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I have always been clear that, internally in the Scottish Government, we need to practise what we preach if we expect our partners to take a whole-system approach, working outwith operational boundaries and silos. In Government, we need to be doing likewise. Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs is the eighth ministerial role that I have held over a number of years, and this is an area in which I have seen a vast improvement internally.

I will give one example. Obviously, the Cabinet meets, but, as far as work on adult social care and adult protection is concerned, you are right to point out that there is a myriad of workstreams, plans and interventions. I chair a ministerial group that involves three health ministers, the children’s minister and the equalities minister. The group oversees six divisions of Government. That is just one example of working across portfolios, and there are many others that I could give you.

The mental health review that was undertaken by Lord Scott was a substantial piece of work—it was quite incredible, actually. Indeed, I remember its 900 pages dropping into my inbox when I was the Minister for Drugs Policy. It is a substantive bit of work to implement. What health colleagues have done thus far is, as you would expect, take a bit of time to consider Lord Scott’s recommendations and his very thorough and detailed report, because it looks not only at law reform, capacity and the importance of support but at increasing accountability, and our commitment to human rights is woven through all of that, too. Health colleagues undertook to devise an initial delivery plan, and last June they published the mental health and capacity reform programme.

Although the overall work will take several years to implement—and colleagues have been very up front about that—action has been planned and pursued from October 2023 to April 2025, and colleagues have prioritised what can be achieved quickly and, indeed, within existing resources. They will start to scope out new work on the next steps. That work contributes to the outcomes in the mental health and wellbeing strategy, which is led by health but is, of course, a cross-Government endeavour.

I suppose that there are two aspects to that, convener; Dr Cook can pitch in after me. On the one hand, we need to move away from practice that is unduly risk averse and make sure that positive decisions are made around risk assessment. I fully support the chief constable in her drive for safe and timely handovers, for a host of reasons that you will be well versed in.

On gaps in provision, the work around safe spaces is also potentially important in that sphere. However, the purpose of the partnership development group and its action plan and collaborative commitments is to give local areas the tools and wherewithal to ensure that they have good local relationships and that there is direct communication from services and people on the ground that is specific to individuals, and that local protocols and distress pathways are more clearly visible and identified.

The central goal is, I suppose, for every area to have well-developed distress pathways. We cannot fit everybody into a box. We have to recognise that, whether we are talking about health services or Police Scotland, first and foremost, they are dealing with people, and they are also dealing with dynamic situations.

The strength of the work is that it looks to support and develop from the ground up, as opposed to imposing a solution from on high, and I know that HMICS would endorse that point. However, not all the focus should be on the front line. Part of the partnership development group approach is that the people who are involved at strategic level all have responsibilities to implement decisions at that level. When the framework and the collaborative commitments are published, you will see that very clear commitments are made by named individuals in organisations.

I will check with Dr Cook whether there is anything more to say from a practice point of view that would help.

I will check whether the Crown Office wishes to do this, but I will ensure that the committee gets that factual information from the most relevant source, whether that is me or the Crown Office, on the pre and post positions with respect to the change in recorded police warnings that took place in 2021.

I am content that we have the right connections with regard to information internally in Government. Our job in Government is not only to collaborate and co-operate, but to challenge one another and ensure that colleagues are aware of any unintended consequences of work that they are pursuing in their area and the impact that it could have on others. I hope that that goes without saying.

All of my work is located in the justice vision, which places an obligation on me to contribute towards improving the physical and mental health and wellbeing of people who come into contact with the justice system. We know that, among those who come into contact with the system, there is an overrepresentation of vulnerable people and people with poor physical and mental health, so I have a direct interest in the work being led by health colleagues, just as they have a direct interest in my work, too. It is an obvious point, but we will of course keep the committee informed.

It was remiss of me not to commend the committee for its on-going interest in and work on the issue. You have certainly helped to keep the wind behind the sails of the Scottish Government and all our partners.

You are absolutely correct that the demographic around vulnerability is indeed complex for policing partners and other services to deal with. Although we know from adult protection referrals that those struggling with mental health are the biggest single client group, there are a number of indicators of vulnerability, including learning disability, age and a whole host of other challenges. It is right that we recognise vulnerability in the broadest sense, but a sharp and forensic focus on mental health is particularly important.

I appreciate the recognition that, although we still have some way to go, we are shifting the dial, which is imperative for people who need to quickly access a service. We also need to ensure that policing resources are appropriately deployed because, at the end of the day, that will ensure that we reduce unnecessary demands on police officers.

The work on safe spaces is very interesting and complex. There are good examples of peer support in community settings. We know from the scoping work that, when the approach is prioritised and designed locally, it can become more of a reality of service delivery. There is a sense of reimagining and rescoping safe places, and ensuring that there is a wider spectrum of support. That should include non-clinical support, but we need to ensure that such support has the necessary links to clinical care. Safe places can be crucial in preventing an escalation of matters.

It becomes more complex where we get into issues around the proximity of a safe place to A and E departments. The need varies geographically, so the type of formalised service that works, for example, in Glasgow—the city has a mental health assessment unit to which police can refer people on—might be different from what is needed in other areas of Scotland.

We always come back to issues of safe staffing and the ability to accommodate various population groups and people of different ages. It may be that tiered provision is required that can cater appropriately for different population groups. There is also the issue of how we ensure access in particular for those who are affected by substances.

The nuts and bolts of mental health provision relate to standards, care planning and risk assessment, safe staffing and what the procedures are when matters escalate. That work is in-depth and complex but potentially very important.

Colleagues in Government, in particular those working in mental health, are considering the next steps. Part of meeting the collaboration commitments will be to consider what is next, following the scoping work. We can perhaps look at a toolkit that supports local development. It is fair to say that there is still a fair amount of work to be done in the area.

The short answer is that I do. I will expand on that in a moment, but I first want to acknowledge the scale of the issue and the demands that are placed not only on individual police officers but on Police Scotland at an organisational level.

The committee may have heard about the 100,000 calls received by Police Scotland in relation to mental health, and the fact that the vast majority of those calls involve no offence. I understand some of the frustrations that policing partners have, but I am encouraged in particular by the comments from the deputy chief constable. As we would expect, senior police officers always speak truth to power, so it is good to hear that the police are encouraged by the partnership working, in particular around the enhanced mental health pathway and the mental health index. Deputy Chief Constable Jane Connors talks about the central role of good collaborative partnership working and the value that has been placed on that.

On ASPS’s comments about policing having to lead, I agree entirely with HMICS that the issue requires a whole-systems approach. I very much support and understand the desire of ASPS and the Scottish Police Federation to see that organisational change on the ground, but we will get that only with partnership work and a whole-systems approach. It will not happen if services are working in isolation.

The partnership delivery group that is chaired by the Scottish Police Authority has significant policing input at the chief superintendent level, both from the policing together work and from the chief superintendent who is involved with local policing, as well as the individual who is head of service delivery. There is also substantial input from the Scottish Government, the Scottish Ambulance Service, NHS 24 and, in particular, the mental health unscheduled care network. I believe that we have the right buy-in across the services and, significantly, from a senior enough level.

I will give an example of where it is clear that actions and decisions have to be led by clinicians. When people are utilising the mental health index or accessing the out-of-hours mental health clinician, it is very clear that decisions on clinical issues, as you would expect, are made by clinicians, but they also have to arrange the care. There is greater clarity on who does what when, and that has to be welcomed.

I would want to see the evidence for that. I am not trying to be facetious or pernickety, but if people communicate concerns of that nature to the committee, to other stakeholders or, indeed, to me, I would want to see the evidence. That speaks to the broader need for better data that tells us what we need to know about demand and impact.

That is a very live issue that features in many of my discussions with the SPF and ASPS. It has always been very clear to me that, in the day-to-day work, cases that have a strong mental health feature and less of an offending behaviour feature place an additional obligation and demand on individual police officers, and that will have an impact on their wellbeing. There will also be a huge impact when there are emotionally charged, disruptive or difficult circumstances when things perhaps do not go well. There are instances that are particularly traumatic in their own right.

Police Scotland has an obligation as an employer, and the oversight of that principally comes through the Scottish Police Authority, although we all have an interest in the wellbeing of our police officers. You might have heard that Police Scotland has an employee assistance programme, in which £17 million has been invested. The programme has a focus on mental health and enhanced occupational health services. With that programme, Police Scotland is trying to take a preventative approach, by looking at assessments of resilience and stress risk, and recognising the day-to-day attrition and demands on police officers. There is also specific work through the trauma risk management programme for officers who have been exposed to particularly traumatic events.

Police Scotland is one of the first services in the United Kingdom to implement mandatory mental health and suicide intervention training for all officers. That is particularly important. It also offers a range of services to care for psychological, physical, social and financial wellbeing through the your wellbeing matters programme.

Following the HMICS review, the mental health unscheduled care network took forward a lot of the work. It was led and supported by the Scottish Government, although I think that the original recommendation suggested that Police Scotland lead it—however, Police Scotland is a member of the mental health unscheduled care network.

The national review was completed in December last year. In a minute, I will ask Dr Cook to talk about the work on developing the national guidance and the template. The core purpose of that work was to ensure consistency across 14 health boards and to remove barriers to multi-agency working. Some of that is about training. The Police Scotland mental health task force has undertaken a full training needs analysis of the police workforce. One of the recommendations was to have more joint training for leaders across different sectors and about good communication and relationships on the ground.

The other purpose of the work on psychiatric emergency plans was to be crystal clear about roles and responsibilities when responding to issues. I ask Dr Cook to add a bit more flesh to that.

The purpose of the order is to make it clear that Police Scotland can access information on spent convictions for lower-tariff offences.