First and foremost, I express my deepest condolences to the families of Katie Allan and William Lindsay. I am deeply sorry for their deaths. Suicide is a tragedy, but it is also preventable, and the deaths of those two young people should not have happened while they were in the care of the state.Sheriff Simon Collins KC has issued a comprehensive and hard-hitting determination that resonates deeply. Accountability starts with acceptance. The Scottish Government accepts Sheriff Collins’s finding that those deaths were preventable and that systemic failures contributed to their deaths. Systemic failures require a systemic response. I hear and fully understand the families’ demand for action and agree that we must take action, and we will.
Sheriff Collins has made 25 thoughtful and substantial recommendations. I accept those recommendations and commit to addressing in detail each and every one of them in our full formal response. I will report to the Parliament again when we provide that.
I set out to the Parliament six specific and direct actions that will contribute to the systems-wide reform that must now take place. I am determined to lead change across the Scottish Prison Service, the national health service and broader partners in order to take forward the necessary reforms. Although many changes have already taken place, further improvements are needed at operational and procedural levels. I also expect to see cultural change in the way that agencies work individually and collectively.
To ensure that we drive change and implementation and achieve the impact that is needed, we must strengthen oversight and accountability, and that needs to be independent. Starting now, we need oversight of the actions that are taken as a result of Sheriff Collins’s determination, including those that I will set out today. I have therefore asked His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons in Scotland to provide oversight and monitoring of implementation and, crucially, to review the actions that are taken to ensure that they meet the required outcome. I have asked the inspectorate to involve families and prisoners, just as it should involve prison staff, and to seek other expert advice. The inspectorate will report directly to me.
We also need independent national oversight in relation to deaths in custody. Work is already under way on that, but I will ensure that specific proposals are brought forward by March this year. Those proposals will strengthen accountability in relation to fatal accident inquiry recommendations and ensure that thematic and systemic issues are identified and addressed, which will also inform and support work on prevention.
I turn to the actions. The first relates to the physical environment in prisons and focuses on ligature and risk assessments. Sheriff Collins stressed the need for greater recognition by the SPS of the importance of ligature prevention. I confirm that the SPS will urgently and immediately review and revise its policy on items that can be used as ligatures. The SPS has taken action to address and refurbish the physical environment and has introduced trauma-informed training for staff that focuses on support for young people. It will do more by developing an anti-ligature risk assessment, which will further support work to ensure that spaces can be as safe as possible. In addition, the development of suicide prevention technology will be accelerated and, if viable, piloted and reviewed.
The second action relates to mental health services and information sharing. The Scottish Prison Service’s suicide prevention strategy, talk to me, will be completely revised and overhauled. William Lindsay’s case was, sadly, not unique. He was let down by many services before he arrived in custody, and there were failings in sharing information about his needs. We need to ensure that that can never happen again. The Scottish Government, the SPS, the national health service and the Scottish courts will work urgently and immediately to ensure that all the written information and documentation that are available to the courts are passed to the SPS at the time of a person’s admission to prison. A standardised approach to sharing relevant information from agencies will also be developed.
The third action relates to death in prison learning and audit reviews. Those reviews will now include consideration of the safety of the prisoner’s physical environment and the means by which they were able to die by suicide. That was a specific recommendation made by Sheriff Collins. The reviews now also allow for input from families, following engagement with the family reference group. However, there is more that we must do. I therefore confirm that, with immediate effect, independent chairing of DIPLARs will be extended to all deaths in custody. I also confirm that the learning and key actions from those reviews will be available to those performing the independent national oversight role.
The fourth action relates to legal aid for bereaved families who participate in fatal accident inquiries. Currently, families are entitled to legal aid on the basis of means testing, with the majority of families receiving support. However, in recognition of the special significance of a death in custody, we will change the legal aid system to make legal aid free, with no means testing, in relation to fatal accident inquiries into deaths in custody. That will require primary legislation, which we will introduce at the earliest opportunity. Alongside that, I will bring forward proposals in relation to family advocacy and support outside the formal FAI process.
The fifth action relates to the FAI process. I agree with Sheriff Collins, among others, that the period of five years between the deaths and the first notice of inquiry was far too long. It is clear that the process is letting families down and that the time taken for FAIs to start and conclude needs to be addressed. I understand that the families do not want another review. However, unless we specifically look at the efficiency and effectiveness of the whole system, we will not see the improvements that are needed. I have discussed that with the Lord Advocate, who shares my view. I am therefore commissioning a focused independent review of the FAI system that will look at the efficiency, effectiveness and trauma-informed nature of investigations into deaths in prison custody. I will ask the inquiry chair to report to me by the end of this year on the solutions and the tangible actions that need to be taken.
Finally, although this is not in my gift to introduce, I will continue to pursue the lifting of Crown immunity with the United Kingdom Government. I believe that that should change in line with the position with other public bodies.
We also need to take more steps to improve alternatives to custody. Since I became justice secretary, I have said that there needs to be a shift in the balance from custody to justice in the community. People who break the law must face consequences for their actions, and sometimes there is no alternative to the punishment of depravation of liberty. In other cases, that can be done safely and more effectively in the community. Let me be clear: people need to stop calling that “soft justice”. If our mindset is that jail is the only option, we will never be able to stop the impacts that imprisonment can have on people, families and society, which lead to further societal costs that we all pay for.
I want to go further on community justice and to drive more innovation in that area. Last year, I visited Northern Ireland and heard at first hand about the positive impact that has been achieved through its system of enhanced combination orders, which enable judges to address offending behaviour through alternatives to custody while providing for support and intervention to address the underlying drivers of such behaviour. Such examples speak to the whole-system approach that we need here. I will come back to the Parliament with plans to strengthen our community order system, and I want members to remember this day when I do so.
Like everybody here, I do not want there to be any preventable deaths in our prisons, and there should be no suicides. I assure members that we will address the systemic failures that were identified by Sheriff Collins and strengthen oversight of and accountability for the reforms that must be made. I expect services to be provided within a culture of transparency, candour and compassion. That is particularly true in relation to all people who are in the care of the state. Accountability starts with acceptance, but it does not end there. Accountability must also result in answers and actions that lead to lasting change.
I again extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of William Lindsay and Katie Allan, and to all families who have been affected by a death in custody. I know that they do not want condolences or hand wringing. It is action that they seek, and it is such action that we will deliver.
ANGELA CONSTANCE