National strategy for community justice: delivery plan update 5 – December 2025

Strategic context

This update covers the six months from July to the end of December 2025, a period which has seen continued high demand for community justice services. This reporting period has seen the implementation of emergency early release of some short-term prisoners to support an immediate reduction in the prison population which, alongside other factors, has an impact on community justice services provided at a local level.

Despite the ongoing challenges, evidence published^[1] during this reporting period points to progress in many important aspects of the National Strategy for Community Justice. The number of diversion from prosecution cases commenced rose by seven per cent between 2023-24 and 2024-25 from 3,400 to 3,600, the highest level in the last ten years. In 2024-25, the number of bail supervision cases rose by 17 per cent from 2023-24 to 1,500, again the highest in the past ten years. And in 2024-25, there were 1,100 home detention curfew assessment reports, an increase of 47 per cent on 2023-24. While this progress is encouraging, there is still much to do to strengthen and improve the provision of community justice services.

2026 marks 5 years since the last review of the Community Justice Strategy, which was subsequently revised and published in June 2022. As the Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 requires that the strategy is reviewed no more than 5 years since the previous review, the Scottish Government will be consulting with partners and stakeholders this summer to review the current strategy, which this delivery plan supports.