National Strategy for Community Justice: Review Consultation

2. Background

The Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (‘the Act’) establishes the current model for Community Justice in Scotland. Section 1 of the Act provides the statutory meaning of community justice but, in broad terms, it encapsulates a range of disposals, services and individuals. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Bail conditions, community disposals and post-release control requirements.
• Managing and supporting individuals that have been in contact with the justice system with a view to reducing or preventing future offending, including through the provision of relevant services.
• Preparing individuals sentenced to imprisonment or detention in penal institutions for release
• Facilitating the provision of relevant services which individuals being released from custody are likely to need immediately following their release.

The Act places duties on a set of statutory partners to plan, deliver (either collectively or individually), and report against a series of nationally determined outcomes. These statutory partners are set out in section 13 of the Act and include:

• Local authorities
• Local health boards
• The chief constable of the Police Service of Scotland,
• The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service,
• Skills Development Scotland
• Integration joint boards established by virtue of section 9 of the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014
• The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
• The Scottish Ministers

The nationally determined outcomes are established in the Community Justice Performance Framework (‘the framework’), which supports delivery and implementation of the National Strategy for Community Justice. Both the framework and the strategy are statutory documents that the Act requires Scottish Ministers to produce. At a local level, community justice partners (commonly referred to as community justice partnerships) must utilise these documents when preparing their statutory plans for their area.

The Act also established Community Justice Scotland (CJS), which is the national leadership body for community justice in Scotland. CJS has a statutory duty to promote the strategy as well as to monitor the performance of community justice partnerships for each local area.

Although not statutory partners, many third sector organisations play a key role in the provision of community justice services at a local level and are actively involved in the work of community justice partnerships.

The National Strategy for Community Justice

The strategy provides high-level direction by setting out Scottish Ministers’ aims and priorities for community justice in Scotland. It is a statutory document established under Section 15(2) of the Act, which sets out that:

The strategy may contain such material in relation to community justice as the Scottish Ministers consider appropriate, including in particular—

a) a statement of the aims of community justice,

b) action that the Scottish Ministers propose to take, or consider that others should take, to achieve, or support the achievement of, those aims,

c) action that the Scottish Ministers consider that others should take to facilitate access to relevant general services by persons who have been convicted of an offence following the release of such persons from imprisonment or detention in a penal institution.

The current strategy was published in June 2022 following a review of the previous strategy in 2021. It includes 4 overarching aims that are supported by 13 priority actions. These are designed to show how actions will be implemented and for what purpose. The aims and their corresponding priority actions are shown in the table below.

National aim:

1. Optimise the use of diversion and intervention at the earliest opportunity

Priority action:

1. Enhance intervention at the earliest opportunity by ensuring greater consistency, confidence in and awareness of services which support the use of direct measures and diversion from prosecution

2. Improve the identification of underlying needs and the delivery of support following arrest by ensuring the provision of person-centred care within police custody and building upon referral opportunities to services including substance use and mental health services

National aim:

2. Ensure that robust and high quality community interventions and public protection arrangements are consistently available across Scotland

Priority action:

3. Support the use of robust alternatives to remand by ensuring high quality bail services are consistently available and delivered effectively

4. Strengthen options for safe and supported management in the community by increasing and widening the use of electronic monitoring technologies

5. Ensure that those given community sentences are supervised and supported appropriately to protect the public, promote desistence from offending and enable rehabilitation by delivering high quality, consistently available, trauma-informed services and programmes

6. Ensure restorative justice is available across Scotland to all those who wish to access it by promoting and supporting the appropriate and safe provision of available services

National aim:

3. Ensure that services are accessible and available to address the needs of individuals accused or convicted of an offence

Priority action:

7. Enhance individuals’ access to health and social care and continuity of care following release from prison by improving the sharing of information and partnership-working between relevant partners

8. Ensure that the housing needs of individuals in prison are addressed consistently and at an early stage by fully implementing and embedding the Sustainable Housing on Release for Everyone (SHORE) standards across all local authority areas

9. Enhance individual’s life skills and readiness for employment by ensuring increased access to employability support through effective education, learning, training, career services and relevant benefit services

10. Enhance community integration and support by increasing and promoting greater use of voluntary throughcare and third sector services

National aim:

4. Strengthen the leadership, engagement, and partnership working of local and national community justice partners

Priority action:

11. Deliver improved community justice outcomes by ensuring that effective leadership and governance arrangements are in place and working well, collaborating with partners and planning strategically

12. Enhance partnership planning and implementation by ensuring the voices of victims of crime, survivors, those with lived experience and their families are effectively incorporated and embedded

13. Support integration and reduce stigma by ensuring the community and workforce have an improved understanding of and confidence in community justice

The strategy also recognises the importance of wider issues in the delivery of these aims. This includes the following:

• Victims of crime – ensuring the needs of victims and survivors of crime are recognised and they have access to person-centred services. This includes, but is not limited to, access to restorative justice for those that wish to use it.
• Trauma informed practice – recognising that person-centred, trauma-informed approaches are key to improving an individual’s outcomes during their journey through the justice system.
• Women in justice – being attentive to gender inequality and the impact of violence against women and girls.

Links between the strategy and the performance framework

While the strategy establishes the aims and priority actions for community justice in Scotland, the performance framework sets out the corresponding outcomes that are to be achieved at a local level. The framework also sets out how progress against these outcomes is to be measured. In this regard, it supports community justice partnerships in their local planning and reporting, and helps drive the aims of the strategy.

Of the 13 priority actions in the strategy, 9 correspond to nationally determined outcomes contained in the performance framework. These are shown in Annex A.

Community justice partnerships are required to:

i. Produce a Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan (CJOIP), setting out whether each outcome is being achieved in their area and, depending on that assessment, the actions that will be taken to either maintain or achieve it

ii. Produce an annual report on performance in relation to these outcomes.

Section 18 of the Act specifies that responsibility for the review of the national performance framework rests with Community Justice Scotland. CJS is currently undertaking a review of the performance framework and, upon completion, will produce recommendations to Scottish Ministers. This consultation relates only to the National Strategy for Community Justice.