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On some of the things that we have heard from Police Scotland, I asked last week:

“In the interests of everybody who wants quick resolutions to their problems ... do we need to get that in the bill right now, instead of having to wait for secondary legislation?”

The answer from Deputy Chief Constable Speirs was:

“That would be my ask of the committee.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 22 May 2024; c 41.]

Therefore, I wonder whether it would speed things up for the victims and for the people who are the subject of the allegations of a complaint to bring the secondary legislation in more quickly. There was an example of a case of someone who has now been suspended for three years. Will anything in the bill speed up that process? I wonder how much communication you would have with a victim who wants something to be done with regard to a police officer who is still on full pay in a case that has been on-going for three years and is lost somewhere in the justice system. I cannot imagine that that victim will get a regular phone call, when it has taken three years to deal with it. That is where they feel let down.

Also, we are talking about the public purse and the fact that finances are finite, so is there anything in the bill that will solve that situation?

Police Scotland felt that a lot of what was holding it back related to the fact that many of the regulations were out of date. We have heard that in our evidence, and you will have heard that in your regular meetings. Has anyone been given an instruction to look at and update the current policies, procedures and regulations?

In two years, has the PIRC ever given you any policies or procedures to investigate?

No problem.

Your letter to the committee states:

“It takes far too long for the Criminal Justice organisations to investigate criminal complaints or conduct matters leaving those who report them and those subject to investigation with unresolved matters for far too long”

and that

“There is a general lack of pace applied to the investigation but probably more importantly the decision making around these cases.”

Does the bill do enough to rectify that?

In the same inspection report, you noted that Police Scotland

“is now inhibited from operating effectively by the level of internal governance it is applying to compensate for a lack of individual accountability”.

Again, that needs to be corrected if we are to reach the aims of the bill that we want to reach. Do you think that that issue is addressed in the bill?

Do you think that the financial memorandum as it stands is realistic?

So that is a process within Police Scotland that needs to be fixed.

Good morning. I turn to the response in your submission on section 15 of the bill—

“Review of, and recommendations about, practices and policies of the police”—

about proposals for the PIRC to review and make recommendations on the practices and policies of Police Scotland or the SPA in relation to a specific complaint or more generally. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland does not support that, but the PIRC seems to support it. Could you expand on that a wee bit? Do you have a good working relationship with the PIRC, and why do you not support that element of the bill?

It does. I take on board your point about not wanting an overlap. I think that, from the PIRC’s perspective, it was concerned that you did not have enough resources to complete the tasks that it was asking you to do. Could you give examples of where the PIRC has identified an issue with a practice or policy and passed it to you for investigation, and what the outcome was?

There might be a question about why it would think that you do not have enough resources when it has never asked you to look at any processes, but that is not a question for you.

Is your memorandum of understanding up to date? I ask because the date on the front of the most recent one that I can find is October 2017 and it was signed on the back on 11 January 2019, which is five years ago, but it is described as “biennial”, which means every two years. Does that also need to be updated?