This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Sol Gen outlines change for prosecution service
11/01/2003
The Solicitor General, Elish Angiolini QC, today set out
progress on a number of initiatives, designed to have a
wide-ranging impact on the modernisation of the Crown
Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).
In her speech entitled 'A prosecution service for the
new millennium' the Solicitor General described how the
department has emerged from a period of intense scrutiny
and review with a clear vision of the radical change
required to meet the challenges of crime in the 21
st century.
She said:
"Today we face responding to ever more sophisticated
levels of organised crime, including terrorism. There is an
increase in transnational crime and computer crime - the
use of the internet to further paedophilic activity is a
particularly disturbing development. We also confront on a
daily basis the evils of drug related crime. At the other
end of the spectrum there is a volume of nuisance offences
which are characterised as minor, but which cumulatively
encroach on the quality of life in all Scottish
communities.
"The Lord Advocate and I accept that the old structures
and approaches do not meet the needs of 21
st century criminal justice. We will meet the
challenges of the new millennium with responses which are
innovative and based on proper analysis and research. We
will maintain our commitment to justice: justice for
victims, justice for the accused and justice for the public
at large."
Mrs Angiolini presented her speech as part of Dundee
University's popular Saturday evening public lecture
programme. Speakers are invited from all over the UK and
are selected for their expertise in a diversity of fields.
Other guests in this term's series include Michael Aston,
Professor in Landscape Archaeology and Donald McIntyre,
Professor of Education at Cambridge University.
Keith Mackle, of the University of Dundee, Department of
Continuing Education, which organises the series, said:
"Mrs Angiolini is the first speaker of this term's
series of lectures and we look forward to hearing her
expert account of the initiatives currently being
undertaken within the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal
Service.
"Her lecture will no doubt be a stimulating start to
what promises to be an enlightening and thought-provoking
series of lectures."
All lectures begin at 7pm in the Tower Extension Lecture
Theatre, Tower Building, and entry is free.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is
embarked on a significant programme of modernisation and
reform. This involves a range of structural, managerial and
cultural changes.
Key changes made so far include:
- Restructuring of the Department into
11 areas, matching police force boundaries; this has
included the appointment of Area Business Managers, to
focus on the efficient management of the business;
- Investing in modernisation by
increasing the departmental budget from £63 million to
£92 million by 2005/06.
- Increasing the numbers of front-line
staff. Over 40 new depute fiscals have been
appointed since Summer 2002. In addition, 21 lawyers
started a COPFS traineeship in 2002, the largest number
ever. Also increasing the numbers of administrative
staff, supporting the efficient prosecution of
crime.
- Extending support for vulnerable victims and
witnesses of crime by expanding the coverage
of our own Victim Information and Advice (VIA) service
across Scotland, with the national headquarters based
in Dundee. On 25 July the Dundee VIA office became
operational.
- Strengthening vital corporate services
- finance, personnel and IT support to support a modern
efficient business, including the appointment of
Directors of Finance and Human Resources.
- Improving the prosecution of serious
crime by revising the systems in place and
widening the pool of prosecutors available to deal with
cases in the High Court.