Chamber and committees

Yes, and I think that that has been borne in mind even in prisons that are not scheduled for replacement but where new capital works are going on. Beyond that, in-cell telephony is being looked at for those prisons as well. As you have indicated, the hard-wired options are easier to manage and they make it easier to avoid some of the problems that we have had with the mobiles that were issued. That is being taken into account.

I will ask Neil Rennick to come in shortly. Your question prompts me to recall that I did not really answer the convener’s previous question on capacity.

As you said, we are looking at the other end—at how many people we put in prison. Shortly, we will have something to say on proposals that we want to bring forward in relation to remand and release. It is about sending the right people to prison—those who need to be in prison and will benefit from being there rather than in an alternative non-custodial diversion. That has to be part of the hard calculation that we will make as to what the future prison population will be.

In any event—the convener made this point and it is behind your question, as well—we should not end up without capacity, which has happened in the past. For example, Texas released tens of thousands of prisoners overnight, including many who had been convicted of drug offences, because the state could not cope with the prisoner population. Furthermore, the Supreme Court of California told the state that it had to release thousands of prisoners overnight because there was 200 per cent occupancy in the prisons.

We want to ensure that we have the right number of cells and facilities for people, but we also want to ensure that people go to prison when that is the best place for them to be and when it is where society needs them to be. There are two parts to the equation.

Specifically on women’s provision, the justice secretary before last made a judgment based on the best information that he had at the time. Neil Rennick, who was in post then, might want to say more.

That is a good point. For many years, the Scottish Government has asked the UK Government to move away from single-year budgets and the late notification of the budget.

We have tried to reflect the point in the funding for victims services, for which we have announced a three-year funding package. As is the case with all such matters, if other things happen, it might be possible to increase funding, so bear that in mind. However, I understand the point that many third sector organisations must make plans, including for facilities, well in advance of each funding year. Multiyear funding is under consideration not only in victims services, but across the justice portfolio and the whole of Government.

There are some situations in which we would not give multiyear funding, but I think that the point has been accepted. We have argued for that position from the UK Government, so we cannot really argue against other organisations wanting the same stability.

Yes, it is, although, as you said, only a proportion of that money comes from the justice budget. Substantial progress has already been made on the issue of children in the justice system. Since 2000, the number of under-18s who were proceeded against in Scotland’s courts has fallen by 81 per cent. The number of under-18s in custody—again, that is a justice system response—has decreased by 79 per cent, and there has been an 81 per cent reduction in children who were referred to the children’s reporter on offence grounds.

We are, however, looking closely at the future funding of secure care. Officials are discussing specific proposals with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and other partners. At this stage, that process can be summarised as being about investing in change—as you suggested in your question—guaranteeing accessibility and also keeping The Promise. I expect to be able to provide a further update early next year, at least on the justice elements of that, if the committee would find that useful.

It is not possible to say definitively, but we can probably get a good idea from looking at the establishment of previous commissioners’ offices. The establishment of the office of the Scottish Veterans Commissioner, which I was heavily involved in, might give you an indication of the cost. That can be readily obtained from SPICe.

I am happy to get further information on that and to provide the member with a detailed response. Obviously, it is predicated on the value of fines for convictions, and there has been a pretty big disruption to that process in our court system. I imagine that that accounts for it, but I am happy to look into it further and to provide any other relevant information, if that would help.

The Californian authorities were told to do that by the Supreme Court. We would want to avoid that. We want to try to remain in control of the situation rather than be told to do that. I cannot imagine the UK Supreme Court telling us to do that, but we do not want to be in that position. It is therefore important that we anticipate the situation as best we can. You are right that the backlog of cases and the nature of those cases—in particular, those involving sex crimes—will result in more people being in prison.

Despite some of the political banter that we have about the presumption against short sentences, people in the current prison population are serving longer in prison than was the case previously, partly because of the nature of their crimes. We have also had a big increase in historical sex offences, and we are accommodating a lot of people in relation to that.

We do not want to be forced by anybody to release prisoners; we want to try to manage the situation as best we can.

The first thing to say, as I mentioned in relation to another question, is that we are not through Covid. It is a very fluid situation right now. Some prisons are going back to a two-shift system, which has allowed them to increase the amount of purposeful activity that is taking place. It would be interesting to hear more from Neil Rennick on that.

Irrespective of whether we are talking about carrying out a review to the terms that Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, the chief inspector, has called for, or whether we are talking about the prison service looking at the situation holistically and at what it is able to do—part of the approach is driven by whether there is an outbreak of Covid and what the public health regulations are in a particular prison, given its facilities—the situation is very fluid. However, we are very much seizing on the need to increase purposeful activity to at least its previous level.

Notwithstanding that—I think that the chief inspector recognises this—some of what has happened around access to telephones and mobile phones has been of huge benefit, although there has quite rightly been a lot of discussion about the tampering of devices. There has been a massive number of calls to the Samaritans from within prisons. The ability of families to talk to prisoners, especially at a time when prisoners cannot have the same amount of purposeful activity, has been really important as well.

We are cognisant that people being denied purposeful activity is a situation that cannot persist. Neil Rennick will have more to say on that.

Once again, the difficulty is that this evidence session is about a process in which we have not fixed the budget.

In general terms, as I have said before, when we allocate the budget, we have to prioritise, and the extent to which we are willing to listen to what the police say their needs are is evidenced by the fact that we have increased their capital budget, as has been mentioned, and met the specific request for £10 million for investment in greening the fleet. Additional moneys have been given for body-worn cameras and various other initiatives.

We are very receptive to what the police say, but the simple fact is that, when the overall grant funding from the Treasury is falling, we have to make difficult decisions. In relation to that, it will be really useful for me to see what the committee believes the priorities should be. If we increase the police budget, will the committee or the member say that we should reduce the fire service budget or the education budget? These are the difficult decisions that we have to make.

I think that the police understand that point. We expect them to put forward the things that they want to see, and, of course, they will want to do that. However, when we finally agree the budget, it will be based on, first, the amount of money that we have to spend and then on the fact that we expect that the police and the SPA will work out their priorities within that budget, because that is their statutory responsibility. As I said however, we are ahead of the budget just now.

I have very little involvement in that. The police have the autonomy that they asked for and that the Parliament granted them. Collectively, as a Parliament, we have agreed that the police should have independence from direct ministerial involvement in such matters. The police should not be subject to ministerial direction in relation to their operational actions. Such decisions are for the chief constable, although, of course, there is oversight through the Scottish Police Authority.

As far as the particular contract to which you referred is concerned, there is quite a role for the Foreign Office, which is involved in the process and under the aegis of which the relevant scheme is delivered.

Obviously, I have discussed the matter with the chief constable. For my part, I am totally behind the view that Police Scotland is a human rights-based organisation. It is probably a human rights-based organisation to a much greater extent—as, I am sure, it would concede—than it has been previously. It is very mindful of that fact.

Whatever people’s view on the activity in question—some people think that it represents an attempt to make sure that proper policing methods are used and that policing is done properly, with accountability, and that that is a good thing to spread around—it is Police Scotland that has taken the decision. The work has not been carried on for two reasons, the first of which is to do with Covid; the second is the suspension of the relevant UK programme. The activity has not been going on for some time. In fact—I stand to be corrected on this—it has not been going on for the entire time that I have been doing this job.

The accountability for the contract to which Katy Clark referred rests with Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority.