Seòmar agus comataidhean

So you are saying that delegated legislation will come to this committee.

Many of the points that you make are incredibly interesting, including that of how we properly cost those issues and the idea of funding following the individual, which is used in other scenarios. We would be happy to receive evidence in writing of any costings that you are able to put together.

I wonder whether Sandra Cheyne would like to make any additional points about the implications for resources and funding and who provides the service.

Thank you. That was helpful.

I put it to you that, in recent years, the major barrier to social workers being present in court to perform a professional role that they have performed for many decades now has been a lack of resource and cuts.

I do not want to take up too much time, but I want to briefly ask whether the witnesses have looked at the bill’s provisions in relation to the public safety test, which seems to be very poorly defined. Two of the witnesses have said that they want legislative change, because they feel that the threshold is too high and that, at the moment, people are being remanded when they should be getting bail. The issue, though, is whether this is the right legislative change. The concern is that things have been poorly defined in the drafting of the legislation, with a concept being used that has not previously been used in Scottish criminal law, and that there will be a lack of clarity about what that means. Will it mean that more or fewer people will get bail? Which kinds of individuals are more likely to get bail and which are not?

If you do not have a view on that question, you do not need to respond. Perhaps I could ask Keith Gardner, first of all, and then the other two witnesses whether they have looked at and have a view on that issue.

That is fine. There is no mention of risk assessment in the bill, but I hear very clearly what you have said.

Suzanne, do you wish to make any points on the drafting of the legislation or whether this is, in fact, the change that is needed? Have you looked at that properly, or is it something that you would not necessarily have a view on? Is it the overriding policy implications that you are interested in?

Thank you. We will take evidence on that later.

Gillian Booth’s comments in relation to virtual custodies and the difficulties with catching an individual’s situation were really interesting. That was quite similar to some of the evidence that we have received from defence agents, who are in a similar position.

My question is primarily about resources and funding, and about who provides the service. It has come through clearly from the evidence that we have taken this morning that there are significant resource issues and a gap between the kind of service that the witnesses have described—the service that they believe should be provided—and what actually exists now. The main barrier to providing that service is not to do with legislation at all; it is to do with resources and funding.

How do you think that statutory minimum standards of throughcare support will impact on that? I know that there is a desire for central Government to provide that funding. Has any work been done on what it would cost your local authority to provide the kind of service that is being described? Linking in to the debate about the national care service, do you think that those standards will make the outsourcing and tendering of services easier? Do you think that that is part of what the proposals are about? Rhoda, will you come in on that first?

Social workers have been in attendance in many courts as a matter of routine for many decades now; they talk to the police about who is in the cells, who is coming in and whether they have arrived yet. If the police feel that an individual is vulnerable, they will proactively get in touch with the social worker, and if the sheriff feels that there are vulnerable individuals, they will proactively ask for social work involvement.

You can talk about cuts, but, in the past, a social worker has often been there to fulfil that role; that has been part of the way in which the criminal justice system has worked for many decades. I fully accept that the scale of the cuts in recent years might have led to an erosion of that service, but is it not the case that there have been many occasions in the past when the type of involvement that you are talking about has happened successfully?

So you are saying that it is a different world, because there are now legal barriers to enabling the kind of involvement that social workers might have had in previous decades. That sort of thing is being prevented from happening now, and that is the reason why the legislation is required.

Is it not the case that, under the current legislation, there have been many occasions when there has been the kind of social work involvement that you have just spoken about at length?