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When the minister and I met the Faculty of Advocates, it expressed a similar concern. Even when putting a case to somebody who is very accustomed to a courtroom, there is the issue of being able to read body language and, to an extent, to lip read what people are saying. There are two sides to it.

As the minister said, there are benefits to remote hearings in certain circumstances. The Faculty of Advocates also raised with us the fact that there should not be a practical logistical reason for somebody not being able to participate. We talked about the provision of additional keyboards and iPads for some people, and what we can do to help with that.

As we go forward, there will have to be awareness of both forms of participation. I do not know about the situation in other parties but, in my political party, we will not be dispensing with the use of online fora, because they enable people to make meetings that they could not otherwise make. Therefore, there will have to be a blend.

The Lord President has a very good and refreshing attitude, in that he is very keen to learn from and to keep the best of what we have done during Covid, but to be aware of some of the shortcomings, one of which Pam Gosal mentioned.

Given that the portfolio is split and that civil justice rests with the minister, I ask whether she may speak first. I will come in after that, if that is okay.

The legal professional organisations will be taking the lead in future recruitment for their professions. I think that I am right in saying that we are seeing record numbers of people going to universities to seek qualifications. However, part of it is down to how the legal professions can increase the numbers given the demographic that you mentioned.

The points about remand are well made. We have made no secret of the fact that we do not want to see as many people on remand. We understand that remand can be detrimental, especially if, at the end of it, the person is found not guilty. However, none of those things is by design. The pandemic is real and we cannot wish it away. It has implications for the justice system and, unfortunately, it has given rise to the higher number of people on remand.

I go back to what I said in my opening remarks about the fact that I cannot be too specific in advance of the publication of the programme for government, but we are looking to take early action in relation to remand, not least for some of the reasons that Mr Greene mentioned. We are very conscious of both the human rights of those who are involved and also, particularly for those who have never experienced a justice system before, the impact that it can have on the person, their family, their employment and all sorts of other things. We are very seized of that. However, the situation arises from the pandemic. Like many other jurisdictions, we want to do the best that we can to mitigate the effects of that.

The Scottish Police Authority will hold the police to account for its performance in relation to that. As you would expect, however, I have had conversations with the police about the issue.

There is a public concern and the situation requires further attention. It is vastly better than it was in the past, with the legacy forces, when people would call the numbers—I am talking not about 999, but about the equivalents to 101—and they would ring out, with no record being kept of the unanswered calls. Nobody knew the extent to which that was happening. I am told that that is very much the case now in other parts of the United Kingdom, and it cannot be satisfactory.

It is right that 101 is a triage service that directs people to the right place, because people sometimes call for reasons that are nothing to do with the police, and it is right that the police have a way of clearing those calls. However, it must be improved. I spoke this week to the chair of the SPA and senior officers, and they are seized of the need to improve on the figures.

I will be corrected by my official if this is not the case, but I think that I am right in saying that we already have that legal basis in Scotland. Down south, they do not have that; common law is used. It is a case of trying to make those things consistent. Previously, the point of disagreement was whether the provision could be extended to people who had died. That was the point that the Lord Advocate was interested in, and we have some assurances on that. It will not be agreed to by UK ministers at this stage, but we have some assurances around that, which we are willing to accept.

A draft code of conduct is not the same as a final code of conduct. If we know that the UK Government is saying, “This is our final version,” there is nothing that will give us cause for concern. As background, the committee’s predecessor went over this area quite exhaustively when it considered cyberkiosks and so on. There is a parliamentary sensitivity about that, which we are trying to be sensitive to by saying, “Let’s see what the final one says.” If it says what the draft one says, I think that we are okay.

That is a good point. It is almost the obverse of Jamie Greene’s question about what has been done during Covid that we could continue to do. There are things that we have had to do that we should not continue to do, which is a good thing for ministers to keep in the back of their minds. It might be tempting to say that, because a restriction makes things easier in some regard, we should keep doing it. We must guard against that. However, the Parliament and its committees are a pretty good watchdog in that regard. I am thinking about the recent discussion that we had about the extension and elimination of many of the measures, and there is provision for further and regular reporting on those things, so there are democratic checks and balances.

However, if your point is that the Government should also be looking to and checking itself—with Jamie Greene’s caveat—we want to see whether any change that has been forced by circumstances might be of benefit in future. If that is the case, we should get parliamentary approval.

The only thing that I will say beyond what I have already said is that, as you know, a commitment has been given that there will be a full inquiry, which will look at the actions of all those involved. I do not want to go beyond that.

You will know that the current community justice infrastructure was set up in 2016. At that time, we committed to a review of it, which we are starting now, as we said we would. You might also be aware that an element of the national care service proposals might have an impact on community justice. Those two matters are on-going, and all members can contribute to them. We are in discussions with Community Justice Scotland and our local authority partners on that.

However, there are some areas in which alternative disposals will never be appropriate. With organised serious crime, in which I know Mr Findlay has a particular interest, such disposals are never going to be a suitable solution—for example, as I mentioned earlier, for people in Saughton who are looking to visit violence on each other.

The bottom line, as I think Ms Stevenson highlighted, is to do the right thing for a particular person but also to do what will give us the right outcome for society, because we have to bear in mind the rights of victims and the right of society to be protected from crime. If the best solution for a person is a disposal that takes them away from the path that they would go down if they went to prison, we should be willing to consider such a move and ensure that we have the infrastructure in place to make it possible.

That is where we are with community justice. You are right to identify it as a big area for all of us, as we move forward.

I would be grateful if we could get Neil Rennick’s input on this. I think—you will know this better than I do, convener—that the police are now being asked to do much more than they were in the past. For example, we ask them to log whether a person who is admitted to custody is an armed forces veteran, and we ask them to be much more aware of addiction issues and mental health issues, which are not always obvious to people who are not trained in such things. We ask a lot of our prison officers and police officers. As we would all acknowledge, we have to do more in this respect. The same is true across society.

There are interventions such as the navigator programme, which members might not be aware of. Essentially, navigators go into custody cells in police stations and can talk to the person in question, provide support and look into their issues without prejudicing on-going legal proceedings or their custody situation.

I cannot remember its name, but there is a group that I recently met that works with the police in Edinburgh that includes police officers and people who have served time in prison and have had issues with addiction, for example. They do a lot of diversionary work, but they talk to people in the custody system, too. Generally, we realise that there is more that we can do, but we should acknowledge how much more police and prison officers are already doing.

Underlying all that—this brings us back to Pauline McNeill’s question about the fundamental change that is needed—is that at the start of the process there is what might be called triaging. First of all, as I keep emphasising, we need a solution that keeps society safe. There might well be an element of punishment in sentencing, but beyond that, the question is this: what is the best solution for society? When someone has addiction issues, do we deal with their addiction to ensure that criminal activity does not continue afterwards? What is the best way of dealing with someone who has mental health issues? It will be no revelation to the committee if I say that we recognise that there is much more to do on the matter. Perhaps Neil Rennick has something to add.

Yes, we will do that, convener, although we have to recognise the huge constraints on the Scottish Government’s budget, which Ms Clark raised earlier, and the austerity budgets that we have to live under just now. That sometimes means that we have to be quite innovative about how we get additional funding. Cashback for communities was one of the ways in which the programme in Lothian that I mentioned before is funded.

We have to continue to consider that and other streams of funding, too. There is no question but that we do not have the human resources to deal with everything in the public sector, and the third sector is an extremely important ally in relation to that as well.