The Scottish Government

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ANNEX

15. Notes and Definitions

Background

15.1 Criminal justice social work services in Scotland are provided by local authorities throughout the country.

15.2 In 1991 the Scottish Office's Social Work Services Group published National Objectives and Standards for criminal justice social work services. These National Standards had been agreed in consultation with local authorities and all the key stakeholders of the criminal justice system. The National Standards set out a framework of objectives and standards for the delivery of criminal justice social work services and how non-compliance by offenders with orders of the court should be handled.

Community Justice Authorities

15.3 The Management of Offenders etc. (Scotland) Act 2005 established provisions for eight local Community Justice Authorities ( CJAs). These authorities have been established to provide a co-ordinated approach to planning and monitoring the delivery of offender services by planning, managing performance and reporting on performance of local authorities or groups of local authorities and key partner agencies including the SPS. Their aim is to target services to reduce reoffending and to ensure close co-operation between community and prison services to aid the rehabilitation of offenders. Each CJA consists of a Chief Officer, elected members of local authorities and support staff to carry out the functions of the CJA. All eight CJAs will be fully operational from April 2007. Tables at CJA area have been published on the Scottish Government website as part of this publication.

15.4 There are 8 CJAs and they contain the following Local Authority areas:

Social Enquiry Reports

15.5 The main purpose of a Social Enquiry Report ( SER) is to provide information about the offender and their background circumstances, prior to sentencing, that helps the court decide how to deal with the case. Reports can be requested by the court for any case but must be requested before imposing a custodial sentence for the first time, or if the offender is under 21 years of age. A court must obtain a SER before making a community service or probation order.

15.6 In some cases, supplementary reports may be submitted to the court. These are shorter reports which provide supplementary information (in addition to that previously provided in a SER).

Community Service

15.7 A person 16 years of age or over and convicted of a crime or an offence can be given a Community Service Order ( CSO) to carry out unpaid work in the community. CSOs can only be made by courts as an alternative to a custodial sentence. The court must also be satisfied that four conditions are met:

• the offender must agree to the CSO;
• community service must be available in the area where the offender lives;
• the offender is suitable for community service;
• suitable work is available.

15.8 Community Service Orders are for a minimum of 80 hours up to a maximum of 240 hours under summary procedure and 300 hours under solemn procedure. They must be completed within 12 months.

Probation

15.9 Probation Orders provide one of the opportunities for criminal justice social work services to focus on offending behaviour. Prior consent of the offender is required, and the order should be informed by an Action Plan in which the offender agrees to address their offending behaviour and its underlying causes. Probation Orders can be used very flexibly by the courts and additional conditions can be attached regarding the offender undertaking unpaid work, their place of residence, curfew (including electronic monitoring), financial recompense to the victim or attendance at a specialist programme such as alcohol or drug treatment. The minimum length of a Probation Order is 6 months and the maximum is 3 years.

Supervised Attendance

15.10 Supervised Attendance Orders require an offender who has failed to pay a fine to undertake a programme of designated activities for a specified number of hours. The programme can involve:

• activities of an educational nature;
• activities designed to stimulate interest and encourage the constructive use of time;
• activities involving unpaid work in the community.

15.11 Supervised Attendance Orders run for between 10 and 100 hours (subject to a limit of 50 hours where the outstanding amount is up to £200) as ordered by the court.

Drug Treatment and Testing

15.12 The Drug Treatment and Testing Order ( DTTO) is a high tariff disposal for drug mis-using offenders who might otherwise receive a custodial sentence, and is available to the High Court, Sheriff Court and Glasgow Stipendiary Magistrates Court. The Order contains features unique to a community disposal, including a requirement for regular reviews by the court and a requirement that the offender consent to frequent random drug tests throughout the lifetime of the Order.

15.13 DTTOs were rolled out across Scotland in phases. Between 1999 and 2002 the Order was rolled out to Glasgow, Fife and Aberdeen. In 2002/03 the Order became available in Edinburgh, Renfrewshire / Inverclyde and Tayside. From 2005/06 the Order has been available to the High Court and to almost every Sheriff court in Scotland with the final courts coming on stream in September 2006.

Restriction of Liberty

15.14 Restriction of Liberty Orders have been available to High, Sheriff and Stipendiary Courts in Scotland since May 2002. A Restriction of Liberty Order can be imposed for periods of up to one year, and involves restricting an individual to a specified place for up to 12 hours per day and/or from a specified place for up to 24 hours.

Throughcare, Voluntary Assistance, Throughcare Addiction Service and Home Circumstance

15.15 Throughcare is the provision of a range of social work and associated services to prisoners and their families from the point of sentence or remand, during the period of imprisonment and following release into the community. Prisoners serving more than 4 years are released with a statutory obligation that they be supervised. Prisoners serving less than 4 years but who are short-term sex offenders (Section 15 of the Management of Offenders Etc. (Scot) Act 2005) or who are subject to an extended sentence or supervised release order are also supervised on release. Throughcare services have a primary objective of public protection, though they are also concerned with assisting prisoners to prepare for release and helping them to resettle into their community within the law.

15.16 Prior to 2004-05, some Local Authorities are known to have included data for Throughcare for serving prisoners and Voluntary Assistance in their figures for Throughcare in the community. 2004-05 was the first year in which authorities were asked to provide separate figures for Throughcare in Custody, Throughcare in the Community and Voluntary Assistance. The figures for 2004-05 cannot therefore be directly compared with those for previous years. There were some further changes to the Throughcare data collection in 2005-06 and the tables are footnoted where these affect comparison with existing trends.

15.17 Voluntary assistance is available to prisoners not subject to statutory throughcare supervision on release but who request such a service while in custody or within 12 months of release. From 2005-06, figures on voluntary assistance include the Throughcare Addiction Service ( TAS).

15.18 The new Throughcare Addiction Service ( TAS) commenced on 1 August 2005 and forms part of the voluntary aftercare service, which is often referred to as "Phase 2" of the Enhanced Throughcare Strategy. TAS is delivered by local authority criminal justice social work - or by one of their contracted service providers - who will work with the offender in the 6 week period prior to release from custody through the 6 week period post-release. The TAS worker will offer a more intensive motivational service and attempt to help the offender address their addiction (and associated) difficulties and link them into appropriate services. TAS is not normally available to those prisoners who are serving sentences of less than 31 days unless they are within the following two priority groups: female offenders and young male offenders (aged under 21 years). Information on TAS was collected for the first time via the 2005-06 aggregate return.

Diversion from Prosecution

15.19 Social Work Diversion schemes aim to provide persons accused of minor offences with support and advice in relation to problems associated with their offending. In such cases, prosecution is deferred, subject to successful completion of the scheme.

Bail Information

15.20 Bail Information was collected from local authorities for the first time in 2003-04. Bail information records assistance to Procurators Fiscal and courts through verification of information in respect of cases where bail might otherwise have been opposed or refused.

Sources of information

15.21 Form CJS, an aggregate return covering data on Social Enquiry Reports, Community Service Orders and Probation Orders, was introduced for the year ending 31 March 2000. The return is submitted annually by each local authority. Additional data items have been added to the return over time, including:

Supervised Attendance Orders - added from 2000-01

Throughcare (Statutory Post Release Supervision) - added from 2001-02

Diversion from Prosecution - added from 2001-02

Drug Treatment and Testing Orders - added from 2002-03

Bail information - added from 2003-04

Voluntary Assistance - added from 2004-05

Court Services - added from 2004-05

Throughcare Addiction Service - added from 2005-06

The content and format of the return continues to evolve, to reflect new demands for information and to clarify points of definition in relation to particular data items. Some caution should therefore be exercised when making comparisons over time.

15.22 The statistics included on Restriction of Liberty Orders was derived from information provided by Reliance Monitoring Services Limited until 2005-06. Reliance provided information on breaches of RLOs for the first time in 2004-05. The contract for monitoring compliance with restriction of liberty orders has been with Serco as from 1 April 2006.

15.23 The total population figures used as denominators in this bulletin are the relevant mid-year estimates for 16-70 year olds, as prepared by the General Register Office for Scotland ( GROS).

15.24 The profile of offenders who receive community sentences is based on the Scottish Executive Court Proceedings database. This contains statistical information on court proceedings in respect of all crimes and some offences and has been derived from data held on the police operational computer at the Scottish Criminal Records Office ( SCRO). Further information can be found in the annual statistical bulletin, Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, the latest of which can be found on the Scottish Executive website.

15.25 The information presented on reconvictions is based on data held in the Scottish Offenders Index, which is in turn based on the court proceedings data provided by SCRO. Further information can be found in the statistics release Reconvictions of Offenders Discharged from Custody or Given Non-Custodial Sentences in 2003/04, Scotland, via the Scottish Executive website.

15.26 Improvements in data quality are continuing, particularly for figures on breach applications where methodological changes have resulted in better recording of breaches. As a result, breach application figures for 2000-01 onwards are considered to be more accurate than those for previous years and comparisons between years should therefore be treated with caution. Due to the introduction of a new IT system, Glasgow's recording of breach applications in 2002-03 is thought to be an undercount.

15.27 The statistics presented in this bulletin reflect the information as known to the Scottish Government at December 2007. They may therefore differ slightly from those published previously, and may be subject to revision in future bulletins in this series.

15.28 The following symbols are used throughout the tables in this bulletin:

- Nil
n/a Not available

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