Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2016
I will give some background to amendment 29. In section 1, the reference to
“victims of offences and their families”
is not the same as a reference to third sector organisations that support victims and their families. It cannot be assumed that a single reference to victims will create enough of an imperative to ensure that third sector organisations that work to support victims—to ensure that their voices are heard at the local and national levels by community justice Scotland, community justice partners, community planning partnerships and those within the architecture of community justice generally—will be fully engaged in the planning and decision-making processes that are intended to take victims’ safety into account.
It is vital that organisations that support victims are named in the bill as third sector bodies that must be consulted, and my amendments provide a lever to insist that that be done. The minister repeatedly mentioned victims during the stage 1 debate, but simply inserting the words
“such third sector bodies involved in community justice”
through various amendments and then defining
“A third sector body ... involved in community justice”
as one that
“represents or promotes ... other persons who are or may be affected by community justice”
does not adequately include organisations that support victims, or indeed victims individually or collectively. A blanket reference to “the third sector” does not explicitly include victims and victims organisations. The bill places a duty on various persons to consult
“third sector bodies involved in community justice”,
but it also gives them an opportunity to limit which third sector bodies they consult, as it qualifies the duty with the wording
“such third sector bodies involved in community justice as it considers appropriate”.
Unless victims organisations are explicitly mentioned, as they are under my amendment 29, the bill will give those with the duty a get-out clause to ignore victims organisations on the ground that they are not appropriate, or to use that ground after the event as an excuse to justify a lack of consultation.
Amendments 28 and 29 include that reference, thus making explicit and clear in the various planning and monitoring duties the obligation to have local structures and arrangements that involve both victims of crime and the organisations that support them.
Amendment 28 is essentially a technical amendment. I thank the minister for working with me to make amendments 28 and 29 acceptable to all.
I move amendment 28.