10 November 2010
EQUALITY ADVISORY GROUP
Meeting on 10 Nov 2010 at 10.00am
Central Baptist Church Hall,
Present: Elinor Kelly (Chair)
Muhammad Sadiq (Minutes)
|
Members |
Delegates |
|
Bill Gray Bruce Adamson Bushra Iqbal Joe O’Donnell, HM Inspectorate Marsha Scott Monica Lee-MacPherson Susan Anderson |
Karen Kennedy Morag McLaughlin Sandy Mackie |
|
Apologies: |
Attending: |
|
Alan McCloskey Jim Sweeney Lesley Shoniwa, COPFS Pramila Kaur Tim Hopkins Fiona Duncan, Scottish Court Service David Young, Scottish Court Service |
Andrew Shanks, COPFS |
1. Welcome and Introductions:
The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for attending.
2. Minutes of previous meetings
2.1 The minutes of the meeting in Crown Office on 11th Aug 2010 were approved.
3. Matters arising
3.1. KK went through the Action Points from the previous meetings. (See separate Action Point sheet for updates).
3.2. HR Updates on current management initiatives.
SM gave a brief summary about current initiatives including attendance at the COPFS Equality and Diversity Autumn conference where there was a workshop on COPFS refocused values of Respect and Professionalism. Based on the platform created by this work, there will be a new Dignity at Work policy created.
MMcL gave an update about the COPFS Autumn conference. The Solicitor General opened proceedings and was followed by several external speakers from a wide range of communities and organisations including Fife Council, Stonewall
SM spoke about a Stonewall event which was organised by COPFS HR that was aimed at COPFS managers. One outcome of the event was that COPFS will now have its own LGBT staff network. HR looks forward to working with the new network to ensure that COPFS is an organisation of choice for the LGBT community.
SM then spoke about the inevitable public sector budget cuts. The Scottish Government will give details of its budget plans on the 17th November, 2010. Staff are understandably concerned about compulsory redundancies. MMcL added that Management Board have several projects ongoing all working to realise efficiency savings.
Action Point 1:
MS and MMcL are to meet to discuss a robust approach to Impact Assessment for proposed policy changes and efficiency savings following budget cuts.
4. EAG Membership and Chair
4.1 EK has spoken with Liz O’Neill, chair of the National Mental Health & Wellbeing for Older People Steering Group, who would be very interested in joining the group. MS spoke very highly of Liz, whom she has worked with in the past. EK asked the group to endorse the membership of Liz which they formally did. EK will invite Liz to the next meeting of the group in February 2011.
Action Point 2:
EK to contact Liz O’Neill and invite her to come to next meeting of the EAG in February 2011.
4.2 Both Helena Scott and Mukami McCrum have now resigned from the group. EK asked the group to consider suggestions for replacements. MS suggested that this might be a good opportunity to conduct exit interviews with the recently departed group members. It would also be desirable for EK and MS to meet to pass on information from the outgoing Chair to the incoming Chair.
Action Point 3:
KK to ask members to forward suggestions for additional members to her so that they could be considered at the next meeting.
Action Point 4:
EK to contact MM and HS to carry out exit interviews.
Action Point 5:
EK and MS to hold a hand over meeting for Chair of the group.
4.3 KK explained the process and voting procedure she had used to select and elect a new Chair and Vice Chair for the group. All were content with the process used. The outcome of the process was that MS has been elected as the new Chair of the group. The election for Vice Chair is still ongoing. The results of this will be circulated in due course.
4.4 EK thanked the group for all their hard work and support over the past 5 years and wished the new Chair every success in her endeavours for the future.
New Business
5. Paper 6/2010 Purpose Driven Precognitions.
Andrew Shanks introduced this paper and thanked the group for the opportunity to present the paper to them. He explained that this was a change to internal policy regarding the preparation of solemn casework. The purpose of the revised policy is to ensure that the precognition* interview of individual witnesses by COPFS solemn staff only takes place where there is a clear purpose for doing so and that the interview adds value to the overall preparation of the case. This is a departure from the existing practice of automatically interviewing certain categories of witnesses in every case.
*A precognition is an interview with a witness where a factual statement is noted.
From an internal perspective, this change will allow existing solemn resources to be focussed on areas that add real value to the case preparation process, such as the interview of expert witnesses.
From an external perspective, impact study exercises indicate that there is likely to be a reduction in the number of precognition interviews carried out. However, there will be no reduction in number of precognitions for vulnerable witnesses and there will be no changes made to the Victim Information and Advice (VIA) service.
The initial drafts were created by the High Court Precognition staff working group. These early drafts were published on PF Eye, COPFS internal website, the first time this has happened with new guidance. The working group also delivered road shows on the draft guidance and hosted a discussion forum on PF Eye where anonymous comments could be left. The draft guidance before the EAG today is the result of the feedback from all the above staff consultations.
SA asked if finance and staff resources were a consideration for changing existing practice? AS replied that the review of this guidance has never been resource driven, however, if better use can be made of our staff resources then this would be an additional benefit to the proposed changes.
MS asked what is known about the people who are currently precognosced compared to the groups that will be precognosced in the future? AS replied that it is difficult to anticipate the consequences of this guidance change for this question. However, there is currently a review of closed solemn cases underway. Once the new guidance is introduced there will be strict monitoring of its implementation.
BI asked the question that if the police omitted something in their report that was fundamental to the culture or diversity of the witness, how would COPFS know this if precognition isn’t used? AS replied that COPFS has always relied on police witness statements to carry out this work and that there will be an assessment of such witness statements on a case by case basis. There will be a new protocol with ACPOS (Association of Chief Police Officers, Scotland) with regard to the standard and quality of police witness statements.
JS asked if implementation of the new precognition policy would be after the new police protocol is in place? AS replied that the COPFS policy will go ahead before the police protocol.
The group then went through the draft guidance document only.
|
Paragraph |
Comment |
|
#3 |
SA suggested a cross reference to guidance for how to assess witnesses be included here. |
|
#10 |
JS suggested mentioning the new policy witness protocol here. |
BI asked how would the Solemn Manager know that the witness hasn’t told the police everything? i.e. that the witness has more information to give and should be precognosced? AS replied that a decision to precognosce a witness is based on a number of considerations including: previous knowledge of that witness; nature of the offence; VIA (Victim Information and Advice) input; the precognoscer’s “considered opinion of the case. In addition, the witness will also have the opportunity to see their statement and can add to it or flag up both to the police and COPFS any discrepancies in their statement. AS added that VIA has contact with the witness from an early stage in proceedings which is a big safeguard if any information has been missed.
MS was concerned by this answer because, in her experience, VIA staff are reluctant to talk about the details of a case with witnesses.
MMcL informed the group that guidance in relation to vulnerable witnesses would be expanded to ensure that all considerations are given to such witnesses.
MS enquired whether it was documented when the Solemn Manager decided not to precognosce a witness? AS confirmed that all decisions not to precognosce a witness must be recorded by the Solemn Manager.
MS suggested that a breakdown of witnesses who are not precognosced as a result of the new policy should be included in the monitoring process.
EK added that the old list of categories of witnesses that should be precognosced should be amended with details of the new policy categories.
MS believes there should be a presumption to interview witnesses in domestic abuse cases. AS replied that an assessment of the reasons behind the hostility or reluctance of a witness would suggest that the witness should be interviewed. However COPFS would not wish to go down the route of listing the types of cases where there should be a presumption in favour of precognition.
MMcL commented that COPFS will be more overt about linking this guidance with other guidance, specifically about Hate Crime and Domestic Violence.
In response to paragraph 19, AS said that any information provided by witnesses to VIA staff is recorded and is disclosed to the Defence.
Action Point 6:
The replacement member of COPFS staff for Andy Shanks to provide an update on paper 6/2010 (Purpose Driven Precognitions) for the Feb meeting.
Action Point 7:
BI, BA, SA, and MS to provide comments on the other documents associated with paper 6/2010 by 22 Nov.
6. Paper 07/2010: Advertising of Fatal Accident Inquiries (FAIs)
KK introduced this paper about COPFS plans to change the way that it advertises FAIs. A general discussion ensued with the group agreeing in principle with the use of one local paper and the use of online media to publicise an FAI event. It was suggested that the advertisement should appear on several web sites, for example NHS, Scottish Government, local Authority and local police force. Perhaps even Facebook and Twitter?
The group decided that it was not in a position to advise on this issue of accessibility unless a review of the current procedure is done. The issue will be on the agenda for the Feb 2011 meeting.
7. AOCB –
7.1 KK distributed the expected list of attendees for the community engagement event following the meeting today.
7.2 KK reminded the members of the need to complete member declaration forms and to have an up to date basic Disclosure Scotland certificate in order to be a member of the group.
7.3 KK asked the group to consider where and when the next community engagement event should take place. The areas still to be visited are Argyle and Clyde (Paisley), Ayrshire (Kilmarnock) and Lothian and Borders (
7.4 MMcL gave a vote of thanks to the outgoing Chair, EK for the service and commitment she has given to the EAG and to COPFS during her time as both a member and Chair of the group. All agreed that she will be sadly missed.
Action Point 8:
KK to canvas availability of Paisley and
8. Date and venue of next meeting and proposals for agenda
10 am on Wed 2nd February, 2011 at Crown Office.