Absolutely. I do not disagree that it is a common theme. The problem is that much of that work is currently taken up by the third sector and, in some cases, by volunteers. It is not formalised in any sense. People have access to Victim Support Scotland or to victim information and advice, which is the Crown Office’s process. However, in many cases, people are directed to charities such as Rape Crisis Scotland or Scottish Women’s Aid, or to their MSPs or MPs if they are really stuck, as we can write letters to people and generally get answers back.

I think that the lack of centralised support to hold someone’s hand through the process has led to accusations that the system is geared and weighted towards the accused. They have a single point of contact—their lawyer—who will hold their hand and educate them as they go through the process, whereas the victims often feel that they are passed from pillar to post.

With regard to your bit of the process, you manage the estate, but you have little control over the physicality of the estate. Many people have said to us that the estate creates difficulties—it is not a pleasant place to be, and victims often come face to face with the people who have attacked or abused them. In addition, the physical layout of the buildings, many of which are antiquated, is not conducive to a trauma-informed experience. What will you do to improve that?

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.

I will start by asking you to clarify something that you said in your opening statement about the overall budget, because it puts the justice budget into context. I understand that the block grant for 2022-23 will rise from £36.7 billion to £40.6 billion—a £3.9 billion uplift—which is derived from £3.4 billion in resource funding and £400 million in capital funding. That seems to contradict your opening statement. Could you clarify that?

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?

Just to put that in context, the justice budget is about £2.9 billion, and we are only now, at the end of the meeting, talking about supporting victims with a budget of £18 million. Therefore, you can see why, relatively speaking, to the outside world, it may seem that the focus is in the wrong place.

I am glad that you mentioned the victim surcharge fund, because your Government’s expectation was that it would generate £1 million a year—that was in your 2016 manifesto. We know that it has generated only £157,000. Why has there been such a shortfall, and what confidence can we have that, in future, it will generate meaningful amounts of money to support the victims of crime?

Yes, please.

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.