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Thank you very much for that. I will save my other questions for later on.

I welcome all that. The blue-light collaboration, which you and the police have spoken about, is a fantastic piece of work and should be happening.

It might be that you are not able to look at this, but in relation to budget scrutiny, is part of your analysis and assessment looking at how other services might be cut, or do you have to leave that to the side and not concentrate on it, in case the police get an increase or whatever? Do you sit and say, “The police might be getting cut, and this is how it will impact us”?

I appreciate that, but the Government has said that the particular bills that I have mentioned are an attempt to help with the pressures in the system. However, you are right: they will initially mean more training and learning about them.

It is really good to hear that. I know that you have said that you are worried about the impact on all the services and how the collaboration can work. On possible ways forward, do you think that any upcoming legislative changes can help? Obviously, the committee is looking at the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Bill, and a criminal law reform bill is coming up. I know that the police will feed into them, as the police always do. Have you had any thoughts about how such reforms could help in these challenging financial times, or is that thinking a bit of a way off, until the bills come before you?

I think that the sirens that we just heard might have been for the benefit of the committee.

I had a few questions, but some of them have been covered, and I asked a supplementary question earlier. I had a question on the Audit Scotland report and the 14 stations with serious structural safety issues, but colleagues have covered that, so in the interests of time I will move on.

The only question that I have is one about joined-up working that you might have heard me ask the police service in the previous evidence session. If there is a flat cash settlement for all the services—you are all integrated and you all work together—what are your thoughts and planning around how that would pan out?

The police said earlier that, a lot of the time, when other services, including you, and other justice partners struggle, the police are left to pick things up in areas where they would not normally do so. Is that how you see it going? Would it be the police picking things up from you, or would you be picking things up from the police in some areas? Do have any general thoughts on that?

Good afternoon. As we have heard, the Scottish Government has a human rights goal or policy but it is not reflected in what people are finding is happening on the ground. I would like the witnesses to talk about how this committee, the Government and Parliament could perhaps meet some of those challenges.

Secondly, how able are councils to play their role in meeting human rights aspirations set out by the Scottish Government? It might be quite easy to say that the issue is just about funding local government—some people will say that local government is not funded enough and others will say that it is—but I do not want the argument to be about that. I want to discuss how local councils decide, with the funding that they have, what services are cut.

I will give an example that I am dealing with locally that I think makes that point clearly. There is a mobility hub in my constituency that is due to close—the charity that runs it will close it at the end of this week, at short notice. We are fighting that, as the mobility hub serves many people in the local area and allows those with physical disabilities, mainly, and learning disabilities, to access town centre healthcare appointments and so on. I have been round the houses trying to get somebody to stand up and say they will save the service, but everybody—the Scottish Government, the council, the health board and the charity organisation—has just passed it on to somebody else. Nobody wants the service to close and everybody thinks that it is a good service and that disabled people need it but, because of the system that we have, the service is at a real risk of closing this week. I have also noted—something that Susan McKellar said brought this to my mind—that the number of women who use this service is disproportionately high, and some women who have come to ask for it to be saved are carers for men who use it. The issue has a real impact on women as well.

I do not expect the witnesses to reflect on my constituency example—I am dealing with that and I know that members have similar examples around the country. However, it makes the point that we have human rights policies, ideas and goals in this Parliament that we all share across parties, but, sometimes, things happen, and the general public do not understand how certain things can be allowed to happen. Does the panel have any advice on what the committee and the Parliament can do to have a better overview when budget decisions around human rights issues are taking place?

I have a comment rather than a question, convener. Criminal justice social work staff carried out a review of nearly 18,000 cases, so it is worth putting on record our thanks to them for doing that. We have heard in various committee evidence sessions about the workloads of staff in the justice sector, so I imagine that that was quite an undertaking in itself.

Yes, convener. I welcome the minister and her colleagues to the meeting.

I put on the record that I am very supportive of this. As Russell Findlay has said, the churn in the court system has been a massive issue; indeed, it was a massive issue that the Justice Committee considered in the previous parliamentary session—and, I imagine, even before that. We should therefore be welcoming any steps to address the issue—it is good that the minister has recognised that and has brought forward something with the potential to deal with the matter.

That brings me to my question, minister. I know that this is a pilot, and that you will review it, but do you have any early indications or assessments of the impact that it might have on the backlog from Covid as well as the longer-term backlog? It is okay if you do not have any numbers—I know that Katy Clark has asked for an update in due course—but do you have any early assessments with regard to what this might mean for the numbers?

Like Pam Duncan-Glancy, I welcome the talk about the possibility of the age of criminal responsibility being increased because, when we scrutinised the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Bill, that was a major talking point for the committee members who were involved in it. The same is true for the place of safety power, which is what the regulations are about. I welcome the explanation that the minister gave, in that the power has been used only four times.

I ask the minister to answer a question that has come up through some of my constituency work. Because of the legislation that is now in force, some constituents are under the impression that the police can no longer talk to children under the age of 12—it is not about charging them but about talking to them. Is the minister able to confirm that that is not the case and that the police can engage with children, as they can with any other member of the community? That is the advice that I gave to my constituent but he asked that I raise it in the Parliament.

It is really helpful to have that on the record.