Domestic abuse: statistics recorded by the police in Scotland, 2024-25

Annex 2: Data sources and quality

The creation of Police Scotland altered the way in which domestic abuse data was collected. Prior to 1 April 2013, each legacy police force had a bespoke system to collect the data required. Between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014, the interim Vulnerable Persons Database (iVPD) system was rolled out to the then 14 police divisions in Scotland. From 1 April 2014 onwards, all domestic abuse data was collected through the iVPD.

From 2024/25 domestic abuse aggravated crimes and offences are now recorded on Police Scotland’s new crime management system (UNIFI), instead of the iVPD. Given this, it is no longer possible to report on the proportion of domestic abuse incidents that involved a crime or offence. Furthermore, it is not possible to provide a like-for-like comparison with previous years. There has been no change to the way information on incidents of domestic abuse are recorded, so these statistics remain comparable with earlier years.

The data presented in this bulletin is a snapshot of domestic abuse incidents recorded on the iVPD and a snapshot of domestic abuse aggravated crimes and offences recorded on UNIFI, as at December 2025.

Process of logging an incident

When a victim and/or witness makes initial contact with the police regarding a domestic abuse incident, Police Scotland log the incident in their System for Tasking and Operational Resource Management (STORM), Police Scotland’s national command and control system. STORM has been used across Scotland since February 2018.

STORM is largely used for resource allocation purposes. Depending on the information supplied and the outcome of additional enquiries, the incident may result in the creation of one or more crime reports on the new police recording system.

Once the police have assessed the incident, they determine if a vulnerable person record is to be set up in iVPD. The purpose of the iVPD is to collect information on people who are deemed to be in a vulnerable situation, to ensure that any concerns for the victim (or any other person subject of concern) are assessed and appropriate actions are taken.

Incidents in this bulletin are counted against the year in which they are recorded by Police Scotland on the iVPD system. Not all incidents are reported to the police immediately following their occurrence. As such, each year’s figures on incidents of domestic abuse will include a proportion of incidents committed in earlier years. Annex 2 provides information on Police Scotland’s incident recording systems.

It is important to recognise that amendments to crime and offence records may occur following submission of figures by Police Scotland to the Scottish Government. This may be due to the reclassification of crimes into different crime groups or, no crime being established after further investigation by police into the originally reported offence.

Additional information on the trend data

In addition to this, as seen in the Characteristics of domestic abuse incidents section there has been an increase since 2016-17 in the proportion of incidents where the relationship between the victim and suspected perpetrator is unknown. Further to this, the proportion of cases where no information was recorded on the characteristics of the victim and/or the suspected perpetrator has also been increasing (from 4,522 or 8% in 2016-17 to 19,090 or 29% by 2024-25).

Police Scotland have advised that a procedural change was made immediately prior to 2017-18 whereby for certain non-criminal incidents of domestic abuse (i.e. where both parties were believed to have an equal involvement), details were no longer recorded for a specific victim or a specific suspected perpetrator. Prior to this, two incidents may have been recorded treating one party as the victim and the other as the suspected perpetrator and the second for the reverse position. Whilst this change may also have had an effect on the number of domestic abuse incidents recorded by the police, the impact of this cannot be quantified.

There has also been a gradual increase in the number and proportion of incidents where the specific relationship (i.e. Spouse/Civil Partner, Co-habitee, Partner etc.) of those involved was unknown (to 11,557 or 18% in 2021-22), before reducing slightly to 9,487 or 15% in 2022-23 but increasing again to 13,850 or 21% in 2024-25. There can always be some occasions where no information can be provided on the specific relationship, for example where a domestic abuse victim is identified, but the perpetrator’s identity remains unknown.

In other cases (and similar to the above) where no criminal behaviour can be evidenced, it is possible none of the individuals involved will be recorded as a perpetrator. In such instances a ‘Not known’ or ‘Relationship not recorded’ value may be selected. There may remain some variation across Scotland in the approach to 

recording these specific variables, with Police Scotland recently re-issuing guidance to Officers. This in turn may have led to the increase highlighted above in the proportion of incidents where detailed information on the specific relationship between those involved was not recorded.

Incidents that have taken place in an ‘other dwelling’ have also gradually increased year-on-year in the last ten years and now account for the highest percentage of locations of domestic abuse incidents. This is likely due to the increase in incidents where (as described above) the relationship is unknown and therefore if victim and suspected perpetrator are not identified it is not possible to identify whether it is victim or suspected perpetrator’s home if they do not share a common place of residence. Another possibility is where incidents have taken place inside a home that neither of them are residing at.