5. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statistics that it has published on criminal justice social work for 2022-23. (S6O-03018)

Justice social work does commendable work to ensure that community sentences and other interventions effectively address offending and its causes, and provide benefits to local communities.

Although the pandemic continued to have an impact in 2022-23, the latest justice social work statistics show encouraging signs that community justice services continue to recover.

There were 14,700 community payback orders commenced in 2022-23, which is an increase of 20 per cent on the previous year. The numbers of bail supervision cases and structured deferred sentences commenced also increased, with both at the highest level in the past five years.

What the cabinet secretary did not mention was that almost 5,000 criminals were diverted from prosecution instead of being put in the dock, which is a record high. She also did not say that one in three criminals who were given community service were not required to do any unpaid work. To put it simply, thousands of criminals are not prosecuted and those who are convicted receive no punishment.

This morning, I spoke with the Scottish Retail Consortium, whose colleagues suffer unacceptable threats and violence every day. Will the cabinet secretary tell them, and victims across Scotland, why they must pay the price for the Scottish National Party’s relentless weakening of Scotland’s criminal justice system?

I know that Mr Findlay does not like the facts to get in the way of his narrative or of a good old yarn, but he should recognise that, since the inception of community payback orders, 10.6 million hours of reparation has been made to our communities through unpaid work. That is a good way of reducing reoffending and of ensuring that our communities are safer.

Mr Findlay raises the issue of diversion. I am quite sure that he knows that that is a matter for independent prosecutors and not for ministers. He should also be aware of the facts. For the first time, there has been more use of unpaid work in community payback orders than of other supervision requirements, which is positive. He should also know that unpaid work is one of 10 possible requirements in a community payback order, but—

The Presiding Officer:

Thank you, minister.

As usual, the Conservatives are soft on substance and soft on solutions and this Government will focus—

The Presiding Officer:

Thank you, minister. We will move to the next question.