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Annex A: Financial and Other Impacts of the Reforms (Compiled By COPFS, ACPOS, SCS, SEJD, SLAB and SPS)

Introduction

The Financial Memorandum, introduced in the Scottish Parliament alongside the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill on 7 October 2003 ¹¹⁴, set out a number of assumptions about the financial impacts of the reforms to High Court procedure. This Annex was developed independently from the main report and presents the financial and other impacts of the reforms. It is composed of contributions from each of the following agencies:

• Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service ( COPFS),
• Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland ( ACPOS),
• Scottish Court Service ( SCS),
• Scottish Executive Justice Department ( SEJD),
• Scottish Legal Aid Board ( SLAB), and
• Scottish Prison Service ( SPS).

The agencies are extremely grateful to Professor Duff and his colleagues for allowing these contributions to be annexed to their report. It should be noted that as the report is being published before the end of the financial year 2006-07 the limited data available for 2006-07 should be regarded as provisional.

COPFS

The significant reduction in the number of witnesses cited to give evidence at trial, which is referred to in the main body of the report, has led to a saving in civilian witness costs in 2005-06 of £155,000. ¹¹⁵ These savings arise from witnesses not being cited as a result of agreement of evidence between Crown and defence where a trial was fixed, plus from pleas accepted at Preliminary Hearings or Continued Preliminary Hearings and from s76 indictments. Expenditure reports in the first half of 2006-07 indicate that the trend in witness savings is likely to be similar to 2005-06, though the impact of a number of very large and complex cases likely to go to trial in due course may cause that forecast to be adjusted.

There have been some marginal staff savings associated with the reduction in the countermanding and re-citation of witnesses, but these have largely been absorbed by the need to focus on ensuring effective and efficient management of the Preliminary Hearing, Continued Preliminary Hearing and trials business in the three Preliminary Hearing centres (Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen).

COPFS is finding that the costs involved in the additional up-front preparation work, particularly in relation to earlier disclosure of information to the defence, required in every case for the Preliminary Hearing, are greater than were anticipated. Continued Preliminary Hearings have proven to be a bigger burden than anticipated both in number and in terms of what requires to be done in preparation. The significant numbers of Continued Preliminary Hearings require further preparatory work by staff and, as the CPH invariably involves a different Advocate Depute, also by Deputes. As is noted by the SCS, the complexion of trials workload is changing and there are a number of particularly large and preparation-intensive trials on the horizon (including several large fraud and organised crime cases). At this stage, therefore, it is not possible to confirm whether COPFS will realise some or all of the anticipated savings after the 'bedding-in' period of 2005-06 and 2006-07.

COPFS incurred capital expenditure in support of the High Court reforms of £844,000 (including VAT) on changes to underlying database structures, on revised business processing and rules, and on changes to casework systems. This spend was incurred in 2004-05 in order to make sure that the systems necessary to support new processes, which commenced in November 2004 in the run up to full implementation in April 2005, were in place.

Table 1: Financial Impacts on COPFS

ACPOS

The Financial Memorandum did not refer to any impact on the police service, but ACPOS has monitored the effects of the reforms.

Figures from Crown Office based on an analysis of the period January - March 2006 estimate that 6,000 fewer police officers were cited to attend the High Court as witnesses in 2005-06 than in 2004-05. A review conducted by Lothian and Borders Police at the High Court in Edinburgh confirmed that there has been a substantial decrease in the number of officers attending the High Court and of those who did attend court 53% gave evidence as compared to 26% during a previous survey ¹¹⁶. The net effect of the reforms on the police has been to release officers from attending court unnecessarily to perform operational duties.

SCS

SCS did not consider that the movement of cases from one jurisdiction to the other would necessarily result in costs or savings as, notionally, the same number of courts would be available and in use. The details of costs sustained by SCS are shown in table 2.

Table 2: Financial Impacts on SCS

SEJD¹¹⁸

Judicial salaries are appropriated out of the Scottish Consolidated Fund, and are administered by officials in the Scottish Executive Justice Department. The financial memorandum estimated that two Outer House Judges' salaries and salary-related costs would total £500,000 per year. The actual costs are detailed in Table 3.

Table 3: Financial Impacts on SEJD

SLAB

A number of changes to legal aid payments to solicitors and counsel were also made to accommodate the changes to be introduced by the procedural reforms. The interaction of these changes with the reforms to court procedure is complex, so the figures provided below should be regarded as 'best-estimates' of the likely savings flowing from the programme of reform as a whole.

The Board has estimated that the net effect of the various changes has been a reduction in expenditure on High Court cases in 2005-06 of approximately £1.1m. ¹²⁰ This is made up of savings stemming from the movement of cases from the High Court to the Sheriff Court as the result of the increase in sheriffs' sentencing powers, the changes to fees paid to counsel and the earlier resolution of cases as a result of the procedural changes, disclosure and sentence discounting.

The legal aid costs of sheriff court cases are significantly lower than those for cases in the High Court. The Board's calculated saving is based on the assumption that those cases moving to the sheriff court would have been of below average cost in the High Court, and above average cost in the sheriff court. This is in line with the SCS assumptions set out in the financial memorandum. The Board has therefore estimated a reduction in cost per case for the moved cases of 10%. Based on changes in the distribution of legal aid cases paid between the two courts pre and post reform, the Board has estimated the movement from High Court to Sheriff Court as around 14% of the previous year's High Court volume, producing an estimated saving of £0.25m.

The Board has calculated that the impact of changes in the regulations governing payments to counsel, affecting cases granted legal aid from April 2005, as being around £0.15m. Finally, the earlier resolution of cases has resulted in a reduction in the average fees paid to solicitors for High Court cases of approximately 10%. This has resulted in an overall reduction in expenditure on these cases of around £0.7m.

Table 4: Financial Impacts on SLAB

SPS

According to SPS, over the period of the High Court reforms the Service has seen unprecedented population increases. A wide range of variables have impacted on the population change and it would be impossible to attach any particular significance to any one factor. Certainly in recent years the long term prisoner population (those serving 4 years and over) has been gradually reducing, whilst the total remand population has been increasing, but it would be wrong to attribute either of these effects directly to the reforms.

Estimates of the average time spent on remand show no noticeable increases over the last five financial years. In addition the number of remand receptions and the average daily remand population have also remained largely unchanged over the last four years. There is no evidence to suggest that the increase in remand population experienced during 2006 can be attributed to the reforms.

Conclusion

In summary, the information provided by agencies shows the overall financial impact, both in terms of costs and savings, to have been broadly in line with expectations. Where agencies have been in a position to supply provisional 06/07 costs, these have been similar to those reported in 05/06.

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