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Good morning. As the convener said at the start of the meeting, we have been looking at these issues for a while. It has always struck me that, as has been referred to today, the police deal with almost everything, including the most difficult situations. I know that some of what they do involves plugging gaps in other services, which has been covered, but the police are always the first ones there for deaths, assaults and incidents involving children—the most horrific stuff that we can think of.

I want to ask about thresholds. When a police officer is dealing with something, is there a particular threshold? Do individual departments have a threshold? For example, if a police officer has to deal with a really difficult child protection issue, perhaps alongside social work or other services, do they get a debriefing afterwards, or do they just go on to do something else, such as dealing with an individual in a really difficult mental health situation? Are there thresholds that kick in, with officers being told, “You need to come in for a debriefing and not do anything else for the rest of the day”? Does that question make sense? Suzanne Smith is nodding, so I will go to her first.

Do other organisations or services deal with vicarious or impact trauma better than the police? Can lessons be learned in that regard? We are not here to talk about other services, because there are probably lots of concerns about those services, too, but could anything be learned from them?

You are right, and I was going to come to that issue. Experience tells us that people react differently, and many people will not respond to the traumatic event right away—that is not the normal reaction. People can react sometime in the future, and, depending on the nature of the incident, the reaction can be significant.

I have a rough idea on monitoring, but I know that it probably cannot be done like this. Is any work being done on all the processes that you have spoken about to record the number of incidents that officers attend? Are the three types of incidents that you mentioned, chief constable, being logged? Does someone then pull the person in and say, “You’ve actually had quite a tough year”? Is anything like that being done?

Do I have time for one more question?

I ran out of time to ask the previous two panels of witnesses about that, but I ask because I wonder whether the types of offences that police officers are dealing with are changing. Are those offences potentially more traumatic and, from your oversight perspective, is it the case that Police Scotland does not have the resources or the expertise yet to deal with that?

I will give the example of the internet, which is probably an obvious one. You said that you had been a police officer for 40 years—or you worked in emergency services for 40 years—so you will have seen a big change in that area of internet offences and online crimes. To go back to the initial question, I guess that I am asking whether part of the reason for the increase in psychological disorders is that the nature of policing is changing. Does Police Scotland have the ability and expertise to deal with that, or is it playing catch up?

I am sorry. I quickly changed what I said because I knew that.

A recent BBC news article reported that £10 million of funding for the connecting Scotland programme was to be suspended during this financial year. Can you comment on the impact that that might have on tackling digital exclusion and the implementation of your recommendations in the report?

My final line of questioning is on council digital services. The report highlights the fact that, as I think we all find in the cases of our constituents at times, those services are not always easy to access. Your report looks at some of the strategies of particular councils, almost as good-practice examples. There is probably good practice on the part of different digital services even within councils. What further support is required from the Scottish Government and COSLA to ensure that some of the positive work that the councils are doing to eliminate digital exclusion is being shared and applied at a more national level so that the approach does not depend on someone’s postcode and the council area that they live in?

Good morning to the panel. You have stolen my line, convener—I was about to comment on the fact that I am joining the meeting digitally.

I have enjoyed this morning’s session so far. It has been very interesting. I have a couple of questions. The report sets out the measures that Social Security Scotland has in place to minimise digital exclusion, which include non-digital facilities to apply for benefits and the availability of face-to-face guidance and home visits. Does any member of the panel know whether those measures are being shared with other public bodies? If so, how is that being done?

If I am picking it up right, it is right to say that a real mitigation to the risks that you are talking about is access to showering facilities immediately after attending a fire or an incident. Am I also picking up correctly that some fire stations have those facilities and that they are used but some do not so it is almost a bit of a postcode lottery situation? Is that accurate?