Hansard

I am pleased to speak in this budget debate on behalf of the Criminal Justice Committee. I thank committee members, the clerking team and SPICe and comms colleagues for their support in our budget scrutiny, as well as the many stakeholders who provided evidence to the committee.

This year, our focus was again a broad one as we scrutinised the financial pressures that policing, fire and rescue services, prisons, prosecution services and courts, community justice, criminal justice social work and the third sector face. Without exception, every organisation that gave evidence told us the same story—that there was no scope for further cuts and that meaningful investment was long overdue.

We heard stark evidence from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service that a lack of capital and resource budget was preventing important work from happening in response to firefighters’ exposure to fire contaminants and also preventing the provision of dignified facilities from progressing. That concerned many members, who saw that as essential provision, given that the role of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service continues to evolve.

Similarly, we heard from Police Scotland that the situation was “critical” and that it was vital that the organisation moved towards new funding arrangements, namely

“multi-year funding commitments from Scottish Government, the exercise of statutory borrowing powers and the establishment of a facility to enable the carry forward of financial reserves.”

The Scottish Police Authority said that the impact of the United Kingdom Government’s national insurance increase, which was announced during our scrutiny, was that an additional £25.3 million of revenue would be required next year.

The Scottish Prison Service told the committee that a significant proportion of its budget is

“exposed to inflation and to public sector pay policy”,—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 6 November 2024; c 30.]

which limits its options for mitigating cost pressures from emerging challenges such as a population that has grown by around 10 per cent and that is far more complex, thereby creating significant additional budgetary challenges. We also heard of the pressures arising from the ageing prison estate—in particular, the urgent need to replace HMP Barlinnie with a new facility at HMP Glasgow. The committee welcomes the fact that HMP Glasgow is a key priority for major infrastructure improvements in the prison estate.

That is just a flavour of the evidence that the committee took; more is set out in our report, which was unanimously agreed.

Of particular interest to the committee was the pressure on capital budgets and investment right across the sector, and the ways in which relatively small sums of money invested using a spend-to-save approach in individual parts of the sector can bring wider benefits elsewhere across it. One example was the investment in the summary case management system, which has seen the number of police witness citations fall to around half in some areas of Scotland, thereby releasing officers for front-line duties. Other examples that should result in budget savings over the longer term are the investments in body-worn video cameras for police and the new digital evidence-sharing capability, or DESC. The benefits of DESC include fewer victims and witnesses having to attend court, which reduces the time it takes for cases to come to court and reach a conclusion, and, importantly, saves police time. During a pilot of the programme in Dundee, around 19,500 pieces of evidence were handled through DESC, which freed up almost 550 hours of police officers’ time.

As the committee said last year, it also wants to see reform of the criminal justice sector continue. It urges the Scottish Government and others to invest in relatively low-cost schemes in which investments have clear cost savings but significant benefit. In short, the spend-to-invest approach is one that we want to see adopted further.

I welcome the response of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to the committee that she had been able to secure an increase of £400 million, or 10.5 per cent, compared with the opening 2024-25 budget that was presented to Parliament in December 2023. It is important to note, however, that that increase does not account for the in-year adjustments to budgets that were made in 2024-25. The committee considers that in-year payments should be more transparent in order to provide the committee with a more accurate picture of the funding situation of the organisations that it holds to account—not just the sums provided at the start of each financial year. We also said that the financial memoranda that are presented to the Parliament on Government bills must be as accurate as possible and that proposed legislation must be accompanied by appropriate resources. As members will know, in this session our committee has scrutinised several significant bills, all of which have significant associated costs outlined in their financial memoranda.

I welcome the resource and capital increases for the criminal justice sector for 2025-26. The committee looks forward to scrutinising whether those extra sums have been invested wisely using a spend-to-save approach. We will continue to keep the pressure on and will work with the cabinet secretary to improve the way in which our criminal justice sector works.