National Preventive Mechanism Annual Report 2009–10 Independent Custody Visitors Scotland A lthough visiting of police custody takes place in Scotland as it does in the rest of the UK, the Scottish custody visiting schemes have not been separately designated as part of the UK’s NPM. Instead they are members of the Independent Custody Visiting Association (ICVA) albeit that they retain their own funding and management framework. For the sake of clarity, custody visitors in Scotland would prefer that they be designated separately from ICVA as is the case in Northern Ireland.63 Where schemes are in place, they operate in substantially the same way as custody visiting schemes in England and Wales.66 Visitors are recruited by police authorities and should be independent people of good character, who are able to make informed judgments about detention in which the community can have confidence, and which the police will accept as fair. Visitors carry out visits in pairs to police stations, examining the conditions in which detainees are held and speaking with detainees and custodial staff. As in the rest of the UK, independent custody visitors in Scotland carry out regular, unannounced visits to police stations to monitor the treatment of and conditions for detainees. However, in Scotland, custody visiting is not a statutory requirement. Instead, it is up to Scotland’s eight police authorities to decide for themselves whether to establish and maintain a custody visiting scheme for their area.64 Although not statutory, custody visiting is supported by the Scottish government. In 2004, it published guidance setting out its commitment to custody visiting and suggesting national standards to assist in the introduction of visiting schemes across Scotland.65 Visiting schemes in Scotland are members of ICVA, itself a member of the UK’s NPM. The Scottish government makes a financial contribution to ICVA so that its Scottish members may benefit from its support and expertise. Each of the eight police authorities has chosen to establish a custody visiting scheme, although one is not yet operational. Of the seven operational schemes, the majority are well-established while other schemes are still in the process of being rolled out across the police authority area. OPCAT compliance and impact of NPM membership Although custody visitors in Scotland carry out their visits in line with the requirements of OPCAT, the overall visiting scheme is not yet fully OPCAT-compliant. For example, police stations in all areas of Scotland are not yet covered by visiting schemes, although progress is being made. The lack of a statutory basis for custody visiting in Scotland is also cause for concern.67 Nonetheless, the inclusion of custody visitors in Scotland as part of the UK’s NPM has already had a positive impact by sharpening their focus on monitoring the human rights of those detained in police custody. 63 Custody visitors in Northern Ireland are also members of ICVA but were nonetheless designated separately as an NPM member by the government. 64 Police authorities (sometimes called police boards) in Scotland are independent of the police force and are not responsible for the day-to-day delivery of policing. Instead, each police authority is responsible for setting, monitoring and scrutinising the budget of its local police force and for holding the Chief Constable to account for the force’s performance. 65 Police Circular 14/2004, Independent Custody Visiting National Standards. 66 For further information, see the profile of ICVA above at page 28. It should be noted however that custody visitors in Scotland assess the rights and entitlements of detainees against the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, rather than PACE. 67 See Article 18(4) of OPCAT citing the Paris Principles, Principle 2 of which recommends that institutions should have a constitutional or legislative basis. See also SPT, Preliminary guidelines for the on-going development of national preventive mechanisms (2008) at 1(i). 52