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The James Smart Memorial Lecture 2007
Cathy Jamieson MSP
(Deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party; Minister for Justice, Scottish Executive 2003-07)
4 October 2007
Edinburgh
REFORMING THE LAW, RENEWING PARTNERSHIPS AND RECONNECTING WITH COMMUNITIES
Thanks, acknowledgement etc
I am honoured to have been invited to join the very distinguished list of speakers who have lectured in memory of James Smart.
During my time as Justice Minister, I had the pleasure of chairing this event in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, and know that it provides a significant opportunity to reflect on current issues.
Obviously my role has changed since the election in May, and there are many of you in the audience tonight who I am seeing for the first time since the election - after four years of working with you on a very regular basis. This is the first opportunity I have had to thank you for your support, wise counsel and sheer hard work. I am sure you are already offering that same support to my successor.
And putting party politics aside, I am sure that there will be occasions when - like me - he will listen carefully, weigh up the facts, and come to his own conclusions - making decisions that will not always please all of you, all of the time. But, that undoubtedly goes with the territory.
Having had four years to reform the justice system, I have now been tasked by Wendy Alexander, Labour's new leader in the Scottish Parliament, to produce and implement Party reforms in a rather shorter timetable! To the uninitiated that might sound like a less daunting task, but if you think the wheels of justice turn slowly, change within political parties might best be described as 'challenging'.
Introduction, scene setting
Over the last couple of years we have heard from Roy Cameron on policing in Scotland in the 21st century; Colin Boyd on the partnership between the police, prosecution and criminal justice partners; and Lord Robertson on the international dimension of keeping law and order. Vitally important and still relevant issues.
So in keeping with tradition I would like to offer my thoughts on what are some of the most important challenges facing Scotland today.
We are no doubt familiar with the challenges of tackling crime and anti-social behaviour. We are also acutely aware of the challenge of improving Scotland's health problems. We know too that there is still more to do on tackling the problems faced by the long term unemployed, regenerating the communities which were hit hardest by economic decline, and who are not yet fully sharing in the benefits of a more prosperous Scotland.
Facing up to these long-standing issues would be difficult enough without the sense that new equally urgent challenges are emerging.
Events in Scotland and the rest of the UK over the summer showed us with unwelcome clarity how the global problems that Roy Cameron discussed in 2004 which might have seemed distant then are now local and all too real. Whether it is severe flooding as a result of global warming or the attack on Glasgow Airport which brought international terrorism onto our doorstep (but also I should say brought out the very best in the Scottish Police Service!). It is clear that we are all going to need a fresh perspective on the priorities for Scotland in the 21st century.
Our knowledge, understanding and practice as a society - both in terms of our personal behaviours and delivery of public services - needs to expand at an unprecedented rate just to keep up.
The questions to be faced by many in this room this evening are whether we are ready for these challenges and, if so, then what must we do to transform ourselves and our organisations not just to keep pace but to lead the way.
This evening I can do no more than pick out one aspect of this vital debate. My focus will be on how the police service in Scotland and its close partners have evolved over the past few years and how they will need to continue to evolve to meet the challenges facing Scotland.
As the title of this lecture suggests, I believe this means an evolution of the law; of the nature and extent of partnership; and how public services connect to communities.
Background
The process of change and the need for reform of laws, institutions and services to deal with this change, was something I recognised in my time both as Minister for Education and Young People and as Minister for Justice.
In my 4 years in charge of the justice portfolio, my priority was to deliver a safer, stronger Scotland through an increasingly efficient and effective justice system that was understood to be on the side of ordinary, hard-working people.
My basic starting point was straightforward. We need a justice system that is:
· working to improve public safety for all;
· working to modernise the courts and criminal justice system as excellent public services for those who have to use them;
· working to deliver modern civil laws and civil justice to reflect the realities of modern Scottish life.
It is these basic principles that underpinned the radical reforms that were needed. By the time I left office we were already seeing some of the benefits:
· the record number of police officers - up nearly 1,500 since 1999 - backed by record levels of resources (some £1.1 billion);
· the historically high clear-up rates for crime - nearly half of all crimes (46 per cent) now solved compared with less than a third in the 1980s;
· the innovative work underway to tackle long standing problems like knife crime and sectarianism
Of course there were also a significant number of areas where we made progress in reforming civil justice - family law, legal aid and access to justice, to mention but a few. And the continuing challenges ahead in these spheres would well merit a separate lecture, but I will resist the temptation to pick up another thread and run off with it.
Criminal Justice Reform
The most comprehensive and radical platform for reform that I oversaw was contained in Scotland's Criminal Justice Plan, published in December 2004 (Supporting Safer, Stronger Communities: Scotland's Criminal Justice Plan). This essentially brought together the work necessary to deliver on the first two guiding principles: improving public safety and modernised criminal justice services.
Producing the Plan was a major piece of work. I make no apologies for pushing ahead with it, because it was vital to set out in detail what we wanted to achieve and how we would go about it. You might want to note my emphasis on 'we'. I use it because the Plan brought together the collective views of a range of people across the criminal justice system - including the victims of crime as well as the professionals.
I believe we delivered a far reaching and positive series of specific reforms:
- the Antisocial Behaviour Act 2004 and the framework for practice that goes with it is central.
- The establishment of the national Violence Reduction Unit brought new clarity to the fight against alcohol fuelled violence, knife crime and gangs.
- The work of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency in dismantling criminal networks, seizing and freezing the assets of those who prey on the vulnerable and cause such misery.
- Tighter laws on airguns and stricter controls on sex offenders.
- Significant expansion of treatment and care of drug users.
- The reform of the High Court through the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act 2004 meant fewer trials adjourned and thousands of witnesses spared the stress of unnecessary court trips.
- Improvements to practice around victims and vulnerable witnesses including child witnesses.
- The creation of Community Justice Authorities which from April this year have embedded a full partnership approach that straddles the prison walls - bringing together the expertise of the Scottish Prison Service with that of those partners delivering services in the community.
I want to say something briefly about two of these issues in particular.
First, drugs. I've seen first hand the impact of drug misuse on families and communities. I've listened to the desperation of parents who would do anything to get their heroin addicted son or daughter into rehabilitation. Parents who have spent their life savings to try and access treatment - not to mention having paid off the drug users debts. Parents who take on the responsibility for their children's children, unpaid and often unrecognised. People trying to do the right thing, who then find that the services and supports seem to them to be skewed in favour of those who have made little or no effort to change their ways. If we are serious about tackling the problem of drug misuse, we must be prepared to give more and better support to the families who have the day to day dilemmas.
That means, for example, being prepared to make available the full range of treatment options, whether residential or community, and work with the families rather than keeping them out of the process. And there are challenges in this - traditional ideas about confidentiality and information sharing will not sit easily with the need to better join up services and protect children. That might be uncomfortable for some, but ignoring the issue won't make it go away.
Secondly, sex offending. Another issue that matters to me not least because of my involvement over many years in supporting young people who have suffered abuse and been the victims of sex crimes. Listening to those experiences, understanding the suffering, giving a voice to those who had not been heard - and trying to articulate what needed to change in the justice system and the care system were absolutely at the heart of why I came into politics in the first place. Translating what had been for many years the private troubles of individuals into the public issues that could drive change.
And while we have still to see the detail of proposed legislation to reform the law on sex offending, I am confident that there will be consensus around the principles of reform. And in building that consensus I would hope and urge that the victim's perspective continues to be listened to, understood and acted on. That's why I nominated the Lindsay Armstrong Support Group to receive the honorarium from the lecture tonight.
The Criminal Justice Plan was never intended to be a quick fix, but rather a longer term plan of action.
For example, we have yet to see the full benefits of the radical reforms of the whole approach to summary justice, initiated by the recommendations of the McInnes Committee made in 2004 and established through the Criminal Proceeding (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007. We must continue to look beyond just efficiency to how justice is embedded within communities. We often talk of swift, visible justice but I think more is needed: swift, visible and responsive justice. That is why I remain committed to ideas such as the community courts which have proven so effective in New York and we are starting to see elsewhere.
So there is more to do. That's why I would argue, in line with the basic point of this lecture, that the focus must now move from simply reform of the law, toward changing practice. In particular, renewing and refreshing the partnerships that will ultimately help to reconnect with those communities who have in the past felt the justice system was not there for them.
Reform of the Scottish Police Service
Although the Scottish Police Service are integral to much of the work I have just summarised I have so far not made any specific reference to the reform agenda within the Scottish Police Service. In the time remaining to me I want to set out my views on this.
This is not a time to make narrow party political points and I do not want what I am saying here to be interpreted in that way. But I strongly believe that we need a collective vision for the way ahead for policing that builds on the changes we have made, and addresses the challenges ahead. While numbers matter, it's not the only issue.
Changes to policing over the last 25 years
I talk of reform of the police service. There is an explicit agenda of reform that I articulated when I was Minister for Justice in terms of four priorities:
· Establishment of the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) to free up resources and energy to allow local forces to focus on front-line activities.
· Effective partnership in the reforms of the criminal justice system.
· Strengthen financial systems and provide greater transparency in how resources are used.
· Improved measuring, managing and reporting of performance.
These priorities still set the agenda and provide a sound platform for further reform. There is quite properly a focus here on efficiency and developing partnerships. My view is that we need also look at whether more fundamental reform of the law is needed and perhaps most importantly, at how the police service can engage better with communities.
However, you don't need to wait for the top-down permission offered by a formal change programme, whether of laws or institutions, to change your own behaviour. In my time as a Minister and as a constituency MSP I recognise that police officers have shown themselves remarkably able to respond - from the bottom-up - to meet the new demands of 21st century Scotland.
It is therefore perhaps worth reflecting on the often less explicit side of this process of reform - the way the experience of policing has changed both from the point of view of police officers themselves and those who come into contact with them.
New threats
I talked earlier about how the world has changed and how public services need to respond to that change. There is no doubt that we have seen a tremendous increase in the sophistication of crime, which in many cases is just the flip-side of beneficial technological advances.
Crime is not only more technologically sophisticated it is also more international. Organised criminal networks trafficking drugs and people, funded through incredibly complex financial arrangements, whose influence is felt in a very basic way, at a very local level.
There is the problem of radicalisation and the links to new more fragmented forms of international terrorism. After June 30th at Glasgow Airport we now know that no agency in Scotland can exempt itself from the full range of actions required in pursuit of the CONTEST agenda. Scotland must be as prepared and protected as any other part of the UK.
A summer of sensationalist headlines have reminded us that, of course, the threat from more familiar problems remain - anti-social behaviour, violence, binge drinking, youth disorder. We can argue whether the reality backs up the headlines but the experience of threat and insecurity may very well be increasing.
New opportunities
Police officers - whatever their historical virtues - are not what they once were. As someone who represents a mining community, and who worked in social work during the miners strike, I can say to you that the present relationship between the police and local people, where they are welcomed and people want to see more of them, is a million miles away from where we were only 20 odd years ago.
And of course I am now at the stage in my life where it is not just the police on the beat that look young; so do Chief Constables and dare I say even HMCIC!
Against the background of the new threats, police officers are better trained, better equipped, better supported in terms of forensic and other technologies. Police officers make better use of intelligence; understand the sensitivities of sexual and racial crime; understand the very real issues for witnesses and victims; and see a much clearer role in preventing and not just solving crime.
No doubt the traditional skills which are necessary to guard and protect (as enshrined in the 1967 Police Act) are still there but there is so much more required and offered by today's police officers.
I have heard officers like Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan of the Violence Reduction Unit speak persuasively of the need for police officers to look further than ever before upstream of the point of impact - of the punch, of the stabbing, of the robbery. I am never sure whether John thinks the police officers of tomorrow should have midwifery training but looking, for instance, at the innovative and progressive work of the police officers embedded within schools, the point is a good one and well made.
A small but I think illuminating example of how there has been a shift in attitude is the recent partnership work in Strathclyde in relation to autistic spectrum disorder. Development of an alert card for people for ASD, and training for officers and custody staff on how to recognise and deal with the condition are a very positive step forward.
This is all to the immense credit of the police service, to a tradition well established of recruiting the very best, most able individuals with the right skills. Of course, we may wish to reflect on whether this process of diversification has gone too far. I think understood in the right context, clearly not; but of course things can always be taken too far. We will always want to ensure that core business remains core and not see police officers undertaking work better done by others.
At risk of upsetting my good friends in the Police Federation I think we have to look at what tasks could be done not just by PCSOs, but in some instances by others. And rather than this being a threat, it might actually help make the case for improved levels of community policing.
So, there are hard questions to ask - and answer. We may wish here again to reflect on some of the very same points made by Roy Cameron in his James Smart lecture in 2004 - his call for creative and I would say brave thinking remains relevant today.
An obvious area in which we may very well need to be creative and brave is legislation.
Not everyone may be convinced. The statutory framework for policing is still essentially that created by the 1967 Act but yet everything I've just said shows the police service can and has fundamentally reformed. So why can't it continue to do so without all the trouble of changing the law? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But there are times when law reform can act as a catalyst for debate and culture change. And I do believe that there is now a strong case to be made for reviewing and modernising the 1967 Act. Indeed precisely because of the positive changes we have seen, we must now ensure the role and functions of the police are clearly defined and ensure that the governance structures are fit for purpose.
Governance
Looking at these issues afresh doesn't mean throwing out the tripartite partnership, but it would give a chance to assess where constructive change needs to be made. Starting that process now, because it would take time, would help move the debate on from simply being about more and more resources year on year to a fundamental look at what we expect of policing in the 21st century.
Community engagement
As I said earlier, threats are different and so we have a different sort of police officer. And as communities have changed so have their attitudes to the police service. One thing seems certain - expectations will continue to rise.
So policing must change and adapt: more community focus, less red tape, smart use of technology.
Yet some things don't change - take the example of the PCSO's accused of not jumping in to save a drowning boy - the public clearly still want heroes in uniform as well as a 24-7 consumer-friendly service. And yes, they probably will demand both the call centre and the high visibility policing in their area!
As I have tried to suggest tonight, reforming the law is one part of the process - and I think it would be fair for me to lay claim to having been involved in more legislation than most. But that's not the end of the story - we must remember the importance of renewing partnerships - of working beyond traditional boundaries to deliver the right service at the right time. And above all the importance of reconnecting with communities - of being responsive to need without knee-jerking to the latest headline.
It strike me that the issues of partnership and community engagement are inseparable. Partnerships have two elements. Yes the police must adapt and change. But safer communities cannot be ordered from a shop and delivered by a uniformed police force alone. They are forged in and by the communities themselves. People have to make choices about the role they are prepared to play in those communities. This is one of the most fundamental issues facing all public services - how we develop and empower communities without making them dependent.
Every individual has a role as a parent or as a neighbour that they have to fulfil if we are to rebuild respect. We have each got to take some personal responsibility for what we do. Media and politicians too must pay their part. Highlighting problems - but also offering and showcasing solutions. Reflecting public views but not scaremongering.
But the public services must also reach out to those communities, be prepared to listen, engage and explain their role and actions. In some cases reconnecting might simply be about giving more information back to communities. In others it will take a real effort to bring people together in genuine partnerships, where local people's priorities are given equal weight to wider national concerns.
Examples such as the public reassurance policing pilot in Saracen in Glasgow show what is possible here. Imaginative use of techniques such as environmental visual audits, local surveys of priorities and multi-agency problem solving, all designed not only to tackle crime but to re-establish confidence in the very idea of community justice. I would hope that we could see more of this type of smart policing in the future.
Conclusion
As we know, James Smart made radical changes and introduced new policing methods, such as the introduction of the Mounted Branch, the abolition of the police rattle in favour of a whistle, and the issue of batons in place of sticks, not to mention the installation of the magnetic telegraph between police stations and fire stations.
Looking back over 4 years, during which time I worked with not just 8 chief constables, various Presidents of ACPOS, ASPS and SPF, 3 HMCICs and 2 deputy Ministers - not to mention 3 Home Secretaries - I think we could collectively claim to have taken forward his legacy. But as always, there is more to do.
Thank you.