Title | Percentage of criminal cases dealt with within 26 weeks. |
Associated Targets | A 3 percentage point increase in the percentage of criminal cases disposed of within 26 weeks by 2011. |
Brief Description | The percentage of Sheriff Summary and Justice of the Peace (JP) / District Court cases disposed of within 26 weeks of date of earliest caution and charge for any accused in the case, by the month that the case is first closed. |
Strategic Objective(s) to Which Indicator Relates | This indicator informs progress in relation to: Safer & Stronger; Wealthier & Fairer |
More Detailed Definitions | |
Definitions of Keywords | Sheriff Summary: cases which are heard in the Sheriff Court by a Sheriff sitting without a jury. District Court: cases which are heard in the District Court by either a Stipendiary Magistrate or a Justice. Justice of the Peace Court: created by the Criminal Proceedings (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007 and have replaced District Courts. Disposal: the Verdict Date, i.e. the date when proceedings are concluded by acceptance of a plea from the accused, or when the verdict is reached by the court (Sheriff, Magistrate or Justice). Date of Caution & Charge: the date the accused is cautioned and charged by the police. |
Evidence Source | The data source is a monthly data extract from the Crown Office and Procurators Fiscal Service (COPFS) case management system, supplied to Justice Analytical Services within the Scottish Government. This provides a direct measure of process times for cases through the criminal justice system from caution and charge by the police to date of verdict in court. Data are exported only when the whole case is first closed. A case can include more than one accused, and each accused can have one or more charges against them. The data extract is based on a 'court appearance level' of detail (in that it contains information on each court appearance for each accused within a case), from which information can be derived and built up to 'case level'. |
Baseline and Past Trends | The baseline year for this indicator is 2006/07, in which 66% of closed-cases were disposed of within 26 weeks. Data are available from January 2005 onwards. The data were revised in 2009. |
Methodology for Data Source | The percentage of Sheriff Summary and JP/District Court cases disposed of within 26 weeks of date of earliest caution and charge for any accused in the case, by the month that the case is first closed. "Disposal" for this indicator is defined as the latest date of verdict for any accused in the case. Two main types of case are excluded from the analysis: a) breach of probation and other social work orders, because of a lack of consistency in the way breaches are recorded in the data. b) cases where the time from date of earliest caution and charge to the date of most recent verdict exceeds 1000 days, or where the time from first report to first COPFS case marking exceeds 1000 days, or where the report date was more than 5 years before the case was closed, where there are likely to be some data recording anomalies for the dates involved (these are relatively few in number however this step is necessary to remove extreme and atypical cases). Other cases excluded are re-opened cases, shell records, and non-relevant categories of case. |
Data Ownership and Quality Assurance | The monthly data extract from the COPFS operational case management system was established as part of the pilot Statistics and Management Information System (SMIS) Project. COPFS owns the data in its Case Management Database; the monthly extracts continue to be provided to the Scottish Government who use the data in developing indicators and monitoring performance for the Criminal Justice Boards. It is not currently intended to seek National Statistics status for this analysis, although Quality Assurance principles applied in their production are in line with National Statistics professional standards. |
Publication of Data | Quarterly updates to this indicator are published as Official Statistics on the Scottish Government website The financial year data used as the basis for this indicator are published annually in the High Level Summary of Statistics. Annual data is also published on the Scottish Court Service website. |
Methodology for Recent Change Arrow on Scotland | Any difference within +/- 1 percentage points of last year's figure suggests that the position is more likely to be maintaining than showing any change. An increase of 1 percentage points or more suggests the position is improving; whereas a decrease of 1 percentage points or more suggests the position is worsening. |