Chief constable joins police officers on patrol in Glasgow

Jo Farrell described the Scottish judicial system as “very inefficient” compared to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England, despite efforts in Glasgow Sheriff Court and Dundee Sheriff Courts, which she said were led by “very forward thinking” individuals.

The overtime spend on officers attending court added up to £3 million in the past year despite the majority not being required to give evidence.

Ms Farrell also said plans to reduce resources spent on 101 calls under a ‘proportionate response’ model were due to be rolled out imminently across the country enabling a focus on “frontline policing” including probes into organised crime, while reports of fraud, cyber offences, and online sex abuse of children were expected to increase.

She also pledged to cut time spent on mental health calls which could be as frequent as three or four calls per minute on a busy day, compared to domestic abuse calls once every eight minutes.

Ms Farrell said officers would take those in distress to “third party support” but described provisions as a “postcode lottery”.

She said the demands of mental health calls was consuming time equivalent to 600 police officers per year, out of a service of around 16,000.

She also said the demands of court attendance was placing a strain on officers’ family lives as well as costly overtime payments.

Ms Farrell said she “welcomed” work done by the Sheriff Principals of Glasgow Sheriff Court and Dundee Sheriff Court to improve efficiencies, but said it was “not fast enough”, and that victims were often asking officers “why is this happening” due to repeated delays.

She described police officers as “the visible part of the criminal justice system” for distressed victims facing repeated delays.

Ms Farrell said: “A roads policing officers said to me in the early weeks I was here, each time that case gets adjourned it’s the victim of the case who says to the police ‘Why is this happening?’.

“Their lives have been disrupted and their lives have been put on hold.

“What I’ve observed is a system that’s very inefficient.

“That is having a significant impact on policing, it is not joined up at all.”

Asked if a Scottish Police Federation description of “reactive policing” was accurate Ms Farrell said: “I think they make a fair point.

“Some of the challenge that goes with it is partly in relation to mental health – every three to four minutes there’s a call of that nature coming into our control rooms.

“The other thing that I’ve been very surprised at is the amount of money time and resources we have to dedicate around officers going being called into court to give evidence.

“We spent £3 million on overtime and I would estimate a third of those officers were on rest days or annual leave.

“When they call to court, and this is a conservative estimate, only 15% of them will give evidence and then they’ll be called again and again.

“This is happening to victims and witnesses and members of the public.”

Ms Farrell said hate crime reports had increased in line with the expanded range of protected characteristics, but had tailed off from a deluge of mostly anonymous complaints when the new law was introduced in April.

She said: “The vast proportion of it was anonymous, we had dedicated teams in our communications rooms to manage that.

“So now as we get to the new norm, as I’ll call it, we have seen an increase in hate crime as an extension in terms of the number of protected characteristics.”

On Friday evening Ms Farrell accompanied officers on foot patrol in Glasgow city centre and thanked them for their “hard work” on the force.

A spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: “We work with Police Scotland, and the courts service who schedule trials, to have witness availability taken into account when trials are fixed.

“We also work with the police to ensure that cases are ready to proceed.

“COPFS believes effective case management has the capacity to transform the experience of witnesses in the justice system and reduce unnecessary attendance.

“The summary case management pilot which adopts that approach, has resulted in cases being resolved more quickly with less disruptive impact on victims and witnesses.

“The interim evaluation indicated a 30% reduction in first citations in the aggregated pilot courts in comparison to the pre-pilot period.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) said: “The judiciary have been at the forefront of criminal justice reform in Scotland. It is these reforms which, with the approval of the Government and Parliament, have transformed the trial landscape, especially at High Court level. They have resulted in the victims of sexual offences giving their evidence well in advance of, and at a place which is remote from the courtroom.

“They have promoted a system in which serious criminal cases will proceed to trial only when necessary and when those involved are properly prepared for that eventuality. In the modern system, the evidence of the police and professional witnesses can be taken remotely, without the need for them to attend court.

“The Summary Case Management Pilot, which is now established in Hamilton, Paisley, Dundee, Glasgow and Perth, aims to reduce the number of cases that are set down for trial unnecessarily and to reduce the volume of late pleas of guilty and late decisions on discontinuation by the early disclosure of evidence and early judicial case management.”

SCTS said this has resulted in cases being resolved at the earliest opportunity.

The spokesperson said: “The pace of the rollout of Summary Case Management is heavily dependent on Police Scotland in sharing evidence quickly to support targeted evidence disclosure by COPFS.

“SCTS welcomes the recognition by the Chief Constable that system change is “not fast enough” as we seek to achieve a national rollout which will benefit not only Police Scotland but many complainers, witnesses and accused persons. The success of these judicially led initiatives relies upon strong co-operation across the system.

“Action by the Police and Crown to tackle delays in the disclosure of evidence and to improve the citation of witnesses is likely to have a significant impact on the repeat citations of witnesses and unnecessary adjournments of trials.”

SCTS also welcomed Police Scotland’s support on a range of initiatives and said that taken together these “will drive significant improvements and realise efficiencies across the justice system.”

It said that comparisons with other jurisdictions are “complex and generally unhelpful” and noted that in Scotland, despite the continued increase in the prosecution of serious cases, the number of evidence-led trials and case conclusions are at record levels.