Coronavirus (COVID-19): Justice Analytical Services data report - December 2021

This pack provides information on the impact of COVID-19 on the Justice system during December 2021.

Data has been gathered from a number of different sources and may be subject to future revision.

This document is part of a collection


Criminal Registered & Scheduled Trials

December figures

Due to fewer court days being programmed during the December festive period, comparisons with the pre-COVID monthly average are lower. The December figures also reflect the impact of the COVID Omicron variant which resulted in reduced summary criminal trial loadings to manage overall footfall in the courts and an increased number of adjournments due to self-isolation requirements.

Since the initial lockdown in March 2020, there have been 141,091 criminal registrations in the courts. 629 of these registrations have been COVID-19 related (0.4%).

In December 2021, all types of court registration remained lower than 2019-20 averages.

Cases Registered 19-20 monthly average December 2021 Change from
19-20 monthly average
Outstanding trials March 2020 Outstanding trials December 2021
Indictments
High Court 85 69 -16 (-19%) 390 516
Sheriff Court 454 450 -4 (-1%) 497 2,170
Complaints
Sheriff Court 5,458 4,860 -598 (-11%) 13,971 32,394
JP Court 2,799 1,856 -943 (-34%) 3,497 7,936

At the end of December 2021 there were 43,016 trials outstanding. This compares to 18,355 at the end of 2019-20. In addition, SCTS have forecast that there are another 1,563 cases in the system, mostly solemn, which are likely to come to trial but have not yet had a trial date set (see SCTS published monthly criminal statistics for more detail).

Contact

Email: Justice_Analysts@gov.scot

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