Statistics on guilty pleas and criminal charges that proceeded to court: FOI release

Information requested

1. The number of guilty pleas made by the accused of any criminal charge that proceeded to court for the financial years of 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and so far in 2021-22.

2. The percentage of all criminal charges that proceeded to court where the accused pleaded guilty for the financial years of 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and so far in 2021-22.

Response

Whilst we don't hold the specific data to answer your question, we are able to provide the following information which relates to a sub-set of criminal accused.

Number of guilty pleas at different diet stages of accused in summary complaints

	Guilty Plea at 1st Calling		Guilty Plea at Intermediate Diet		Guilty Plea at Trial Diet
Financial Year	N	%	N	%	N	%
2014-15	45,085	32%	14,498	11%	16,459	23%
2015-16	38,150	30%	13,948	10%	18,900	24%
2016-17	33,951	30%	13,042	11%	19,124	26%
2017-18	29,880	28%	11,386	11%	18,351	26%
2018-19	28,849	29%	10,735	11%	16,525	27%
2019-20	28,560	28%	10,561	11%	15,466	28%
2020-21	12,911	19%	5,136	6%	5,615	18%
Apr 2021- to Nov 21	11,026	21%	5,230	7%	8,405	22%

Source: Criminal Justice Board Management Information System
Notes:
1 - These figures are for summary procedures only.
2 - Figures in 2020 and 2021 cover periods when courts were closed due to COVID lockdowns.
3 - Periods of court closure due to COVID lockdowns caused a backlog in court cases to grow. It is likely that the case mix of complaints proceeding through different stages of the court process has not yet returned to pre COVID norms and therefore comparisons should be avoided.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested because we can only provide what is supplied to us for the purposes of updating the Criminal Justice Board Management Information System.

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