Hansard

On behalf of Scottish Labour, I thank the clerks, the witnesses, the legislation team, Scottish Government officials and the minister for their contributions to the development of the bill since it was introduced last year.

The bill has changed considerably since its first draft. Many of the suggestions that the Justice Committee made in its stage 1 report were taken on board by the Scottish Government, and others were successfully pressed by Opposition members at stage 2.

The original definition of “community justice” was generally considered to be too narrow as it was restricted to people who had already offended, and it focused on the prevention of reoffending rather than the prevention of offending. The majority of witnesses at stage 1 felt that that was a missed opportunity and that the definition should also include desistance, prevention and early intervention. Scottish Labour members were pleased to support stage 2 amendments that included bail conditions, community disposals, post-release control and persons identified as at serious risk of first-time offending.

The latter aspect was introduced as an amendment from Alison McInnes that, despite the Government’s reservations about including it in the bill rather than in other strategies, found favour with the majority of committee members.

Alison McInnes was also successful in placing in the bill some of the support services that should be offered where appropriate, including housing services. That was proposed by Shelter, whose prison advice project, which supports offenders in Perth, Aberdeen and Inverness during and after their sentences, demonstrates the effectiveness of housing support in the prevention of reoffending. I had some concerns about the Government’s stage 3 amendments that changed some of that, but I accept that the amendments that were agreed to this afternoon have altered and tidied up the wording of the stage 2 amendments and that the policy intention remains and the bill is therefore enhanced.

Community justice will work only if the community and the judiciary believe that it is an effective, successful and appropriate alternative to imprisonment. In particular, it is important that victims of crime, when a community disposal is given, know that due consideration is given to their views and needs and that the disposal is not some sort of soft option. Communities and victims also need to know that they will receive respite from the offending behaviour of those individuals.

My colleague Margaret McDougall has been determined to ensure that victims’ interests are specifically mentioned in the bill, and she is to be congratulated on her success in working with the Government to ensure that amendments reflecting the concerns of organisations such as Victim Support and Scottish Women’s Aid have been successfully introduced to the bill today, in addition to the amendment that she persuaded the committee to accept at stage 2, which will ensure that the management and support of offenders must be undertaken with regard to the safety of others in the community.

At stage 2, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities expressed a number of concerns regarding how the proposals would impact on local government; whether the reporting mechanisms would be overburdensome; whether the funding that is available is sufficient to ensure that the new community justice partnerships work effectively; how councils would be involved in the national assurance process; the relationship between community justice partners and the community planning process; and possible conflict between the national commissioning that is undertaken by community justice Scotland and the local community justice partnerships.

Those aspects were the subject of a series of stage 2 probing amendments lodged in my name, and I hope that the discussion at committee, and the subsequent discussions that I believe have taken place between the minister and COSLA, have allayed most of those concerns. That said, I think that the majority of committee members remain of the opinion that sufficient resources must be allocated to local partnerships to enable them to fulfil their duties, and I urge the Government to ensure that funding is monitored and any shortfalls rectified. I should also say that I am pleased that one of my own proposals that made it, albeit in altered form, into an amendment in my name—amendment 32—was agreed to by the Parliament this afternoon.

At stage 1, the committee heard evidence that the term “offender” could be considered as stigmatising, although it was not clear at that stage how that could be avoided. The minister reflected on the matter and introduced at stage 2 amendments that sought to remove the term and which replaced the word “reoffending” with “future offending”, thereby including people who at the time of engagement with community justice services have not been convicted of an offence. The minister made the same point again at stage 3 when he said that in our system people are innocent until proven guilty and should not be treated as guilty, even if they need to engage with community justice services. Such engagement will obviously be extremely important for, say, those on remand.

This is a short stage 3 debate, partly because there was so much agreement on so many of the issues raised at stage 1 and partly because of the agreement that was achieved at stage 2. However, the brevity of today’s debate does not reflect the importance of the matters that we are dealing with. We in Scotland and in the UK generally are overreliant on prison to deal with offending behaviour. We lock up a greater proportion of offenders; we lock them up for short periods during which rehabilitation and purposeful activity are difficult to achieve; and we often turn offenders out on to the streets to offend again.

Of course, victims and communities often want perpetrators of crimes to spend time in prison, sometimes to gain respite from offending behaviour and sometimes because of the lack of confidence in the alternatives to imprisonment. The eight community justice authorities established under the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Act 2005 did not succeed; indeed, the Angiolini commission on women offenders and Audit Scotland identified problems in the system, particularly the lack of strategic leadership, accountability and capacity. The new structure must be able to rectify those deficiencies.

If community disposals are to be used more successfully, their effectiveness and robustness must be clearly demonstrated. Community disposals must work for victims and communities as well as those who are or who might be involved in offending behaviour, and there is still a job to be done to raise not only people’s understanding of but their confidence in community disposals. That work is now being progressed, as it needs to be.

The bill is intended to address the criticisms made of the 2005 act. During its passage through Parliament, its scope has been widened considerably; the role played by the third sector has been explicitly recognised; and the types of support that can prevent offending and reoffending have been cited in greater detail. I also note that members of the Justice Committee have received information on the development of the draft guidance, the national strategy and the national performance framework.

Given the amount of movement on and the improvements made to the bill, I do not particularly want to end on a sour note, but I think that there are still issues to address about the funding of local community justice projects. This week, the Justice Committee was advised that 12 projects supporting new or enhanced community justice services for women had twice been allocated one-off funding—most recently £640,000 that had been transferred from the Scottish Prison Service—because they had found it difficult to secure full local funding.

Although the Angiolini commission recommended that enhanced community justice services for women should be sustained locally, it is not at all clear how in the current financial circumstances these projects or the wider community justice services will be sustained financially. I want to put that point into the discussion, because it would be extremely unfortunate if all our good intentions foundered on lack of funds.