Review of Justice Social Work Statistics in Scotland – survey of users 2023

Summary of recommendations

From the data user review and discussions with main stakeholders, the following recommendations are being proposed for the future of justice social work statistics:

• improve the timing of published data – from 2024 onwards, the report will be split in two. This will allow some of the data to be in the public domain three to four months earlier.
• commentary to be changed to reflect some of the requests e.g., key points at the beginning of topics and more graphs/infographics to break up text.
• tables to be streamlined to allow filtering to make it easier to select different years and geographical breakdowns.
• there were a number of requests asking for more data linkage. This would first require a review and likely changes to existing information governance arrangements, to ensure any future work in this area is compliant with data protection regulations.
• possible changes to the data collection method, possibly extending the use of ProcXed.NET data platform to make data transfer between local authorities and Scottish Government more efficient.
• investigate and review the requests for additional data that relate to justice social work statistics.