Chamber and committees

Five years is a long time to wait for a case to come to trial, whether you are the accused or the victim. It is horrendous.

You make fair points. It is difficult to model the situation. As you say, given the scale of the congestion in the courts and the nature of the trials that are likely to come through the system, on which we have heard evidence, there is an expectation that non-custodial options simply might not be suitable in a large chunk of those cases. Therefore, there is an expectation that the prison population will rise. I presume that there are limitations on what you can do. You can magic up only so much space in the prison estate, so there will be overcrowding, eventually. Do you foresee a California-type scenario in which you simply must release people because of overpopulation?

Those are the words of Police Scotland.

Thank you for that clarification. I am not sure that there is much of a precedent for the committee telling the Government what more to spend and where the money should be cut from, but if that is the new budget scrutiny process I will be happy to engage in it.

If the SFRS is being asked to do more, as it is being asked to do—and we have heard concerns about that from management and the unions—that must be backed up with investment and, in this context, resource investment, whether we are talking about the requirement for training or the requirement for additional assets. If the budget remains static, as it has been since 2017, and there is no more investment up front, the service will find it difficult to offer a wider range of services. What discussions have you had with the service about what will be asked of it and how much more might be required from the budget allocation to help it do what is asked?

My other questions relate to other areas of the budget, so I am happy to come back in later, convener.

I want to ask a more fundamental question about the prison estate. I appreciate your comments on HMP Greenock. I think that everyone accepts that elements of it are not fit for purpose; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland has made that clear. Although we are a long time away from getting a replacement, it is important that any funds that can be are allocated to make immediate improvements, which would be most welcome by the staff and inmates. That is a parochial point, but it is an important one to make.

I will now look at the wider issues. I spoke in the previous committee meeting to Teresa Medhurst about a medium to long-term plan for the prison population. We know that the annual average population is sitting at quite a high number—the latest figure that I have is that there are more than 8,000 inmates. The figure has risen quite sharply over a number of years. In the context of the large backlog of court cases, of which a large percentage are for quite serious crimes—more specifically, those are of a sexual nature or involve gender-based violence—and because of the good work that the police and other agencies are doing to tackle the rise in serious organised crime, Ms Medhurst seemed to imply that the prison population is expected to rise further. It takes four, 10 or 15 years to build new estate. Is the allocated budget geared up to that potentially quite sharp, immediate rise in the prison population?

No. May I carry on? Sorry, but the police budget is a big topic.

Police Scotland states in its written submission that its five-year capital investment proposal

“would improve conditions and equipment for the wellbeing of officers and staff”

and

“enable a better service to be provided”.

It states:

“A lower settlement would require prioritisation to meet health and safety needs”—

in other words, the statutory requirement on the police—but would not allow it to deliver much-needed improvements to the fleet, to ICT and to the police estate, which many people said in their written submissions is not fit for purpose.

I return to the point that, for Police Scotland to fulfil its five-year plan to deliver and maintain the policing levels that we currently enjoy, it will need £466 million. Your capital spending review from this year suggests that it will get £218 million less than that. That is the shortfall that we and Police Scotland are talking about. If it does not receive the funding settlement that it is expecting or asking you for, which of those projects are unlikely to be delivered? Which aspects of police transformation and renewal will we not see in the next five years as a result of that capital ask not being met?

I am sure that that is something that the committee will consider, convener.

That is an important point, because the uplift in Covid consequentials to the Scottish budget was around £15 billion. It strikes me as unreasonable to expect that that level of increased funding, which was unique to the circumstances at the beginning of Covid, would necessarily set the benchmark for future budget years. It would be better to do a year-on-year comparison with a normal budget year in which there is an uplift in core funding as opposed to comparing core funding to Covid-related funding. That conflation has been made, and I am happy for the Scottish Parliament information centre to do some investigation into it and to inform members accordingly.

On the back of that, I turn to the capital funding budget. I want to touch on Police Scotland’s budget, because it is an important one to delve into and we took a lot of evidence on it. Can you explain how this year’s budget, or at least your asks of the finance secretary, will inform Police Scotland’s five-year capital investment plan? The figure that it gave us in its written submission is a

“total requirement of £466m with major and essential investment in the DDICT strategy, consolidating and improving the Estate and modernising the Fleet”.

Police Scotland’s understanding is that the Scottish Government’s capital spending review, which was published in January,

“suggests a funding level that is approximately £218 million short over a 5 year period”.

Can you update the committee on whether there will be a shortfall in Police Scotland’s capital budget?

Thank you, convener. I also have questions on prisons, but I will let others lead on that.

I will continue the line of questioning on the SFRS. Although the SFRS did not express a view or opinion on the budget, it provided statistics in its written submission, saying:

“As acknowledged in the report by Audit Scotland (2018), to bring its property, vehicles and other assets across Scotland up to a minimum satisfactory condition ... the SFRS requires an average annual investment of £80.4 million. The actual average annual investment over the last three financial years on property, vehicles and equipment was £30.2 million.”

Therefore, although the SFRS has not expressed an opinion, it has enlightened us about the reality of its budget. Does that mean that its assets are not in the minimum satisfactory condition? How confident can we be that future budgets, particularly for capital spend, will ensure that we have a fit-for-purpose Fire and Rescue Service over the next 10 years, which is what the service asked for?