As part of a recent reform to budget scrutiny in the Scottish Parliament, all committees now undertake pre-budget scrutiny of the draft budget which is subsequently published later in the calendar year. The purpose of pre-budget scrutiny is for the committees to produce, report and provide comment to the Scottish Government on the delivery, impact, and funding of existing policy priorities and any proposed changes, and how these should be funded. The aim is to influence the budget when priorities are being set.
Our priority areas
The Justice Committee is therefore seeking views at this pre-budget stage on the following matters:
1. What is your view on the current trends in funding in the justice portfolio and the Scottish Government’s rationale for these?
2. What has been the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on the activities of your organisation and its spending requirements?
3. What is the likely change to your needs in the financial year 2021/22 because of COVID-19 and more generally?
4. How has your organisation adapted to working during the pandemic, what further changes are needed and what changes are you planning to retain after the pandemic has ended?
5. What other matters and pressures on spending do you wish to bring to the attention of the Committee?
How to submit views
The call for written views will close on Friday 30 October 2020.
Before making a submission, please read our privacy notice about submitting your views to a committee. This tells you about how we process your personal data. It is particularly important to note that we would not normally publish information that we consider to be defamatory or which contains personal information about a third party.
Please note that the Justice Committee does not usually involve itself in individual cases or complaints and your submission should, whilst drawing on any of your own personal experiences, focus on the spending priorities for 2021/22.
We welcome written views in English, Gaelic, Scots or any other language. Due to the time required to process and analyse evidence, late submissions will only be accepted with the agreement of the clerk.
Written responses should be sent electronically, in the template format, to the following address. Ideally they should be no more than four sides of A4.
[email protected]
If you cannot submit electronically you may send in a hard copy written submission to:
Justice Committee
Scottish Parliament
Holyrood
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP
Please note that, due to Coronavirus restrictions, all committee staff are currently working mainly from home and there may be a delay in the clerks receiving a hard copy document sent by post to the Parliament. We would therefore prefer electronic submission.