.
It would be interesting to find out what the general public think about that. When sentencing policy is discussed, it is always in connection with a specific case that is highly emotive and on which people have strong views. However, when the general issues are teased out, people have much more balanced and reasonable views. In those circumstances, they can accept the argument that locking people up is not the solution, and that more innovative ways of dealing with the problem exist.
The different examples that are provided in the clerk's note are worth considering. It is not about taking a representative sample and saying that, just because 58 per cent think this or 42 per cent think that, that is the way to do it. Other people should not do our job for us. Sometimes we assume that we speak from knowledge of public opinion, but we are not always sure what that opinion is based on. We should have social partnership funding, not just because the money is there to spend, but because there are innovative ways in which to use it. The Scottish Parliament is constructed differently from Westminster, which, with its archaic methods and centuries of tradition, could not envisage working in that way.
I would make a strong bid for one of the examples that has been given—alternatives to custody—but other members might want to consider other examples.
I feel as if I am on "Countdown" and about to show you what I had marked on my paper earlier—deliberative opinion polling, which is probably the most fruitful route for the committee. I like the idea of having a debate before polling, which would enable us to get away from tabloid discussion and into some depth. I also marked down the issue of young offenders, as that ties in with our review of Scottish prisons.
I marked down the issue of drug offences. I do not think that we will talk about young offenders without talking about the drug culture that appears to be integral to that issue. We should somehow bring those two issues together, and get an informed view of what people think about the way in which we tackle drug culture and young offenders.
I want us to consider what we mean by rehabilitation of people who have been drug users. We could use some of the money to ask people who have been through a successful rehabilitation programme to describe what made the difference for them—how they were able to get rid of the habit and defend themselves when the dealer reappeared on the doorstep. I envisage using the fund to assemble some individuals to assist us in defining what we mean by rehabilitation. We need to determine what was successful for them, how it worked for them, and what messages we need to deliver across the Government system to enhance rehabilitation and target it more accurately.
Whatever we do, we should establish some criteria. I would like the committee to be interactive with a cross-section of the population rather than hearing from those who already come along to give us evidence. We should have a particular aim in mind—perhaps a potential change in the law.
I am particularly interested in the issue of serious crimes. At the moment, High Court judges operate a computer system that makes available information on sentencing for particular crimes from the previous 10 years. Although judges are free to pass whatever sentence they want, they are considering what has gone before.
I support in principle the suggestion that was made by Christine Grahame and Euan Robson that we should examine the issue of drugs. There should be a narrow focus, whether it is on rehabilitation or on some of the matters that we have already considered in relation to the prison population. One suggestion might be how to aim for a drug-free environment in prisons. That would involve detailed examination of how drugs get into prisons and consideration of successful rehabilitation programmes.
There have been some good suggestions. I support the fact that the convener put social partnership funding on the agenda.
I should confess to having been nobbled by the convener in the back of a taxi on this issue. However, I like the idea.
There is a consensus on deliberative opinion polling. I will add my thruppence-worth. It would be a great opportunity publicly to take the Parliament out and to show that we are consulting people. We should do it with a fanfare, because it is a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate what the Parliament is about.
There is also a consensus that we should examine how we deal with offenders. I am all for that. However, it is important that we focus carefully on the issues that we will examine. I have listed eight different matters that the committee wants to examine: fine default; alternatives to custody; women; young offenders; drugs; rehabilitation; serious crime; and sentencing consistency. The danger is that the subject is so big that our inquiry could become vague. We must be ruthless. Some members might not manage to examine the issues that they would like to consider. We must decide that we will look at specific issues in relation to offending. As long as we exercise that control, this is a smashing idea.
I agree with Gordon Jackson. This is in danger of becoming too diffuse. We must focus on a narrow range of issues. Can we do this more than once?
Perhaps I can interject at this point, to explain how we will proceed. The committee will have to produce a detailed, focused and costed proposal, which has a clear purpose. It will have to be agreed by the conveners liaison group, which is where the bids are going. Ultimately, there is a finite amount of money for civic participation. If there are too many bids and they would exceed the budget, a decision will have to be made at the conveners liaison group on what should go ahead.
Some of the points that Gordon Jackson made also occurred to me as members spoke. It is okay, at this stage, for us to have a wide discussion. It is clear that—even if we have not focused on the specifics—we are talking about roughly the same general subject matter. The application will require to be detailed, focused and costed. We cannot just snap our fingers and cause the process to start a week on Tuesday. It will not work like that.
That is how we will proceed. Does that answer some of Maureen Macmillan's questions?
I wondered how often we could apply for social partnership funding; it would obviously depend on the budget and whether we could do several things under one heading.
It would depend on whether the conveners liaison group considered the proposal—or proposals—appropriate. It must try to balance the funding fairly among committees. We have not accessed any of it; some committees are already doing so. We have not yet held a meeting outside Edinburgh; other committees have already done so. This committee is morally owed something, because we have not yet made demands on the system.
In theory, we could access the budget every year. Some proposals will be for much smaller things than others. It is a question of how much money is available, who else bids for it, and what the conveners liaison group decides is appropriate.
It is fine to have a wide-ranging debate, but we are not doing this for the sake of doing it. Opinion polling must be on a specific topic. I would be concerned if we focused on drugs rehabilitation because that subject is not reserved for this committee—I know that the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee has been discussing and taking evidence on that. We must exercise a bit of caution because we do not want various committees to do similar things on similar subjects.
Many of the issues that I wanted to raise have been addressed. I support the idea of conducting some type of deliberative polling. However, my concern is about how we take forward the results of that polling. We might have to do it in two stages. The first stage is to take opinions, and the second is to action points that are raised. That might require other panels of experts to formulate ideas. Although it is important that we are focused, we must aim to take something forward from the polling.
The aim of deliberative opinion polling, no matter what the subject matter is, is to establish what people's views are when they are presented with situations. It is not just a matter of ticking yes or no on a sheet of paper. A random sample of people will be brought together to debate an issue and reach a decision. It is a kind of informed polling, which, given the approach that we are taking to prisons, will be of enormous value.
At one of our next meetings, the prisons issue will be back on the agenda, to allow us to finalise the first stage of what we were doing and to move on to other issues. The kind of opinion polling that we are discussing will help to inform our debate as we move forward. We are not precluded from submitting for another project as part of the same debate. In a sense, the purpose of deliberative opinion polling is the opinion itself—we do not have to say that we are conducting opinion polling because we want to reach a conclusion about X and Y. The purpose is to inform our debate.
This is our first discussion, but it seems that we are in the same ballpark. Scott Barrie made a fair point, which had not occurred to me. We must be careful if we make proposals that cross into another committee's remit. There is nothing wrong with doing that, and there is no reason why there should not be a joint committee proposal, but if we go down that road, we should formally approach the other committee and should not just submit a proposal to the conveners liaison group that cuts across issues that the other committee covers.
We should narrow our proposal down a little. There is work to be done on the logistics, as we cannot do the random sampling ourselves. We will have to consider time scales, costings and the rest—it will take some time.
At this stage, can we agree that we do not want to consider drugs rehabilitation because of the other issues that have been suggested already, but that we will consider the question of attitudes to sentencing or, more specifically, alternatives to custody? There are arguments for and against both issues—deliberative opinion polling on attitudes to sentencing would be quite an interesting exercise. However, we would jump beyond that if we were to poll on alternatives to custody. By asking about alternatives to custody, we would present people with the view that we wanted to introduce them. We will have to resolve those issues.
I ask the clerks to present a preliminary paper to an appropriate meeting, to bring the issue into slightly sharper focus. We still will not have the detail, but at least that will start to narrow down the process and it will be the best way in which to proceed.
Ideally, I would like to submit the bid before the end of the financial year. However, some of that pressure is off, because I gather that the threat no longer exists that the budget might disappear if it were not used. I would still like us to try—quite apart from anything else, having that project running alongside our other work would permit something useful to be done while we are up to our eyeballs dealing with an Executive bill. It would allow the committee to make useful progress on issues and arguments.
If the clerks are happy to do that, we will have a somewhat more focused paper.