Seòmar agus comataidhean

Okay—thank you.

I want to go back to the lessons learned review and what actually happened on 24 and 25 January. The facts as we understand it are that, when the offences took place and when the individual was initially charged, they were a man and had not self-defined as a woman at that point, but thereafter they self-defined as a woman. You say that the outcome of the review is that the 2014 policy was adhered to. Obviously, we have not seen the full lessons learned review; we have just seen a summary, but the summary is that the policy was adhered to. However, I think that you are also saying that the multidisciplinary assessment had not taken place as of 24 or 25 January.

That is our understanding of the position. What we do not understand is why the individual was not transferred to Barlinnie and held in segregation there pending the multidisciplinary risk assessment.

I am not asking you to identify individuals, but at what level was the decision taken in the case that we are discussing?

I ask for clarification on the timeline for the SSI and whether there is scope to take some of those issues up with the Scottish Government. It seems like a missed opportunity not to try to get some of the matters incorporated. I appreciate that this is probably the end of a very long process, but we have not been engaged with the process, so it would be appropriate to enter into correspondence to raise those issues and see whether this is an opportunity that can be taken.

In the letter that we are writing, I would like to highlight the civilian police staff point and the issue around Greenock prison. I have already written to the cabinet secretary about that, but I think that it would be useful if the committee were to raise the matter, too.

There is also the issue to do with capital spend for fire stations. I believe that the fire service is in breach of its duty of care and its duty to provide safe systems of work to firefighters. Work is urgently required to bring fire stations up to health and safety standards and to ensure that firefighters can wash after being involved in incidents.

Just to make a small addendum to that, I note that it would be helpful to get clarification on the position with civilian police staff, too. In the past, because of the political contention of cutting officer numbers, civilian police staff have taken a disproportionate hit, which has quite a significant impact on the service. Perhaps that could be incorporated in the letter.

We need to make the point that, initially, when we started this conversation a number of months ago, we were looking at cuts to justice budgets in the region of 20 per cent. There has been significant movement on that. Although there are still big real-terms cuts to justice budgets, they are not in the region of the levels that we were considering initially. I suspect—I hope—that that is partly a result of some of the work that we have done, with the cabinet secretary making strong representations and fighting his case, presumably.

We are not looking at as bad a picture as we would have thought at the beginning of the process, but we are still looking at drastic cuts. I think that we were going to ask the Scottish Parliament information centre to clarify the nature of those cuts so that, rather than an exchange of party-political points, there is an agreed acceptance of what we are talking about when it comes to the cuts that the justice sector is facing. They are significant.

It is clear that there could be ways to spend less money on the justice system, and the obvious example is prisons. Our putting so many people in prison is very expensive, but there have been none of the structural changes in the budget before us that would be necessary to enable real long-term cost savings. That is a discussion that we are having in relation to the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill as we consider how we put money into other parts of the justice sector to allow custodial sentences to be used less. That is always a point worth making.

I echo the points that have been made on policing. Pauline McNeill might say more about that, but I want to pick out a couple of points, starting with the capital budget for prisons. We have heard evidence that it is a lot cheaper to house people in newer prisons. I visited Greenock prison two weeks ago, and it is quite clear that there is an urgent need for capital spending to be made available to Greenock. If that does not happen, there is a risk that Greenock will not be able to stay in operation. That is a specific issue, which has been highlighted to the committee by the chief inspector of prisons. It is a huge cause for concern. A number of us here represent West Scotland, and, as well as the justice issues, a big economic impact would result in the Inverclyde area if that prison were to close.

We have had strong representations from the Fire Brigades Union in relation to capital spending and regarding the carcinogenic nature of many of the toxins to which firefighters are exposed. There has already been the tragic death of a firefighter this year at the Jenners fire, which brings home the risks of that employment. A number of other firefighters who were there were hospitalised, and we know that the cancer and leukaemia levels among firefighters are far higher than among the general population, as a result of their exposure at work.

More than 100 fire stations do not have proper sanitation facilities, and we must highlight that as something that needs to be given far greater priority.

The Fire and Rescue Service is receiving a slight cut—I think that it is roughly £400,000—whereas other areas are getting slight increases. I appreciate that we are focusing on the capital budget but, when things need to be done, there is often a discussion about whether the cost needs to come out of revenue or capital spending, so it is surprising that the Fire and Rescue Service is getting any cut at all, given some of the debates that we have had in the Parliament. There are clearly long-term underfunding issues and we seem to be going backwards. That point should be incorporated in our correspondence.

The committee would find more data really helpful, as we have struggled to obtain it. Is it also possible to get data for each sheriff court, because it would be interesting to see whether there are different practices in different courts? Historically, that was definitely the case, but I do not know whether it remains the case. It would also be helpful to have data on offences, whether they fall under the summary or the solemn procedure. I appreciate that you may not be able to provide everything that we ask for, but more detail on either of those topics would also be appreciated.

I did not want to ask a question; I just wanted to explain that we have really struggled with obtaining data.

I have thrown everybody off—sorry.