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Good morning to the witnesses. Kate Wallace, you mentioned sections 2 and 7, but you did not mention section 6, which is about fiscal fines. In effect, section 6 makes permanent a temporary Covid measure that raised fiscal fines to a maximum of £500. Victim Support Scotland supported that in your submission. However, you may have heard Simon Brown saying in the earlier evidence session that fiscal fines could, in effect, decriminalise shoplifting, and Stuart Munro went on to say that a fiscal fine could lead to a suggestion that an offence is not taken seriously by victims and in general. What is your view on the principle of a fiscal fine, and do you have any concerns about permanently raising the limit to £500?

You raise an interesting point.

Simon Brown, the SSBA submission is supportive of virtual attendance but says that you generally favour in-person attendance at trials, which is the default position. Are your concerns the same as those articulated by the Law Society, and is your general favouring of in-person attendance an observation or a suggestion that the bill should be amended?

Simon Brown, I want to take you back to something that you said earlier, just to ensure that we air this point. You talked about the need for legal aid provision for solicitors when they are dealing with virtual attendance. We already know that, in a context in which there is a significant decline in such solicitors doing legal aid work, many will feel that the provision is less than ideal already. Can you help the committee to understand what legal aid is currently available, if it is available at all for virtual attendance, and what the issues are around legal aid in general?

That really will be interesting. However, as colleagues will probably want to ask about the strategic review, I will back down on that, if that is okay.

I have one final question. Your report is very good, and I enjoyed looking through it. However, there is no doubt that what you and your colleagues have just said is concerning, because the Parliament has to be very careful about how it spends money. I did not immediately see, from the report, the horizon scanning on, for example, the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill. Why not? That is a genuine question, because it seems to me that any reader would be helped by that.

Is there anything else that we need to be aware of—on legislation, for example—that is not in the report and could impact on your finances?

I would like to press you on the costings. Page 16 of your report details the finances, which are considerable and have increased by £500,000 in the past year. Staffing costs, which are clearly required based on what you have just said, make up 84 per cent of your spend. Can you tell the committee more about that?

I hear what you say about the financial memorandum and the difficulties of accurately making projections, but MSPs will have to consider such issues. What is the financial impact of the bill on the PIRC? The Scottish Government has had difficulty in making accurate projections in financial memoranda, so have the extra costs been sufficiently accounted for to give you comfort, particularly given Phil Chapman’s comments about the changes to corroboration?

I understand and am grateful.

Good morning. Michelle Macleod, on exactly that point, one of the first points in the foreword to your report notes that your

“workload has increased substantially over the past decade.”

This afternoon, MSPs will consider the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill, in which the PIRC features heavily and which will increase your responsibility. In order to help members with our deliberations, what impact do you project that the bill, if it is passed in its current form, will have on your already increased workload?

Good morning, everyone. My first question is for Assistant Chief Constable Paton. Police Scotland has a data dashboard that helps to provide an understanding of mental health demand on police time. The cabinet secretary told the committee last year that it would be rolled out to other partners. How is the dashboard performing, what are you doing with the data and has it been rolled out?

That is obviously important work. You have also set up a mental health task force and a mental health strategic oversight board. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland has recommended that you produce a mental health strategy and a delivery plan.

However, some evidence that the committee received in advance of today’s meeting suggests that the impressive array of work that is being done at strategic level is not translating into operational delivery for front-line officers. ACC Paton, what is Police Scotland’s view of that assessment? Do you agree with it? What are the potential barriers to the translation to operational delivery?

You heard me ask about the data dashboard, and I am pleased to say that ACC Paton gave a pretty positive report. We know from one of your earlier letters that it was intended to be rolled out by the end of last year, but I think that I heard earlier that it is not quite there yet. Will the data arising from the data dashboard be shared with the Scottish Government, or is it operational and only for Police Scotland? What is your view on the roll-out if the timescale has not been met?