National Strategy for Community Justice revision: consultation

3. Background

The current model for Community Justice came into operation on 1 April 2017, underpinned by the Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (the Act), which places duties on a group of statutory partners to engage in community justice planning and to report against a set of nationally-determined outcomes.

The Act also established Community Justice Scotland and required Scottish Ministers to produce a National Strategy for Community Justice (the strategy) and an Outcomes, Performance and Improvement Framework (the OPIF). Scottish Ministers also produced Guidance for Local Partners to support the delivery of the new model. As per section 16 of the Act, Scottish Ministers reviewed the current strategy in 2021. As part of the review process we published the National Strategy for Community Justice: Review Consultation which ran from 27 September 2021 to 8 November 2021, and held a number of associated workshops and meetings with partners. Following this review, the consultation analysis report has been published and it was concluded that a revised strategy should be developed.

Overall, respondents were broadly supportive of the ambition of the current strategy and its usefulness in helping to establish the model of community justice, but some responses suggested that improvements could be made to its clarity, impact and implementation structures. The responses have informed the development of the revised strategy, which is more streamlined, having a sharper focus on a range of achievable priorities, and will be accompanied by a delivery plan, containing more tangible actions, to help drive its implementation.