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Meeting of the Parliament 19 June 2013

19 Jun 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

MacAskill, Kenny SNP Edinburgh Eastern Watch on SPTV

I do not believe so. I met Scottish Women’s Aid just recently and I believe that, overall, the bill will provide what such agencies clearly desire. However, to ensure compliance—to ensure that we provide a safety net—the issue needs to be dealt with appropriately in a balanced way, which is why we have started discussions. I assure Ms Marra that the discussions will not simply be with the Crown—they will also be with agencies such as Scottish Women’s Aid, to ensure that we reach the right balance.

On the proposals in the bill to put a duty on justice organisations to set out standards of service for victims and witnesses, the committee suggested that the standards should be set out in statutory guidance to be approved by the Parliament, along with details of a reporting mechanism. Although it would be possible to set out each individual set of standards in that way, I have been very clear that they must be organisation specific and I am concerned that such an approach would slow down the establishment of the standards.

I am satisfied that the organisations will work together—with input from victim support organisations—to create robust sets of standards, without the need for further parliamentary scrutiny. However, as I noted to the committee, I am willing to consider further whether there should be a more formal reporting mechanism to monitor how the standards are working in practice. We will discuss that with our justice partners.

I was pleased to note the committee’s view that a compelling case has not been made with regard to the establishment of a victims’ commissioner. I share that view, along with several victim support organisations, including Victim Support Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid. Given the excellent work that is being done by our victim support organisations in Scotland, I continue to believe that the establishment of such a post would simply be a duplication of effort and an extra layer of bureaucracy, and that our limited resources would be better used in directly helping victims of crime.

On the provision in the bill for the establishment and operation of the national confidential forum, again I thank the Health and Sport Committee for its careful and thoughtful scrutiny during stage 1. I also thank the witnesses who provided evidence, in particular former residents of childcare institutions who have shown great fortitude in coming forward to share their views. We have listened with great care and attention to those views, which will help to ensure that the national confidential forum makes a real difference to the lives of people who were placed in institutional care as children by helping to improve their health and wellbeing and contributing to the improvement of provision and support to looked-after children.

I am delighted that there is widespread support for the establishment of the forum. I am also heartened by the recognition of the value of acknowledgement to people who were placed in institutional care as children, in particular survivors of abuse and neglect. Those survivors have been asking for their experiences to be heard and acknowledged for many years and we are responding.

In 2010, we established the time to be heard pilot forum for people who were placed in Quarriers village as children. The pilot forum, which operated for only a matter of months, was attended by nearly 100 former residents of Quarriers. The independent evaluation of the experience showed clearly that it was of positive value and benefit to the people who took part and that they felt heard and believed.

It is our intention, with the bill, to extend that opportunity to all the people who were placed in institutional care as children in Scotland. The experience of time to be heard clearly demonstrates that acknowledgement is of value and that it is most certainly not a second-class option. The experience also shows that the benefits to people of acknowledgement are not contingent on access to justice remedies. For some people, justice remedies hold little appeal, but safe, supported, confidential acknowledgement does.

It was the Scottish Government that approached the Scottish Human Rights Commission in 2009 to develop a human rights framework to inform the development of what has become the national confidential forum. That approach, in turn, led to the interaction process, which was mentioned by several stakeholders who gave evidence.

The Scottish Government is participating in the interaction process with an open mind. However, we do not intend to wait for remedies that may arise from the interaction process to take forward the establishment of the national confidential forum.

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Meeting of the Parliament 19 June 2013

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