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Annexes
Notes on Statistics Used in this Bulletin
Annex A - Data Sources
Court proceedings
A1. Statistical information in the Scottish Government Court Proceedings Database is derived from data held on the Criminal History System at the Scottish Police Services Authority ( SPSA), previously the Scottish Criminal Records Office ( SCRO). The Criminal History System is maintained by SPSA on behalf of the eight Scottish police forces, with the latter owning the majority of the data on the system.
A2. Summary Justice Reform, which is a significant package of reforms to summary justice in Scotland, is underpinned by the Criminal Proceedings etc. (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007. The reforms cover the following aspects:
- Increased roll out of police and fiscal Direct Measures.
- Reforms to the procedures for bail.
- Increased use of undertakings.
- Reforms to summary criminal legal aid.
- Court unification.
- Lay Justice
These reforms will have an impact on all those who come into contact with the summary justice system and one of the aims of the reforms is to ensure fewer cases go to court needlessly and are dealt with by non-court actions, where it is more appropriate to do so. 2007/08 has seen the introduction of reforms such as, for example, the reforms to bail procedures (December 2007) and increased fiscal fines (March 2008). However, as these have been brought in towards the end of 2007/08, it is likely to be 2008/09 and future years before the full effect is witnessed, in terms of a downward trend in the number of persons proceeded against in Scottish courts.
A3. As part of the court unification process, district courts in Scotland are being replaced, on a phased basis, by Justice of the Peace ( JP) courts. The first such change took place on 10 th March 2008, when the new JP courts of Lothian & Borders came into existence, and figures in this bulletin for 2007/08 incorporate data from these new courts. Further changes in 2008/09 have resulted in new JP courts replacing their district equivalents in the Grampian, Highland & Islands, Glasgow & Strathkelvin and Tayside, Central & Fife sheriffdom areas. These changes will be reflected in the next (2008/09) criminal proceedings bulletin. In the remaining areas of Scotland - South Strathclyde, Dumfries & Galloway and North Strathclyde - the new JP courts will be introduced before the end of 2009.
A4. The Stipendiary Magistrates court in Glasgow hears less serious cases. It may impose up to three months' imprisonment - or six months for a second or subsequent conviction - or a fine up to £5,000.
Recorded crime
A5. The statistical return from which the figures on recorded motor vehicle offences in this bulletin are taken is a simple count of the numbers of crimes and offences recorded by the police. The eight Scottish forces are included; other police forces, such as the British Transport Police, are not. One return is made for each council area in Scotland and these are aggregated to give the national total. The return is submitted quarterly to the Scottish Government and gives the information as known at the end of each quarter. Thus amendments (such as the deletion of incidents found on investigation not to be criminal) which arise after the end of the year are not incorporated.
Bail
A6. The source of the statistical data on bail orders available to the Scottish Government is also the SPSA Criminal History System. This typically involves SPSA creating a statistical extract each day, which picks up records for any bail orders granted three days before which are still associated with live pending cases on the SPSA database. For example, the extract run at the start of a Thursday will pick up any bail orders granted on the Monday of that week which a) have been recorded on the database by the start of Thursday, and b) which are associated with pending cases still live at the start of Thursday. The information covered in the data extracts includes the date of the bail order, the court which made it, the charge(s) involved, the police case reference number and the SPSA reference number of the accused.
A7. Following SPSA's move to a new version of their Criminal History System in October 2007, and a resultant change to the extract that is sent to the Scottish Government, there have been problems with linking information on bail orders to the details of the charges that these orders relate to. It has therefore not been possible to produce a breakdown of bail orders by type of offence, for the period from 20 th October 2007. Table 17 does, however, contain an offence breakdown for bail orders covering the period from 1 st April to 19 th October 2007. A breakdown by type of offence will also not be available for the whole of 2008/09. We anticipate that SPSA will have resolved the problems in time for a full offence level breakdown to be available from 2009/10 onwards.
Other
A8. Information on procurator fiscal conditional offers made for motor vehicle offences is derived from summary data collected by the Crown Office from procurators fiscal.
A9. Information on police conditional offers made for motor vehicle offences are based on figures provided by police force traffic departments. Estimates have been made for missing data.
A10. Separate statistical returns to the Scottish Government are made annually by each police force for the number of "stationary" offences dealt with by the issue of a fixed penalty notice by the police or traffic wardens. Estimates have been made for missing or incomplete data.
A11. Prior to 2004/05, statistics on police conditional offers, police fixed penalty notices and local authority penalty charge notices for parking infringements are only available on a calendar year basis.
A12. Information on penalty charge notices in Aberdeen City, City of Edinburgh, Glasgow City, Perth & Kinross, Dundee City and South Lanarkshire has been provided by the local authorities in these areas.
A13. The population figures used as denominators in Table 5 and Chart 5 are the relevant mid-year estimates prepared by the General Register Office for Scotland ( GROS). Population estimates by age, sex and local authority area can be found at http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/publications-and-data/population-estimates/population-estimates-time-series-data.html.
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