Seòmar agus comataidhean

I will hand over to Collette Stevenson, who has a general question. We will then move on to issues around safety, the physical environment and care of witnesses.

Good morning and welcome to the 13th meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee in 2021. We have apologies from Russell Findlay. Fulton MacGregor joins us online.

Our first item of business is to agree whether to take agenda item 3, which is consideration of this morning’s evidence, in private. Are we agreed to take item 3 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

We are certainly aware of trauma-informed approaches. That issue has been raised and members may come back to it later.

Another key issue is communication and engagement with witnesses, by which I mean survivors and complainers. There has been some commentary about and criticism of that issue. There has been a suggestion that there should be a single point of contact—someone who could advocate for an individual and chaperone them through the process. Has there been any consideration of that?

I have a question about the timescales for working through the proposed changes, in particular in relation to your work with justice partners in establishing a specialist court. Forgive me—earlier, I conflated domestic abuse courts and specialist courts when I was referring to specialist courts.

How long do you anticipate that that process might take?

I will bring in Jamie Greene, to be followed by Collette Stevenson.

I am aware that Fulton MacGregor has not yet come in. I will bring him in shortly, but Rona Mackay and Pauline McNeill are keen to pick up on some points.

I have a final question on the subject of court processes. Are special measures and videolink evidence available in all High Court and sheriff court cases? If not, could consideration of that be taken into account when you are deciding whether to move a case from the High Court to a sheriff court? Does taking evidence by videolink have cost implications, and would that be an issue?

I will move on to Jamie Greene, who has some questions about environmental issues.

Katy Clark has some questions on specialist courts.

We will pick up on that after questions from Rona Mackay.