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The Scottish Executive is currently consulting on proposals for Best Value in Public Services, which include NHS boards. The findings of this consultation will help to shape the future arrangements adopted.

The Scottish Executive is keen to ensure that decisions to release prisoners on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) take account of victims’ interests as far as possible. The mechanism for taking account of these will be a robust risk assessment process, which all prisoners considered for HDC will be subject to.

All decisions on whether to grant HDC will have regard to protecting the public, as specified in the bill. The majority of prisoners likely to be granted HDC will be short-term prisoners. For the small group of long-term prisoners who might also be granted HDC, victims who have joined the Victim Notification Scheme will be told of their imminent release.

The risk assessment for HDC will draw on a variety of information, primarily from the Scottish  Prison Service, and criminal justice, and community social workers. This will identify whether there are any victim issues that decision-makers should be aware of that might preclude release, or which require special conditions to be included in the licence.

An additional safeguard which takes account of victims’ interests, is the exclusion of some categories of offender from HDC, including those serving an indeterminate sentence and those on the sex offender register. The exclusions are specified on the face of the bill.

HDC will not be granted to any prisoner who might pose a risk to those they would be living with, or who might pose a risk to the community more generally.

The purpose of the ministerial power of direction in section 2(10)a of the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill is to ensure consistency and comparability across all Community Justice Authorities (CJAs) in the manner they carry out their administrative functions. It is expected that the powers of direction under 2(10)a would be particularly relevant in the following areas:

management and reporting of performance – directions could be used to establish consistent monitoring regimes which will provide data comparable across CJAs. The bill also enables CJAs to take action where there is evidence that local authorities are failing to perform adequately, or to make recommendations to ministers concerning Scottish Prison Service performance. Directions could be used to establish those situations in which it would be appropriate for CJAs to take this action.

sharing of information – directions would provide a means of ensuring consistency across Scotland in how information is shared between partners within a CJA. This would ensure that national organisations do not have to adapt to a variety of protocols used by different CJA areas.

It is expected that an evaluation of the victim notification scheme will start towards the end of 2005 and be completed sometime during 2006. The timing of the evaluation will depend upon there being enough participants in the Scheme from which to draw a representative sample that is large enough to enable a meaningful evaluation to be carried out. At present, about six victims per week are joining the scheme.

The victim notification scheme provides victims who have elected to join the scheme with information about the release of prisoners sentenced to four or more years, and this will include any prisoners who will, in future, be released on licence on home detention curfew.

Any decision to extend the victim notification scheme will depend on the outcome of the evaluation of the scheme. That evaluation will take into account new developments, including home detention curfews.

The National Park Authority used a range of methods to obtain the views of local communities in the lead up to the publication of the draft National Park Plan, which I was delighted to support at Loch Katrine earlier this week. The National Park Community Futures Programme encouraged communities to feed in their views, and specialist forums were established to involve local land owners, businesses and other organisations. Consultation on the draft plan will be taken forward over the summer months.

Local authorities have a duty under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to assess the community care needs of people who appear to be in need of support and to decide, in the light of the assessment, what services to arrange.

 

While help with gardening does not generally form a part of community care packages, local authorities do have discretion to provide gardening schemes for elderly residents depending on local priorities.  The Scottish Executive, through Supporting People grant, funds advice and assistance to older people to maintain their own gardens independently.  Supporting People clients are also encouraged to access gardening services.  Additionally, several Care and Repair projects help older and disabled home owners maintain their gardens.

Support services for people with ME and other chronic illnesses, and for their carers, are in general for NHS boards and local authority Social Services Departments to plan, based on their assessments of individual needs. The Executive takes the view that support services should be appropriate to the needs of patients and carers irrespective of the condition which has led to a person’s disability. 

Scottish Enterprise is undertaking a performance assessment of New Futures Fund projects in order to inform decisions to end March 2006.

The development of an Employability Framework for Scotland is looking at better ways of using existing resources. We aim to announce conclusions in the summer.