We have run considerably over time this morning. Before we move on to our next item of business, I propose that we drop the final two items, which are our review of evidence from this morning and consideration of our annual report, and return to them at a later meeting. Are members content to do so if necessary?
Members indicated agreement.
Our next item is the first of a series of evidence sessions with the various inspectorates and commissioners within our remit. Our aim is to seek out their views on the state of the criminal justice system and the challenges for session 7, which will inform our legacy work for our successor committee.
I am very pleased that we are joined by Robert Scott, who is the chief inspector of His Majesty’s Fire Service Inspectorate in Scotland. I refer members to paper 8. I intend to allow up to 45 minutes for questions to our first witness. I invite Mr Scott to make some opening remarks.
11:30
Good morning. I am His Majesty’s chief inspector of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. My career in the service started quite some time ago in 1989. I joined the fire service as a young firefighter and worked my way through the ranks, and I retired in 2017 as assistant chief. I was appointed as chief inspector in 2021, and I am very proud to hold this position.
The inspectorate in Scotland, like many other bodies, is a completely independent entity that sits within Scottish Government but is independent of it and of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. The role of the inspectorate, which was first established in 1948 and has remained pretty much unchanged throughout that period, is to provide ministers and the people of Scotland with the assurance that the Fire and Rescue Service is operating efficiently and effectively, and in line with the principles of best value.
We take that role very seriously. We fulfil our functions by carrying out a range of inspections across the country, focusing on the themes that we deem to be relevant at any given time. We work with the Fire and Rescue Service while maintaining the professional distance that our independence demands, and we publish reports with recommendations for improvement, which are laid in Parliament.
We have included in our submission an appendix that shows the reports that we have published recently. Of the total recommendations and areas for consideration in those reports, about 200 relate to improvement. As chief inspector, it is very pleasing to see those improvements being considered and actioned, leading to genuine improvement in the Fire and Rescue Service, which serves the people of Scotland.
I take those matters very seriously, and it is a great pleasure to be invited to give any evidence that committee members wish to have.
Thank you very much—that is very helpful. It is safe to say that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has gone through significant change over the decades—from the first significant amalgamation of individual fire services right up to today, when there is a shift in service delivery demand. There are fewer fires but more major incidents and weather-related events, and there is a lot of good partnership working.
Bearing that in mind, how easy or difficult has that made your role? I am very interested to hear your comments, from the inspectorate’s perspective, on how the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has adapted both to the natural changes in operational demand and to the more co-ordinated reform agenda that it is in the midst of.
As you say, there has been change over quite some time, and during my time in the service, I was involved in that reform process. It is very pleasing to see the reduction in fires and in the resulting fatalities and injuries. The service, as well as other partners, have to be congratulated for that success.
The prevention agenda has certainly been a success story in Scotland and across the UK. Without losing sight of that, firefighters are still required to respond to emergencies, and, as you say, the face of those emergencies is ever changing. Climate change has had a massive impact on the number of events that the Fire and Rescue Service now attends. The severity and ferocity of some of the wildfires last year was something that we were perhaps unfamiliar with, and we need to reflect and improve on that as we move forward.
The service has taken a mature approach to reviewing its service delivery model, and we see the consultation process that recently closed and is now being considered as positive. We have been involved in observing that process from the analysis of the initial data that formed the long list of options to attending the various forums and public consultations across the country, so that we could have an informed opinion on the approach that was taken. We await the board’s decision on what the final picture will look like.
Given our responsibility to ensure best value, it is entirely appropriate that the service reviews its activity, the demand and the risks that the people of Scotland now face and compares that with what has been put in place. It should consider why fire appliances and fire stations are where they are now. It is relevant for the service to do that from time to time.
Our research and inspections of late show that there are some challenges, and some of the benefits of that process need to be reinvested in other parts of the organisation. On a number of occasions, we have highlighted that thought needs to be given to how, for example, the training of firefighters and the development of middle and senior managers can improve, and that will require investment.
On the capital front, committee members will have heard from the chief officer and the Fire Brigades Union that significant improvement is needed to the SFRS’s property and estate. Again, we have highlighted that in our inspection reports. We would like investment to be made in areas that require to be upgraded.
I am not sure whether that answers your question, but I hope that it does.
That is very helpful. We have regular engagement with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Fire Brigades Union, as you highlighted, and I am interested in your point about looking more closely at how the benefits of reform can be reinvested in other areas across the service.
I will pick up on your point about property and the estate. Issues of that nature have come up in probably every evidence session that we have had with colleagues. Recently, we have been considering the links with the draft climate change plan and what has been going on across public services to reduce carbon emissions. The SFRS has been active in that area, and we took evidence from the chief officer on that recently. The questions were less about the operational response to climate-related incidents and more about how the service is reducing its carbon footprint. In your inspectorate role, have you looked at that issue to date? I am interested in your comments on how the service can further address climate change by reducing carbon emissions across the estate.
We have not carried out a specific thematic inspection on that issue. However, when we have carried out our service delivery area inspections in the east, the west and the north, we have certainly made observations about good practice in bringing in electric vehicles when it is suitable to do so. That has tended to apply to smaller vehicles rather than to the fire-appliance side of the business, albeit the service has trialled an electric fire engine at Clydesmill community fire station, in Cambuslang. There is scope to move forward with that technology, but, at the moment, given the costs that are associated with moving a fleet of between 600 and 700 fire appliances to electric and the infrastructure that would be required for charging, that is a longer-term vision, not a short-term one.
However, the service has acted responsibly by moving towards a more electric fleet for the smaller vehicles that officers use and that are required to deliver kit and equipment, where it is viable to do so. We have reflected that progress in our reports.
In some stations, the service has also shown that it is possible to use available technology in relation to heat and solar panels to move away from reliance on fossil fuels.
On the operational side of things, we have done some work on the impact of climate change. The committee might want to come on to that issue later.
Thank you.
Good morning, Mr Scott. I have a couple of quick questions. On service delivery, the committee has heard from the FBU and the Fire and Rescue Service about the recruitment and retention pressures that the service is facing. Do you sense that those pressures are having an impact on service delivery? If so, what needs to be done?
In the Fire and Rescue Service—this is predominantly the case in rural parts of Scotland—more than 280 of the 356 fire stations are staffed by on-call firefighters who wear a pager, who have made the tremendous commitment to respond to incidents when they are required to do so. We rely heavily on those fantastic people up and down the country, but, for a variety of reasons, it is proving incredibly difficult to attract people to that duty system.
As you know, in some cases, it is challenging for people to make such a commitment while working in areas far from their homes, because that means that they are not available to respond at certain times of the day. It is also understood that being an on-call firefighter is all-consuming, in that it prevents them from engaging in social activities or doing things with their families that they might otherwise wish to do.
I completely understand why people might feel reluctant to make that commitment, but that has an impact on service delivery. If fire appliances are not available in certain communities, that means that appliances from further afield will have to respond in their place.
However, if we look at the statistics on fire activity and the outcomes of the improvements that have been made since the Fire and Rescue Service was set up, we can see that we do not need to panic, because the situation is not yet so pressing that it is an emergency. The service is trying its hardest to recruit. We have made some recommendations about recruiting more locally rather than nationally and about speeding up the process. It is pleasing to see our recommendations resulting in improvements over time.
The challenge that exists in Scotland is one that exists across the UK—it is not unique to Scotland. The service has set up a working group to look in the round at on-call firefighters, and it is working towards having alternative options available. At the moment, I cannot give you any more detail on what the final picture might look like.
I want to follow up on that point. It is clear that a lot of work is being done to address the challenges at operational level, but the committee is keen to provide guidance to members in the next session of Parliament on what they can do to assist. Is there anything that you want to say to our successors about what you need from them in order to help the fire service to address the challenges?
It is easy for me to make recommendations that are difficult to deliver against. If we had permanent full-time resource in pockets of Scotland available to assist with the service’s response model, that would certainly help. That would involve a hub-and-spoke approach, whereby the provision in parts of Scotland of appliances staffed by full-time firefighters—available to respond 24 hours a day, seven days a week—along with their on-call, part-time colleagues, would make the system a bit more resilient. However, as you can imagine, such a model comes at a cost, and, in delivering his service within a limited budget, the chief officer has to take that into consideration.
When we make recommendations, we try to make them achievable and affordable, albeit that we do not shirk away from pointing out issues that require to be resolved.
As you have rightly said, being a firefighter is a very challenging job. Although everyone has enormous admiration for the courage of firefighters, it is a difficult job to do in the current environment. Do you think that workforce morale is having any impact on operational delivery? Do you have any sense that that is the case?
Workforce morale is difficult for us to measure, because we are not in and about every fire station in every part of Scotland. Morale will differ not only by geographical location or duty pattern; on some occasions, we could go into the same fire station and find that morale differs between one group of individuals working there and another group, such as those on the night shift. It is highly individual, so it is challenging for us to measure.
From my experience of being a firefighter for many years and of having been involved with the Fire and Rescue Service for many years, I believe that, when firefighters respond to incidents, all those things are set aside, regardless of morale, and they respond in a professional manner to the best of their ability. They do so regardless of personal feelings or anything that might be going on in their own lives, including their work lives. I do not think that such factors have an impact on response in any way, shape or form.
11:45
Good morning. Mr Scott, you said that you have been a firefighter for many years. You mentioned climate change in your opening statement. I want to ask you about resilience and preparedness for the changing circumstances. Will you give us a flavour of how the situation has changed over the years? How prepared is the service to deal with flooding, wildfires and so on?
That is a very interesting question. I can certainly speak from experience of seeing the very real change that climate change has brought about. The number of wildfires that the Fire and Rescue Service attends now is much greater than it was when I joined the service, and the ferocity of those incidents is also much greater.
These things are seasonal. Flooding has also increased, and firefighters now respond to flooding routinely, whereas, when I joined, it was not routine for fire and rescue services to attend flooding incidents: they were fire brigades back then. Their role has widened and so have their responsibilities.
The picture is ever changing when it comes to preparedness. The service takes that responsibility very seriously, and it is pleasing to see the Scottish Government taking it very seriously, too. I was lucky enough to be invited along to the wildfire summit that took place in Grantown-on-Spey last year: I attended the summit and contributed to the discussion.
It is pleasing to see a wildfire strategy being developed that does not only focus on the Fire and Rescue Service’s response; it also focuses on the role of other partners in prevention and response and on the value that can be added by landowners, land managers, estates and other individuals. Taking that holistic approach to the issue is exactly the right way to go, and I am pleased to continue to be involved in the governance of that wildfire strategy and in the oversight of improvement. That is an issue for society, not just for the service, although we obviously have a role to play in the response.
I completely agree with you: it is about collective responsibility and everybody has to play a part. It is encouraging to know that the service is dealing with that.
Are there any gaps in the equipment that you have? Is it up to the job? What about training of officers? Do they need special training?
It is an ever-changing landscape. We carried out a review of the operational response to climate emergencies in 2023, and I am already thinking, three years later, that we need to do it again. We made comment then about the suitability of equipment and the disposition of assets across Scotland. Based on activity levels over the past couple of years, I am already thinking that we need to revisit that and determine whether we are still satisfied that the right things are in the right places, and that our firefighters have the right equipment and the right training. Things have moved on significantly, even in that short space of time.
There is on-going evaluation that you have to keep doing.
Yes. I referred earlier to the wildfire strategy, which has been worked up by colleagues across the Scottish Government, the service and other partners. There has been an evaluation, through that piece of work, of the equipment that is required. The service made a significant investment last year in four-by-four vehicles, off-road vehicles and specific personal protective equipment for firefighters who carry out wildfire-related functions.
It is an incredibly onerous and challenging environment to work in—working on a hillside for four to six hours, tackling a wildfire. If firefighters are not wearing the right equipment—if they are wearing equipment that was designed to put out fires in houses, rather than something more lightweight—it can be very taxing and distressing for those involved.
Finally, Glasgow will host the Commonwealth games this year. I guess that you will say that everything is in place for that, and that the service will be completely prepared because, generally with such big events, it is. Can you reassure us that all is going to plan?
We are reviewing the preparedness for the games. It is fair to say that, this time round, the games are a much smaller event than when they came to Scotland previously. Part of the benefit of that reduction for the Fire and Rescue Service is that there will be no athletes village on this occasion. Athletes will stay in hotels that are already certified and regularly inspected, so we have comfort in their safety measures. When the games came previously, part of the Fire and Rescue Service’s role was to ensure that the athletes village was fit for purpose in relation to fire safety. It took a lot of resource to carry out the inspections and get that satisfaction.
The venues that are being used on this occasion are tried and tested, and the fire service already has response plans for them. In many ways, for individual venues, it will almost be business as usual, as the events could happen on any occasion at those types of venues. The difference is that multiple venues and locations will be used at the same time, which makes things a little more challenging. However, the service, along with other agencies, is working to create a multi-agency response plan. We have been observing that in action, and we will go along and observe some of the training and exercising that is planned to take place in advance of the games. However, I am absolutely confident that the service is moving in the right direction and is working with others to ensure a safe and secure games for Glasgow.
Thank you—that is reassuring.
I have a general question. Do you have thoughts on or insights into how the fire service can bring together the views of the leadership and those on the ground? The committee often gets good updates on a range of issues from the leadership and the union and, as constituency MSPs, we hear from individual fire personnel. Sometimes, those views seem to be in conflict, although, often, everyone just wants the same thing. Recently, there has been a run of sessions after which individual firefighters—I would never name them, obviously—have contacted me to say that they disagreed with some things that were said.
You maybe cannot give a massive answer to this, and I understand that the issue is only part of your role, but can you do anything to bring those views together? There is a lot of merit in what we hear from both sides, but it is hard for us, as politicians in a committee, to get a true understanding of what is going on. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Yes—100 per cent. We come across that issue during all our inspections. When we carry out inspections, we tend to take views from the leadership of the organisation, but we also speak to firefighters in stations across the country. We take the views of many other stakeholders and also those working in corporate functions in the organisation, not only uniformed colleagues. We try to consider all those views and reflect them in our reports.
Sometimes, when we are going through the consultation on our final reports, we get pushback from managers, who say, “Well, that’s not the situation. That’s not the truth. That’s not what is actually happening.” In reality, it might be what a firefighter in one station has told us. Our approach to that is that we never take the view of an individual as the gospel; we consider it in the round. If that view is reflected by multiple individuals in multiple locations, it starts to be, at the very least, a perception that needs to be addressed and an issue with internal communications, so we reflect that back to the service. We say, “If multiple people in multiple places are telling us that this is an issue and you’re telling us that it is not an issue, at the very least, there’s an issue with internal communications and you need to improve the systems or brief your staff on what is happening.”
We do not shy away from that. We publish the views of those individuals, where they are triangulated and are from multiple sources. We also publish the view of management and leadership, where that is different, and we draw conclusions. That is the way that we approach the issue.
To slightly defend the Fire and Rescue Service, although that is not my role, it has an incredibly small team working in the communications department. That reflects my earlier comments about the need to reinvest in parts of the organisation. As a benefit of reform, we have seen significant financial savings in the Fire and Rescue Service, with something like £900 million being saved since the advent of the single service. However, some areas of the organisation now need to be invested in. Communications, legal, prevention and training teams need additional resources, and that reinvestment is required as a matter of urgency. When firefighters believe one thing and management believes another, that is an example of where things fall down and where better communications are needed to resolve the issue.
Thank you.
Good morning. I know that your statutory role is to review and inspect the statutory functions and performance of the Fire and Rescue Service, but it cannot have escaped your notice that we have heard evidence from the Fire Brigades Union and the chief fire officer about the impact of the budget. There is an on-going consultation on fire stations, and we expect closures. Does your role incorporate commenting on the impact of such decisions on the statutory function of the Fire and Rescue Service? The statutory requirement is to respond to a fire, but surely there must be more to it than that, and the concern is that response times could increase, which could cost lives or result in damage to property.
That is a relevant point. To put this into context, my team in the inspectorate is very small. I have myself and three and a half full-time equivalent inspectors to carry out our function as an inspection body. Instead of carrying out exactly the same work as the Fire and Rescue Service and arriving at a different conclusion, we prefer to observe the mechanisms that the service has put in place. We have attended on many occasions and had briefings on the approach that the service has taken in arriving at its final decision. We make observations on that and give advice to ministers based on that process, rather than on the final outcome. If we kept providing our view on the final outcome, we would almost be mirroring the role of the fire chief and the fire board, and it is not our job to do that.
We wanted to satisfy ourselves that, in the process that was put in place, the data that was analysed was robust, the risks that were considered were the right ones and the evidence was there to support that. We also wanted to satisfy ourselves that the consultation process was carried out in a fair manner and included a range of stakeholders; that the consultation was considered after it concluded; and that it influenced the final outcome.
That is the stage that we are at just now, because the board has not made the decisions on what the final picture will look like. We would not want to get involved in saying, “Don’t close this fire station—close that one instead,” because we would then step into a role that is not ours to be in. However, if we felt that the final picture was having an impact on the effectiveness of the service, it is my duty to step in at that point and to comment. Until we know what that final picture looks like, it is hard to say more.
Does that help?
Yes. Thank you.
I will follow on from the questions that Rona Mackay asked. Can you give us more information about the procurement process? You talked about the equipment that is needed to fight wildfires, and we know that budgets are tight. How does the procurement process work to ensure that firefighters get the equipment that they need to ensure their safety, and that it is fit for purpose for the job that is required?
12:00
I do not pretend to be an expert in the legalities of procurement, but I know that the fire service has a capital plan, which is flexible and will move depending on the organisation’s needs. The senior leadership team sets what that capital plan will look like and how the money that is available will be spent, and will plan according to the needs of the organisation. That includes the purchase of new vehicles and equipment, the refurbishment of fire stations and any repairs that need to be made to existing stock.
If, as we see happening now, wildfires become a priority, the Fire and Rescue Service will need to make choices in the capital plan on how and when it spends the limited amount of money that is available to it. It will also need to make choices about whether it is possible to go through that exercise within the financial year and whether the money that is available can be spent now or will need to span across more than one year and move into subsequent years.
All those decisions are made by the senior leadership team and then proposed to the board as a final capital plan to sign off on. We do not tend to get involved in those decisions unless we feel that there is a need for something to be improved, in which case we will make recommendations for such improvement.
I should have said at the start of the evidence session that—as I am sure that members are aware—the fire service must have regard to the recommendations in my reports, but it is not legally bound to actually comply with them. However, since I became chief inspector, the approach has generally been to agree on the recommendations and they are generally actioned. I observe such action and progress and can see the move from action to improvement in real time. Procurement falls within that approach. I hope that that answers your question.
That is fine. I do not know whether you can answer my next question. We have spoken about the problems with recruitment and retention. I have been told that colour vision testing for firefighters has recently been brought in. Can you give us an insight into what the benefit of that will be? I am told that there are appliances that can be off the run due to somebody not being allowed to work because they have failed the colour-blindness test. Can you give me more information on that?
All the testing that takes place in the Fire and Rescue Service for recruitment—whether that is for whole-time, on-call or various roles—is based on national best practice that is set by the National Fire Chiefs Council. I can understand why it might be frustrating at times for individuals who say that they are perfectly capable, willing and available to do a role but do not meet the national standard. The organisation obviously has a responsibility to ensure the safety of the people that it employs. If a particular test is relevant for an individual’s role and what they are being asked to do, the organisation will apply that test in a manner that is consistent with national practice.
Colour blindness is an issue in the Fire and Rescue Service. There are occasions when firefighters will need to deal with electrical supplies or hazardous materials that are badged up with various colours on their logos and symbols. Firefighters need to be able to recognise that information and relay it back to their control rooms and to colleagues who are outside the incident so that the incident can be dealt with safely. I know that colour blindness might not feel as though it is an essential issue in the fire service, but there is a reason that it is tested.
Thank you.
To stay on some of the operational delivery issues that have been flagged during our committee’s evidence sessions, will you provide an update on your work programme for some of those issues? For example, will you give an update on the recruitment of retained firefighters, issues around decontamination facilities in fire stations and the associated compensation risk, and the operational impact of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in the—I think—14 stations in which it has been found? The other issue that has come up is response times, but you already answered a question from Pauline McNeill about that. Do you have those issues in your on-going or future work programme?
We capture a lot of those things when we do our service delivery area inspections. About four years ago, when I was fairly new in post, we moved away from a regime of inspecting the fire service at a local authority level and moved to inspecting at a service delivery area level. We did that for a good reason: when the single service came into being, there was a desire to understand and appreciate that the fire service, albeit that it was national, was being delivered in line with local needs. Local authorities, which had previously had control of the fire service, wanted to ensure that they still had a role to play in the delivery of the fire service. The inspectorate therefore elected to inspect the fire service delivery at a local authority level.
Eight years later, when I came into post, we had carried out 16 of those local authority level inspections and we still had another 16 local authorities to inspect. It was going to be quite some time before we completed the cycle, so we took the decision to move to service delivery area inspections and to inspect against a number of themes in those inspections of east, west and north.
We have now completed all three of those inspections and published reports on them, so I can give a picture of service delivery across the whole country. Previously, it would have taken me considerably longer to do that.
Within those inspections, we look at the themes of prevention, response, people and partnerships. Some things that you have talked about, including recruitment and RAAC panels, are mentioned in each of those reports. Then, where there is a need for us to take a deeper dive, we use those service delivery area inspections as a mechanism for determining our programme of thematic inspections. Those thematic inspections tend to take a more focused look at a particular element of the service delivery.
An example of that is training. All three of the service delivery area inspections in the east, west and north highlighted that training was not where it should be, so we put recommendations in those reports. Given the risk-critical nature of training for firefighters, I chose to build on those recommendations by instructing a thorough review of training and officer development in the organisation. That report is in the final stages of being drafted—in fact, the first draft came to me yesterday—and the report will be laid before the Parliament in early June. It will make a number of recommendations for improvements in the training sphere.
The RAAC roofing was mentioned in all three reports. We have called for the service to resolve the issues of RAAC roofing as an urgent priority. However, I go back to the point that I made earlier about being realistic in our approach. That issue needs to be resolved. We understand that the organisation has to find the money to make those repairs within a limited capital budget, but that does not mean that we should not highlight it or bring it to the attention of Scottish ministers and the people of Scotland.
There are other issues that you are well aware of in stations in relation to contaminants and dignified facilities. Again, we touch on those in each of the service delivery area inspection reports. I hope that that helps to paint the picture.
It does. Staying on the subject of that important inspection work, my final question is: have you found that recurring themes have cropped up that might suggest more systemic issues or concerns?
There are several recurring themes across each of the service delivery area inspections. As I mentioned, training is a recurring theme that comes to the fore. Leadership development for middle and senior managers is an issue that was mentioned routinely during our inspection. There were also issues that require long-term, sustained investment, such as the RAAC roofing problems, the general decline of the property estate and the need for investment to resolve issues related to contaminants and dignified facilities. It is not acceptable to have fire stations that do not have running water or that have limited access to shower facilities for firefighters to decontaminate after incidents. We mention that in our reports and call on the service to take action. Again, we understand completely that it has a finite pot of money with which to do that.
In the reports, we also draw out other issues in relation to people and partnerships. The service is a tremendous partner and is involved in a range of issues that are not necessarily fire related but which add tremendous value in a community planning context. As well as providing recommendations for areas of improvement, we are keen to highlight areas of good practice, and the published reports reflect a number of those.
I endorse and commend the partnership working that the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is involved in. There is a really strong partnership approach, which we can be grateful for and proud of.
Finally, do you have sufficient staff and financial resources?
I am probably in a minority when I say that I probably do. I have enough resources to carry out the role in the manner in which we do it now. If I had more resource, I would love to be able to go back more often, examine the progress and re-inspect against recommendations to ensure that we are satisfied. We do not have a legal requirement to do that—as I said earlier, the service must have regard to the recommendations, but it does not have to take the actions. We cover that by having me attend various board committees, where I can see the action plans progressing through those committees and being scrutinised and monitored. I am able to ask questions and monitor the progress in that way. If I had more resource, I would probably use it in that way.
I would also like to do more benchmarking across the rest of the UK to understand best practice in other services. With the limited resources that I have at the moment, I am unable to do that.
Understanding the bigger financial picture and the challenges that the Government and the country face, I would say that we are adequately resourced to carry out our role and that our role adds tremendous value.
That makes a change.
That concludes our evidence session—thank you for joining us.
12:12
Meeting suspended.
12:15
On resuming—
I am pleased to say that we are now joined by Laura Paton, commissioner, and Phil Chapman, director of operations, Police Investigations and Review Commission. I refer members to paper 8. I intend to allow up to 45 minutes for this evidence-taking session.
I invite Ms Paton to make some opening remarks.
Thank you, convener, and thanks to the committee for inviting us to talk about the PIRC’s work, the state of the criminal justice system and the challenges that lie ahead for us.
As members will know, the PIRC plays a key role in promoting improvement in public confidence in policing across Scotland through independent oversight. Over the past year, a key challenge for the PIRC has been managing increased demand, and that applies to our two main business areas of investigations and reviews.
With regard to investigations, there have been two main drivers of the increase in our investigation case load. First, since 1 January 2025, the PIRC has been applying to the cases that we investigate the changes to the law on corroboration arising from the Lord Advocate’s references. That resulted in a 239 per cent increase in the number of investigations that commenced between January and March 2025, compared with the same period in the previous year. Secondly, there has been an increase in the number of death investigations that we are required to carry out at the direction of the Crown Office. So far this year, that number has increased by 95 per cent compared with the same period in the previous two years.
We aim to complete thorough and timely investigations, but the recent increase in demand has had a real impact on what we are able to deliver. Although we remain focused on delivering high-quality investigations, we will not be able to complete investigations as quickly as we would like. That means that complainers, next of kin and the officers who are subject to investigation will wait longer for an outcome. It also has an impact on our staff, who are carrying heavy case loads. My priority has been, and will continue to be, our investigations into deaths, where the next of kin, families and wider communities are waiting for an answer and must have confidence in the PIRC’s ability to conduct thorough inquiries into any death in custody or death following police contact.
As for our reviews work, where a member of the public has made a complaint to a policing body and is dissatisfied with the response that they have received, they can apply to the PIRC for a complaint handling review. As members might be aware, Police Scotland is currently dealing with a significant backlog of complaints. As that backlog is addressed, more complainers will become eligible to apply to the PIRC for a review, and we have projected a 250 per cent increase in applications in that respect. In real terms, that will mean around 350 additional applications for a complaint handling review.
Our focus this year has been on managing that increased demand while trying to maintain the service that we provide. We are also preparing for the implementation of the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act 2025, which will expand our remit even further.
As we deal with those challenges, I have been grateful for the commitment shown by my staff and for the constructive working relationships that we have had with our partners. We have sought additional funding from the Government to help manage the increased demand, and we are pleased to have been allocated an additional £1 million in our budget for the next financial year, even though we do not think that that is all that we will require. Some of the challenges facing us at the PIRC are also challenges facing the broader criminal justice system and might be indicative of issues across public services more generally.
However, we also see opportunities ahead. We have commissioned a strategic review to provide a comprehensive assessment of our strategic direction, our performance and our governance, as well as the changing environment in which we are operating. The review aims to ensure that the PIRC remains fit for purpose, and we expect to publish the findings shortly.
We welcome the opportunity to meet the committee and are happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Thank you very much for that very helpful opening statement.
I just want to pick up on your reference to Police Scotland and the significant backlog of complaints that it is experiencing. Could you provide a wee bit more detail on the nature of the complaints? I imagine that there would be everything from police officers being a bit rude to complaints of a much higher threshold, including, potentially, offending. Could you give us a picture of the type of complaints that we are looking at?
You are right that that covers a range of complaint types, but it does not include criminal complaints, which are processed timeously. The backlog, which, unfortunately, is significant, is in non-criminal complaints. Recently, Police Scotland has started categorising its complaints in a similar way to how the PIRC categorises the cases that we deal with, so there are category A, B and C complaints, as well as category A+ complaints. Complaints are generally categorised on the basis of complexity and sensitivity, for example. There are category A+ complaints and around 342 category A complaints in the backlog—we would be most concerned about those complaints because of their nature.
Police Scotland has been taking steps to address the backlog. Very recently, it allocated just under 1,300 complaints to non-professional standards department divisions within Police Scotland, which are local policing divisions and other national divisions. It has a target to complete those complaints by April, I believe. If it is successful in doing that, it would be positive for the complainers, who have already been waiting some time for a response, as they would have a response to their complaints sooner rather than later. However, we are concerned that dealing with 1,300 complaints in such a short period of time will mean that, suddenly, 1,300 complainers will be eligible to apply to the PIRC for a complaint handling review in a compressed period of time. We could experience a surge in complaint handling review applications in a few months’ time, which we will have to prepare for.
That is a helpful overview. I will stay on that topic. I refer to a piece of work that the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has done recently, which found that abuse of position for sexual purposes now accounts for around 30 per cent of the most serious cases that it deals with, with clear patterns of male officers exploiting vulnerable women. I am not sure whether you are aware of that report. I am interested in whether the PIRC collects and publishes equivalent data for Scotland. What proportion of the more serious investigations that you deal with, or have dealt with in recent years, have involved predatory or sexually exploitative behaviour by officers? You will understand that violence against women and girls is a common theme that is raised in the committee, so I am keen to explore the issue.
I might say something general, before I invite Phil Chapman to come in. The PIRC typically does not deal with allegations of a sexual nature against the police. Often, such allegations will be investigated by independent officers in Police Scotland. The reason for that is because Police Scotland has at its disposal sexual offence liaison officers who are trained to deliver an appropriate service to victims of that type of crime, whereas the PIRC does not. My predecessor made a proposal to the Lord Advocate that criminal allegations of that nature should come to the PIRC for investigation. As far as I know, no decision has been taken on that, but it would incur significant costs, because the PIRC would need to train specialist staff to deal with those allegations so that we could provide the best possible service to the complainers.
We publish data on the types of cases that we deal with. I can share with you that, currently, we have 196 live investigations. The vast majority of them relate to allegations of assault against police officers or police staff members. We have about 40 investigations into deaths in custody or following police contact. Generally speaking, those make up the bulk of the allegations that we investigate. However, other cases involve the discharge or presentation of firearms, other criminal allegations and various other matters.
I will bring in Phil Chapman to say more on that.
We do not collect data that is relevant to abuse of power for sexual purposes, but we have had dialogue with the PONI and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Given our statutory remit, it would be for the Crown to direct the commissioner to conduct an investigation. In recent years, the Crown has referred to us only one criminal investigation, which was subsequently concluded.
On the commissioner’s point about the proposal, it is widely accepted across ombudsman services for policing oversight that there are significant issues to be tackled. Significant efforts are on-going in England and Wales, where there has been a significant increase in the number of referrals and complaints in this area.
The former commissioner made a submission on the potential for the PIRC to have such a capability, but it was recognised that significant risks would run alongside that in relation to managing witnesses’ expectations, forensic science and interdependencies that currently do not exist. There was an aspiration and the question was asked, but having that capability would require a significant uplift in the PIRC’s resources.
We cannot answer the wider question about how prevalent such cases are. That would be a matter for the chief constable.
I appreciate the resource constraints and the challenges in that regard. Your comment about what is going on south of the border is interesting. That is perhaps indicative of a much greater acknowledgement of the challenges that are faced in relation to abuse of power, sexual predators and so on. Next week, the committee will take evidence from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland, so we might well follow up on the role of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and, in particular, its criminal allegations against the police division, in dealing with police officers in the context of criminal allegations.
The commissioner said that sexual cases are currently handled by independent officers in Police Scotland. Can you clarify whether they are handled by serving police officers? If that is how such cases are handled at the moment, what rank are those officers, and are they specially trained?
It would depend on the nature of the allegation. A referral would be assessed by the head of public protection, who could deploy a bank of officers who had been trained to deal with a variety of sexual offences on a day-to-day basis. They would be highly trained and would have access to solo officers who could support victims.
Whom Police Scotland appointed would be a matter for it. However, invariably, in my experience, an officer of detective inspector rank or above would lead such an investigation. Police Scotland has safeguards in place that mean that officers from another geographical area of Scotland would investigate such matters. In essence, there is a requirement to declare any conflicts of interest at the outset.
I could not go into specifics, because we do not have sight of what Police Scotland’s deployment model looks like, but, from experience, I know that it has arrangements in place to ensure that independence is applied in such cases.
I would be interested to know more about that, because it could be a case of the police marking their own homework.
Good afternoon. What are the current average investigation times for the investigations that you undertake? Is the PIRC consistently meeting the statutory timescales?
12:30
There are no statutory timescales for our investigations. Instead, we have key performance indicators that we have devised ourselves, which vary according to the type of case. We aim to complete category A cases, which are the most sensitive and complex cases, within 90 days, and we aim to complete category B and C cases within 120 days.
In recent years, our performance against those indicators has been very positive. In 2024-25, for example, 100 per cent of our category A cases were completed on time, as were 98 per cent of our category B and C cases. However, because of the increased demand, those KPIs are now starting to prove more challenging to meet. We are still focusing on and prioritising death investigations. For this year to date, our performance against our KPI for investigations completed within 90 days is 92 per cent.
We are starting to see the effects of the increased demand in category B and C cases. Currently, our performance there is 77 per cent, which is quite a big drop from the previous year. We are not happy with that level of service. We would very much prefer to be where we were last year and the year before. That change is purely a product of the increased demand and the fact that we are having to focus our resources on where we think that they are needed most.
That begs a question. You say that there is increased demand, but can you drill down into that a bit? What do you mean by “the increased demand”? Do you expect your performance against KPIs to continue to degrade? If so, what plans do you have to address that?
As I said in my introductory remarks, there are two key drivers for that increased demand. First, there are the Lord Advocate’s references. The biggest impact is through the vast majority of our cases involving allegations of assault. Previously, Police Scotland or the Crown would refer allegations of assault to us for investigation. We would make an initial assessment, and we would then decide which of them merited further investigation. As a percentage, the conversion rate for that used to be in the 20s. Because of the change in the law, 70 per cent of those referrals are now proceeding to a full investigation. That is where that demand is arising from.
We are not entirely sure what is driving the rise in death investigations, but we are currently carrying 40 death investigations, which I think is the highest number that the PIRC has ever experienced. As I said, that is a 95 per cent increase on the two previous years.
As for how we are trying to manage that, we submitted a business case to the Scottish Government for additional funding last year. We were not able to secure any funding last year, but we have been awarded an additional £1 million for next year. We are concerned that that is not going to be enough to tackle the increase in demand and to maintain the levels of timeliness that we would expect, and that others should expect from us. We are currently considering how we can get maximum value out of that additional budget. That will help us to maintain a better level of timeliness, but it might not be enough. One of the challenges is that the demand is entirely outwith our control, particularly in areas such as death investigations, where the Crown directs us to do those investigations. There is no discretionary element there.
As for where we can control things, I have discretion in some cases, as commissioner, as to whether to investigate or not. With referrals that come to us from Police Scotland or the Scottish Police Authority, we can decide, after an assessment, whether we want to proceed with the case to a full investigation. The more that the Crown directs us to do, the less scope we have to exercise discretion in other cases. About 95 per cent of our work is Crown directed, which gives you an idea of our limited scope for taking forward other investigations. We anticipate that we may have to exercise discretion not to proceed more often. That would be unfortunate, because there are cases that we have pursued on a discretionary basis where we think that there is significant learning for Police Scotland, or for whichever other policing agency is responsible. It would be unfortunate if there were missed opportunities to investigate those cases, and to learn from them, because that is what the PIRC is ultimately here to do. We are here to support improvement and make sure that the policing service that is delivered to the public is the best that it possibly can be.
I understand. Thank you.
Good afternoon. I have a few questions. You have referred multiple times to the process of categorising the cases. You described the A-plus cases as being the most serious, and, although you did not describe the C categories as less serious, I suppose that that is implied. I appreciate that you will not be able to give a comprehensive answer, but can you give us a sense of what that means in practical terms? What constitutes an A-plus case in comparison with a category C case?
To give you a better idea of what is in each category, a category C case could be an allegation of assault against a police officer. It is serious from the point of view of the complainer, of course, but it is less serious than a death investigation, for example. Our death investigations would be category A investigations. A case that was categorised as A-plus would be something quite out of the ordinary. Phil can correct me if I am wrong, but an example of that would be the shooting at the Park Inn in Glasgow, which took place over a protracted period of time and had a significant number of witnesses. Obviously, it was extremely serious and there were big issues around public confidence and the use of firearms against an individual.
Category A-pluses are fairly infrequent, but an incident of that nature might merit a category A-plus investigation.
Is that a methodology that you have devised yourself, or is it prescribed?
We have devised it ourselves.
Is it possible that we could get sight of that?
Of course. We can give you information about the criteria that we apply.
That would be useful.
On the complaints that you receive more widely—again, you might not be able to give this information now, so it might be something that you have to follow up—what proportion of complaints that you receive are upheld and what proportion are found to be vexatious? Can that be broken down by the categories that you have devised?
On the non-criminal complaints, we report annually on whether the policing body has applied a proper investigation into the original complaint and whether it has handled that complaint to a reasonable standard. Last year, it was in the region of 70 per cent or thereabouts.
In relation to criminal matters that are directed to us by the Crown, we report all the facts and circumstances to the Crown, and it is for it to determine whether there is a vexatious complaint or whether there is a sufficiency of evidence. We used to determine in our recommendations that we put to the Crown whether we felt that there was a sufficiency of evidence for a prima facie case to prosecute, but we have now stopped doing that to allow the Crown Office to apply the Lord Advocate’s reference. We do not take any information, but I can tell you that we have not charged anyone with making a false allegation or a false complaint about the police. We report all the circumstances to the Crown, and if it determines that there is an insufficiency of evidence or that it is a false complaint, it will revert to us and instruct that an individual be cautioned and charged accordingly.
Presumably, though, some complaints that might be found to be vexatious might not even reach the threshold of saying that it constitutes a matter worth investigating and that the person who has made the report requires that level of sanction. There must be some that you can look at and pretty quickly see whether there is a sufficiency of evidence.
Yes. The issue is quite complex because of the fact that, by virtue of policing powers, the police can use force. It is about what is reasonable in that interaction, which is where we have to come in and define, in the public interest, what evidence is available. We commonly receive complaints about situations in which individuals have been restrained—handcuffed, put in leg restraints and so on—and that is captured on CCTV in custody suites and in various other facilities, but the fact of the matter is that that might be lawful use of force. That does not mean that the individual’s complaint is vexatious; it is just that they believe that that use of force was excessive in the circumstances.
Those are obviously cases that would require investigation. I am thinking more of ones that were referred to earlier, such as someone saying that an officer was rude to them when they went into the station to make a complaint. How is that type of thing looked into? Are you able to determine that there was a case—“case” with a lower-case C rather than an upper-case C—to answer?
Such a case would be determined to be a non-criminal complaint if it is about an officer’s incivility or general demeanour and conduct at a location. If we receive a complaint from someone and look at how the police have gone about their investigation, we do not reinvestigate the complaint. We investigate the manner in which the police dealt with it. If we deem that it was dealt with to a reasonable standard, we will not take it further.
When the police deal with a case as a false complaint and send a final letter back to the complainer to that effect and then the complainer makes an application to the commissioner for a review, if we determine that the police conducted a thorough investigation and sent a well-reasoned and balanced letter back to the complainer, we will exercise discretion and not pursue that complaint.
Can that all be demonstrated through the statistics that you have on what was upheld and what was dismissed?
We determine whether the police dealt with the complaint correctly.
I get that. Can it be looked at across the categories that you have devised?
If the outcome of the police investigation is that the complaint is false, they give the information back to the complainer that they are not upholding the complaint. We then get a complaint handling review—CHR—application and review the facts and circumstances and, if we are content that the police have dealt with it appropriately, we do not record that it was a false complaint because our remit is to investigate how the police handled it.
The police might have determined that an individual has made a false complaint and responded that they therefore do not uphold the complaint. We look at it from a CHR point of view and determine whether they did everything that they should. If the incident is captured on body-worn video, for instance—a great source of evidence—it can be proved beyond doubt that it was a false complaint.
Do you not record that?
Not as a false complaint.
It is interesting that you do not record it that way. I wonder if it does not give quite the full picture of the pressure.
The reason that I ask about that is that I notice that, in just the first six months of this year, you had a 49 per cent increase in applications for complaint handling reviews, which is significant. I am trying to get a sense of what is driving that. Is something going badly wrong in policing, which we would want to know about, or is there a lower threshold among people who might make a request for a review? We would know that only if that information was recorded—that would enable us to better understand the situation.
Police Scotland is actually reporting a reduction in the number of complaints that it receives. Last year, there was, I think, a 12 per cent reduction in the number of complaint handling review applications that we received, but we linked that with the backlog that was related to the fact that Police Scotland was not dealing with enough complaints to create an eligible pool of complainers large enough to maintain our levels of complaints. Now, as the force is taking steps to address its backlog and is resolving more complaints, it is creating the pool of eligible complainers who have received a final response from Police Scotland and then apply to us if they remain dissatisfied with it. We think that that is what is driving our 49 per cent increase in the timeframe that you mentioned.
So, it is not that there are a lot more new complaints being made; it is just that the police has had to work through them.
That is right. It ties in with what I said initially. As Police Scotland works through its backlog—the 1,300 complaints that it has allocated to divisions outside of the professional standards department—that creates a pool of 1,300 eligible complainers who are entitled to apply to the PIRC for a complaint handling review. Therefore, we anticipate that the increase in applications that we receive will continue as those complaints are dealt with.
However, it will level off once that backlog is gone.
Ideally. Once the backlog has been dealt with and we have worked our way through any applications that arise out of it, we would hope that it would level off. However, as I mentioned, we anticipate receiving around 350 additional complaints, which is more than we would usually deal with in a year, so it might take some time for us to work through that.
12:45
Sorry, what number was it that you said?
We are anticipating around 350 additional applications, which is more than we would usually deal with in a year.
Okay. That is helpful. Thank you.
I was going to ask you about the backlog in police complaints, but I think that you have just covered everything in that regard.
You have said that the PIRC has experienced a surge in investigative work, and that it is beyond your capacity. You outlined that the PIRC currently has 196 investigations, of which about 40 are death investigations. You stated in your letter that
“the timeliness of the service … is at risk”
and you estimate that the number of investigations that will meet your target timescales for investigations
“will drop to around 40%”,
which is below an acceptable standard. What needs to be done to help the PIRC work through that level of investigative work to meet the timeline for completion?
Obviously, additional resources would be beneficial, and that is where our focus is at the moment. We have a number of recruitment campaigns on the go, and we are looking for additional investigators, which would assist with that. A reduction in demand would also assist us, but, at the moment, there is no sign of that happening in relation to death investigations.
On a positive note, there has been a recent reduction in the allegations of assault that are being referred to us. We are trying to understand whether there has been a genuine reduction in allegations of assault, or whether it is something to do with recording or referral practices. However, if that were to continue, that reduction in demand would be incredibly helpful, as it would allow us to focus on the cases that we already have and on our death investigations.
The PIRC has also done a lot of work in recent years around trying to work more efficiently so that we can extract more from the resources that we have. I am not sure that there is much more that we can do on efficient working within our organisation without additional resources, but one area that we are looking at is our location. The PIRC is a national organisation and we deal with incidents across Scotland, but we are based in Hamilton. Our staff and our investigators spend time travelling to the north, for example, to take witness statements and to deal with the aftermath of an incident. Obviously, that travelling time to and from the north, or even to and from the south—to Stranraer, for example—is not the best use of their time.
One of the things that we are looking at with the additional funding that we have for next year is potentially opening an office in the north and placing an investigation team there, so that we can investigate incidents in that area more quickly, efficiently and productively. That is still very much at the scoping stage. Obviously, new offices cost money, so spending money to save money is a bit of an issue. We are exploring opportunities for co-location with other public sector bodies in the north. If we can secure some premises, we would be keen to recruit a team for the north.
That would have other benefits, such as our not being perceived to be a central belt-based organisation, which I think would be positive for local communities. It would also open up a pool of people for recruitment as investigators, who perhaps previously would never have considered a position with the PIRC, because they were not willing to travel to Hamilton, for example, so there would be a number of other benefits, but the real driver is about efficiency of working and trying to get the most value for money from our investigation team.
Police Scotland is rolling out body-worn video at the moment. You mentioned the recent reduction in allegations of assault. Could that be related to body-worn video, or is it too early to tell just now?
It is entirely possible that body-worn video is playing a role, and I would hope that it is. We have asked Police Scotland to do a little bit of work to try to understand whether the reduction in referrals around allegations of assault that have been received and the general reduction in the number of complaints that Police Scotland is receiving are connected to the use of body-worn video. However, Police Scotland has already done some divisional analysis, and some of the reductions are being seen in divisions such as Glasgow and Lanarkshire, which do not yet have body-worn video, so it seems that the reduction is happening regardless of body-worn video, albeit that body-worn video may well have played a role in the scale of reduction in other divisions.
We have always been hopeful about the possibilities of body-worn video. If we are able to review the body-worn video footage quickly once an incident has been referred to us, we can immediately see whether the complaint is credible, which might help us to make an early decision about whether some cases should proceed to full investigation.
You said earlier that you have some additional funding for next year. Does the 2026-27 allocation allow the PIRC to meet its statutory obligations?
Despite the challenges that we are facing, the PIRC is meeting its statutory obligations but our concern is about how quickly we are able to do that. More resources would allow us to move faster and provide quicker outcomes to our investigations, which is obviously desirable. At the moment, we are still delivering, but it is a matter of how quickly we are delivering.
You also mentioned the changes to the rules on corroboration from the Lord Advocate. When that happened, was any extra funding allocated to the PIRC? It will have increased the number of complaints that you had to look into, so was there any extra funding for that?
No, there was no funding allocated to cover the impact of the Lord Advocate’s references. The impact was not just on the PIRC; it involves the entire criminal justice system: Police Scotland, the Crown Office, and, ultimately, as cases progress, the court service.
Because the PIRC started to apply the ruling on corroboration immediately, we were quickly able to see its impact on our caseload, which was an initial 239 per cent increase in the first quarter after it was applied, but the rest of the justice system is perhaps still grappling with the impact of the Lord Advocate’s references, and I am not entirely clear that the ruling is being embedded in everyday work. It is being done in some cases, particularly those that prompted the references in the first place, such as more serious sexual offences. The fact is that the ruling applies to all cases, so its impact on the justice system more generally is still to be determined, and that is something that a future justice committee might be interested in.
The last statement that you made there is quite correct because the changes to the rules on corroboration have far-reaching implications.
You have covered a lot of ground and I will not go over it again. Did you say earlier that the uplift in your workload caused by the changes to the corroboration laws was mainly to do with allegations of assault?
Yes.
What is the nature of those cases? Are they cases where someone has alleged that they have been assaulted by a police officer?
That is right. The issue with corroboration applies to all cases in which there has been a criminal allegation against the police; it is just that allegations of assault form the majority of cases that we investigate, so that is where we are seeing the increase as a result of the Lord Advocate’s references.
There is a fine line to be drawn when it comes to the powers of police officers to use force in the course of law enforcement and an allegation of assault. Is that the sort of case that we are talking about or is it more varied?
One of the reasons that the PIRC investigates so many cases of assault rather than them being allocated to Police Scotland is that, back in 2021, following the review by Lady Angiolini, the Crown Office issued a standing instruction that all allegations of assault that engage article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and allegations of unlawful detention that engage article 5 of the ECHR should come to the PIRC for independent investigation. That happened in 2021 and it was one of the first steps that massively increased the PIRC’s workload. Previously, Police Scotland would have investigated a lot of those cases but Lady Angiolini’s view was that, because they engage the human rights of the complainer, they should be dealt with independently by the PIRC, so those cases all come to us now. That was the first stage in our workload increase and the Lord Advocate’s references and the changes to the law on corroboration were the second.
Do you think that the decision to change the corroboration rules should be reviewed because there is perhaps a much lower bar for an allegation of assault against a police officer that comes to the PIRC?
I completely understand where Lady Angiolini was coming from in terms of allegations that engage people’s human rights, and acknowledge that there is a public assurance and public confidence aspect in their being looked at by an independent body. That said, I am mindful of the conversation that we had right at the start of this session, and I think that allegations of, say, abuse of position and predatory behaviour would benefit from being reviewed by an independent body, too. However, as we have said, there is a significant capacity and capability issue in that respect.
But that is not what I am asking about. I am just wondering whether, if the Lord Advocate's reference with regard to corroboration has lowered the bar when it comes to allegations of assault, all those cases should come to you now. After all, there must be lots of cases in which there is a fine line.
We have to think about police officers, too. What happens if we get the balance wrong? His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland made that very point to the committee not so long ago. The police are probably more accountable than any other service. Obviously, any serious allegation must be properly investigated, and there must be compliance with human rights, but I am thinking of the fine line that can be drawn in cases involving allegations of assault by the police. The officer might well say, “I was just doing my job as a police officer in detaining someone”, but the matter might still end up at the PIRC. Given all that, and the fact that the reference on corroboration has changed the law to make it a lesser test, do you think that there should be a review of the assault complaints that are coming to you?
If the PIRC is applying the law in Scotland and the cases are capable of being prosecuted, it is appropriate for them to come to an independent body for investigation.
So the same test would have to be applied if a case were coming to you or if it were going to the Crown Office.
Yes.
And there would have to be some evidence base. You used the word “allegation”, but what we are talking about is obviously more than that.
Yes. During the course of our investigation, we would be looking for evidence to support the allegation made by the complainer—or, indeed, made by someone else on behalf of the complainer. Sometimes the allegations are made by witnesses to what happened. Given that the purpose of our investigation is to establish the evidence and to enable the prosecutor to make a decision whether there is a sufficiency of evidence to prosecute, I think that there is value in those matters coming to an independent body.Pauline McNeill:Thank you very much.
I have a question to finish with. Some really interesting points have been made about the shifting workload that the PIRC is having to deal with as a result of a range of external factors over which, as you have said, you have no control. Following on from the discussion about resources and the fact that you have to respond to these things, can you outline any structural or legislative reforms that you believe are necessary to strengthen independent oversight of policing and ensure that the PIRC is able to carry out its role to the best of its ability?
We are still looking at implementing the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act 2025, which will make quite significant changes to the PIRC’s remit and expand our role quite a lot, and that is probably quite a lot for us to be getting on with when it comes to expanding our horizons and getting involved in new areas of work. Some aspects of the act will have an impact on our investigations and reviews work, but it also gives us an entirely new role in relation to whistleblowing, which is something that we have not been involved with before.
With that on the horizon, and with some of those provisions still to come in, that will be our focus for the immediate future. I am not aware of anything specific that we would like to change from a legislative point of view to enhance our role. There is a lot for us to get to grips with in the 2025 act; perhaps in a couple of years’ time, once that legislation has been implemented and we see how it is working, we can look at whether there is anything outstanding that we think that we require or whether anything novel has come up.
Thank you for that. As members have no more questions, I thank you both for your attendance today.
That completes the evidence session, and indeed our business in public for today. I remind members that we agreed to defer our review of evidence and our consideration of our annual report, possibly to next week. In the meantime, members who want to make any points about the annual report should feel free to feed them in, and we will take them forward.
Meeting closed at 13:00.
Air ais
Subordinate Legislation