Chamber and committees

That is a very good point. Obviously, members have been talking to the police. The police will tell members about the frustrations that they feel about the time that is tied up in court, sometimes for cases that do not happen.

Neil Rennick can say more about the current pilot in Dundee, Hamilton and Paisley. As the need to address that issue is so urgent, we have said that, at the very earliest point at which we see promising outcomes from that to do with the way that cases are managed, we want to roll those out across Scotland. That is part of the discussions that we have had with the chief constable. It might be worth hearing a bit more about the detail of that from Neil Rennick.

That is the point that we are making in relation to the pilot. The normal course of a pilot would be to conduct it, analyse it, see its impact and benefits and then, if that is the decision, roll it out. We are not doing so in this case because of the pressures that Fulton MacGregor has mentioned.

I hear the same from police officers; they are frustrated at having to spend time sitting in court or in anterooms at the courthouse for cases that are sometimes not even called when they could be doing other police work. The chief constable has made that point to me. The pilot will be rolled out in advance of the longer time period that we normally have for pilots.

On the second point, I think that I have already mentioned a couple of times that closer working between the blue-light services was, apart from anything else, one of the outputs from the Grenfell inquiry. However, it is obviously the case that more can be done there. We are giving active consideration to how we can make that working more efficient in a country of Scotland’s size, not just between the ambulance service and the police but with the fire service.

I am not aware of that happening, but perhaps Donald McGillivray will know.

You asked a question about the UK Government. I am saying that, given the incompetence over which the UK Government has presided, whether it is in tax, inflation or public debt, the opportunity to do things in a different and much more sensible and mature way than, for example, the Kwasi Kwarteng budget is a very valuable option for the people of Scotland. We also want to fulfil our manifesto promise, which was to offer that referendum.

If it is possible to answer without being interrupted, I will try to answer your question. The idea is not honest that anyone can talk sensibly about public services while excluding from consideration the financing for which, currently, we have to rely on the UK Government. We have to acknowledge the main driver. Most other people in the country realise that we have had 12 years of austerity-suppressed budgets for public services, and I do not deny that that has had an impact.

I have mentioned the fact that we are looking at the issue, so that we can alleviate the pressure on the police, through calls going to the right place in the first place. That would reduce the number and volume of calls.

However, despite that, and notwithstanding those pressures, which apply across the UK, Police Scotland is above average.

I acknowledge that, if somebody’s call goes unanswered, that is a failure of service. I am not wishing that away.

My point is that, according to the Home Office, Police Scotland was well above average in July. It answered 79.9 per cent of calls in less than 10 seconds. I do not use the word “swimmingly”, but that is an example, notwithstanding the pressures, of Police Scotland performing better than average.

In addition, to get under some of the issues in your point, Police Scotland, as I have said before, has been the first point of call for many things that are not its responsibility. That is reflected in those calls. We have looked at the nature of the calls. Some should be directed towards other services, and we are trying to ensure that that can be done. That goes back to my previous point about an increase in the necessary reform in call handling and better liaison between the police, the other blue-light services and other services. If they can alleviate call pressure by ensuring that calls are directed correctly in the first place, that will help to improve a performance that is already above average, such that we can drive out any failure to answer calls.

It is better than average, just now. It has to be better, and work to make it better is continuing.

Discussions with Cabinet colleagues about public services often centre on the fact that, after 12 years of austerity, more money should be invested in public services. I acknowledge that. We should invest more money in public services. However, almost uniquely, the UK Government has decided on a programme of austerity, which has lasted for 12 years.

—and I am answering—

First, of course, the fire service has to comply with the stringency of the requirements on it, and there is no suggestion from the SFRS that the equipment is unsafe. I hate to correct the member, but I think that the backlog that he talked about was £492 million, rather than £482 million, according to the SFRS. However, we acknowledge the challenges.

The desperate attempt to pretend that this has nothing to do with settlements from the UK Government does not register with people out there. They know what the situation is, and what austerity has meant over the past 12 years—both in resource and in capital backlog. There is a backlog not in maintenance but in investment in the estate structure. That has been reviewed previously, and it is being reviewed again.

It is also true to say that many of the fire stations were built in a previous era, to provide fire cover for industries and housing that, in some cases, are no longer there. That is an opportunity to review the estate and to make savings through its rationalisation. In turn, that should allow additional investment in the remaining fire stations.

As you might have heard in evidence from the SFRS, it has developed a detailed community risk index model, which identifies the risks in individual communities across Scotland. That enables it to base on evidence its decisions on resources. We will continue to work through those issues with the SFRS, not least through the budgetary process that I mentioned previously.

I do not want to go back to the previous back-and-forward about budgets, but we need to acknowledge that we are in a different budget environment from last year.

Last year, in that different context, we awarded an additional £15 million for the reasons that you mentioned. We are aware that courts across the country do not all have the same level of confidence in community disposals. That additional £15 million, which was in addition to, I think, £119 million of continuing funding, was intended to effect change so that the courts would have confidence, wherever they were in Scotland, that a community disposal would be effective and properly monitored.

That gives our intention—our direction of travel—but you are right to say that we are now looking at a different budget environment and we have to consider it against other options. The Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill is a fundamental part of our approach. It will not work if we do not have proper community justice disposals.

That is our intention. We have budget pressures to consider as we go forward, and we hear what the sector said. We have had discussions with it. A new national plan for community justice, which seeks to do what we intend, has just come out as well.

The additional moneys that we provided in the current year were provided sensitively such that the local authorities that had been well served by their community justice infrastructure were not punished by money just going to authorities that had not, because that would be like punishing success. We managed to provide money to authorities that really need to invest more and to produce more money for other authorities.

That is the intention, but the matter will have to be decided as a priority in the budget process.