Seòmar agus comataidhean

Is it your understanding that the Crown and the defence agents are not provided with that information either? We can obviously take up that point with them.

My question is similar to Fulton MacGregor’s, as I want to pick up on what Sandy Brindley said earlier about wrongful acquittals. The Scottish Government is proposing to offset any impact on conviction rates that might be caused by the abolition of the not proven verdict. That is, it would address the balance between convictions and acquittals by changing jury size. Do you accept that that would have the result that there is likely to be no change, given that you have just said that only a handful of cases would be affected? Would the change in jury size offset the abolition of the verdict in the way that the Scottish Government suggests?

I will follow up on that. You referred to the mock jury study, but we have been trying to look at the evidence for what the Scottish Government is proposing. One of our initial questions many months ago was about the data. We wanted to get an understanding of what kind of jury results we get at the moment. To what extent are they unanimous? To what extent are they very narrow results in favour of conviction or acquittal? Do you have any data or impressions about how clear outcomes are on juries? What data—either hard data or impressions—do you have?

Thank you. That is helpful.

Perhaps it is not helpful to get into the current benefits. To a large extent, you have simply mirrored what is happening down south, which many of us hoped would not be the position. Our hope was that we would be doing something better. However, let us not get into that discussion. Let us focus on whether the employment injuries benefit is fit for purpose

Does the cabinet secretary not accept that setting up a council now to do the work to inform the policy approach will mean that any changes are ready for implementation sooner? She has spoken about a stakeholder advisory group. In the light of what she has just said to Marie McNair, does she see that body as performing the same function?

I think that the cabinet secretary accepts that the current scheme is not fit for purpose—she called it “inherently unfair”. I am told that only 7 per cent of people who currently receive the benefit are women. I am not sure whether that is the exact figure, because it is difficult to get the information, but it is clear that the vast majority of people who receive the benefit are men and that that does not reflect who is being injured.

If the cabinet secretary accepts that the current scheme is not fit for purpose, does she also accept that we need to start the work on framing what a new benefit might look like as soon as possible, if we are to achieve a satisfactory benefit? Yet again, she will be responsible for a benefit that is not fit for purpose, as we have seen with other social security benefits.

The paper in which you reflect on your experiences is really helpful. You refer to Westminster’s

“less than glorious track record”

on social security benefits. It is fair to say that many of us have quite high expectations of what might be possible in Scotland. Indeed, in your paper, you talk about those

“high expectations bumping up against”

implicit and explicit constraints.

I am somebody who looks at outcomes. One of the surprises to me is, despite what the cabinet secretary said earlier, the frustration and experience of many claimants, who do not feel that the outcomes are much different from before. They still have to wait lengthy periods for benefits and, sometimes, those benefits are not granted.

There are two categories, I suppose. There is the creation of new benefits such as the Scottish child payment, and there is the migration of existing benefits. In relation to the latter, what are the lessons from our experiences so far about how we do that better—we do not want to just mirror what comes from down south—and how do we speed up the process to get to a better outcome? I know that a lot of that is about money, but perhaps we can put money to one side and focus on the aspects that are not about money.

Surely the point is that the council would do work to inform decisions on eligibility. Would that not add to the policy process?

Surely the lesson that we have learned from previous experience is that, if we do not start the work soon and do it as quickly as possible, we end up taking on the schemes that already exist for extended periods. Surely we now have an opportunity. Whether it is an advisory group or a council—whatever we call it—we should surely try to implement as soon as possible a body that would do the work to inform the policy approach. What is the timeline?

Let us presume that the consultation says that work needs to be done to inform a new benefit. What would the cabinet secretary’s timescale be for her stakeholder advisory group? How quickly will that work start?