Chamber and committees

I will try to make my question clearer. There has been a year-on-year increase in the number of diversions from prosecution—there are arguments for and against the approach, but that is not the point of my question. There has also been a year-on-year increase in the number of people who, sadly, have died as a result of drug use. The number of diversions doubled from 500 to 1,000 in one year alone, which is a substantial increase. Is it too early to say whether the policy is working, from a public health point of view, or do we have sufficient data to make a correlation between the policy and the health outcomes?

I thank everyone who has spoken. I know that we do not have a huge amount of time left.

A number of times, people have mentioned the legislative framework that operates in the UK and, specifically, in Scotland, given that we have two very separate legal systems. I have a question for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The number of charges for the offence of possession has roughly stayed the same over the past five years—the statistics show a marginal increase from 9,700 to 10,000. However, five years ago, the number of diversions was very low—there were about 88—and there has clearly been a big shift in policy towards diversion, because last year there were more than 1,000.

Given that there has been a dramatic increase in diversions but the sad roll call of drug fatalities has also increased year on year, can we draw any conclusions about the success of the diversion concept in reducing overall harm and death from drugs in Scotland? Is there a correlation to be made there? In other words, has the policy been a success?

Thank you for that illustration. We all welcome any positive outcomes from such interventions.

Is there a role for the Crown Office to play in analysing what happens next? We often focus on the discussion about diversion but not necessarily on what we are diverting people to and the success of those programmes. Do we know how many of the 500 people who went through a diversion from prosecution in 2019-20 had a successful outcome? Do we know what percentage of them attended rehabilitation? Do we know how many of them reoffended or were back in the system and were included in the figure of 1,000 the following year? What sort of analysis does the Crown Office do on the continued monitoring of people who are diverted from prosecution?

My final question relates to a point that Peter Krykant raised. Not everyone who is stopped by police and who is involved in a single-charge possession case or commits a first-time possession offence would necessarily be classed as someone with an addiction. They might be recreational drug users and might not be suitable for the sort of diversion programmes that other witnesses have referred to.

What is the advice to police in that respect? How does the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service differentiate and decide or analyse whether someone who is stopped and charged with possession would benefit from full treatment, diversion and rehabilitation or is simply a recreational drug user who is breaking the law? There might be a fine line between the two.

I wonder whether Police Scotland would like to answer the same question.

Yes, of course.

Thanks, Peter. The place of organised crime in all this will come up later, as will the issue of people accessing drugs for the first time while they are in young offenders or adult detention institutions.

I thank our first speakers for sharing their personal experiences. I know that it is often difficult to speak about such things in public, but we value hearing about them.

A common theme seems to come through the answers. There always seems to be a trigger, if you like, such as when you were trying drugs for the first time or you might have been coerced or felt pressurised by your peer network in some way. What intervention do you think could have been made at that time so that the first time did not lead to the second, third or fourth, and the addiction that it created thereafter? What could have been done at that point to prevent that spiral from starting in the first place?

That question is open to anyone; you can just wave your hand if you want to answer.

I want to be clear on the pecking order. You would obviously rather just get the cash from the Government to let you do what you want to do. The second choice is to sell off the family silver and, in the worst-case scenario, you could go and borrow the money. Is that what you are saying to us?

I want to address what seems to be a bit of a contradiction in views about the situation in legal aid. Anyone who follows Scottish legal news or who has seen any headlines over the past few days and weeks will know that the legal profession is vocal in its concern about the situation. That is quite different to what we are hearing today about the drop in revenue being simply a by-product of the drop in demand.

We heard from Citizens Advice Scotland that the number of people seeking legal assistance has gone up by more than 30 per cent in the past year, but that the amount of grants being paid out over the same period had dropped by, I think, 27 per cent.

Another illustration is that witnesses who gave evidence at a previous session said that there are “legal aid deserts” in provision in Scotland. They also mentioned that there are many and varied issues to do with access to justice that are particularly acute in island and rural communities.

It seems to me, on the one hand, that a body of people are saying that the fees structure does not work and that they are not getting enough money for they work that they do, and that people in the real world are not able to access the legal justice and representation that they deserve or want. On the other hand, the system is saying that it pays out only as much as it is asked for. That seems to be a huge contradiction. Why is there that difference of views?