Glasgow’s Stipendiary Magistrate and Justice of the Peace courts are to relocate to the city’s nearby sheriff courthouse in a move that will provide better facilities for court users and increase efficiency.

Work at the sheriff court building in Carlton Place is set to start today (Monday 30 Jan) in the first phase of the project.

“Relocating the courts so that local business is under one roof is the most efficient and cost effective way to provide court services in Glasgow and Strathkelvin,” explains Eric McQueen, Scottish Court Service (SCS) Executive Director of Field Services. “It will improve facilities for court users, increase efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint. We are committed to making best use of our buildings and minimising running cost while maintaining services.”

The Stipendiary Magistrate and Justice of the Peace courts currently based in Glasgow’s St Andrews Street will mainly be relocated to the second floor in the sheriff court building and will benefit from better facilities including disabled access, improved security, a single service delivery point for customers and more direct court access for custodies.

The move will enable staff to make better use of skills by sharing resources and further help to reduce the organisation’s carbon footprint. It will also save time for all justice partners who will no longer require to travel between separate courts. No staff redundancies will be involved.

The  majority of the building work, which is expected to take around eight weeks, will be conducted out of hours or at weekends, ensuring impact is kept to an absolute minimum. Once building work is completed there will be further consultation with justice partners to determine the best time to relocate the courts into their new accommodation.

Previous court relocations were carried out successfully last year in Kilmarnock, Paisley and Ayr.

The decision to relocate the Glasgow courts was taken following high level business analysis and local consultation with justice partners and professional court users.

Note:

The Scottish Court Service took responsibility for the Justice of the Peace courts from the local authority on 8 December 2008. The relocation of these courts to the Sheriff Court building comes as the final phase of the court unification process in Glasgow.