Hansard

Amendment 72, in the name of Elaine Murray, relates to the creation and operation of an alternative construct to the one that is set out in the bill—that is, community justice partners acting jointly—which would be called a “local community justice partnership”. A local community justice partnership would be required to plan and report, under provisions that are similar to those in the bill. Amendment 72 would also assign a role to the Scottish ministers in making further provision about the constitution and governance arrangements of local community justice partnerships, including the appointment of a person to chair meetings and act as a primary contact in relation to community justice Scotland. Although I understand that it is well meant, I cannot support amendment 72, for two reasons. First, it would have an unintended consequence that the committee should be aware of. The proposed new section would not amend the duty to prepare a community justice improvement plan in section 17, which means that two community justice outcomes improvement plans would be required. One would have to be prepared by the community justice partners under section 17 and another plan would have to be prepared by the community justice partnership established by those partners under the proposed new section. Indeed, there would be several instances of duplication of duties and requirements. Dr Murray indicated that consequential amendments would be needed, and she is quite correct. Presumably that duplication is not what Dr Murray intended, but it would be the effect of amendment 72. Secondly, and more importantly, the bill already has adequate governance arrangements in place and allows for the input of a broad range of relevant organisations by encouraging consultation and collaboration between community justice partners, the third sector and anyone else who is considered to be appropriate. It has always been the intention that the planning, delivery and reporting of community justice would integrate as far as possible with community planning. Further details on that will be given in guidance. The committee should also be aware of the following difficulties that I believe amendment 72 would create. It is not clear whether the local community justice partnership would be an entity in its own right. It is not clear whether a local community justice partner could choose not to join the partnership. It is not clear what the relationship would be between the community justice partnership and the individual community justice partners—would the community justice partnership have any authority over the community justice partners? Another area of concern is that the amendment would give ministers a regulation-making power that would allow them to make provision for the constitution and governance arrangements of the proposed community justice partnerships. Let me be clear: I firmly believe that decisions on how local community justice partners assign roles to ensure that they carry out their duties effectively is a matter for them. Indeed, in its stage 1 report, the committee was wary of a lead partner being appointed and it did not believe that there should be a specific requirement in the bill to that effect. The bill is deliberately not prescriptive on the matter. Instead, it allows for local discretion and flexibility in such arrangements so that the responsibility for achieving improved outcomes for community justice is both collective and individual. Amendment 72 would remove that local discretion. Requiring governance arrangements to be set out in regulations that are subject to the affirmative procedure is a measure that is not free of difficulties. It would take up valuable parliamentary time and Government resources, which I do not think could be justified. In summary, amendment 72 would add another layer to the community justice landscape that the bill establishes. Alison McInnes referred to the “cluttered landscape”, as did the stage 1 report. Amendment 72 would make the landscape more rather than less cluttered. It would compromise local flexibility and the way it is drafted does not work, although I note that Dr Murray has suggested that consequential amendments would be needed as a result of it. I invite Dr Murray not to move amendment 72. Dr Murray’s amendment 93 would amend section 30 to require each community justice partner for the area of a local authority to demonstrate co-operation with every other community justice partner for that area. I want to be clear that I understand and do not disagree with the intention behind the amendment, but there are some issues with it. I will ask Dr Murray to work with me, if she is willing to do so, with a view to her lodging an amendment at stage 3. Co-operation and collective responsibility are, of course, cornerstones of the new model for community justice. I take Mr Finnie’s point that we hoped that we would not have to put that on the face of the bill, but if doing so would give people additional confidence I am willing to look at it. Section 30 in its current form places a duty on each community justice partner and community justice Scotland to work with each other in exercising their functions in relation to community justice. I want to make it very clear that I expect co-operation between community justice partners to be evident through both the community justice outcomes improvement plans and the annual reports on progress against them. When I reviewed the provisions in the bill I recognised that the existing reporting arrangements under section 20 did not in fact require community justice partners to state how they had arrived at their outcomes. That is why I lodged amendment 45, which was debated in group 2, to require community justice partners to describe the activities that they undertook to achieve the outcomes, in order to provide greater transparency over what they did, how they did it and who was involved. There is a clear read-across between Dr Murray’s amendment 93 and my amendment 45. I believe that amendment 45 would provide the evidence of co-operation that is being sought by amendment 93. However, I accept that there may be room for an additional provision in the bill on the requirement to demonstrate that evidence. Any such amendment needs to be clearer and more precise on what demonstrating such co-operation involves. It is not clear whether there should be an obligation to publish a report or whether the bill should specify how often such a report should be published; how such co-operation is to be evidenced; or whether the obligation is on community justice partners individually or collectively. If Dr Murray agrees not to move amendment 93, I will have further discussions with her to propose a suitable amendment at stage 3. I invite Elaine Murray not to move amendment 93. I will now speak to amendment 99, lodged by Alison McInnes, which inserts a new duty of co-operation on the community justice partners when they are carrying out their functions with the community planning partnership for their area. I recognise the sentiment behind the amendment, as eloquently expressed by Alison McInnes. However, I have a number of concerns about the amendment—both with the principle of what is being proposed and with the detail. I acknowledge that there is an important relationship between the community justice partners and the community planning partnerships. As Alison McInnes mentioned, the third sector is now very much part of that mix. Six of the eight community justice partners are indeed existing community planning partners and, in practice, there will be important links between them. They share ambitions of joint working to improve outcomes, prevent harm and tackle inequalities, and I envisage a considerable amount of overlap. The transition work that we are pursuing with community planning partners and community justice partners will help them to consider the sort of relationship that they want and to build that relationship. We will further cement that important relationship in guidance. Amendment 99 does not work. The duty to co-operate is placed only on the community justice partners. There is no reciprocal duty on the community planning partnership to co-operate in return. In addition, there is no such legal entity as a “community planning partnership”, so the duties would have to be placed on the individual community planning partners. A number of community planning partners have no functions relevant to community justice, for example Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, yet community justice partners would have to be able to demonstrate that, in carrying out their functions in relation to community justice, they had co-operated with all those bodies. Those bodies that do have a direct interest in community justice are already community justice partners, so amendment 99 in effect requires the community justice partners to co-operate with themselves. If amendment 99 were to be agreed by the committee, it would, in my view, be unworkable in view of the problems that I have just described—although I sympathise with the sentiment behind the amendment. It is not in the interests of the Parliament for the amendment to be passed as it is. I hope that Alison McInnes feels able to recognise that amendment 99 is not necessary in policy terms and that it may give rise to difficulties in practical terms. I therefore ask her not to move that amendment.