Journey Times in the Scottish Criminal Justice System 2024-25

8.    Times for journey stages for accused prosecuted in courts

[Supplementary Table 6]

The data available allow for overall journey times to be split into: date an offence is first known to police to the date an offence is recorded at COPFS (police known to COPFS record), the date an offence is recorded at COPFS to the date a case is registered in court (COPFS report to court registration) and the date a case is registered in court to the date a verdict is reached (court registration to verdict). The first 2 of these times can be considered pre-court times and the final time is an in-court time. We have also provided in the supplementary table 6 and in the supporting interactive dashboard the time from offence date to the date an offence is first known to police (offence to police known).

Median times for each of these stages are shown in figure 6. Although the pre-court times are not directly linked to the type of court, they are shown by court destination as they contribute to the overall length of time a case takes to reach a verdict in a particular court type.

The median police known to COPFS report time for accused with verdicts issued in High Court was on average 5 days until 2021-22 but had increased to 13 days in 2023-24, before decreasing to 11 days in 2024-25. For accused with verdicts issued in Sheriff solemn court the median police known to COPFS report time has remained around 3 days, increasing in 1 day in 2024-25. For accused with verdicts issued in Sheriff summary court, police known to COPFS report time has almost doubled, increasing from around 6 days in 2019-20 to 11 days in 2024-25.

The median time from COPFS report to court registration is, in general higher, for accused with verdicts issued in solemn courts than for accused disposed in sheriff summary court. For accused disposed in solemn courts COPFS report to court registration times have remained more or less stable in 2024-25 compared to 2023-24: decreasing by 1 day (0%) to 491 days in High Court and increasing by 6 days in Sheriff solemn court (2%) to 313 days. COPFS report to court registration times for accused disposed in Sheriff summary courts increased by 3 days (14%) to 25 days.

In-court times (court registration to verdict) saw a decrease in 2024-25 compared to 2023-24 in all court types except for Sheriff summary where times slightly increased: times in High Court decreased by 14 days (-4%) to 315 days, Sheriff solemn court decreased by 23 days (-20%) to 91 days, Sheriff summary court increased by 4 days (3%) to 121 days.

Figure 6: In 2024-25, median police known to COPFS report time has remained stable in all courts, median COPFS report to court registration times remained stable in High Court, increasing slightly in Sheriff courts, while median court registration to verdict times have decreased in all courts except for Sheriff summary where times increased slightly.

Median time for stages of the justice process by destination court (High court, Sheriff solemn and Sheriff Summary) and financial year.