Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): We have with us Hugh Widdis, permanent secretary of the Department of Justice; Lisa Rocks, assistant secretary in the Department's justice performance team; Gary McDonald, PSNI Chief Superintendent; and Peter Luney, senior assistant director in the Public Prosecution Service (PPS). I welcome you all to the meeting. Thank you for making the time to come to the Committee again. At this point, I will allow you to make any opening statements that you may have.

Mr Hugh Widdis (Department of Justice): That is helpful, Deputy Chair. Thank you for having us back, Deputy Chair and Committee. The Committee has already had an evidence session with us, but we thought that it might be helpful to come back to talk to you one more time to talk about the agreed cross-justice proposals on expanding the use of out-of-court proposals, particularly penalty notices. I will begin by outlining, briefly, the general context. The general context of our work on expanding the out-of-court disposals is really important because of the significant financial pressure on the justice system, which we think it will continue to experience over the coming years. That indicates how important it is to do meaningful transformation in the way that we process matters and deal with cases in the system, as it is the only way to continue to secure an effective and sustainable justice system.

The Justice Minister and colleagues from the finance division recently provided the Committee with details of the proposed multi-year budgets in the draft proposed Budget, which was consulted on. I do not want to bore the Committee on this again, but our assessment is that we face stabilisation pressures of £100 million next year, £140 million the following year and £215 million in the third year of the spending review period. I have rounded those figures slightly for the Committee's benefit. That is before the exceptional pressures, of which the Committee is well aware, relating to holiday pay, McCloud and legacy issues are taken into account. The Minister has described such figures as catastrophic for the justice system. She has pointed out that, in the third year, for example, a £215 million stabilisation pressure would be the entirety of the Prison Service, the probation service, the Youth Justice Agency and Forensic Science NI combined. That is the scale of the pressures on justice that we are talking about. We are working through that more generally, and we will be happy to come back and talk to the Committee about it, once the Budget is finally agreed by the Executive. The magnitude of the pressures facing us means that transformation is critical. Securing additional funding for transformation is a key priority to ensure that the Department can continue to deliver all its demand-led services in the most efficient way possible.

The Minister and the Department, and, indeed, I and colleagues, therefore very much welcomed the additional £235 million that was allocated to public-sector transformation, controlled by the transformation board, which is chaired by the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The Committee will be aware that the board has considered two tranches of funding. The Department was successful in getting funding from bids put into the first tranche, and one of those has given us an opportunity for additional investment in speeding up and transforming the criminal justice system. You will also be aware that we were successful in getting investment for technology for electronic monitoring. Those investments, which, we think, will help transform both the system and delivery, would not have happened at the same pace had that funding not been available from the Executive. We have been reducing in order to live within the available budget for Justice, despite there having been increasingly complicated and complex demands across the justice system as a whole. There is therefore limited space for much-needed transformation, but we are committed to doing it wherever we can.

We regard the speeding up justice (SUJ) programme in particular as a flagship business transformation across the whole system. It is not exclusively a DOJ programme but very much a whole-system response to the increasing demand in the system and to the need to do things differently to get better outcomes for victims and all those who engage with the system. The programme includes system improvements as well as working with justice partners to identify initiatives that can be taken forward to reduce avoidable delay. It is all about rebalancing resources to focus on the most serious offending. That means that there will be difficult choices to make. We cannot continue to do everything with the trajectory of funding that we have been experiencing and might expect to experience over the next few years, so we are trying to take risk-based decisions to slow down or stop doing things where there is low risk in order to focus on areas of greater risk. In relation to the material today, we are making sure that we put proportionately more effort into more serious types of offending and have a proportionately lower-investment response to less serious types of offending.

Delay in the system is significant, as you know. We are working to reduce that through the SUJ programme and beyond. There is a risk that victim and witness attrition gets so high that justice becomes ineffective. If cases are delayed too long and people drop out of the process because of the pressure that that delay necessarily brings, justice itself can become ineffective. Speeding up justice, therefore, is a programme not just to make things slicker and more efficient but to make sure that we provide justice to people. That will help us to provide justice as a deterrent and to deliver the safer communities priority that the Executive have set for us all.

The Minister and Criminal Justice Board colleagues, in line with the Programme for Government, have agreed to out-of-court disposals as one of the key strands in the speeding up justice programme and as a mechanism to help reduce demand from lower-level offending in order to allow greater focus on more serious offending. I cannot stress enough that that is a shared criminal justice organisational objective and not just a Department of Justice one. We have suitable governance in place to ensure that issues can be identified and addressed as need be.

As members know, there are five interrelated projects in the programme, of which out-of-court disposal is only one. They are all interconnected parts of how we might deliver significant reform over the next few years. Achieving that will rely on the successful implementation of the proposed expansion of penalty notices and prosecutorial fines. Without that change, we will face reducing budgets and increasing demand without a mechanism by which to get some of the lower-level demand out of the system. The proposal is not that that demand is taken out of the system altogether; it will be dealt with. The proposal is that it will be dealt with without taking up the additional time that is required to get matters to the Magistrates' Court. We very much look to the Committee to help us to shape the reform. Having put it out for consultation and seen the responses to that, as well as hearing the views of the Committee, we very much acknowledge things such as the wider concerns around assault occasioning actual bodily harm (AOABH) being one of the offences that we might have added to this system. On the basis of that concern, we are excluding those offences from the proposals.

The remaining proposals are about building on existing police powers rather than doing something that has not been done before. We are absolutely not going soft on crime in any way; we think that the proposals represent a proportionate response to lower-level offending, based on decisions taken by experienced police officers in the field in a system that is dealing with the increasing complexity of crime across the gamut of criminal activity. Ultimately, the proposals relate to crimes for which our courts currently impose relatively low-level fines. We think that the proposals will lead to the same outcome but in a quicker and more efficient way that will reduce demand on front-line officers, who would otherwise have to attend court; reduce demand on prosecutors, who would otherwise have to process those things; and reduce court time. The proposals are absolutely not directed at more serious offending, which should, and, I have no doubt, will continue to be prosecuted in the Magistrates' Court and the Crown Court, attracting much tougher sentences.

I am really grateful to the Committee for agreeing to give us this extra time to discuss the issues further before it expresses its final views. We are happy to help in any way that we can. Thank you so much.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Thank you very much for that brief summation. From my perspective, what has been outlined looks sensible. We need to move towards prioritising prevention of crime, supporting people and showing compassion and empathy, rather than following some of the procedures that we have seen in the past.

I will open it up to members for questions.

Mr Beattie: Thank you, Hugh. You outlined that really well, and I think that everybody is pretty much on your side on the proposals and on speeding up justice. It is right that we do that in whatever imaginative way that we can.

I am looking at some of the responses that led to the removal of the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm from the proposals. However, I have to be clear on this: my party has concerns about the inclusion of assault on police. That is a concern for us for a number of reasons. We do not want what people think about assault on police to be minimised, and we are concerned that police officers will feel forced to go down the out-of-court disposal route, as opposed to going further. One of our biggest issues, however, is that we think that it contradicts the Criminal Justice (Sentencing etc) Bill. The Sentencing Bill is looking for attacks on public-sector workers to be an aggravated offence, yet this would drop the offence down the scale again. We feel that there is a degree of contradiction in that.

If I may say so, Hugh, the responses show that assault on police is one of the areas on which the proportion of organisations that agreed is not close to 50% — the figure is down at 40%. As much as 25% of the organisations that responded indicated that assault on police should not be included. The proportion of individuals who said that it should not be included is right up at 80%. That is our concern. Our concern is not with the overall scheme but with the assault on police element.

Mr Widdis: That is really helpful, Mr Beattie. I might ask Gary to come in with some of the detail on that, but I will say a couple of things first.

I know that this has been said before, but I again reassure the Committee that DOJ did not come up with the proposals on its own. The whole programme has been signed off by the Criminal Justice Board, the composition of which members know. Different projects are led by different parts. All the organisations that are led by the PSNI developed that particular proposal. I will let Gary explain from the point of view of the PSNI, but the PSNI is, broadly speaking, content with the proposals. We do not think that there will be issues with officers feeling under pressure not to report it. I am happy to talk about that.

Our firm position is that, if people who provide a front-line service are assaulted or attacked, that needs to be treated with additional seriousness, which is exactly what the Sentencing Bill does. However, that does not contradict the fact that, in any kind of crime, there will always be offending at the lowest level, even if, for the most serious level, aggravating factors are heaped on top. We think that, whilst there will always be cases of common assault on a front-line worker that are at the top of the scale, in which, for example, there will be an aggravating factor and a sentence related to that, very low-level assaults at the bottom of the scale will still be committed. We have the evidence to show — we are happy to give it to the Committee again — that some of those offences that go to the Magistrates' Court attract very low fines. That comes at considerable expense and difficulty, resulting in delay and trauma for victims, given the process that is necessary in order to get the case to court. We think that even those cases can be dealt with by a fine. I invite Gary to offer the PSNI perspective.

Chief Superintendent Gary McDonald (Police Service of Northern Ireland): We have talked about this before, Doug. From a policing perspective, I come back to a key message about our proposal on the offence of assault on police, which is that it is an additional tool in the toolkit. We already do it at the community resolution notice (CRN) level, and this is one step up. It is an addition to the toolkit; it does not replace one thing with another. Probably only 20% of the demand in relation to assault on police will be dealt with by a community resolution notice or a penalty notice for disorder (PND), because, for everything else that goes to court, there is, ultimately, a conviction with the potential for sentences and higher penalties. We are targeting the 20% of the demand that currently attracts a £150 monetary-only penalty.

We have engaged with our front line. The Police Federation for Northern Ireland supports the proposal in principle — it has consulted its membership — and has said that it would like to be involved in the writing of the operational guidance. That will probably focus on injury thresholds. As I said previously, I am a police officer with experience of front-line policing, and I do not want to do anything to undermine the federation's Let Them Protect campaign or the messaging around how unacceptable it is to assault a police officer in the course of their duties. The fact is, however, that there are probably offences that go undetected and unreported because, when it comes to creating a prosecution file, police officers on the ground say, "It's just not worth it". It is about those lower-level offences that result in low-level injury or no injury, such as a push during an arrest or — there are examples of this — throwing an empty plastic bottle at a police officer. There is an arena of common assault in which violence and battery do not occur, and that is the space that we are in.

That is what I mean about adding to the toolkit. It is about being proportionate. We can create guidance on the offences that makes sure that, in cases in which there is significant or serious injury and the officer who has been injured or assaulted wants to prosecute, that can happen. I say that for your reassurance on some of the really good points that you made. The other thing to say is about quality assurance. The PPS comes in to check our decision-making on, for example, disposals by community resolution notice — I see it happening with penalty notices — and dip-samples some of it to make sure that it is consistent. Exercising discretion in those cases is not new to our front-line officers; they are used to it. As I said, we already do it in the case of community resolution notice offences, and we are relaxed about dealing with this in that we trust officers to use the appropriate disposals in the appropriate cases.

Mr Beattie: Thanks, Gary and Hugh. I take comfort from what you say, particularly because the federation will help to design it. If I am honest, one of my concerns is public confidence. Public understanding of what we are doing is a real concern, because, as I said, in the Sentencing Bill, we say, "If you attack front-line workers, we'll come down harder on you", but this, in their perception, says, "We won't; we're going to give you a fine". That creates a real confidence issue. You are absolutely right, Gary, when you talk about the Let Them Protect campaign. The perception will be, "They have the Let Them Protect campaign, but now they are saying 'Don't worry about assaults on us; we'll just give a fine for that'". That is my concern. How do you build in that understanding for the people? If the people do not have confidence in it, we will have trouble.

Mr Widdis: That is a valid concern, and I totally agree with you. There are many factors that affect confidence, one of which is delay. The whole programme — this push to create some space in the Magistrates' Court, interlinked with all the other things in the programme — is about reducing delay. Delay is one of the major factors when it comes to confidence. Getting more out-of-court disposals while still providing fairness for victims etc can only help with confidence, although I appreciate the contrary point.

I do not think that it is beyond us to collectively give some attention to communicating exactly what the difference is. At the very serious end, you will never get a penalty notice. We have strict guidelines on that. The Department issues them, and the PSNI follows up. There is a nine-point plan on what to do in relation to assaults on police etc. We can communicate very clearly and say, "At very low levels, we may give you a penalty notice" — I say, "we" collectively; I mean the PSNI — "but, if it is anything worse than that, you will be hit, and, once we get the new legislation through, you will be hit even harder" in order to provide deterrents at both levels.

We know that the effect of community resolutions and quick penalties on recidivism and repeat offending can be very positive. When it comes to the rates of getting people not to do very low-level offending, a fine is actually much more effective than prosecuting people through the Magistrates' Court. From recollection, it is 16% or something, compared with 40%.

Mr Beattie: We have talked a lot about saving the courts time, but I know what we are like in copper-fastening things that we do. Will it save the police time, or will us copper-fastening it mean that police officers will end up using all their time to deal with not just writing the notice but all the follow-up action that goes with it?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: It will save police time, because dealing with the investigation and a penalty notice is less bureaucratic than, for example, creating a full prosecution file, which has to be created by our front-line officers, built by our case management teams and then submitted to the PPS for a decision. Therefore, it will create time savings for officers. I go back to the point that, when an officer is assaulted, it is up to the investigating officer to make the decision: if they feel that it is appropriate, they can proceed with that.

Mr Widdis: For comparison, I am sure that the Committee is aware of the no file decision pilot.

Mr Beattie: Yes.

Mr Widdis: We have saved 4,000 police hours already as a result of that, and nothing has gone to PPS, so it has saved that amount of time in PPS as well. Lisa has some figures specifically on the proposals.

Ms Lisa Rocks (Department of Justice): A broad estimation is that the proposals for those five offences could save up to 925 police days and 185 days of PPS time. That is not taking account of the time that is taken in the Magistrates' Court handing out the monetary penalties.

Mr Beattie: That is really useful. Thank you.

Mr Widdis: Grouping the five offences, the proposals will clear something like 5% of all Magistrates' Court proceedings. I appreciate that the Committee might not be happy with all the proposals, but, if you take them collectively, that means that we can clear out 5% of those cases, which, again, frees up capacity in the Magistrates' Court and means much less time spent on them by PSNI and PPS colleagues.

Mr Kingston: Thank you for your attendance today. We all agree on the need to speed up justice — that speaks for itself — and to ensure that justice is being delivered. As we have said previously, we need to get the right balance between punishment of offenders, deterrents from other offences, protection of the public, rehabilitation of offenders and public messaging. Similar to Doug, the DUP has serious concerns about assaults on police being included. We also think that that inclusion runs counter to the new offence in the Sentencing Bill of attacks on public workers. The police are very much public workers who are on the front line in difficult circumstances.

Can you explain what currently happens? Say someone is charged with physically resisting arrest: when does that count as assault? What happens? Are there circumstances in which what could be called "an assault on police" is dealt with differently, without it going to court? Is there are already some discretion? Is there a potential outcome other than it just being dismissed as a no file decision?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Yes. I will take your last point first. We have one existing out-of-court disposal for assault on police: the community resolution notice. That assault on police is within the criteria for a CRN. Ultimately, what it means is that it will go on to a police record for a year, and the police officer may get a verbal apology from the defendant — that is it. For anything beyond the community resolution notice, we are into the realms of a file to the PPS, which may end up in a caution, for example. There is always that option. However, there is just nothing in between. The penalty notice fills that gap somewhat, in that we are going beyond a mere apology. We could issue the penalty notice, and we are going for the highest level of £150, which is sort of consistent with the monetary penalties that are issued at the Magistrates' Court in cases that result in a monetary penalty only. Therefore, we get the same result sooner. In the appropriate cases, the penalty notice feels a little bit more sufficient than the community resolution notice.

As to assault versus resisting, every circumstance is different. It is an offence, in and of itself, where there is any sort of resistance to a police officer conducting their duty, whereas an assault speaks more of an actual battery or where an officer apprehends immediate unlawful violence. Sometimes, they go hand-in-hand. You get many instances where there is an assault, an obstruction and a resisting. That will go for prosecution, because there are many different offences involved in that particular incident. This is for the offences that are one-off; that are at the lower end; where there is no significant injury; where there is no previous offending; and where we think that, in the grand scheme of things, considering all the circumstances, including the views of the officer, rather than creating a prosecution file to take the case to court, it is more proportionate to issue a penalty notice, where they get a £150 fine and 28 days to pay it. We just feel that it would be a really useful tool to fill that gap.

Again, previous comments apply. Where there is more injury or it is a repeat offender, we seek to prosecute those cases every day and we will continue to do that.

Ms Rocks: I want to reiterate the point about the savings. For a case like that, we estimate that the proposal will save five hours of a police officer's time, which could be spent on front-line duties rather than on file build.

Mr Kingston: Obviously, the more serious assaults would not be dealt with, even if it did go through.

Chief Superintendent Gary McDonald: Absolutely. The Police Federation has supported that aspect of the proposal. I have engaged directly with the federation, and it has carried out consultation with its membership. The federation has requested that it be involved actively in the writing of the guidance. I am more than content and happy to do that with the federation. Then, we can pitch the level of injury, for example. We can write in specific guidance. We can include a community resolution notice and a penalty notice, and detail when each would and would not be appropriate. We are more than happy to do that with the federation.

Mr Kingston: Different phrases are used. What all is covered by out-of-court disposals? Are penalty notices the same as on-the-spot fines, or is an on-the-spot fine a type of penalty notice? There are also community resolution notices. What is meant by the different terms?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: There is a range of out-of-court disposals. At the very lowest level is an officer's discretion, where an officer will perhaps provide advice and guidance on detection of an offence. Then, it slowly goes up the scale. A community resolution notice is the next level up. That is for an agreed subset of offences: for example, where damage is caused; perhaps in a neighbour dispute or something. There could be an agreement to put the damage right or pay compensation, and that is the matter resolved.

We also issue fixed penalty notices for road traffic offences. There are other out-of-court disposals that would be agreed with the Public Prosecution Service. For example, an adult caution or an informed warning could be issued.

It is important to say that an out-of-court disposal happens at the conclusion of a full police investigation. It therefore does not compromise the investigation or anything that we do in the course of pursuing lines of enquiry. Rather, it happens at the end of a full and robust investigation, in which all the facts relevant to the case have been considered. We then make a recommendation to the PPS. The PPS could direct adult cautions or informed warnings. There is then a suite of out-of-court disposals for juvenile offenders within the youth justice system. That is a separate system, but informed warnings are issued.

We are pursuing other restorative justice initiatives, which, again, will be done in conjunction with the PPS. We are looking at where a restorative justice disposal may be appropriate for certain crime types. It is one part of a suite of initiatives in the toolbox that will empower officers to look at the circumstances of each case and make an appropriate decision.

Mr Kingston: People sometimes talk about on-the-spot fines. Is an on-the-spot fine a penalty notice?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Yes.

Mr Kingston: A penalty notice does not have to be issued on the spot. It can be issued at a later stage.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Yes, that is right. If, for example. somebody is taken into custody, an on-the-spot fine could be the disposal issued the following day when they have sobered up. It is not an on-the-spot fine in the sense that it has to be paid on the spot. It is more like a fixed penalty ticket. Someone will get a ticket and then have a period in which to pay the fine. As long as they pay the fine, that is the matter concluded. If they do not, however, the matter will go to court.

Mr Widdis: If it is an assault on a police officer, another police officer will be doing the investigation, treating that police officer as a victim and listening to what the victim police officer says, which is quite right. It divides up responsibility, and the actual victim is not allowed to take part. It necessarily means speaking to the alleged offender, speaking to witnesses who may have been there, doing other investigations and speaking to the victim officer to see what he or she thinks. Only then could it result in an out-of-court disposal. Otherwise, the case would be sent to the Public Prosecution Service and proceed to court.

Mr Kingston: The assaulted officer would therefore not have to make the decision, at least not on their own, as they are the victim.

Mr Widdis: The decision maker would very much be another officer.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: It is part of the nine-point plan. We have said that an assaulted officer should not be investigating their own case. It will be investigated by a separate investigating officer, and the assaulted officer will be treated as the victim. We will take their to their view regarding a disposal. The investigating officer will then progress that.

Mr Kingston: Do out-of-court disposals count towards a criminal record or not? When are they spent? How do they differ from court outcomes?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Community resolution notices, fixed penalty tickets and penalty notices do not go on criminal records, but they do stay on police records. The adult caution, I think, does, and —

Mr Widdis: It does.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: — the informed warning does as well, being as it is at the higher end of out-of-court disposals.

Mr Kingston: OK, whether they go on a criminal record is not uniform. The more serious cases do count towards a criminal record.

Ms Ferguson: I have only one question. Sinn Féin supports out-of-court disposals. The evidence that you have presented demonstrates how they will save time. They give you an additional tool, but there is still a full investigation undertaken. Out-of-court disposals simply expand the suite of tools available, so I absolutely get how they can help speed up justice. The £20·5 million in transformation money is central to achieving what you want to achieve. If the proposals were not to go ahead, however, what would happen to the money that was secured from the transformation fund?

Mr Widdis: I will ask Lisa, as the senior responsible officer (SRO) to come in, but that money was given to us to spend on particular things. We made the bid and outlined how we would transform criminal justice. We are funded not for the speeding up justice programme as a whole but for early engagement and out-of-court disposals, so we cannot shift the funding's use without going back to the board. We cannot even shift it to use for something digital. The board would not allow that. We have to show the return on the investment that we are getting and how we are spending it to plan. We therefore have to satisfy the board that we are getting the kinds of outcomes that we said that we would get. We are investing in ways that will help deliver the out-of-court disposals stream. If, however, we cannot get the right number of cases out of the Magistrates' Court, that will slow down what we can do with the rest of the programme as well.

Furthermore, if we cannot spend the money wisely on the things that the board has agreed that we will spend it on, we are required, in principle, to return it to the board, through, I think, the Department of Finance for it to be reallocated to other activities.

Ms Rocks: Yes. That would have a knock-on effect on the wider programme. We would not have the capacity to look at the likes of the remit of the Magistrates' Court, so we would not have freed up that capacity. We would therefore try to focus the resources on the Crown Court for more serious offences. Yes, there is therefore very limited flexibility with the funding.

Ms Ferguson: That would be a concern. Sinn Féin would like to see the programme continue, because we want to justice to be sped up. You successfully secured that money. The transformation fund is a competitive fund across all Departments, so it is critical that the money be invested. Given that there is a shared agreement among criminal justice partners, including the Victims' Commissioner, I very much hope that the programme continues. It is common sense that it does. It is not going to affect investigations. Rather, based on the evidence that has been presented, it gives you an additional suite of tools and more options. That is all from me. Thank you.

Mr Widdis: The PSNI has proven to be very good at transformation. The PPS does transformation all the time. The Department has driven a lot of transformation over the almost 16 years since it was created. We therefore can do it. For the likes of this, where legislation is required, we are grateful for your interest and support, but, ultimately, we encourage you to think about the programme as a whole. I appreciate Mr Beattie and Mr Kingston's point about how specific offences going into the category can be concerning. We will try to reassure you as much as we can about that, but, in making your decision, I encourage members to keep in mind the greater prize, which is speeding up the criminal justice system as a whole, rather than focus on the individual offence.

Mr McGlone: I want to go back to the methodology for how you quantify the responses and the weight that you attach to them. Doug referred to the question of whether penalty notices should be issued for assaults on police. Some 40% of the organisations that responded to the consultation said yes. That could mean four out of 10. Some 80% of the responses from individuals said no. That could mean 80 out of 100. What weight is therefore attached to the responses? Was the Police Federation among the 40% in favour? That would give me a fair indication. Likewise, you can clearly see that there is a big gap between organisational perception, whatever those organisations may be, and public perception. In what way did you deal with the public response when quantifying the responses? Was the same bearing attached to what the public were saying as what professional organisations were saying?

Mr Widdis: As a basic principle, every response to the consultation was seriously considered and taken into account. We have not attached any weighting to responses. The response from an organisation that is experienced in criminal justice does not get a bigger mathematical weighting attached to it than that from an individual member of the public. The detail of how we conducted the consultation was pretty comprehensive.

Ms Rocks: It was. There were 162 responses. We got responses from 135 people and 27 organisations. That is the quantitative element. We also considered the qualitative piece, however, and each response was considered on its own merits. It looked as though some of the individuals who responded had not necessarily understood the concept, so —

Mr McGlone: That is understandable.

Ms Rocks: — public perception will be important when we are introducing the proposals. Victims' organisations were key in the consultation. We had a significant response from victims' organisations, such as the NSPCC, Women's Aid and the WAVE Trauma Centre, to name but a few. That is a lengthy way of saying that the process was comprehensive.

Mr McGlone: You would expect input from the Police Federation as a representative organisation, because the assaults will be made on its members. Was there any?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: I do not have the full detail of the responses, but I engaged with the Police Federation as part of the process.

Mr McGlone: I get that, but did it submit a formal response in favour?

Ms Rocks: I am looking for the list.

Mr McGlone: That is what I am trying to get at. I do not need an answer today, but I do want to know. It is a key issue that affects its members, so I would expect it to respond.

I am talking not about the process but about the due weight that is attached to responses to determine an outcome. In other words, was anything changed as a result of 80% of the public responding no? That is a significant percentage.

Ms Rocks: To go back to your previous point, the Police Federation did respond as part of the public consultation. It is on the list of respondents. Did we change some of the proposal as a result? Yes, we did. There were other proposals about, for example, inchoate offences, and those were ruled out. Some of the respondents proposed other offences. There was, from memory, another list of about 32 offences, but we had not had sufficient policy work on them to come to the Committee to present those proposals. If we were to present them to you, we would be doing so without having done sufficient policy work on them to be able to introduce them.

Mr McGlone: To be clear, Lisa, you said that the Police Federation responded. Did it respond in favour?

Ms Rocks: I will need to check the detail, but, as Gary says —.

Mr McGlone: You can come back to us on that.

Mr Widdis: As well as its formal response, which we will dig out and get some detail on for you, the Police Federation was engaged with as we developed the process. There was a working group established way before we even got to the stage of drafting the consultation. It did analysis and went through a set of analysis . There was thinking and research done. The Police Federation was involved at that stage as well. Gary, do you want to comment?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: As I referred to, there was specific engagement with the federation. I had a meeting with it, and, just last week, I received correspondence back from it. The sense is that it is, in principle, supportive and wants to work with us on the guidance, which it is welcome to do.

Mr McGlone: It therefore is in favour.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Yes, it is, subject to that being part of the operational guidance. I am keen to allow that.

Mr McGlone: With your forbearance, Chair, I have one other question. You said that being issued with a penalty notice would not result in a criminal record. I raised the previous time we discussed this in Committee disclosure for someone who is applying under the electronic system for travel authorization (ESTA) or for a visa. Does it have an impact on that?

Ms Rocks: We came back to you in writing on that.

Mr McGlone: I may have missed that.

Mr Widdis: That was asked the last time, I believe, and we responded in writing.

Mr McGlone: I must have missed the response.

Mr Widdis: I think that we have given you the information that we have about how long it would remain on the system and so on. The problem is that different nations will ask for different things. There is therefore no single, easy answer.

Mr McGlone: All that I want to know is whether applicants are asked about it. It is, I suppose, up to applicants whether they disclose it. If they were not to disclose it, however, that could become an issue.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Patsy, the Committee Clerk has advised me that you will find that information in the pack.

Mr McGlone: OK. Sorry. I will have a wee jook at it, as I missed it. Others can come in. Thank you.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Are you happy enough?

Mr McGlone: Yes.

Mr Bradley: Thanks very much for your presentation. Like the UUP, the DUP is not happy about the proposals for dealing with assaults on police and front-line workers, but we can perhaps work through them. There are to be two levels of penalty notice fines — £120 and £150 — across a wide range of offences. Can you explain how such a compressed monetary structure can credibly reflect the differences in harm and culpability of any offence? Who makes the decision on the fine? Is it to be the officer on the beat who is now tasked with the responsibility, rather vaguely, I say? Is the onus on the officer to decide what tariff he or she may wish to apply?

Mr Widdis: I will make a couple of points, after which I may hand over to Lisa. The particular amount, be it £120 or £150, will be attributed to particular offences. If the offence for which someone are getting the notice is, for example, common assault, that is, from recollection, a £150 fine. The officer therefore has no discretion over the amount. In any case, as has been discussed, the penalty notice is not really issued on the spot. Rather, it is issued after a full investigation, so there will presumably be a period of reflection to make sure that the form of the offence is determined to the satisfaction of the PSNI. We landed on those figures by looking at the fines that the Magistrates' Court is currently giving out in cases of that type. You will have seen £120 and £150 fines, but there is a median figure of around £200 given out for some offences as a very common penalty in the Magistrates' Court. The amounts are designed to match that as well. Lisa, do you have anything further to add?

Ms Rocks: In the Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, there is also a limit on the amount that can be imposed. It states that we cannot apply anything that is more than a quarter of the fine that someone would get should the case proceed to full conviction. Again, that probably reflects the fact that, once fines get above that level, we are into dealing with more serious disposals than the issuing of a penalty notice.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: To clarify, in 2023 and 2024, the median fine received at the Magistrates' Court for a common assault offence was £200, and we have set the penalty notice fine for that at £150. It is the same for an assault on a police officer. Going down the list, for possession of class C drugs, for example, the median monetary penalty received at the Magistrates' Court was £150, and we have set the penalty notice fine at £120. You are able to see that we have scaled consistently.

Mr Widdis: We have gone for two amounts. We are trying to make it simple so that it works in practice for colleagues. There is no point in our having a range of 20 different amounts of fine that can be handed out, or even in our having discretion to issue fines ranging from £120 to £150. That will barely have an impact on people as a deterrent. If it is nice and clear for officers to implement, however, that seems to us to bring advantages. I hope that the PSNI agrees.

Mr Bradley: With your indulgence, Chair, I have one more question. People on a low income who get in trouble and receive one of those fines may not have the finances to pay it once it has been implemented. In such instances, do you foresee them having to head back to court, thereby negating the whole purpose of the disposal?

Ms Rocks: Currently, if people are unable to afford the fine, they go into fine default, so there is a risk that the case will go back to court. One thing that we are working on through the programme is flexible repayment, which would allow people to pay the fine over time. There is no point in implementing the system only to have the same people coming back to court through a different door.

Mr Bradley: Paying a fine will therefore keep them out of court and save the system money. To be honest, we are broadly supportive of the proposals. It is just the proposals for out-of-court disposals for assaults on police and other front-line workers such as nurses that concern us.

Mr Widdis: The Minister absolutely shares that concern, as I am sure everybody does. Our point, which I hope to get across today, is that, in order to make the whole programme succeed to the maximum limit possible, we need to take as much low-level offending as possible out of the courts, even if that is of a crime type that can also encompass high-level offending. We totally accept that people can be sent to the Crown Court for an assault on police, but, in principle, there is merit in reducing the number of cases going through the Magistrates' Court for low-level assaults on police and common assault through using the mechanism that we have discussed.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Brian, are you looking to come in to make a brief point?

Mr Kingston: It may be a bigger question, but I will keep it brief. If an offender disputes their guilt, what happens? Is there an appeal mechanism? Can they require that the case go to court?

Mr Widdis: A person can elect not to pay the amount specified in the notice. The PSNI will then refer the matter to the PPS, which will decide what to do.

Mr Peter Luney (Public Prosecution Service): If a person declines the notice, the case will go down the summons route. It is not what Lisa was describing, where, if a person has not paid, the fine gets increased by 50% but remains a fine. Rather, a fresh summons is issued, and it is treated as a fresh criminal prosecution.

Mr Kingston: A higher sanction could then be imposed.

Mr Luney: There could be.

Mr Kingston: That is the risk that the person takes by not paying the fine.

Mr Widdis: Gary made the point that, if £200 is the median level of fine in the Magistrates' Court, there is a bit of jeopardy involved for the individual, as we are pitching it at £150.

The Deputy Chairperson (Ms Sheerin): Brilliant. I think that that is everybody. Thank you again for coming to the Committee and for your patience in answering our questions. You can make your way to the exit now. Thanks very much.

Mr Widdis: Thank you so much, Deputy Chair and Committee. If you need anything further, do let us know. I am genuinely grateful for the extra time that you allowed us in order to get across the importance of the programme.