OFFICE INSPECTION - HAMILTON
20 OCTOBER 2004
Background
We are committed to regular audits of District and Area Offices to ensure compliance with race relation policies and strategies.
This is our report of the District Procurator Fiscal's Office at Hamilton. The Hamilton office is part of the Lanarkshire Area. The inspection was conducted during the course of our first thematic report on race issues. It differs slightly from the format subsequently developed for office audits but does address the same overall issues.
Our approach involved consideration of the following areas:
- Adherence to policy guidelines in relation to prosecution of racist crime;
- Use of interpreters and translation issues;
- Employment issues;
- Consultation with communities;
- Deaths involving racial and/or cultural awareness issues.
Race Crime
We were advised by the District Fiscal at Hamilton that any race cases reported by the Police go to Initial Case Processing (in FOS which is the onscreen IT system of dealing with new cases). In accordance with instructions to the Police these should either be in what are known as the Custody or Undertaking Trays but we were advised that that does not always happen as the Police sometimes release the accused for report (as opposed to detaining in custody or giving a date to appear in court).
Thereafter the cases are "marked" (ie a decision made of what is to happen) immediately by a team of up to six markers. The marking team, which consists of legally qualified Deputes, is a mix of experienced and less experienced staff overseen by a Principal Depute. The physical arrangements in Hamilton are that this is open plan and the staff can converse. All staff are expected to be familiar with the Lord Advocate's instructions on the handling of race cases.
The District Fiscal has the facility on the IT system to track cases and have them retrieved if she does not agree with the marking.
Once the case is marked the Depute makes a copy and fills in Monitoring Form A and sends it to the District Fiscal with a copy of the case. The District Fiscal then reads the case, looks at the charge and decides if the charge is correct and that the policy has been complied with and then fills in the second part of the Monitoring Form A.
If the District Fiscal were to disagree with the decision she would phone the Depute who marked the case and ask him/her to amend it.
It has to be said however that this audit is a retrospective one and it might not always be possible for a decision to be retrieved.
However, the only situations in which the District Fiscal would not have time normally to amend anything with which she disagreed would be in a custody case or an undertaking case where the accused immediately pled guilty on first appearance before the District Fiscal had a chance to have a look at the charge. Given the high number of not guilty pleas in the local area this is an unlikely event and also the fact that not all cases come in as custodies or undertakings.
The actual audit of an individual case is generally straightforward but in a month with lots of cases to look at it may take some time to ensure that all cases are forwarded and appropriately marked and to ensure that the Police are made aware of any reporting difficulty.
If there has been difficulty with the terms of the Police Report the District Fiscal would then send what is known as a Deficiency Report to the local Divisional Police Commander. At least in this way there is some feedback to the Police on any shortcomings however some concern was expressed as to how much notice is taken of this. In view of concerns that this may not be the most effective way of communicating feedback, we were advised after completion of our inspection that practice has now changed and that these reports were made not to Divisional Commanders but to Heads of Community Safety. Since that change has been introduced, positive responses from The Police have been received.
Cases are copied and kept together by the month by the District Fiscal and a spreadsheet is created of all live cases which is updated monthly. Filters are put on this system and by doing this it is possible to identify all race cases reported to the office. This is something of a Hamilton specialty and is not in our experience service-wide.
This system is then interrogated in the first or second week of every month and if the District Fiscal does not have a copy case relating to all entries she goes looking for them. Without this being in place the District Fiscal could not be sure that she was seeing all the cases that she should see. In practice she reports to us that the only cases she does not have are those awaiting marking.
The only possible way a case could slip through this net is if the Police incorrectly did not identify it as a race case (and it was therefore not picked up on the IT system as such) or if the marking Depute made the same error. While not impossible this is very unlikely.
Using the database thus compiled the District Fiscal can identify how many cases are at a trial stage or deferred sentence stage etc. The total live cases can also be identified.
Once the District Fiscal has done her check and is happy with the progress of the case it then proceeds to Summary Trials Unit or occasionally if it is a serious matter into the Solemn Unit (where cases which involve trial by jury are dealt with).
The list of race cases is reviewed on a monthly basis and the District Fiscal can if appropriate indicate to the Principal Depute in charge of Summary Proceedings that there are a lot of race cases in other words giving some forewarning of a possible glut.
Every month the trial dates are looked at on the system and the cases checked to see if they are now finished. At that point Form Bs which are monitoring forms partially completed by the Court Depute are then chased up. There was some confusion about whether these Form Bs should be done after the trial or after the determination of the case eg after a period of deferred sentence which could be some time after the trial was concluded. These Form Bs are then kept with the case papers until the statistics are produced when they are associated with the copy case and the Form A.
Some problems were indicated to us with the style of Form B. It does not note when proceedings commenced. It presumes that a conviction will be detained and there is some dubiety about how sensible some of the questions are. It was suggested to us that both Forms A and B could be better designed. (A review of these forms is now taking place)
A database of closed cases is also kept.
To date looking at the Form Bs re compliance with the Lord Advocate's instructions as far as court appearances are concerned the District Fiscal has not found a deviation from the policy but if she were to find one she would go back to the Depute concerned.
It is still the case that some temporary legal staff are employed to cover courts and those used in the Hamilton office are experienced and well aware of Departmental race policies.
Analysis of the type of cases is also possible using this system and a significant proportion of race cases involve abuse in premises of small businesses. The system also has the great merit of being able to see repeat offenders and the places which figure repeatedly and gives a good overview of what is happening in the area.
Wherever possible it is Crown Office policy to combine cases involving an accused so that all cases are presented at the same time to the court to give a better overall impression of offending, these are referred to as "roll-ups". This particular system devised in Hamilton enables these roll-ups to be more easily carried out and an example was given to us of one large roll-up which resulted in a trial, a guilty verdict and a non-harassment order.
It is incumbent on the Area Fiscal to make monthly returns to the Legal and Policy Forum regarding race cases and compliance with policy. This is the responsibility of the Area Fiscal but the District and Area Fiscals in Lanarkshire work on this together.
The District Fiscal indicated to us that this requires to be done manually and is quite time-consuming especially in months where a lot of cases have been reported and also due to the fact as previously indicated that the forms are not particularly "user-friendly". The Hamilton District Fiscal does the figures for other District Offices in the Area namely Airdrie and Lanark.
Interpreters
In Hamilton a single person deals with making requests for interpreters and translations for the whole area. The office seeks to keep books of styles for translation. Similarly VIA (the Victim Information and Advice Office) seeks to compile a bank of style letters in different languages where Crown Office does not provide these centrally.
There was little or no feedback on the quality of interpreters used as the majority of those brought are not in fact actually called on to act as pleas of guilty on the morning of the trial are very common with no evidence being led. On average the Hamilton office orders between six and eight interpreters per month and uses two of the main interpreting agencies in Glasgow for the purpose.
The complaint (which is the charge), a briefing note and a glossary of terms etc go to the agency which is then obliged to pass this information onto the interpreter chosen. A code of conduct for interpreters is also sent.
The office needs the signed code of conduct returned by the interpreter and at the end of the assignment a monitoring form has to be returned, without which the agency will not be paid. If the monitoring form were to raise any issues they would be brought to the attention of the District Fiscal.
It was reported to us that on one or two occasions there had been issues with sign language interpreters where the presiding Sheriff was unhappy with the way the interpreter interpreted and indeed vice versa.
It was indicated to us that there had been no trouble in obtaining interpreters with the exception of sign language interpreters which could on occasions be difficult. The office reports that there has never been a situation where an agency had indicated they did not have an interpreter with the necessary qualifications. Any problems with interpreters would be reported back to the Area Resource Team which deals with diversity issues.
Some improvements were suggested to us namely that it would be helpful to have a contract with an agency for translation as the office finds it time consuming to call around and obtain quotations. It would also be helpful if the office were able to e-mail documents to the agencies for translation especially when it is a question of just filling in a few blanks. This is not possible at the moment. Also it was indicated to us that the languages used on the Crown Office Intranet could be expanded.
Deaths
The office had had a number of child and infant deaths where one or both parents had been from an ethnic minority. In one case it was reported to us that there was a death of a baby from a Muslim family, both parents being from an ethnic minority and the mother could not speak any English. The Police had arranged for a liaison officer who spoke Punjabi who liaised initially with the family. A leaflet entitled "Advice for Bereaved Relatives" which the Fiscal's Office gives to families in these circumstances was translated by this Punjabi-speaking liaison officer as it was impossible in the timescale required to have it translated into Punjabi. It was felt by the office that this leaflet might be more readily available in other languages.
In this particular death a post mortem was quickly arranged and the body released so that Muslim burial practices and observances could be met.
It was reported to us that a common factor in all such deaths is a failure by the Police to tell the Fiscal about issues such as language and race. Some crucial information is found to be missing in death reports by the Police and there seems to be an apparent difference in treatment of race crime as opposed to death cases. However, the office were very complimentary of the way the Police liaison officers worked.
The Principal Depute who is in charge of death cases in the Hamilton office in practice makes direct contact with the next-of-kin although the Victim Information and Advice office do become involved.
At the time of our visit the office was gearing up to deal with a Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of an Asylum Seeker at Dungavel Immigration Centre (this has now since commenced).
A Police liaison officer had been appointed both in London (where the fiancée lived) and also in Hamilton. The Fiscal Office had communicated with the family through the Police liaison officers and it was realised that interpreters would be required. It was also realised that court documents would also require translation.
At the time of the inspection the Principal Depute in charge of deaths was intending to see the next-of-kin before the inquiry commenced to explain the procedures to them.
The Principal Depute dealing with deaths indicated to us that she thought the diversity guidance by the Crown Office on deaths was very good and that the diversity awareness programme was also good.
Employment
Latest data [1] shows that almost 99 per cent of the population in the Hamilton Sheriff Court District area is from a white background. Other ethnic groups, of which Pakistani is the largest at 0.5 per cent, make up just over one per cent.
As at October 2004, Hamilton had a staff of 92, consisting of:
Legal staff
· 2 members of the Senior Civil Service
· 7 Principal Deputes
· 21 Procurator Fiscal Deputes
· 4 Precognition Officers
Administrative staff
· 1 Band G manager
· 4 Band C managers [2]
· 3 Personal Assistants
· 40 Band B
Casual staff
· 4 Precognition officers
· 6 Band B staff
Small numbers (less than 5) prevent disclosure of the exact number of staff who are from a minority ethnic background (as self-reported to Human Resources Division in COPFS via survey) in the Hamilton office. However, we concluded that minority ethnic representation in the office was in line with minority ethnic representation in the local population.
As at 19th January 2005, 91 per cent of staff in the Hamilton office had attended the Departmental Diversity Awareness Programme.
Consultation
The Hamilton office is part of the Lanarkshire Area and the Area has an Area Resource Team (which deals with race and other diversity issues) and this meets every second month. Statistics on race crime are available for the meetings as is an interpreters' update.
In addition to this a consultation group from the minority ethnic community had now been set up. The initiative for this was partly as a result of the Area having the benefit of a secondee from the West of Scotland Racial Equality Council who worked with them part-time in the Area. This lady had a list of the minority ethnic groups in the area. The purpose of this consultation group was to provide the office with greater contact with the local community, to satisfy the general and special duties required under the Race Equality Plan, to get some help on recruitment and to assess how local policies impact on the community.
A big event for shopkeepers was planned for Airdrie town hall in February 2005 and the Police, District Councils, the Sheriff Principal and members of the consultation group were all involved. The Police were assisting in particular by creating a video presentation of a typical case.
In addition to that there was the Lanarkshire Ethnic Minority Action Group which was set up by the local health board and to which the office also had input.
Further, the District Fiscal attends the South Lanarkshire MARIM (Multi-Agency Racial Incident Monitoring Group). There is apparently currently no North Lanarkshire MARIM although consideration has been given to reviving this.
Finally the Area sends a number of representatives to school career events.
Conclusions
The Hamilton office has a very sophisticated case tracking and monitoring system for race cases and we would strongly recommend this as an example to others.
In its outreach initiatives it is also in the van of good practice and makes good use of the assistance offered by the secondees from the West of Scotland Racial Equality Council.
Finally examples of good practice were also found in connection with the investigation of deaths with a minority ethnic dimension.
[1] General Register Office for Scotland 2001 Census of Population
[2] Includes 1 Band B staff who were on temporary promotion to Band C