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The short answer is yes. Over the past few years, I have been actively engaged in ensuring that statutory criminal justice social work and social work more broadly are on a firmer footing. New measures have been taken, such as work that has been done on bursaries and graduate apprenticeships, to ensure that we have a workforce supply and that people are being trained, which is very important. There are particular demands on social work as a profession and there are concerns about retention, particularly of newly qualified social workers.

Mr MacGregor will be aware that, over the past two financial years, we have increased investment in community justice by £25 million to a total of £159 million. I am determined that we continue to invest in and grow community justice services overall, because we know that community interventions are more effective in comparison to short-term custodial sentences. I also want to point to the importance of the voluntary sector. There has been a cross-Government commitment and there should also be a commitment across Governments, both local and national, to support and utilise the potential of the voluntary sector where we can.

The national mission funding and support that goes to alcohol and drug partnerships and other grass-roots organisations creates good opportunities for partnership working with voluntary and statutory agencies and places for referral. There is another point about voluntary aftercare, but I will leave my remarks there, convener.

I was just saying to you, Ms Dowey, that I will discuss the matter further with the SPS.

Although we have an informed view of the matter, it is hard to give you a precise figure. Based on other jurisdictions where similar laws exist, with a range of hate crime provisions, we would expect—although this is a very rough figure—around 5 to 10 per cent of cases to be attributed to malice, ill will and harassment of women based on their sex. However, as I said, that is a rough figure.

Much of the pain around resource in relation to hate crime legislation has already been resolved. We continue to engage with Police Scotland on the work that it will need to do to upgrade and update its training guidance.

Extensive policy development work has been done. In a minute, I will ask Mr Lamont to give people a feel for the size and scope of it. The issue is complex. As it is criminal law, any misogyny bill needs to have clear and unambiguous provisions. That has been central to considerations in the Government.

Such a bill must also include the policy implications of the recent Supreme Court judgment. At one point in time, we were waiting on that judgment; we now have it, which means that further work is required. It is accurate for me to say that Baroness Kennedy’s working group left some matters to legislators. I am not saying that she was wrong to do so—it is entirely fair and credible—but some matters were left to legislators to address in and around a misogyny bill, and we have not concluded that policy work.

Philip, would you like to add anything?

Yes, I do. I am conscious that no issue is considered in a vacuum and that many of our stakeholders campaigned for misogyny legislation. However, I believe that filling the gap in the hate crime legislation is a step forward.

The new protections for women and girls might have a bearing on any future work and reduce the size and scope of a misogyny bill. We operate in an environment in which we are highly sensitive to the range of views on the matter. Many of our stakeholders and partners fought very hard for a misogyny bill, so I understand their disappointment. However, as Mr Lamont said, the scope of the SSI—what the legislation allows us to do—is quite specific, and I am very appreciative of the opportunity to lay it.

We currently have hate crime legislation that rightly offers people protections based on age, disability, religion, race, transgender identity and so forth. Protections include stirring up hatred offences, which are where threatening or abusive behaviour or communication is essentially targeted at people because of their protected characteristic, such as sex, race or disability.

Also, aggravated offences, which add in the scope to convict on offences aggravated by malice and ill will, are really important, because if an offence is already being committed and it has been motivated by hatred towards women and girls, that should rightly be recorded and taken into account, for example, in sentencing, and it is a salient matter for the court to decide on.

There is nothing soft about our justice system. The Scottish crime and justice survey is an important flagship survey. It gives us good information and the longer-term trajectories speak to falling rates of youth crime and Scotland being safer. However, you are quite right to point to the fact that the proportion of violent crime where the perpetrator is a child has increased to 31 per cent of incidents. That is what I meant earlier when I said that there is newer information in the shorter term that gives cause for concern. We need to acknowledge that it is not acceptable and that it must be addressed.

You ask what has gone wrong. I think that it is the change in the behaviour of some young people due to the challenges that I spoke about earlier. I know that people do not always appreciate this, but it was ably articulated at the round-table discussion chaired by the First Minister and me that lockdown during Covid has had an impact on young people’s behaviour. Youth work leaders, people at the forefront of violence prevention and, of course, teachers in our schools will all narrate that as a reason. We have spoken at length about the online harms that are exposing our children to outside influences, and that is an issue. Related to that is the influence of what is called toxic masculinity on some of our young men. Those are three important drivers of the recent changes.

As for what is gonnae work, there is value in and a place for youth work. I am a huge advocate for youth work, which is supported via the cashback for communities programme, for example. We often tfdshink of punishment, and there is a place for that, but, to change behaviour, young people need reliable and trusted relationships. We absolutely must continue with prevention work and must not be swayed into thinking that we need to put all our eggs into the punishment basket. We must continue to commit to the long-term preventative work, because we are seeing long-term improvements as a result. However, there is no doubt that we need to be acutely aware of and address the recent changes in the behaviour of some young people.

Involved?

I do not have any figures at hand for that, but I can certainly—

In phase 7 of the scheme, which is a three-year period, £26 million has been allocated, which is an increase on the initial £20 million. That is very much in response to some of the short-term changes that we are seeing in the behaviour of some young people.

I will give some examples in response to your question, Mr Ewing. In 2023-24, the total cashback scheme expenditure was just under £6 million. In 2024-25, it was £6.7 million, and the forecast for 2025-26 is £6.8 million. Around 90 per cent of that goes on cashback projects, but smaller amounts are allocated to staff costs and partners’ delivery costs.