Victim Notification Scheme (VNS): independent review

Section 4: Executive Summary

The position of victims within the criminal justice system is not easy; beyond the harm they have endured, they are required to navigate a complex landscape at a time when they are highly vulnerable. Several processes have to be understood by them and there are competing priorities from a variety of institutions. Most agree there is a need for a Victim Notification Scheme, particularly in cases of serious harm and many countries operate similar systems. The Scottish Scheme is voluntary and requires opting in and we can speculate, but we do not know, why the take up rate is relatively low. This Review has set out to analyse the available information, talk to the widest possible number of stakeholders and come up with practical and realistic recommendations for improvement, to allow the Scheme to meet its objectives as fully as possible.

We found that we had been preceded by a number of earlier reports by distinguished reviewers. It was noticeable that the same themes emerged as a thread over a number of years. We recognise there has been a number of initiatives to rationalise and improve criminal justice procedures from the victim's perspective and some worthy initiatives are underway now, such as work towards scoping a single point of contact. Work has been done to make things more trauma-informed, but there is still a way to go. It is disappointing however that issues identified as far back as 2007 still need to be tackled today: a confusing array of institutions with complicated rules and procedures, the burden resting on the victim to navigate their own way through, bureaucratic, paper-based communication and complicated eligibility rules.

Feedback from victims and victim support organisations is remarkably consistent. Victims lack understanding of the processes, they can be wrong-footed by the method and timing of notifications and they are worried about personal safety.

We have identified a number of gaps and anomalies around the position of victims who are children, gaps in mental health case processes and how victims understand and are informed about safety planning in the community. We have made a number of recommendations in these respects. We recommend the introduction of some discretion around eligibility.

We have examined a significant number of international models, many of which face the same challenges as Scotland. We have produced a supplement to this review outlining information from models in use elsewhere in the world.

Drawing on international experience, including the rest of the UK and Ireland, we have concluded that there is something we can do to improve the situation.

Rather than invite voluntary registration with a letter and a series of forms immediately after sentence, we recommend that there be automatic referral of all eligible cases to a specialist team, who will then make personal contact with the victim, explain and answer questions and facilitate enrolment. We have decided not to recommend automatic enrolment for all. The system should be flexible and responsive to changing needs and personal choice.

We believe a specialist team should sit outside the existing delivery agencies but work closely with them. At present the delivery agencies have to field calls from sometimes highly distressed victims following notifications of parole or release; officials do their best, but this is not their role nor are they trained to deal with such situations. We have also concluded that some distress is caused by lack of explanation or understanding, which human communication could help mitigate or avoid. Victims should be able to choose their preferred method of communication and they should be kept in touch. It is particularly this element which we found most compelling in other models we looked at.

In making our recommendation for the establishment of a new team to provide personalised victim contact, we have not entered into a detailed costing exercise for this review. We wish to give the Scottish Government some leeway in determining where this team might sit and how it might be managed and constituted, as there are a number of ways in which this might be achieved. In this review, we have estimated a likely caseload, compared other models which already operate, and identified areas within the existing delivery agencies, particularly SPS, where savings can be made by designing out the additional work the system's current complexity creates.

Information about the VNS available online comes in a variety of different formats, in different places and is sometimes out of date or poorly presented. We have recommended there should be one clear reliable online source of information, to which links could be published.

The delivery agencies have published standards and report annually in a joint document on their progress. We have recommended improvements to how they report and how there should be more hard data on performance, with which managers could drive continuous improvement.

Whilst all the delivery agencies have some kind of complaints procedure, we found little evidence of active invitation for feedback or analysis of shortcomings to drive improvement. It is important to listen to the voice of the victim. Those we saw told us they did not feel they had much control in the process. We believe our recommendations will go some way towards redressing that balance.