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I am not in a position to give you an exact figure for a victim contact team today. Indeed, as the work is on-going, it would be disingenuous even to give a ballpark figure to you today. Ultimately, the victim contact team will be budgeted for and it be costed through the justice budget. If there are any costs arising from the amendments or the victim contact team as we reach stage 2, we will be providing a financial memorandum.

We deal with many victim support organisations, and we will be in discussion with them. I cannot confirm exactly who will be on the team; it is a work in progress. At stage 2, I will be giving you amendments with the full details.

I am not sure where the 25 per cent figure comes from.

Yes. Those are the figures that I have. Domestic abuse and sexual offences were not included in the early release scheme—not that they were ever going to be—so there was a low number of people on the VNS. That is where the cabinet secretary at the time was trying to open up other avenues for anybody who needed them. In the end, there were only five, even though victim organisations and the Scottish Prison Service were open to people contacting them.

Thank you for inviting me to attend this meeting to discuss the Government’s commitment to reforming the victim notification scheme—the VNS. I am aware that the committee took evidence last week on our intention to use the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill to deliver the reforms to the VNS that require primary legislation, and I am also aware of the real interest and desire to ensure that victims’ needs are being met.

As the committee will be aware, through our engagement with the victims task force, the Government heard concerns from stakeholders that reflected the views of victims themselves that the VNS was not operating effectively, which is why we commissioned an independent review to ensure that the scheme was fit for purpose and that it could serve victims more effectively.

During the review, the chair, Alastair MacDonald, and the vice-chair, Fiona Young, undertook a considerable amount of engagement with justice partners, victim support organisations and victims. They also considered international examples of victim notification. The review report was published in May last year, and it contained 22 recommendations, some of which comprise several sub-parts, that were rooted in that substantial engagement.

The VNS is complex, and it covers three separate schemes. Two of those relate to the criminal justice system, both of which are effectively identified by the length of the offender’s sentence. The third scheme is for victims of mentally disordered offenders, which is the term that is used in the review. The review recommendations cover all three schemes.

Scottish Government officials engaged with justice partners and victim support organisations to discuss in detail the recommendations to inform and develop our response to the review, which was published in October. The Government agreed either fully or in principle with the majority of the recommendations, including the central proposal for creating a victim contact team.

Some of the review’s recommendations are aimed specifically at justice partners, some are for the Government and others are for the Government to lead in collaboration with partners. Taken together, we anticipate that the recommendations will require a mix of legislative and administrative changes.

At the time of publishing our response to the review, I made it clear that progressing the reforms is a priority for the Government, and that we would use the opportunity of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill to ensure that the reforms that are needed to be taken forward through primary legislation could be done at pace. However, I acknowledge that that will be a new part of the bill, so I intend to limit the number of amendments to those that we consider to be essential for the legal underpinning of VNS reform.

I need to be clear that we are at the very early stages of reforming the system, building on the extensive consultation that took place with justice partners and victim support organisations after the review’s report was published, which informed our response.

Reforming the scheme is about ensuring that it works well for victims, and I am aware that the victim notification scheme can support victims only to a certain extent. It is not an absolute remedy for traumatic experiences. The concluding sentence of the independent review reflects that. It says:

“a human, trauma-informed and personalised process ... can go some way to help victims”.

Improving the VNS is part of our wider commitment to transforming how justice services are delivered, which includes putting at the heart of the system the voices of victims and a trauma-informed approach. The reforms will put the needs of the victims firmly at the heart of the notification scheme. By increasing the information that is available to victims, improving communication across justice agencies and making the system more accountable, we can ensure that the scheme continues to be as effective and trusted as possible.

Reform is about ensuring that the scheme works well for victims, which is, I think, what we all want to achieve. We share the vision in the conclusion of the review report, which, as I have already mentioned, is to have

“a human, trauma-informed and personalised process, which can go some way to help victims in their difficult situation”,

and we are committed to creating that with our partners.

Convener, I am pleased to be able to work on the bill with the committee and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs. The bill will improve victims’ and witnesses’ experiences and strengthen their rights. I look forward to taking your questions.

In relation to how it is set up?

The main recommendation was about the victim contact team, which is why the amendments that will come in at stage 2—which are dry and technical—will be for the underpinning of the establishment of such a team; they will not themselves create the actual victim contact team.

There were other recommendations. I cannot share the exact amendments at the moment, but we are looking at including the compulsion order and restriction order victim notification schemes in the standards of service, as set out in recommendation 2 of the review report.

Convener, this is all quite detailed. Would you like me to go through it to give you a bit of an overview before returning to your question?

I will see whether anyone else wants to comment, but I think that that is the point. How we contact victims is going to be so important when it comes to the victim contact team. It is all about ensuring that we do not have a long period of time without any contact, having a single point of contact, and discussing with victims what their options are. After all, they might not feel strong enough to receive information; we do not know what traumatic impact it might have on individuals, so we really need to be sensitive and more trauma informed in those conversations. However, contact has to be on-going to ensure that, if the time ever comes that individuals want to be included in the VNS, they are able to register for it easily.

I do not know whether Lucy Smith wants to make any other points.

I have got the information, although it will be very technical and boring.

I cannot answer that question at the moment. I am looking at reform of the VNS and the independent review has set out what it would like the service to look like. Every victim would be contacted and would be given their options. They might not be in a position at the time to want to take those up, as they might be going through something traumatic. The team could say, “Look, I’m going to give you a call in a month or two month to tell you what your options are. Would you like to come on board?” They may then be in a different frame of mind. Moving forward, I would like there to be an increase in people taking up the VNS, which we would all want.