Seòmar agus comataidhean

I warmly welcome Jim Shields, service manager, and Professor Lorraine Johnstone, consultant forensic and clinical psychologist, St Mary’s Kenmure secure care centre; Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, HM chief inspector of prisons for Scotland; Gerald Michie, governor at His Majesty’s Young Offenders Institution Polmont, and Sue Brookes, interim director for strategy and stakeholder engagement, the Scottish Prison Service; and Alison Bavidge, national director of the Scottish Association of Social Work.

I intend to allow about an hour for this session so, up front, I ask for questions and responses to be as succinct as possible, so that we can get in as many questions as possible.

We move directly to the questions. I will open things up with a general question for each of you. From your organisation’s perspective, will you briefly give a view on the provisions in the bill that set at 18 the cut-off point under which children will not enter the criminal justice system, and on whether that is appropriate? I will go from my left to my right, starting with Sue Brookes.

We are coming up to half past 12. I admire our witnesses’ staying power and patience, and I think that I speak on behalf of members when I say that it has been a really helpful and informative session for the committee. Thank you all very much for attending.

I will let Jim Shields and Lorraine Johnstone come in from the secure care perspective.

I am watching the time because I know that Kate Wallace has to leave. Thank you very much for coming. We will have a quick pause to let you leave the committee room.

We will continue our questioning. Rona Mackay has a question.

Our next item is consideration of evidence on the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill. I welcome to the meeting Mrs Linda Allan and Kate Wallace, the chief executive officer at Victim Support Scotland. I refer members to papers 1 and 2. I thank both our witnesses for coming to share their views on the Scottish Government’s proposals. I intend to allow about an hour for this session, and I am aware that Kate Wallace needs to leave no later than 10.45 am, as I understand that she is also giving evidence to the Education, Children and Young People Committee this morning—so she has a busy morning ahead.

We will move to questions. I will open things up by asking Kate Wallace to provide the committee with a broad overview of the work that she is involved in with regard to children and young people.

I was just going to bring in Wendy Sinclair-Gieben on the previous question.

If you are quick.

I thank Linda Allan very much for coming along to today’s meeting. We appreciate your time.

There will be a short suspension while we change witnesses.

Thanks very much, convener.

I have some questions about throughcare support on leaving prison. You may be aware that, recently, the Criminal Justice Committee has been considering the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill. That process is on-going. The bill seeks, among other things, to reduce our remand population and therefore our overall prison population in Scotland. It also aims to improve the release process from prison, with a particular focus on reintegration.

As part of the submissions for today’s meeting, we received a case study from Aberlour on Sarah’s story and the support that she has been receiving at Cowan Grove in Dundee. There is reference to a period of time in prison when she was abstinent but, following that, she went into a long period of instability. I am sure that, sadly, that is not unusual. The bail and release bill also places a duty on ministers to publish throughcare standards for both remand and sentenced prisoners so that the level of consistency in support is improved. We have spoken about the postcode lottery across Scotland.

I will start with Justina Murray. Thinking about this as an opportunity to develop good law and robust throughcare provision, from your experience, what do you think throughcare should look like, particularly for women coming out of prison?

Thanks. I will bring in Liz Nolan and Karen Reynolds next. I am very interested in the challenges that women in particular face. Given the new women’s unit in Dundee and the way it is supporting women, I will bring in Liz on that point.