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Feasibility Study for a victim and witness support service in Scotland

4 Feasibility of a victim and witness service

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 In examining the feasibility, the analysis includes identifying:

• what needs to be done - the tasks involved in meeting the victim and witness needs

• the options for carrying them out

• the resource implications of carrying them out

• the costs involved - both set-up and running costs

• the organisational and management issues involved

• the risks

4.1.2 One of the significant points to arise from the research was the absence of a clearly-defined champion for victim and witness issues within any single agency. This has led, in the study, to a conclusion that in order for the Lord Advocate’s proposal to operate effectively, there would be benefit in establishing a system-wide structure for coordinating activity between the criminal justice agencies, voluntary sector, and judiciary, and to champion the needs of victims and witnesses.

4.1.3 It is also worth drawing out at this stage that prosecutors have a duty to take impartial, fair and timely decisions on an independent, objective and professional assessment of the evidence available. The professional integrity of prosecutors requires them to be open with the court, and fair and dispassionate in the prosecution of cases in court, disclosing to the defence any information considered material to it, and preserving the confidentiality of reports and investigations. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service undertakes to be sensitive to the needs of the public, including victims, next of kin and witnesses. This has important implications for the proposed Victim and Witness Support Service, to ensure that the activities undertaken by the Crown Office staff of the service are entirely compatible with the primary role of the prosecution function.

4.1.4The analysis of the needs of victims and witnesses within the current study, and of the current provision of services to victims and witnesses, lead to the conclusion that the proposal for a service based within the Crown Office (at arms length from the normal prosecution and investigation function) would provide a much needed service for those victims and witnesses whose case has been reported to the Fiscal. However, this is only a relatively small proportion of victims overall (the British Crime Survey would suggest it is about half), and for some of the most serious crimes (rape in particular, and crimes against gay people), a smaller proportion still. The service proposed by the Lord Advocate covers only the period of time between the case being reported to the Fiscal up to the point of final disposal. Many of the most acute needs of victims and witnesses fall outside these boundaries.

4.1.5 Overall, although we are firmly of the view that a service along the lines proposed by the Lord Advocate is much needed and can be justified, we consider that it needs to be viewed in the context of other initiatives, aimed at filling other gaps in provision elsewhere in the criminal process, and outside its boundaries.

4.1.6 The reasons for taking this approach are as follows:

• fundamentally, although each statutory criminal justice agency has some responsibility for victims and witnesses, no single agency owns the responsibility for victim and witness issues

• while there is no shortage of initiatives aimed at developing the provision of information or services to victims and witnesses, these are taking place in the absence of a strategic framework

4.1.7 As a result, the approach we recommend has a number of strands:

• a Victim and Witness Support Service (VAWSS), located within, but separated from, the Crown Office and Fiscal Service would provide a range of services to victims and witnesses directly (primarily concerned with giving case-specific information to victims and witnesses); it would also be responsible for commissioning and organising other services - support services for victims and witnesses, use of CCTV facilities, protection, etc; it would have three levels - an operational level, based at or near existing Fiscal offices, a regional level to coordinate activity, and a national level, to manage the service overall;

• other criminal justice agencies would take responsibility for meeting the needs of victims and witnesses within their respective jurisdictions - for example, the police taking responsibility to ensure that all victims are given relevant information on sources of support;

• a national level strategy and coordinating group, to develop a strategy for victim and witness support services in Scotland, monitor achievement, raise awareness about victim and witness issues, and coordinate activity across the criminal justice agencies, judiciary and voluntary organisations.

4.1.8 The first point above relates to the Lord Advocate’s proposal. The second and third go beyond the Lord Advocate’s proposal to meet other needs identified within the study.

4.1.9 It is possible that the regional/national level structure within VAWSS could also serve the purpose of providing a specialist child witness service, as described in the Lord Advocate’s separate report on meeting the needs of child witnesses (Report of the Lord Advocate’s Working Group on Child Witness Support, 1999). The combining of the two services could potentially achieve significant savings in cost.

4.2 The Lord Advocate’s proposal

4.2.1 The needs that can be identified as falling to the Victim and Witness Support Service within the Crown Office and Fiscal Service include:

• At the point of a report being received, establishing contact with the victim or witnesses involved, providing relevant general and case-specific information to them, and ensuring an effective handover from the police;

• Assessing the needs of the victims and witnesses (building on information received from the police, and seeking specialist advice as necessary) and ensuring these are recorded and followed up as the case progresses;

• Coordinating activity with other agencies as appropriate, to ensure that all identified needs are taken into consideration and are followed up;

• Ensuring that, unless already notified, all witnesses who are likely to require it are given information on sources of support;

• Ensuring, through liaison with support agencies as necessary, that all victims and witnesses who require it, are provided with counselling or support;

• Ensuring that victims and witnesses are provided with adequate information to explain the criminal justice process clearly

• Identifying and responding to cases involving children, and potentially also those involving vulnerable adults, to fast-track the case where appropriate, and to ensure other measures as required are taken to alleviate the impact on the child or victim;

• Identifying cases involving domestic abuse, and ensuring that if not already provided, adequate support and protection is provided for the victim, including those who may be considering withdrawing charges;

• Providing information on the progress of the case preparation and on any significant changes which occur - for example a change of plea by the accused;

• For witnesses who are cited for precognition, providing clear information about precognition and its role in the overall process;

• Ensuring that citations issued to witnesses are simply and clearly worded, and are accompanied by clear details of how to get to the court (or other location) and of the process to expect;

• For witnesses who require it, arranging, either directly or through the Witness Service, court staff or social work, familiarisation visits to the courts;

• For witnesses who require it, making any necessary arrangements to escort or transport them to court;

• For witnesses who require it, making any necessary arrangements with the court regarding access through a separate door, separate waiting areas, etc.;

• Ensuring that where security measures have been requested, they are in place on the required day, and that the safety of the victim or witness is protected;

• Responding to anxieties at the court building regarding security, and coordinating activity to suit;

• For witnesses on the day of the trial, providing information on expected waiting times, procedures;

• For victims on the day of trial, and to a lesser extent witnesses, ensuring that information on the development of the case, and on case outcome is provided;

• Ensuring, through liaison with other organisations and providers as necessary, that all victims and witnesses who require it, are provided with an interpreter, physical aids, or other support measures at court;

• Ensuring that as far as possible, adjournments which require witness presence take account of commitments of the witnesses, and reducing overall the number of adjournments made;

• Reviewing the effectiveness of the services offered to victims and witnesses, and identifying aspects of the services which are dependent on other agencies and organisations; liaising with these other agencies, and encouraging developments in the provision of services;

• Promoting and developing training in victim and witness issues within the Fiscal Service, and between the Fiscal Service and other related agencies

• Developing awareness of equal opportunities applied to gender, sexuality, race, culture and disability.

4.2.2 The tasks involved fall into the five main categories:

• Coordination and commissioning (at an operational level) - in which the job of the Victim and Witness Support Service is primarily to commission the required services, taking responsibility only for ensuring that the required service is delivered; the majority of tasks fall within this category;

• Monitoring and liaison (at operational and regional levels) - in which the job is to monitor the standards of services delivered to victims and witnesses, and to liaise with the service providers with a view to promoting higher standards;

• Provision of services (at an operational level) - doing the work directly - for example, in the case of the service based within the Fiscal Service, providing case specific information to victims and witnesses, and interpreting the legal steps taken for the benefit of the recipient;

• Training (at a regional but also operational level) - identifying the need for training, and either commissioning it or providing training directly to the various agencies involved in providing services to victims and witnesses; part of this role will be to raise awareness on victim and witness issues, and to maintain the profile of these;

• Development of materials (at regional and national levels) - designing training courses, leaflets, etc.

4.2.3 Most, if not all, of the above activities are already undertaken by the Fiscal Service to some degree. What is proposed is therefore not new. Rather the problem is largely that the pressure of operational work which most Fiscals and their staff find themselves under presently tends to inhibit the services which they would wish to provide to victims and witnesses.

4.3 Requirements

4.3.1 To fulfil the demands of the Victim and Witness Support Service as set out above will require a range of skills:

• Organisational/facilitation skills (operational, regional and national levels) - to liaise with the different organisations and agencies involved, and to agree working practices in relation to victims and witnesses, and to encourage, cajole and otherwise ensure that these practices are implemented.

• Administrative skills (operational level) - to manage the process of sending out letters, information leaflets, receiving telephone calls, arranging office appointments, arranging transport, arranging court visits, etc.

• Legal/paralegal skills (operational level) - to understand the complexities and nuances of the criminal justice process to an extent that will encourage the trust of the Fiscals Service in providing access to case specific information for discussion with victims or witnesses. The Fiscal Service will require to be confident that the information will be used sensitively, and that the current confidentiality which surrounds much of it is maintained.

• Interpersonal skills (operational, regional and national levels) - to work effectively with a wide range of organisations, and also directly with victims and witnesses, many of whom will lack confidence and will be uncertain about their role and function in the criminal justice process.

• Training skills (regional level) - to be able to develop training materials and courses, and with others to develop awareness raising training.

4.3.2 In practice, we anticipate that the service, as proposed here, would comprise specific members of staff, based locally, in or close to the existing Fiscal offices, with the skills identified above. However, the small size of some of the local offices, and the small volume of cases dealt with in these offices presents operational difficulties in providing both appropriate skills and numbers of staff to meet demand in a cost effective manner.

4.3.3 In the larger offices, we would anticipate the need for a number of specific VAWSS staff - some of whom would be largely equivalent in qualifications and training to a junior Fiscal or precognition officer, able to interpret case information and to select those parts that can safely be presented to the victim or witness who may be enquiring; in addition, there requires to be a resource for counselling and needs assessment, and administrative/clerical support. These staff would be based either at single court centres (where the volume justifies it), or at a cluster of courts, geographically close, and with sufficient volume between them to justify the post(s). Where appropriate clusters of courts cannot be found, alternative approaches will require to be adopted.

4.3.4 At the smaller centres, where clustering is not possible, the main service elements may have to be provided by marginal increases to the existing staff (in some cases, by increasing the hours of part time staff). If a regional service is established, it may be possible to base some of the local staff for the smaller centres at a regional centre, so that they can cover a number of local offices from their base.

4.3.5 In order to determine the likely impact on staff resources, and hence cost, a computer model of the proposed service has been developed. The model is based on statistical information which is readily available, combined with assumptions we have made concerning the amount of time the various tasks associated with the VWS would require.

4.3.6 The model starts from the figures available nationally on the numbers of persons appearing in court, broken down by offence and combines these with the number of reports received by the Fiscal, in each office. The combination of these two is used to estimate the number of reports received by each fiscal office by type of crime or offence. Using data from the Crown Office on the outcomes of reports to the Fiscal, the estimated data is further broken down by Fiscal and court outcomes.

4.3.7 Thus for each Fiscal office, estimates are derived of the numbers of reports received, broken down by type of crime or offence, the decisions taken by the Fiscal on these, and for those that are proceeded with, the plea, court decision and disposal.

4.3.8 From this data, the model calculates estimates of the numbers of contacts, letters, telephone calls, etc which might be expected at each office, and the resource demands which these might generate. Using standard estimates for staff salaries and overhead costs, the resource demands are converted to cost estimates.

4.3.9 The results of this analysis are summarised briefly below.

Table 2: Estimates of the costs of implementing the VAWSS as described (figures in brackets denote the expected costs once allowance is made for cost reductions in existing services)

4.3.10 Thus the costs of the proposed service are estimated to be:

• £1.69 million per annum if victims and witnesses of all crimes are included, and no allowance is made for existing service provision

• £1.38 million per annum if allowance is made for existing service provision, and savings can be made in these quarters

• £0.85 million per annum if only the more serious crimes are included, and no allowance is made for existing service provision

• £0.73 million per annum if only the more serious crimes are included, and allowance is made for existing service provision

4.3.11 The above table shows the calculated costs of providing the services, under two assumptions of the type of case which would be included. In the first instance, all crimes and offences for which there can be assumed to an individual victim have been included - this has involved making assumptions about the proportion of some crime groups which would give rise to a specific victim - for example, shoplifting can be viewed as a victim crime when it is a crime against a small shop, but less so when it involves shoplifting from a supermarket.

4.3.12 In the second instance, the focus is mainly on the more serious crimes, particularly those involving violence against the person and sexual crimes.

4.4 What the service will require

4.4.1 To achieve the service will require three main components:

• an automated system for generating the letters etc and for mailing these out to victims and witnesses;

• a staff resource with a combination of coordination and legal (prosecutor) skills, to provide both the coordination functions described above, and those requiring an awareness of, and sensitivity to, the legal system and rules of evidence;

• a staff resource to identify victim/witness need, to manage the process of referral to other support agencies, in order to meet demands for in depth counselling or support for victims or witnesses; we would also anticipate that this resource would also serve to coordinate the volunteer resources locally, working through the existing voluntary organisation coordinators.

Automated system

4.4.2 Within the proposal of the Lord Advocate, the requirement here is for a computer system which will generate letters and other communications to victims and witnesses, based on operational activity and decisions taken in the prosecution process. Looking beyond the Lord Advocate’s proposal, however, there could be benefit to be gained from a system of wider applicability - covering aspects of the criminal justice process outside of the prosecution process. For the requirements within the Lord Advocate’s proposal, the requirement can best be met by implementing an extension to the existing SOS IV computer system in the Fiscal Service.

4.4.3 The extension to the SOS IV computer system will enable it to generate letters automatically to victims and witnesses as required, according to process-related criteria which may be defined - for example, at the point of initial marking, when a change of plea is recorded, etc. The system should be designed so that there should be little or no clerical work involved in setting up or triggering the letters and other communications from this source, the only further work being to fold and envelope the letters (with possible attachments) before despatch.

4.4.4 It is unlikely to be practicable or desirable to send out letters to all victims and witnesses of all crimes and offences. So for the purposes of calculation, only crimes with an identifiable individual victim have been taken into account. The volumes on a daily basis per office, are generally small enough to fold and envelope by hand, though the largest offices may choose to invest in a small (say 1200/hour) folding and enveloping machine (typical cost £5-10,000).

4.4.5 We have assumed that the production is handled locally to the office handling the case; we think this is important, in order for ownership of the information on each case to be locally held, and to emphasise the coordination role which the local VAWSS officer will take.

Co-ordination and case specific information

4.4.6 The requirement here is for range of skills similar to those of a junior Fiscal or precognition officer - effectively these include the requirements for the knowledge of the law and of the criminal justice system, and for the organisational abilities which this element of the work will require. The staff involved should also have practical casework experience in a prosecution capacity.

4.4.7 The appointed officers (whom we might describe as Victim and Witness Support Coordinators (VAWSCs)) would be responsible for those parts of the service provision which require a detailed knowledge of the legal implications of the evidence in the case, and of the criminal justice process.

4.4.8 The job will be based mainly in, or close to, existing Fiscals’ offices, taking off the Fiscals’ shoulders much of the routine tasks of following up enquiries from victims and witnesses, discussing details of case procedure in individual cases with victims and witnesses, and liaising, by phone or otherwise, with other agencies and organisations to coordinate support for victims and witnesses. An important part of the work will also be based in the Court - we see the post servicing primarily the Sheriff Court (and High Court where applicable), though some involvement in the District Courts may be relevant in some particular cases. At court, their role will be to act as liaison between the Fiscal in the court, the victims and witnesses in the waiting room and around the court building, and with other officials and organisations - primarily the court officers (whom we expect would continue to play an important role in keeping witnesses comfortable and advised on progress), volunteers (who would continue to be responsible for greeting witnesses, guiding them to waiting areas, and providing general and emotional support as needed). The main function of the VAWSCs will be to provide and discuss case specific information with victims and witnesses, where appropriate - a task which only a representative of the prosecution service can undertake. Their work should not overlap with the general support and information services which, for example, the local volunteer representatives of the Witness Service might offer.

4.4.9 It is estimated that a total of 15-21 staff would be required to fulfil the needs of the proposed service (depending on the assumptions made), at a total cost, including immediate overheads of some £495,000 per annum. In practice, however, it is assumed that some of this total should be recoverable from the reduction in workload which it will create for the Fiscals and their staff. Hence the total additional salary cost is likely to be closer to £329,000 per annum.

4.4.10 No allowance has been made in these figures for accommodation; the costs of accommodation will depend on the extent to which provision can be made from within existing Fiscal offices, or in court buildings. To allow for some new provision, a figure of perhaps £100,000 per annum should be allowed. (This is a relatively generous allowance, since the average industry costs for providing fully furnished and serviced business accommodation in prime sites is between £5000 and £10,000 per person per annum.)

4.4.11 We have assumed that the VAWSS staff for the smallest offices will be shared between a number of court sites - perhaps basing them at the regional offices and main court centres, and travelling out to the smaller offices as necessary. Because of overlaps in the trial days at neighbouring courts (neighbouring courts may hold their trials on the same days of the week), this will not operate efficiently in every instance, so an allowance of some 20% should be made for inefficiencies in the staffing provision, time lost through travel, etc.

4.4.12 The total staffing estimate includes a regional management structure to support the VAWSS - with a regional officer carrying responsibility for the main liaison, monitoring and training functions on victim and witness issues in the region.

Assessment, counselling and support

4.4.13 This as an important element of the new service, since it develops some skills which have existed in the Fiscal’s service previously, but recognises them in their own right; part of this requirement, however, cannot be provided directly by an organisation related to the Fiscal Service (for reasons concerned primarily with conflict of interest), and will therefore have to be sourced from outside the VAWSS. The requirement within the VAWSS is for the development of needs assessment skills, in order to improve the extent to which victim and witness needs are accurately identified, and also to identify those for whom the help of a specialist assessor may be required - and to commission the assessment to be made.

4.4.14 Outside of the VAWSS, the requirement is for sources of professionally qualified staff, who are qualified in counselling skills, assessment techniques, and in working with children, people with learning difficulties, vulnerable adults, and traumatised people. Their role is to fulfil much of the service currently provided on a pilot basis in the High Court in Edinburgh and from which much has been learned - to work with, and support, individual victims and witnesses whose needs go beyond what can be provided by volunteers, and to carry out, on a proactive basis, assessments of needs of victims and witnesses referred by the VAWSS. The role of the VAWSCs will be to commission such assistance, to ensure that it is provided as necessary to appropriate victims and witnesses, and necessarily to maintain a professional distance between the staff involved and the VAWSS itself.

4.4.15 To staff this side of the work will require a specialised skill set - more importantly it will require an approach and outlook appropriate to the task; the key factors which have made the Social Work Service in the Edinburgh High Court a success will be needed here. In total, an average of some 9 - 14 staff will be required (depending on the assumptions made), at a total cost (with immediate overheads) of some £220,000 - £350,000 per annum. Taking potential savings into account, these would fall to £203,000 - £267,000.

4.4.16 The majority of this work will be based at court - working with victims and witnesses, liaising with volunteers and their organisers, and being available to support and assist victims and witnesses as needed. For these staff, therefore, the difficulty of covering all the High and Sheriff Court sites, and District Courts, as required, will be more acute than for the other VAWSS staff. As before, a clustering approach will be needed, but careful planning of the clusters will be needed.

4.5 VAWSS Management

4.5.1 The VAWSS will require management at regional and national levels, the responsibilities of the managers being partly to run the VAWSS effectively and to monitor its performance against set key performance indicators, and partly to handle the coordination, training and awareness raising functions at regional and national level. The management of the service might comprise 6 or 7 members - a national coordinator, and regional coordinators based at Sheriffdom level. Each regional coordinator would act as a catalyst and facilitator of change - to encourage local practitioners in criminal justice, volunteer coordinators, local groups and others to work together as effectively as possible to tackle the needs of victims and witnesses. The authority of the team would be that of consensus - it is proposed that the national manager for the service would be a member of the Victim Steering Group, which has representatives from the main criminal justice policy departments and agencies, as well as from the judiciary and voluntary sector. The management team would report operationally to the Crown Office. It is estimated that the management costs would amount to some £177,000 per annum.

4.6 Total costs

4.6.1 Based on the above, the total annual cost of running the proposed service could amount to approximately £1.7 million, if all case types are included, and to £0.7 million if the service were to focus on the more serious crimes only, and savings made in other parts of existing services are taken into account. In both cases there would be minimal start-up costs. These costs might increase to £2.4 million and £0.97 million if the additional allowances for accommodation and inefficiencies in the placement of staff are taken into account.

4.6.2 For a service which targets victims and witnesses of all crimes, the total costs can be summarised as:

Table 3: Estimates of the total costs of implementing the VAWSS, taking account of inefficiencies in coverage, and indirect costs

4.6.3 Before embarking on a commitment to implement a victim and witness service as proposed, it is important that these costs are verified through practical testing, and that the operational procedures on which they are based are also tested. We therefore recommend that a pilot of the proposed service is run in a single court setting initially, and the opportunity of the pilot taken to monitor and analyse the caseload imposed on the VWS, and the resources consumed in dealing with it.

4.7 Links to existing services

4.7.1 It has been noted throughout this report that it is expected that the current range of services provided by the various voluntary organisations for victims and witnesses, and particularly the Scottish Executive funded Witness Service, will continue to be provided. For most victims and witnesses, these will continue to be the most obvious and relevant component of the services offered to them. Nothing in this report should be taken as detracting from the services which these voluntary groups provide; rather we see the role of the Victim and Witness Support Service being to provide a robust framework into which the existing services can fit, and which will strengthen, support and consolidate them.

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