Justice Analytical Services Statistics: code of practice compliance

Continuous improvement in the production of our statistics

User engagement

Our approach to consulting with and informing users about our statistics, including actions planned for the year ahead (2026-2027) is detailed above in the Public Involvement & Engagement strategy.

Improvements to our analytical processes

In line with the Scottish Government Statistics Group’s strategic priority to increase efficiency, we will continue our transition to Open Source software. We will convert existing publication pipelines from SAS software to the R programming language, with new analysis being built in R where possible. Given the size and complexity of the existing body of publication production code held in SAS, significant resource is being invested to ensure this process is completed by the end of 2026.

The above work will monopolise a large share of the analytical capacity of the Criminal Proceedings statistics team. To date, the parts of the process relating to quality assurance, table and chart production have been fully replicated in R. The next stage is to replicate the processes for producing the annual publication dataset in R, which is more complex. In addition to this, the infrastructure used to store proceedings data is being transferred to new servers. The management of this will also require significant resource over 2026-2027, to ensure the continued delivery of an effective service for our users.

We will continue to implement Reproducible Analytical Pipelines in statistical analysis, in keeping with the Government Statistical Service’s Reproducible Analytical Pipeline strategy.

Proposed changes to how information on domestic abuse recorded by the police is produced

Statistics on domestic abuse aggravated crimes are now sourced from Police Scotland’s recorded crime management system, which is the same system that provides data on total recorded crime in Scotland. Given this, we plan to consult users later in 2026 on expanding the annual recorded crime bulletin to include a dedicated chapter on domestic abuse, potentially replacing the current separate bulletin and ensuring findings can be published much earlier.

Further developments to the hate crimes recorded by the police publication

In February 2026 we published the first report on hate crimes recorded by the police in Scotland, under Section 15 of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. This used a temporary methodology to gather the required data. Over the coming year we will continue to work with Police Scotland to ensure their data system’s functionality is able to provide the full information required for the next report (covering 2025-2026). We will also continue engagement with users on the next phase of work to deliver this data under the Statistics in Development heading.

Review of the police officer numbers quarterly publication

We will review the Police Officer Quarterly Strength statistics and will likely consult with users on whether any changes in our approach will increase their analytical value.