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Plans for a single agency for correction services in Scotland are likely to be dropped in favour of a partnership-based approach, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has revealed, writes Lauren Revans in Edinburgh.

Speaking at Community Care Live Scotland, Cosla chief executive Rory Mair said that the outcome of negotiations with the Scottish executive was likely to be a compromise model that was "more partnership and less structural".

"My view is that we will not have a single agency," Mair said. "We will have something that is not quite what we really want and not quite what the executive really want. So we will have to see that what we get now is a stepping stone to what we want."

Negotiations began back in 2003 following the commitment in the Partnership Agreement between the Scottish Labour Party and Scottish Liberal Democrats to publish proposals for consultation for a single agency to deliver custodial and non-custodial sentences in Scotland with the aim of reducing re-offending rates.

Justice minister Cathy Jamieson said such an agency would bring together the Scottish Prison Service and the 32 local authority criminal justice social work services.

Mair warned that if the partnership-approach compromise was given the go-ahead, practitioners should not breathe a sigh of relief but start working immediately on getting their own house in order.

"Once we have got this out of the way, we have to deal with the real internal issues," he said. "That is why the partnership system has to work. That has to be built up. People cannot not be in it and resources have to be made available."