Victims Taskforce papers: November 2024

Scottish Government update (paper 7) 

Purpose 

1. This paper provides an update to the Victims Taskforce on legislative and non-legislative work to improve how people affected by crime experience the justice system. 

Background  

2. In September, the First Minister set out his Programme for Government for 2024-25. This included a number of commitments reaffirming the Scottish Government’s Vision for a person-centred, trauma-informed approach to justice in Scotland. The Programme set out how we will:  

• continue to improve outcomes for victims, survivors and witnesses of crime across Scotland – providing £16 million in the 2024 to 2025 period through the Victim Centred Approach Fund to support 23 organisations to provide practical and emotional support 
• reform the Victim Notification Scheme to ensure that it operates in a more trauma-informed and person-centred way 
• support victims and witnesses to get the support they need, by introducing training on trauma for staff across the justice system 
• test our approach to Bairns’ Hoose across ten areas – providing safe, traumainformed environments for child victims and witnesses to access multiagency support and recovery services – ahead of a national rollout, incrementally, from 2027 
• introduce a Misogyny Bill to implement recommendations of the Working Group chaired by Baroness Kennedy to create new offences related to misogynistic conduct, providing new powers to hold to account perpetrators who harm women and reinforce barriers to an equal society 

3. These commitments are in addition to work on legislation currently before Parliament and the implementation of provisions in existing Acts of the Scottish Parliament. There is also a significant programme of change ongoing across the justice system, much of which contributes directly to, or is linked to, the workstreams overseen by the Victims Taskforce.  

4. We remain indebted to our delivery partners, both in the criminal justice organisations and the third sector, for their continued support and willingness to collaborate to drive this work forward. We also recognise the importance of ensuring lived experience informs how such measures are developed and implemented and will continue to explore opportunities for engagement and co-design. 

Updates 

Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill  

5. The Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 25 April 2023. The Bill responds to concerns about the need to improve the experiences of victims and witnesses within Scotland’s justice system, especially the victims of sexual crime. It also continues to safeguard the operation and principles of the system and protect the rights of those accused of crime.  

6. The Bill passed Stage 1 on 23 April 2024. The Criminal Justice Committee’s report at Stage 1 was published on 29 March and the Scottish Government’s response to the report was published on 16 April 2024.  

7. On 31 October 2024 the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs announced changes planned for the Bill at Stage 2 of the parliamentary process. This was done in answer to a Parliamentary Question and also through a letter to the Criminal Justice Committee. Dates for the Stage 2 committee sessions for the Bill have still to be agreed by Parliament. 

Independent review of the Victim Notification Scheme  

8. The independent review of the Victim Notification Scheme (VNS) was commissioned in late March 2022. The review’s report, supplement to the report, and easy read version of the report were published on the Scottish Government’s website on 12 May.  

9. The Victim Notification Scheme enables eligible victims to obtain information about an offender’s or patient’s release, and/or to make representations as part of decisions on release.  

10. Our response to the independent review of the VNS, published on 9 October, sets out our commitment to implementing key proposals for reforms from the independent review.  

11. The Scottish Government wishes to thank everyone who contributed to the review, victims and survivors in particular. We are also grateful to everyone who has discussed the review’s recommendations with officials since the report was published, these discussions informed our response.  

Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 

12. The Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act (the Act) was passed on 22 June 2023 and became an Act on 1 August 2023. The aim of the Act is to ensure the use of custody for remand is focused on public safety including victim safety and delivery of justice, and that greater focus is given to the rehabilitation and reintegration of individuals leaving prison custody. 

13. The Act focuses on two parts of the criminal justice system – bail and remand decisions (Part 1) and release from prison custody (Part 2). The provisions in the Act are underpinned by a commitment to public protection and victim safety and aim to reduce reoffending, crime and future victimisation.  

14. The reforms through Part 1 of the Act are primarily intended to ensure that, as much as possible, the use of custody for remand is restricted to where it is necessary in the interests of public safety (including victim safety) and (in limited situations) to prevent a significant risk of prejudice to the interests of justice. 

15. The reforms through Part 2 are primarily intended to give a greater focus to the rehabilitation and reintegration of individuals leaving custody with the aim of reducing the risk of reoffending. It does that by, for example, placing a new duty on named public bodies to engage in the pre-release planning of people in prison, as well as requiring the publication of statutory minimum throughcare standards through stakeholder and public consultation.  

16. One of the provisions in Part 1 of the Act has been implemented. Section 5, which enables time spent by an accused person on electronically monitored bail awaiting trial or sentence to be accounted for against any eventual custodial sentence, was brought into force on 1 July 2024. Implementation of the remainder of part 1, including the new bail test, is expected to follow over the coming months. The Scottish Government has been planning for implementation of the bail reforms with key Scottish justice agencies and stakeholders since the passage of the 2023 Act, with one of the constraints being the need for the Section 104 Order to be in place prior to commencement. With the Section 104 Order now laid before the UK Parliament, the Scottish Government intends to move towards agreeing a commencement date which is likely to be a date in the first few months of 2025.  

17. Two of the provisions in Part 2 of the Act have been commenced. Section 11 introduced a power to the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 which enables Scottish Ministers to release prisoners early, where it is necessary and proportionate to do so to respond to the effects an emergency situation is having or is likely to have on a prison. Section 11 was brought into force on 26 May 2024. Given the sharp and sudden rise in the prison population in Spring 2024, the Scottish Government utilised the new power to instruct the early release of a limited number of prisoners during June and July 2024. (The details of this process were discussed in the previous iteration of this update, and the specific regulations were accepted by Parliament).  

18. Section 14 of the Act (which includes amendments to the Victim Notification Scheme (VNS) so that victims can nominate a victim support organisation (VSO) (from those prescribed by the Scottish Ministers) to receive information at the same time as the victim, or on their behalf) was also brought into force on 26 May 2024, in co-ordination with the s11 provision. The regulations that instructed the prisoner emergency release process in July also prescribed four VSOs for the purposes of the provisions introduced by section 14 (ASSIST, Children 1st, Rape Crisis Scotland and Victim Support Scotland). Work is ongoing to identify other VSOs who can be prescribed under the provisions introduced by s14 in the future. 

19. As a result of the substantial range of exclusions that were applied to eligibility for the emergency release process (including exclusions for prisoners sentenced to more than 4 years; or with more than 180 days left to serve; sexual offenders; domestic abuse offenders; or those subject to non-harassment orders), there were only 11 prisoners with a victim registered on the VNS system who were eligible for early release, and after the application of the governors veto assessment only 6 were released. VNS staff made contact with all victims in those cases. 

20. As part of implementing s14 and to support victims during the emergency early release process, temporary VNS arrangements were put in place to assist those victims who were not already registered with VNS to more speedily register and begin receiving information they were entitled to on the release of the individual in their case. This included making arrangements for the prescribed VSOs to be able to make speedy enquiries with SPS on behalf of victims. While the engagement with these arrangements was limited, we are engaging with victims organisations to consider what more could be done to raise awareness of these processes, should a similar action ever be needed again. 

21. Section 12 of the Act places a duty on named public bodies to engage in the pre-release planning of people in prison. This includes local authorities and the NHS, who will be required to engage in the development, management and delivery of an individual’s release plan when asked to do so by SPS. Section 13 requires the publication of statutory minimum throughcare standards to be developed through consultation with named stakeholders and the public. The drafting and consultation of these standards is to be completed within two years following implementation.  

22. These sections recognise the need for early and co-ordinated pre-release planning, so that people leaving prison have access to the services they need on release. These provisions intend to ensure more holistic support for people leaving prison, and to reduce reoffending by providing prisoners with an appropriate level of support upon leaving custody to help them resettle safely into their communities.  

23. The implementation of part 2 of the Act is underway, with commencement of certain elements taking place across 2024, with others following in early 2025. It is important to note that different sections of the Act are being commenced at different times, with the timeline being influenced by multiple factors, including engagement with stakeholders around resource and readiness, which remains ongoing.  

Misogyny Bill 

24. The Programme for Government 2024-25 announced that the Scottish Government will introduce a Bill in this Parliamentary year to address criminally misogynistic conduct. 

25. The Bill will implement recommendations of the Working Group chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy, informed by the subsequent Scottish Government consultation, to create new offences related to misogynistic conduct. 

26. This will provide new powers to hold to account perpetrators who harm women and whose behaviour reinforces barriers to an equal society. 

Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Bill 

27. The Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Bill was introduced on 24 September 2024. This is a dual purpose Bill and covers provisions that relate to criminal justice modernisation and domestic homicide and suicide reviews.  

28. Both parts of the Bill support one of the Scottish Government’s priorities, namely the delivery of effective and sustainable public services. The first part of the Bill aims to do this by providing a basis for the ongoing and future resilience, effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice sector through modernisation, in particular through greater use of digital processes. The second part of the Bill ensures that change and improvements are delivered through effective learning from a robust review process so that individuals and communities are better supported by public services, and deaths can be prevented. 

29. The criminal justice modernisation provisions form a key part of a programme of work that takes forward the Scottish Government’s commitment to modernise justice processes through greater use of digital processes. One of the main objectives of this part of the Bill is to make permanent some of the temporary measures from the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022, to deliver significant longer term benefits and provide a basis for the future resilience, effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice sector. The Bill also introduces two new provisions to further support the modernisation of Scotland’s justice processes and procedures. 

30. The second part of the Bill builds on a commitment within the Equally Safe Delivery Plan and a key priority within the 2023-24 Programme for Government to develop Scotland’s first national domestic homicide and suicide review model. Domestic homicide and suicide reviews aim to identify what lessons can be learned and potentially applied following a death where abuse is known or suspected, in order to help prevent future abuse and deaths.  

31. Work to develop the domestic homicide and suicide review model in Scotland has been progressed through the Scottish Government-led domestic homicide and suicide review taskforce, a multi-agency group which includes senior stakeholders. The expertise of stakeholders and those with lived experience of domestic abuse, alongside learning gained from UK and international jurisdictions, have been fundamental in forming the approach taken which is outlined within the Bill. 

Vulnerable Witnesses (Criminal Evidence) (Scotland) Act 2019 

32. The Vulnerable Witnesses Act (Criminal Evidence) (Scotland) Act 2019 introduced a right for children and vulnerable witnesses in the most serious criminal cases to have their evidence pre-recorded instead of requiring them to give their evidence live in court. 

33. The Act is being implemented on a phased basis, both to give the criminal justice system time to prepare for this change and to ensure that the right facilities are in place for witnesses. Our original implementation plan was revised following the impact of Covid and the court recovery scheme. We now intend to rollout the presumption in favour of pre-recorded evidence to child complainers and witnesses aged under 16 in the Sheriff Court by April 2026. 

34. In August 2024 the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs formally opened the Dundee Justice Hub, a state-of-the-art witness facility supported by £2.4m of Scottish Government funding. The Hub includes one Evidence by Commission (EBC) suite and facilities for justice partners to co-locate in one building, facilitating closer working. 

35. The Expansion of Pre-Recorded Implementation Group meets regularly to share progress on preparation for the rollout from key stakeholders. 

36. SCTS are preparing to provide two additional EBC suite facilities in the remaining sheriffdoms which lack EBC capacity- South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway, and North Strathclyde. Supported by £2m of SG capital funding they intend to have EBC suites operational in both sheriffdoms by April 2026. 

37. Work is ongoing with SCTS and COPFS to determine what additional requirements they may have to support the necessary training, staffing and upskilling required in the Sheriff Courts ahead of the rollout of the presumption. 

38. Work is also ongoing to ensure that practitioners, victim support organisations and other key stakeholders are aware of the next phase of implementation and are supported to prepare their workforce and the people they support ahead of implementation.  

39. Finally, progress is being made against a recommendation of the Criminal Justice Committee in their response to the Bill at Stage 1. The Committee recommended that the Scottish Government should undertake a research project into the impact of pre-recorded evidence on case outcomes. That project has now commenced its early phases with the aim to conduct a data gathering and data analysis exercise alongside qualitative jury research. 

Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act – Implementation  

40. The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill progressed through Parliament over a period of 18 months and received Royal Assent on 4 June to become an Act.  

41. Regulations 1 2024 commenced certain provisions of the Act on 28th August. These saw the end to the detention of under 18s in young offenders institutions (YOI) from 28 August and included transitional provisions so that those in YOI aged under 18 on commencement could transition to alternative child friendly settings such as secure before 31 August. All 5 children transitioned safely to secure accommodation, by 31 August. 

42. The provisions brought in on 28 August, which see no under 18s detained in young offenders institutions, also commenced enabling powers concerning further regulation of the placement of children in secure accommodation, including provision for a young person to remain in secure accommodation beyond their 18th birthday, up to their 19th birthday, in specific circumstances. 

43. Those further regulations will be subject to affirmative procedure. That means they require detailed engagement, policy development, public consultation and active Parliamentary scrutiny. It was not possible for those provisions to be included in the commencement regulations. The priority, rightly, was to focus on children under 18. We will turn to those further regulations this autumn. 

44. The Commencement Regulations also include provision to ensure that any child who is sentenced or remanded to secure accommodation will be treated as a “looked after” child (if not already). This will assist the child to be supported as they return to the community and include access to aftercare entitlements should the child leave secure accommodation on or after their 16th birthday. Ministers are now considering specific commencement schedules across the Act.  

45. A workshop to help inform next steps was undertaken at the CYCJ Youth Justice Conference 2024 and a subsequent meeting of the Resource and Implementation Group connected with the Bill/Act is being scheduled with key stakeholders and delivery partners to inform Scottish Government consideration of commencement and implementation schedules. 

Changes to Home Detention Curfew eligibility criteria 

46. The Scottish Government intend to bring forward secondary legislation to amend the eligibility criteria for home detention curfew (HDC), with the intention of increasing the period of time individuals can spend on release under licence conditions. This is part of the Programme for Government commitment to sustainable action on the prison population and was also referred to by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs in her Statement to Parliament in May. 

47. HDC is an important tool in supporting the reintegration of certain prisoners and is subject risk assessment before any decision to release on licence. Proposals will take account of changes in the Prisoner (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill as changes to release arrangements effectively reduce the amount of time individuals can spend on HDC. Lowering the minimum amount of a sentence to be served before an individual can be eligible for HDC (current minimum is 25%) and increasing the maximum number of days that can be spent on HDC (current maximum is 180 days), are ways to increase the potential time people can spend on HDC.  

48. Any changes to the eligibility for HDC will not change the fact that it will be subject to risk assessment and individuals will be released under licence conditions, including curfew. Any breaches of licence conditions or curfew will be investigated, with an option to recall the individual to custody to serve the remainder of their sentence, where it is necessary and proportionate to do so. Existing statutory exclusions will also apply. For any questions relating to this, please contact David Doris at david.doris@gov.scot  

Introduction of GPS 

49. Later this month SG will be laying Regulations to introduce satellite tracking technology into the electronic monitoring service, subject to Parliamentary approval. This will from end January, if approved, be an option for SPS to use as part of an HDC licence.  

50. The current technology (RF) remains a key part of the monitoring service, as it performs well at monitoring curfew, which will remain a part of all HDC licences, with most people released on RF tag. Following HDC risk assessment, where there is a geographical component that GPS might assist in monitoring, GPS tags will be an option.  

51. It is important to manage expectations about use. This will be the first time GPS tags have been used in Scotland, we expect there may only be a handful of uses initially. It is important we build the service in a way that allows all partners to develop their learning. A more comprehensive set of material around use and what learning we hope to take from this roll out will be published alongside the Regulations.  

52. The new capability may offer something new as a way of monitoring exclusion zones, including where there are victims’ issues. However the public protection elements of GPS should not be over-stated, and the role of the current risk assessment process will be key in identifying cases that are candidates for GPS. It is anticipated that where there are clearly identifiable patterns of behaviour, e.g. offending in certain areas, that GPS may provide additional assurance about licence conditions. For any further questions, please contact Graham Robertson at Graham.Robertson@gov.scot

Bairns’ Hoose  

53. We are testing our approach to Bairns’ Hoose across ten areas – providing safe, trauma-informed environments where child victims and witnesses can access multi-agency support and recovery services in line with our 2024 PfG commitment. We have, to date, supported this with an almost £10 million investment from 2023 to 2025.  

54. Although stages and approaches vary between partnerships, the main focus of the work, since the launch of the phase, has been on further development of partnerships across Local Authorities, Police Scotland, Health and the third sector. We are working closely with partnerships to create the right conditions for transformative change, developing multi-agency partnerships, planning for and carrying out building work, consultation and staff recruitment. The knowledge and evidence gathered during this Pathfinder phase will be used to inform the development of a national Bairns’ Hoose Blueprint which will underpin the incremental roll-out of Bairns’ Hoose from 2027.  

55. We continue to work collaboratively with partnerships as they trial Bairns’ Hoose Standards in different geographical and service models, providing rich learning opportunities from a range of contexts which is allowing us to better understand and address the complexity of the required systemic change. Partnerships remain supported by a Scottish Government Improvement Advisor and a single point of contact from the Bairns’ Hoose Unit.  

56. On 24 October 2024, stakeholders from across Scotland gathered in Aberdeen to celebrate the first anniversary of the Bairns' Hoose Pathfinder Programme. This landmark event was part of a Scotland wide anniversary tour by Bragi Gudbrandsson, founder of the Barnahus model and vice chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, who had been visiting various Bairns' Hoose partnerships across Scotland. During his visit, he praised the Scottish approach to Barnahus and noted the significant developments made by partnerships and Scottish Government, towards this transformative approach.  

57. Bairns’ Hoose continues to support the implementation of national roll out of the Scottish Child Interview Model (SCIM) for Joint Investigative Interviews (JIIs) as part of the Bairns' Hoose Pathfinder Phase.  

58. The model is now live in all policing divisions and in 30 local authorities, with the majority of the child population now able to access this trauma-informed approach to joint investigative interviewing. The two remaining areas are expected to be live by the end of 2024 and in 2025. Local multi-agency partnerships, jointly led by social work and police, are leading on making the necessary adaptations to local child protection systems to accommodate the new approach.  

59. The Scottish Government has provided grant funding to CYCJ to evaluate the impact of the Scottish Child Interview Model on the experiences and outcomes for children and young people. The evaluation will also explore the use of this new form of joint investigative interviews in court settings. The research focuses on the experiences of children, young people, parents/carers, interviewers, and managers. The evaluation will also examine the use of these interviews within commission/court settings via court records where applicable, as well as perspectives of the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the judiciary. The research has now moved into the analysis and report stage, with the evaluation expected to be published by the end of 2024.  

Conclusion 

60. Members of the Victims Taskforce are invited to note the updates provided in this paper.