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I can speak only for the Criminal Justice Committee. A significant aspect of the scrutiny work that we do—that is, the work that does not involve the scrutiny of a bill—ultimately circles back to the experiences of victims and witnesses. An obvious example is the work that we do on violence against women and girls. However, we are currently considering the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill, and you could argue that that bill is seeking to put in place arrangements to improve the experience of individuals who encounter Police Scotland officers and find themselves in a position where either they have made a complaint about a policing matter or a misconduct investigation is being carried out. You could argue that, ultimately, that circles back to the experience of victims and witnesses, too.

I would say that a broad range of work is already taking place, but, in the context of my committee, much of our work lands in the space of improving the experience of victims and witnesses.

Yes. I think that we set out in our report that one option would be undertaking a piece of work to evaluate the effectiveness of the commissioner over the period of the existence of the post. Obviously, that would need to be set against criteria that the Parliament considers are appropriate to measure what we are looking for the commissioner to undertake and to achieve. The success of that work could then be measured.

That is a really important point to raise. I am aware that Dr Plastow commented on his engagement with my committee. Without making excuses, I point out that the issue is the capacity of our committee. As you have acknowledged, we are a legislation-heavy committee.

We will be speaking to the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner later in the year, and I regularly follow his work, because it is of real public interest. I am aware of the compliance reports that he has submitted. Would I like the situation to be different? Absolutely, but the challenges of our workload make things difficult. That just reflects where we are with parliamentary work.

I will make one point in relation to the Criminal Justice Committee’s potential follow-up scrutiny of the role of a victims and witnesses commissioner. Perhaps there is a case for other committees having a role in scrutinising the work of that commissioner, given the cross-cutting and overlapping issues that they might be engaged with.

That is a big question in the criminal justice space. If I can go into committee mode for a moment, what came up in the evidence that we took across the bill—as you know, the bill is about improving the experience of victims and witnesses, which at the moment is not good enough—was that it is extremely difficult to effect positive change across that whole system. Take, for example, the proposals around trauma-informed practice. Lots of good work is going on now and we know that agencies are embedding that, but we are still not there yet.

The question that I would put back to you is, how, across separate agencies, do you effect a whole-system approach? You can do that in ways that do not cost money and do not involve passing new legislation or creating a victims and witnesses commissioner. An example might be post-legislative scrutiny, which might be an option if that process within the Parliament could be effected more frequently and more effectively.

We know that hard choices have to be made in relation to the public purse. Again, I suppose it comes back to taking provision from one area to enhance the provision in another area. In the criminal justice space, that is incredibly difficult.

I am not sure that I have given you a concrete answer, because it is such a huge question, but those are a couple of points that come to my mind that my committee would agree with.

That view was articulated not just by the now First Minister but by other witnesses, who questioned the extent to which the commissioner could influence change and would be able to require change. We heard that view fairly broadly during our evidence taking on the proposals for a commissioner.

I think that this is reflected in the Government’s response, but the proposal is that any review of the effectiveness of the commissioner’s role would come back to the Parliament.

That is a difficult question to answer. I have my own views, but the committee did not necessarily discuss that issue collectively. One of the ideas that sits underneath the proposal is that the commissioner will give victims and witnesses a voice that they perhaps do not have at the moment. I cannot remember whether this point was made in one of the submissions on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, but it was thought that the commissioner would have a key role in engaging with victims and witnesses through their work in scrutinising policy, legislation and the work of stakeholders. That could certainly be an area of focus when scrutinising the effectiveness of such engagement, the form that it takes and the value of it.

As you say, we suggested that, should the Government establish a commissioner, one option, given the current landscape, would be to make the post time-limited, with a view to a piece of work being done to evaluate and scrutinise its effectiveness. We did not particularly consider a time period, as we felt that that could perhaps be refined in the further stages of the bill, once there had been a consideration of an optimum time that would allow the commissioner enough time to embed, and for outcomes to be seen and the value of the role to be established. However, as you quite rightly say, there is a financial aspect as well.

Thank you very much, convener, and thank you for the invitation to attend your meeting this morning.

As you have said, the Criminal Justice Committee engaged in fairly extensive scrutiny of the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. It is a significant bill of six parts, part 1 being the proposal to create a victims and witnesses commissioner, and we took evidence from a range of witnesses, including organisations already involved in supporting victims and witnesses, bodies in the justice system and a number of lived-experience witnesses. A few issues that came out of the evidence led us to conclude that we, as you have said, remain to be convinced about the case for creating the victims and witnesses commissioner post.

Perhaps I can run through two or three of those issues. The first was duplication. As I have said, a number of bodies already do significant support work, particularly with regard to victims of sexual crime, and it was suggested that there was the potential for a commissioner to overlap with—or perhaps intrude on—the extensive work of those existing bodies. In fact, Scottish Women’s Aid commented that it felt that its relationships with the likes of Scottish Government policy makers were already very good and productive. In fact, Scotland is held to be a bit of a standout in that regard.

The next issue was cost. The financial memorandum sets out start-up costs of around £640,000, I think, with recurring costs after that, and there was certainly a feeling that that money could be put to better use. Sandy Brindley from Rape Crisis Scotland said that she would prefer to see resource going to supporting legal representation for victims than perhaps to supporting a victim and witnesses commissioner.

The third of the key issues that came up in our evidence was the potential overlap of a victims and witnesses commissioner with the role of existing commissioners, specifically that of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. In fact, in her submission to the committee, that commissioner highlighted some concern about her role in supporting children’s rights and interests overlapping with that, potentially, of a victims and witnesses commissioner.

Obviously other issues were raised, convener, but I would say that those were the key ones.

We were coming from the evidence that we heard. There was a lot of support for the proposals for a victims and witnesses commissioner, particularly from some organisations that already work with victims, less so from those that work with witnesses. We tried to reflect the reality of the situation that we are in financially and recognise the existing support for the post of commissioner.

Again, it comes back to the fact that there is an absolute acknowledgment across individual sectors, Parliament and the Government that things need to change.