Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2016
At stage 2, I lodged a number of amendments that were proposed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. They included an amendment to section 30 that required each local community justice partner to demonstrate co-operation with the other partners. At that stage, the minister recognised that section 20, on reporting on performance, did not require community justice partners to state how outcomes had been achieved, and he therefore amended that section to require the report to include activity undertaken by the community justice partners individually or jointly to achieve or maintain outcomes. As that amendment went some way to address the concerns that were expressed in my stage 2 amendment, I did not press it and agreed to discuss with the bill team an amendment that reflected COSLA’s principal concern that community justice services locally should be tailored to local need and should not be imposed by CJS.
Amendment 32 will amend section 30 to require community justice partners, in undertaking their duty of co-operation, to
“have regard to the desirability of community justice ... being best suited to the needs of”
local areas. That would mean that there would not be a one-size-fits-all approach imposed by community justice Scotland on local groups and that local community justice partners would have the flexibility to tailor the services that they offer to the needs of their area.
I thank the bill team and the minister for their consideration of how those concerns could be addressed in the bill.
I move amendment 32.