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The primary purpose of the register would be to keep victims and survivors safe and to ensure that the notification scheme is in place so that we know who the serious offenders are. Right now, we do not even have the data to see who is covered and who is not monitored or covered. The purpose is to do everything possible to ensure that serious offenders and repeat offenders are monitored so that we know what they are doing and so that police authorities can notify victims and survivors if someone is at risk.

Let me finish, please. On where the budget will come from, many things are already happening. For example, equally safe is already happening. Apparently, it is going to be rolled out everywhere. Rehabilitation is going to be rolled out. A lot of that work will be complementary. The register will have costs but it is up to the Government where that money comes from.

I do not have the balance sheet. You ask me what I would do if I were in Government, but I cannot pretend that I would be in Government, because you—

I will pass the technical side of the under-16 partner stuff to Charlie Pound, but I will cover the other area that you have mentioned.

I have looked into this area, and we need to improve services and everything that you have been speaking about. At this moment, we are not collecting data on disability or ethnicity, for example. Coming from an Asian background myself, and having spoken to representatives of Shakti, Amina, Sikh Sanjog and many other organisations, I can say that one size of service does not fit all, as we have heard many times in the Parliament. Dealing with a domestic abuser or a victim from an Asian background will be very different from dealing with one from a western background. It involves dealing not just with the abuser but with the family and the community, and that has a much wider effect for the person concerned.

We need to understand that, if, say, 100 people from ethnic backgrounds are coming through—whatever their backgrounds are—and they are facing issues, we need to have the right services in place. However, it is not just a question of the right services and organisations dealing with such cases. We must ensure that when the police collect that data they are fully aware of how to treat this sensitive issue and that they know what they are dealing with.

In relation to data on disability, in the early days of my work on the bill a victim reached out to me to say that she had called the police on a perpetrator, who was her husband. Because she had slurred speech the police thought that she was drunk and put her in a room while they spoke only to the perpetrator. It is so important that we have the right services and that they deliver for the right people.

I find it shocking that, to this day, we are still not collecting data on protected characteristics when we collect that information for so many other reasons. Organisations and charities—which the committee is more than welcome to write to—are all collecting that data already. They told me that. I have made collecting data voluntary in the bill, so there would be no onus on charities to do too much, but I feel that if they collect it they will also provide it.

As you said, I have made it quite clear that, for charities, it is voluntary. We are not telling charities, which have less funding and fewer resources, to come out with that information. I cannot reiterate strongly enough how much great work the charity organisations are doing out there. They are collecting all that data already—they have to collect it so that they can provide it to the Government and other funding agencies in order to prove to them that there is a problem or an issue that they need more help with. In proving that, they have to take a bottom-up approach to providing information, but there is no mandatory approach.

You are saying that there will be more work for officials—for example, in the police—in collecting that data. I do not know their exact workings, but I would assume that, when the police put such information on their database, it would not be very onerous or costly for them if we asked questions at that point, given that they already have a database. As an ex-trading standards officer who worked with software and systems, I know that tabs can be added on.

That information, when it is collated together, delivered and published, will make a difference, because that is when we will see where funding should go, what should be happening and where the gaps are. We will also be able to look at the difference between what the Government or police are recording and what organisations are recording. A lot of victims do not go to the police and instead go to an organisation. Data collection will help in a number of areas. I do not believe for a minute that collecting that data would be overly bureaucratic or that there would be a great need for resources. I think that we could fit that work into the current systems very easily; indeed, we should be doing that already.

I still do not believe that there will be a large cost to that work. I spoke to the police about it. I do not know the exact systems that they use, but they said that certain things could be added and that it would be quite easy for us to use that information. For example, we know that 66,000 cases were reported to Police Scotland because somebody has collected that data. Of those 66,000 cases, however, how many involved victims who were disabled, of ethnic background or had other protected characteristics? We do not know, so we cannot tailor our funding, our services or the services that domestic abuse organisations provide.

I am not an information technology specialist, and I will not pretend to be one, but what I was told was that tabs could be included right through the system. I would hope that, when you take information from the police, that information is passed right through the system.

I have not spoken to COSLA or the Crown Office about the issue. However, I spoke to the police about it, and they said that it could be done.

To be clear, parts 1, 2 and 4 of the bill are based on models that are in operation already in Scotland. Part 2, on assessment of offenders for rehabilitation programmes and services, and part 4, on education, seek to ensure that the provisions for rehabilitation assessments and domestic abuse education are in place across the country. Everyone knows that, right now, there is a postcode lottery for those provisions. I want to ensure that they are included in statute. There is plenty of evidence that rehabilitation is a good thing—everyone on the committee probably accepts that. Similarly, committee members will agree that education and the equally safe programme in schools are also positive.

Part 1 is based on the sex offenders register. Unless I am missing something, in the past, no one has said that there is evidence that the sex offenders register does not work or that it is not value for money. I do not see why things would be different for domestic abuse offenders. I understand that organisations have concerns, but as this is the first time that such a register will have been created for domestic abuse, we do not have exact data on it. The same thing probably happened when the sex offenders register was brought in—there is always a first time for these things. Many bills in the Scottish Parliament have been quite groundbreaking in that respect.

I can also tell you that, according to the latest statistics, 10.6 per cent of sex offenders who are being monitored have gone on to commit another offence, compared with 27.1 per cent of convicted domestic abusers. Lastly, research carried out by Anglia Ruskin University has found that offenders who are managed under MAPPA are less likely to reoffend than those who are not.

Clearly, the system is broken. The number of domestic abuse cases is getting higher. I just want to make a difference, and I believe that my bill will make that difference. I hope that I have clarified everything.

That terminology was used among other comments that were made. Obviously, there is passion about this on the side of the people I have spoken to, who are victims and survivors. So, I am not sitting here—

No, I was not quoting. I was saying that some bills that go through the Parliament contain first-time measures—we have never done them before. Absolutely, we—

I will bring in Charlie Pound to talk about some of the technical stuff on that.