Hansard

Amendment 31A seeks to amend amendment 31 by adding a reference to “victims of offences and their families” to ensure that victims and their families are given a higher profile in the bill by explicitly recognising them. As it stands, amendment 31’s proposed new paragraph (1)(b)(ii) is too vague. It refers to “other persons who are or may be affected by community justice”. That is not an overly clear statement. My small amendment would ensure that there is no doubt about the importance of victims and their families being involved and represented in the engagement and consultation process. In effect, it would ensure that victims are taken into consideration in the bill—something that was promised by the Scottish Government but has not, in my view, been delivered. With the expansion of the definition of community justice to include those who are suspected of a crime and given bail, as well as others who were not previously included, it is particularly important that confusion about victims’ rights in engagement and consultation be kept to a minimum. To make sure that the process is as simple as possible for victims, I suggest that victims should have the same rights and be treated in a consistent manner, regardless of how the offender is treated. Therefore, I suggest that the main principles of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 be set as standard principles throughout both criminal and community justice. Although there are differences between that piece of legislation and the current bill, they are not easily identifiable by victims. Amendment 31A is supported by Scottish Women’s Aid and Victim Support Scotland, which specifically requested this inclusion. It is very similar to my amendment 95, which was supported by the committee last week. However, I welcome the minister’s comments this morning and his offer to work with me to come to a compromise on the wording, so I will not move amendment 31A today, although I might move such an amendment at stage 3. Amendment 98 is designed to ensure that community justice partners report to community justice Scotland on how they have engaged with and consulted third sector bodies in the preparation and development of the community justice outcomes improvement plan. The bill states that statutory partners must consider which third sector bodies that are involved in community justice “are likely to be able to contribute to the preparation of the plan” for their area, and that they must “make all reasonable efforts to secure the participation of such bodies in the preparation of the plan”. Where a third sector body that is involved in community justice “wishes to participate in the preparation of the plan to any extent,” the statutory partners will be required to “take such steps as are reasonable to enable the third sector body to participate to that extent.” All that is to be welcomed. However, my amendment 98 would go further by putting in place a reporting mechanism to ensure that community justice partners can be held to account by the national body on how they have carried out those duties. Experience shows that it can be difficult for statutory partners to engage with third sector bodies at local level due to the nature and diversity of the sector. Similarly, many current planning processes are often out of reach for some third sector organisations—particularly the smaller ones. My amendment 98 would make sure that if there were to be problems or issues with statutory partners engaging with and consulting third sector bodies, the problems would be reported on and addressed through appropriate means. Amendment 98 complements the Scottish Government’s amendment 53 on local improvement recommendations, which states that “Community justice partners to whom a local improvement recommendation has been made must comply with any direction issued by Community Justice Scotland”. My amendment specifies that community justice partners must report to community justice Scotland on how they have engaged with third sector bodies in preparation of the plan. If partners have not complied with the consulting and engagement duties in the bill, or have found difficulties in doing so, community justice Scotland would make an improvement recommendation with which partners must comply. Amendment 98 is supported by the criminal justice voluntary sector forum, which includes Apex Scotland, Barnardo’s Scotland, Circle Scotland, Cornerstone, Cyrenians, Families Outside, Sacro, Positive Prison? Positive Futures, Women’s Aid and Victim Support Scotland. However, as with my earlier amendment 31A, I welcome the minister’s willingness to discuss how we can come to an arrangement and agreement on the wording of an amendment, so I will not push my moment—my motion, rather—at this time.