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Would it be possible to let other members contribute before I decide whether to move it?

Okay.

I move,

That the Criminal Justice Committee recommends that the Parole Board (Scotland) Rules 2022 (SSI 2022/385) be annulled.

Thank you for your proposal, convener, which I think is a good move. I agree—I do not think that there is any merit in getting into a game of letter tennis, but if it gets to the point where we are expressing unhappiness about the responses that we are getting, we cannot simply park the issue.

There is another issue on which we could ask for a more regular update—that of officer retirement and churn, which is an issue that I have struggled to get information on. I appreciate that the police do their own analysis on officers who exit the force—there will be exit interviews and so on. I have chucked some questions on that into the system, but it has been very difficult to obtain data. It is important that we get that data so that we can get underneath the skin of why people are retiring. Is that simply to do with early retirement and changes to the rules around that, or are there mental health and physical health issues at play? What reasons are being given? Are we keeping a watching brief on the churn rate relative to the number of officers in the system, the average age and so on?

The police or the Government should make an effort to be proactive in keeping the committee informed of the data in that regard. It does not matter what it tells us, but we need to know what picture it paints, because that will have a massive effect on the number of officers available.

I want to flag some of the comments in the letter from the SCTS. The third paragraph of the letter, which is on the first page of paper 5, states:

“Despite the increasing numbers of domestic abuse cases across our courts (they currently make up 23% of all Aberdeen sheriff court’s summary complaints registered this financial year), there are currently no further virtual summary trials scheduled at this point.”

The letter then explains the reason for that, which seems to be a problem with solicitor participation, but that does not really explain what the challenge is. Is it that solicitors are not available, not willing to participate or expressing opposition to it? It is unclear.

I appreciate that, about halfway down the page, the letter also talks about the general point that we are moving to a more face-to-face world again and away from doing things virtually. It says:

“as people return to more day to day physical interaction as we recover from the pandemic, momentum is waning.”

That seems to me to say, “We gave it a try and it was okay, but the world is sort of back to normal, so no one really wants to continue with it.” To me that sounds like, whatever your view on virtual trials—I separate those from virtual evidence giving or virtual juries, which are a different application of technology—the SCTS is not 100 per cent behind doing much more on virtual trials.

There seems to be an unwillingness in the sector to see benefits in virtual trials. I think that the SCTS quoted 58 as the total number of motions for a fully virtual trial. Not many of them went on to be virtual. In fact, about half of them were converted to in-person trials, so the request was not granted or the decision was made not to proceed with a virtual one. As Katy Clark says, the information is limited. It was only a limited trial, but that does not reek to me of a positive outcome or positive feedback about the measure.

Can I clarify something? I know that we are skipping through these sections quickly. For the record, I agree with all the suggestions in the last column, which makes points about what the committee could ask the Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities or the third sector to do. Because we are skipping past pages, it is important that we give the clerks our consent to carry on with that work.

I will shut up, then.

I am sorry—we are skipping ahead. On deaths in custody, on page 34, are we content as a committee that that issue has been followed up by analysis of where the Scottish Government agreed with our recommendations? The Government pushed back and said that it had

“no intention to create an online centralised system where delivery of the recommendations can be tracked.”

Are we content with that response, or do we want to push the Government further on that? It is still a very live issue, unfortunately and tragically.

I want to start with the section on Police Scotland. It is a great summary, and I thank the clerks for it.

Page 4 of paper 4 suggests actions, and they seem to be that we ask the SPA to do some work. We first need to take a step back and go straight back to Police Scotland. Paragraphs 5 to 8 of paper 4 show that the committee—I am now putting this on the public record—is unhappy with Police Scotland’s response and we have more than enough opportunity to go back to Police Scotland.

Paragraph 5 states:

“The response does not include an explanation as to why the officers who the Committee spoke to did not receive the expected standard of advice and support.”

In paragraph 6, we complain that Police Scotland’s response does not address key issues that the committee raised. In paragraph 7, we also say that the point about

“the inadequacy of the employee assistance line”

is not addressed. In paragraph 8, the committee requests details about when

“the court scheduling system redesign will be in place”

and say that that information has also not been provided.

Therefore, Police Scotland has not responded to some very specific things, and we should give it a second chance to do so before we escalate the questions. I am happy to include the SPA in our correspondence, but we should go straight to Police Scotland and explain that we are unhappy with its response. Let us be up-front about that, uncomfortable thought it might be.

We could also include the challenges that the SPF has raised. I know that Police Scotland will read the response from the SPF but, if Police Scotland is not asked to answer that, it does not have to and probably will not. I would like Police Scotland to respond directly to the concerns raised by the SPF, such as the one mentioned in paragraph16, which is that

“the SPA bases its oversight on evidence provided by Police Scotland”

but not necessarily by officers directly.

That is a key point. In other words, the SPA seems to be marking its own homework by responding to evidence given to it only by Police Scotland, which is, of course, accountable to it, but not necessarily by going directly to staff associations or organisations to get feedback. We need to sanity check whether what the SPA is hearing from Police Scotland marries up with the truth on the ground. That is perhaps a criticism of the SPA.

Paragraph 17 refers to specific complaints about

“the strategic commitment to wellbeing from Police Scotland”

and the mainstreaming of that policy. It notes that the SPF believes that there is

“either a failure to operationalise the programme or a failure to operationalise the right programme.”

Again, we could invite Police Scotland or the SPA to respond to that.

I do not disagree with what we are asking the SPA to do around data collection and how it could better engage with officers and their representatives from the union or otherwise on whether that could be beefed up, as those are valid points, but they are not necessarily the main criticisms that we want to pose.

Although the paper is quite short, the committee has clearly expressed our unhappiness at the response that we have had from Police Scotland. I think that we need to challenge that. That is my only plea.

The current position is that no transgender offender who has been convicted of a crime of violence or sexual violence against women or girls will be placed in a female prison. I presume that those who commit other types of violence and domestic abuse are not currently and will never be held in the female estate. Is that something on which you can give assurances, or is that a temporary measure?

At his directive, though.