Official Report 478KB pdf
A very good morning, and welcome to the 34th meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee in 2025. We have received no apologies this morning. Fulton MacGregor will join us presently, and we are joined by Pam Gosal.
Our first item of business is to continue our evidence taking on the Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill. We have one panel of witnesses today, and I intend to allow up to 90 minutes for questions. I refer members to papers 1 and 2.
I welcome Dr Emma Forbes, national lead for domestic abuse at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service; Professor Liz Gilchrist, member of the criminal law committee of the Law Society of Scotland; Detective Superintendent Adam Brown, from Police Scotland; and Glyn Lloyd, chief social work officer and head of children’s and community justice services at Dundee City Council, and chair of the justice standing committee at Social Work Scotland. A warm welcome to you all, and thank you very much for the written submissions that you have provided.
Before we start, I remind members and our witnesses to be succinct in their questions and answers. I also remind members that they can select specific witnesses to respond to their questions. That will help us to get through as many questions and responses as possible.
I will open up with a question relating to part 1, which is on notification requirements and monitoring under the multi-agency public protection arrangements, or MAPPA. I will come to Dr Forbes first, and I will then work along the panel, bringing in Professor Gilchrist, Detective Superintendent Brown and then Glyn Lloyd.
Could you set out the role of your organisation in the current multi-agency approach to domestic abuse? That could include the use of the multi-agency risk assessment conference, or MARAC, the multi-agency tasking and co-ordination domestic abuse programme, or MATAC, and the disclosure scheme for domestic abuse. In your view, does the current approach work? Could it be improved? Do the provisions of the bill improve or add to the current approach? I know that you may come to this from more of a philosophical perspective, Professor Gilchrist.
I ask Dr Forbes to open up.
Good morning. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service does not sit on MARAC meetings. As the sole prosecuting authority in Scotland, by default we deal with cases once they have been reported, but we recognise that not all offending is reported to us. We have very close working relationships with our colleagues across the justice sector and the third sector. MARAC meetings and the information that we get from them about risk, as well as the work that goes on around the criminal justice system—rather than within it—are fundamental to our ability to do our job as prosecutors.
We may receive a report on a contravention of section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010—in common language, a breach of the peace—and it may be aggravated by being within a domestic relationship. Let us say that we receive a report relating to one charge, breach of the peace. If the complainer comes up as 3 on the risk indicator that the police have carried out—the domestic abuse questionnaire—and has never been discussed at MARAC, and if there is nothing on the vulnerable person’s database, that is a very different case from one that may be reported to us of a single, one-charge section 38 offence where the person is 15 on the risk indicator, is therefore at high risk and has been discussed at the MARAC, and we know that there is a co-ordinated intervention to manage that person’s safety. Regarding our presentation to the court on risk, the protective measures that we might be seeking and prioritisation—everything that we can do to robustly and effectively prosecute—the MARAC provisions are really important.
We are here today to talk about prevention of domestic abuse. We work closely with Scottish Government colleagues and other colleagues across the sector in the implementation of the equally safe strategy. We support that and all of the work involved in it. Prevention is one part of the equally safe work in eradicating violence against women and girls. Such violence is recognised as broadly offending, although it can affect anyone.
The language in the equally safe strategy is borrowed from the Istanbul convention. It is fitting that we are here today to discuss this subject during the 16 days of activism. The Istanbul convention discusses pillars, and it is important, in this discussion about prevention, to view prevention as one pillar, as it cannot stand up on its own. One of the other pillars is prosecution, and another is co-ordinated policies. That is why it is so important that we have a joint protocol with the police, that we work with our partners and that we prosecute effectively.
When it comes to prevention, it is very hard to eradicate domestic abuse so that it does not happen in the first place, because that would involve a society where everybody was equal and there was no inequality. We do not have that. However, we can intervene to prevent further offending, and that is what we try to do through prosecution.
I will pull your response back to the bill. Having outlined that, what are your comments, from a Crown Office perspective, on the notification requirement provision in the bill?
Anything that works to prevent domestic abuse is a good thing. I have a concern about the provision in part 1 of the bill to create a register, in that I do not feel that there is an evidence base to show that that will prevent domestic abuse. I am concerned that, although that provision is well intentioned, it might have unintended consequences in relation to the safety of those reporting.
Evidence from England and Wales suggests that it is extremely expensive to implement such a register, that it is unlikely to do very much to improve the safety of women and girls, and that it detracts crucial funding from elsewhere in an already effective landscape.
Speaking on behalf of the Law Society’s criminal law committee, I do not think that we would have any response to your question: we would remain neutral on the matter.
If I am permitted to talk as a forensic psychologist and risk assessor in domestic abuse who is running trials of interventions across justice at the moment, I would say that MAPPA and MARAC are incredibly important, and that monitoring the right to ask and the right to tell—the equivalent of Clare’s law—is really important, so that high-risk victims can be told of the risks appropriately in terms of disclosure, so that the police have the tools to monitor and manage risk, and so that we can engage in appropriate safety planning with victims.
I am not sure whether the addition of a register would achieve the purposes that the bill sets out to achieve. The Law Society, like me personally and all colleagues, is absolutely in favour of trying to do everything possible to identify, support and manage the risk of those who perpetrate the offences. I am concerned that we might have a broad definition of domestic abuse—the criminal law committee has identified that issue as well—and that that would mean that the bill would gather up too many cases.
In England, the authorities find that, the longer that the sex offenders register goes on, the wider the remit is and the more people they are trying to manage at a high level. They also find that the system is disproportionately focusing on lower-level risk rather than the highest-level risk. Registration and the additional protections that might come from it need to be focused on the right people—that is, at the highest-possible level. I am not sure whether that will add to MAPPA level 3. I would not be averse to it—the Law Society is positive about the support—but there is a question about the practicalities.
Good morning, convener. To answer the first part of your question, the police have a prominent role in all the processes that you referenced. We are responsible for the administration, delivery and convening of meetings in our disclosure scheme and, of course, the police are the ones who have to deliver the disclosures.
We are prominent at every MARAC across Scotland. We attend in every area. Although there are differences in how a MARAC is structured, administered and chaired across Scotland, we are present at all MARACs and our role is to gather information, share it at those meetings and then collaborate with other agencies on actions that can be taken to improve the safety of the victims who are being discussed.
MATAC is a police-led process in which high-risk perpetrators are identified—often, but not exclusively, by the police. They could be serial perpetrators or it could just be that their conduct is of high risk. Following a similar multi-agency discussion, agencies can take away actions; the principal action for the police is that we normally undertake a large-scale investigation into the perpetrator, which looks at previous partners, previous offending and any other interventions that we can implement to intervene in the conduct.
To answer the second part of your question, overall, we are not supportive of part 1 of the bill. Like everyone else, we recognise the intentions behind it. Any opportunity to talk about potential interventions in domestic abuse is always welcome, but we have concerns about how the statutory management of domestic abuse offenders in the way that the bill proposes might draw our focus and resources away from some of the other processes. We are involved in those other processes not because we have to be but because we believe that they are the right thing to do.
A key difference between those processes and the proposals in part 1 is that those other processes do not require a criminal conviction for interventions to take place. Criminal convictions are, of course, taken into account, but they do not necessarily illustrate the totality of risk that a perpetrator poses. The risk with part 1 is that our resources, time and attention will unavoidably be diverted into the management of perpetrators who do not necessarily pose the highest risk. Basically, we will end up doing what we are obliged to do, rather than what we should do. Of course, people who are convicted of the most serious violent offences, including sexual violence, can be and already are managed in that way under existing legislation.
I am happy to touch on resources, but even if sufficient resources existed, it is unclear how part 1 would fit with those other processes without creating multiple forums across agencies with an overlap of responsibilities and duplication of effort on their administration and delivery. To my knowledge, no detailed analysis of that has been completed. The structures that exist for MARAC, MATAC and our disclosure scheme are complex. They have been established over time, and I am not sure what the impact would be on that established but complex network of professional relationships that exist across Scotland.
The implications for resources were certainly brought out in your submission. Thank you for that.
09:15
Good morning, convener. I speak from a justice social work perspective. We are one of the responsible authorities under MAPPA, so we are a key part of the current risk assessment and risk management of category 1 to 3 offenders. In relation to domestic abuse perpetrators, we prepare court reports to assist the court in making sentencing decisions and we deliver the accredited Caledonian programme in the community to a small number of domestic abuse perpetrators.
We are a key part of MAPPA, MARAC and MATAC. We are also a key part of child protection arrangements. It is important to emphasise that around 50 per cent of children who are subject to the child protection register are there because of domestic abuse within the family.
One of our concerns is the high attrition rate between the number of incidents and the number and type of programmes delivered. For example, in Dundee in any given year, there are between 2,500 and 3,000 domestic abuse incidents, between 350 and 400 court reports with a domestic abuse marker and only 59 community payback orders with the Caledonian programme. There is a fallout in terms of the number of domestic abuse incidents, court reports with a domestic abuse marker and the number of perpetrators undertaking the Caledonian programme. That is a concern.
Another concern is the availability of programmes. Until recently, the Caledonian programme was delivered to different degrees across different local authorities and it is the only accredited programme that is available to domestic abuse perpetrators. Specific criteria need to be met to access that programme.
We also have concerns about the growing number of young people who are beginning to display inappropriate attitudes and behaviours in their relationships with one another and, in the context of the bill, about the availability of victim data and how it can be used to inform longer-term planning and support to victims.
The bill is helpful—we understand the principles behind it and what it tries to achieve—but that comes with some caveats and implications. We have reservations about whether the notification requirements should be mandatory, even if they are restricted to the cohort that the bill outlines. There is an argument that they should be discretionary, with a focus on higher-risk perpetrators to enable the better management and targeting of resources.
We also have concerns about the availability of not only the Caledonian programme but other programmes when people do not meet the criteria. Education is helpful, but it needs to be delivered in the context of getting it right for every child and the team around the child arrangements. We have the three categories in MAPPA but, if a domestic abuse perpetrator is assessed as high or very high risk, they could fall into category 2, violent offenders, at the moment.
Overall, we are supportive in principle but have concerns about some of the implications.
There is quite a bit for us to think about in those answers, so I will not ask any follow-up questions at the moment. However, I will probably come back in later.
Sharon Dowey, do you want to come in on this line of questioning?
I want to ask about the reporting requirements under section 1, on which there are differing opinions. In its submission, COPFS said that restricting the definition of people who would be on the register to those who had been sentenced to
“12 months or more in prison or … a community payback order … is potentially confusing and is inconsistent with the importance placed by criminal justice agencies and third sector organisations in Scotland of a consistent definition of domestic abuse.”
However, would the bill not mean that being put on the register would become a deterrent to somebody who had a lesser charge—perhaps somebody who was a first offender? COPFS said that it wants more people to be involved, but that might lead to more bureaucracy, whereas the bill is intended for high-level offenders.
Meanwhile, the Law Society said:
“We consider that the proposed provisions in Part 1 could create a real risk of labelling people as inherently dangerous … In our view, a higher threshold for registration would produce a more meaningful register”.
Should the bill ensure that only those who pose a higher level of risk would go on the register, as opposed to what it proposes at the moment?
Finally, Police Scotland said:
“On review of Part 1 to the bill, we are not of the opinion that the significant investment of budget and resources needed to meet its requirements are proportionate”.
If you had the resources required, would what is proposed in the bill fill a gap in the system, with the result that you would be more supportive of the bill?
I do not think that the level of investment of budget and resources that would be required would be proportionate to any potential benefits. We must acknowledge that this is untested ground. The specific model that is proposed has not really been replicated anywhere else—there are no other jurisdictions that we can refer to that have adopted it—but I have seen no evidence of the potential benefits of managing offenders in the way that is proposed that would be proportionate to such an investment of our efforts and resources.
I am not refuting the suggestion that there could be benefits—there might well be. A point that seems to come up fairly frequently, which we would echo, is that such an approach might enable us, in some way, to recognise that someone might be in a new relationship, and it might offer an opportunity to deliver a disclosure to their new partner. However, we absolutely cannot extract any data to inform us how frequently that would happen or how often offenders would comply with requirements to advise us of a change of circumstances. Therefore, it is very hard to gauge the extent of any potential benefits, but we know that the investment would be significant.
If you had more detail on how the proposed system would fit in with the current structures, do you think that it could be beneficial?
I think that I would need to have that detail before I could answer that question.
Let me take MARAC as an example. I would say from my experience as chair of MARAC here—when I say “here”, I mean in Edinburgh—that there would be complexities in overlaying MAPPA-type structures on to MARAC. In Edinburgh, we have the comparative benefit of dealing with one local authority and health board and a local network of women’s aid groups and other support agencies relatively on hand that can contribute, while only a few miles away, Dalkeith sits in a single policing division—J division—that deals with four local authorities, two health boards and a different network of support agencies.
It is therefore not enough just to say that this will overlay and complement MARAC; detailed analysis of the impact on, say, MARAC across Scotland and in all our communities will be essential before we can really answer that question. For me, that is a fundamental question.
The criminal law committee has suggested that, if we are going to have a register, there should be a higher threshold, primarily to focus resources.
There are a couple of things to highlight in that respect. First, the idea of being on a register and therefore part of that broad and inclusive category might, in fact, act as a deterrent and put people off pleading guilty, which would lead to more court time being spent on cases instead of being saved.
Separate to my role on the criminal law committee, speaking as a forensic psychologist, I would say that, if we thought that the consequences of people’s behaviours—that is, the idea that they might be on a register—would stop them at the time of the offending, I might be more in favour of it. However, I am not sure that that is true. The one thing that we know about domestic abuse is that the people in question tend to breach orders managing their risk and safety, so I am not sure that that would pose a deterrent at that point.
I draw the committee’s attention to the pilots that are currently running south of the border on domestic abuse protection notices and domestic abuse protection orders—DAPNs and DAPOs—under which an order with a condition for treatment can be made. However, as that work is still at a pilot stage, we do not really know whether protection orders with a requirement to do something, which might stop earlier than the more serious convictions, will be of help.
You want there to be a higher threshold. Even if people who have committed such serious offences do not plead guilty in advance, would there not be more evidence in those cases to get a guilty verdict?
I do not think that it would prevent the prosecution and conviction of people at the high end. However, at the lower end—that is, cases in which there is perhaps more difficult evidence, where there has not been physical injury, where there might be coercive control and where the number of witnesses giving evidence is limited to the two parties—people who would plead guilty now might not plead guilty if they would also end up being put on a register and if it were to be unclear how long that would be for. There is also a lack of clarity about who would be sharing that information.
At the moment, there is a lot of multi-agency work going on, involving the police, procurators fiscal, victim support agencies, education and social work. Making that work well is probably the best thing that we can do and invest resources in. That is my personal opinion rather than the opinion of the criminal law committee.
I am not against having a register—I do not think that anyone is—but there is a question about the practicalities of how it would work and the resources that would be involved.
So, there needs to be more detail on how it would work.
We also need to think about the unintended consequences.
Thank you. Dr Forbes?
We know that a range of people commit domestic abuse, many of whom are also involved in other offending. A significant number of them will breach court orders. There is a lot of research to show that, within that group of offenders, there is a power few. For example, one study in Suffolk Constabulary analysed 36,000 domestic abuse cases and found that 80 per cent of the harm was perpetrated by 2 per cent of the perpetrators. Similarly, a 2017 study of Thames Valley found that 90 per cent of offending was perpetrated by 3 per cent of perpetrators. Therefore, there is a very small number of abusers—the thin end of the wedge—who are committing the most pernicious and dangerous domestic abuse and causing the most amount of harm.
Those 2 to 3 per cent are who we want to target, but I do not see evidence that the register would target them. Many of the highest-risk offenders will be convicted of an offence that leads to an outcome of a custodial sentence or a community payback order, but we also know that many people will give a partial disclosure when they report. Many people do not even feel that they can come forward to report.
Therefore, the beauty of the current MARAC, MAPPA and MATAC structure—with the three orbiting one another and having the same multi-agency teams—is that we are able to identify the victims who are most at risk and those who are most at risk of perpetrating further abuse, and we can try to dismantle that. I do not feel that the register would do that.
I also worry that the stigma of a register would prevent people from pleading guilty, which would simply prolong the justice journey for victims and compound their retraumatisation throughout the process. That would make it harder for us to engage with those victims and to bring cases to court.
Should the register have only the top 3 per cent of offenders in it, or should it be opened up to more people? I thought that you were suggesting in your submission that you wanted the register to include more people.
No. Our position is that we do not consider that there is currently an evidence base that the register would add value, and we are concerned about unintended consequences. I am sorry if our evidence was not clear, but the part that you are referring to was trying to show that we feel that the way in which the categories have been selected is inconsistent, and that there is not a clear rationale for why those categories were selected and not others. I hope that that makes sense.
Yes—thank you.
Good morning. I am interested in the submissions from the Law Society and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service on the point that you made to Sharon Dowey about how a register might result in fewer guilty pleas. The COPFS submission goes on to talk about
“more victims being required to give evidence at trial, and an increase in disputes within trial about sensitive information such as … the precise nature of the parties’ relationship”.
That is an important part of the submissions from the Law Society and COPFS. Do you want to elaborate on why people would be less likely to plead guilty and the point about
“disputes within the trial about sensitive information such as the precise nature of the parties’ relationship”?
09:30
At the moment, we have two ways of prosecuting domestic abuse. One involves a contravention of section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, which is a single offence of a course of conduct. Separately, we can add a domestic abuse aggravation to any common-law charge when we believe that it has been committed in the context of a relationship between partners and ex-partners.
Our concern is that there might be more defence contest of that aggravation and the fact that the parties were in a relationship if it was perhaps a new relationship and the parties had not known each other for a long time. We are concerned that there might be more challenges if the consequence is that, if the person is convicted with the aggravation, it will lead to them being added to the register. Being on the sexual offences register, which is the only register that we have as a frame of reference, has significant consequences for an individual, and the courts think very seriously before imposing that because of the impact that it has.
I just want to make sure that I have understood that point. You are saying that the accused would be less likely to plead guilty if they would be put on the register.
We do not know. That is just one of the concerns that we would raise. We do not really have much of an evidence base about whether it would work. The Essex report, which the member in charge of bill referenced in the financial memorandum, was referenced to show the costing of the provision.
The Essex report is of a significant study in England and Wales that shows that a register would do little to help victims. London’s victims commissioner said that the research showed that
“proposals for a Domestic Abuse Register would not significantly improve the management of perpetrators, due to the limitations of focusing on a small cohort of convicted offenders.”
That is the only evidence that we have to go on. We do not really know about Scotland. Our evidence contains hypotheticals, but those are our concerns, based on our experience of prosecuting a broader range of offending.
Thank you. Does the Law Society have anything to add?
What I would say is similar. People tend to plead guilty on the basis that there might be a reduction in their sentence and a reduction in monitoring. If that monitoring is not going to go away, the incentive for the guilty plea goes away.
There is some evidence from England that monitoring can also be lost. People change their names or they go underground and seek to avoid the registration, so they are technically being monitored but they cannot be followed up. I am even more concerned that having such a register would make it harder for the more manipulative offenders to be tracked and traced.
Good morning. I will address my first question to the Law Society and COPFS. For good order, I remind colleagues that I am a practising lawyer and am regulated by the Law Society of Scotland.
If the bill gets to stage 2, it is important that we tighten all the definitions and make the bill as good as it can be so that it achieves its aims. In its evidence, COPFS commented on the definition of a domestic abuse offender, and the Law Society made a similar point about the definition of offences involving domestic abuse. Dr Forbes, what is your concern about that definition? More importantly, perhaps, how might the committee look to tighten that definition through amendments to make the bill do what is intended?
I have given evidence to the committee before about the importance of having a single definition and understanding of domestic abuse. Scotland has the gold standard. Research has just come out in England and Wales that shows that their broad definition, which involves family violence and lacks focus on the relationship and unique dynamic between partners and ex-partners, is leading to less focused interventions and prevention. It is important that we protect the definition of domestic abuse in Scotland, because we have found it to be effective so far.
As my friend has already mentioned in evidence, the issue with the bill is that, for certain offences, rather than it being at the court’s discretion, it would be mandatory to impose a sentence that would involve someone being added to the register. My concern is that we manage to prove offences in court beyond reasonable doubt by categorising the offending, which does not reflect the totality of someone’s lived experience of abuse, our understanding of domestic abuse, or where the most high-risk offenders are. The fundamental sticking point is that we do not know enough about the effectiveness of a register to be able to get into the whys and wherefores of how we might improve what we have, because it is predicated on the assumption that a register will work, but I am not convinced that it will.
To be clear, on the definition of a domestic abuse offender, your evidence is similar to the evidence that you gave to the committee previously, which is that it needs to align more closely with what is already in the statute book.
Yes.
I understand.
I will put the same question to Professor Gilchrist. You talked about the definition of an offence involving domestic abuse. What are your thoughts on that?
I premise my answer on the basis that, although I represent the Law Society of Scotland’s criminal law committee, I am not a lawyer; I am a forensic psychologist who has some experience of the law.
The criminal law committee’s view is that the definition does not include all the offences against ex-partners, and it needs to do that so that it is not misleading. The bill needs to include a broader definition, so that we can define other offences as domestic abuse. Those might include drink driving and all sorts of other offences that would have a domestic violence flag, but which would not fall under the current definition in the bill.
However, having said that, creating a broad definition of domestic abuse would broaden the requirements for registration. My personal view is that, in order to address that, you would have to introduce a risk assessment so that you could narrow it down to those who posed the highest risk who had been convicted of domestic abuse offences under the general definition.
The Law Society of Scotland suggested that we would have a two-tier system, where some people who had committed an offence that hit the level would be on the register, and those who were of variable risk and did not meet the definition would not be on the register. We would end up with some people who had committed offences against partners being registered and others who would not be, which could be misleading for new partners, employers and others. The two-tier system would be a problem.
Glyn Lloyd appeared to be signalling his agreement with some of Professor Gilchrist’s remarks, so I will come to him. Social Work Scotland’s submission highlights that a positive amendment that the committee might consider would be to include a notification requirement on a change of partner relationship. The submission also highlights that many families remain together following a conviction, so additional requirements might lead to retaliatory action. If that is right, is there not a risk that the Parliament might not legislate for fear of what an abuser might do—almost, that it would not do what is right for fear of how an abuser might react? Surely that is the wrong end of the telescope. How might the bill be adjusted to address that possibility, so that it achieves its aims without posing a risk to families?
Putting aside the definitions and legalities of hypothetical guilty or not guilty pleas, we think that placing the notification or registration requirement before the assessment requirement would be back to front and that it should be more nuanced. The assessment should dictate whether someone is required to register and to be subject to notification requirements and that assessment should be carried out on a case-by-case basis, with a focus on the circumstances of the offence, the offender and their broad network, including—perhaps even especially—their family.
Registration might be entirely appropriate, necessary, proportionate and helpful in some cases, but it might not be in others. Imposing a mandatory requirement could be problematic, but giving the court the ability to impose a discretionary requirement could be helpful. For example, at the moment, we have community payback orders and there are nine requirements that can be attached to those, including supervision, unpaid work, programme attendance and substance use treatment. It seems feasible that an additional requirement could be added to that list of nine to focus specifically on domestic abuse perpetrators and oblige them to register or notify.
I understand.
I have some questions about part 2 of the bill, which is titled “Assessment of offenders for rehabilitation programmes and services”. Glyn Lloyd has already referred to the lack of availability of programmes. Are there any gaps in the current assessment process for offenders’ suitability for rehabilitation programmes and for services that take place in court, during custody and prior to release from prison that would be addressed by part 2 of the bill?
Who wants to speak about part 2 of the bill?
The Caledonian programme is restricted to a small cohort of people who meet certain criteria. Until recently, the landscape across Scotland involved individual local authorities applying to the Scottish Government for funding to deliver that programme and the funding was based on those individual bids.
More recently, in an effort to roll out the Caledonian programme and make it as consistently available as possible across Scotland, the Scottish Government changed its approach by moving away from an individualised bid arrangement, increasing the funding quantum and applying a standard funding formula across the 32 local authorities. That formula involves cleared-up crime, CPOs as a proportion of the population and rurality. There is a correlation between that and the number of domestic abuse incidents, but it is not a complete correlation, so there are already questions about whether the new approach provides enough capacity to deliver the Caledonian programme. We are at the start of testing that and will escalate it if necessary.
No other accredited programmes are available for people who do not meet the criteria for the Caledonian programme. That gap is one reason for the attrition rate that I alluded to earlier. At present, if someone who is a perpetrator of domestic abuse and is subject to a CPO without a programme or Caledonian requirement needs an intervention, that intervention will be designed on a local authority, case-by-case and individual basis, which means that there is no consistency across the 32 local authorities.
I am not speaking on behalf of the Law Society’s criminal law committee but speaking as the former chair of the Scottish advisory panel on offender rehabilitation and as someone who is currently running a trial of a new programme in justice, with the support of justice social work in Scotland and probation staff in England and Wales. We have known for years that there is a gap in provision. Over the past 15 years, a group of us have developed a short intervention in order to address some of that gap with perpetrators who use substances and that intervention has been trialled in Scotland.
The Scottish Government is supportive of those new developments, and I think that there are moves towards addressing that gap, but we are not there yet. We will be applying for the Sacro accreditation as well, so there are moves to address that. However, I heartily endorse the view that we do not have a great deal of kitemarked provision at the moment to address the needs in Scotland, and we need that. The is not the assessment but the availability of intervention.
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