Shaping Scotland’s Court Services
The Scottish Court Service is faced with some quite significant changes to the way in which court services are provided. Challenge is also found in the increasing expectations of court users, particularly victims and witnesses. Recommendations within Sheriff Principal Bowen’s review of Sheriff and Jury business and Lord Gill’s review of the civil courts anticipate significant changes to how and where court business will be conducted in the future, with an emphasis on specialisation and a move away from the model where all types of business are conducted at all court locations. We have been looking at whether the current structure of the courts could sustain all these changes. A guiding principle of this work has been to look at how the court estate can be structured to deliver the best possible services at less cost, whilst anticipating and benefiting from potential future changes.
From our work, the SCS Board have asked four underpinning questions:
(i) Could the High Court circuit be reduced and, if so, where should it sit?
(ii) Could Sheriff and Jury cases be consolidated into fewer centres and, if so, where should they be?
(iii) Could we manage with fewer buildings where we have more than one in a town or city?
(iv) Could we manage with fewer courts where we have more than one within a reasonable travelling distance?
Discussions internally with the judiciary and with other justice bodies, has allowed us to generate some ideas on future options for the court estate and has highlighted what are likely to be some of the important issues that would need to be addressed as any ideas are developed.
We are now holding a number of dialogue events with key professional groups and other interested parties about the likely impact of the justice reforms on our court structures, the potential benefits, the issues and changes that will arise and the principles that would apply in identifying specific proposals. We really want to use these events to test our initial thinking, put the issues into the context of reality and provide the real challenge for potentially different or better solutions. The essential purpose of the events is to hear from those who work in, or otherwise professionally support, the current system, their views on how the courts should respond to the challenges.
It is also important to say that this is not a consultation on proposals. No such proposals exist. All we have done is discuss internally with the SCS Board, our staff and judiciary, a range of possible ideas on how the High Court, Sheriff Court and Justice of the Peace Courts might look in the future. These dialogue events will be key in helping us to gain a better understanding of the different issues and perspectives that in turn will inform the development of any future proposals.
Assuming proposals emerge that are acceptable to the SCS Board, we would anticipate a public consultation taking place over autumn 2012. Following a public consultation, final decisions on the distribution of business across the existing courts would be for the Lord President and the Sheriffs Principal. Decisions on any proposed court closures would ultimately be for the Scottish Parliament.
A paper “Shaping Scotland’s Court Services” has been written specifically for those attending the dialogue events. The paper is intended to be both informative and thought-provoking in providing some background on the ideas and questions that have emerged from our work to ensure that our courts are structured to deliver the best possible service at an affordable cost, and to adapt to the significant legal reforms that are anticipated over the next few years. The ideas in the paper are not proposals, but purely illustrative to help you test our initial thinking and provide the real challenge for potentially different or better solutions.
A copy of the discussion paper is available from the link below.
www.scotcourts.gov.uk/courtsadmin/shaping_scotland’s_court_services