What We Did.
The L&B Team were David Shand, Sheriffdom Business Manager, Elaine Walker, the Project Manager and Janet MacMillan, Project Support officer.When Elaine took up post at the beginning of March 2006 her first goal was to start communicating with District Court staff and visits to all District Courts took place during March 2006. This was shortly followed by more detailed work which involved gathering information on how the District Courts work.
User Groups were established in the Borders, West Lothian, East Lothian and Edinburgh & Midlothian. Each group had a representative from the Scottish Court Service, a member of the Lothian & Borders Court Unification Team, District Court, Procurator Fiscal, Reliance, Witness Service, Social Work and the local Faculty. These groups provided a forum for stakeholders to receive regular progress reports, to provide comment on and raise any issues relating to a unified courts administration and provided a two way communication link between SCS and other key stakeholders.
An operational plan was produced and was the blueprint of how Lothian & Borders would ideally look after unification took place. On 28 February 2007 a consultation document on the proposed plan was issued to a range of stakeholders and they had until 31 May 2007 to respond to the document. At the end of the consultation period, the responses were collated and a report prepared for the Project Board in June 2007. A submission was then made to the Cabinet Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and he approved the operational plan in August 2007.
Following approval of the plan the Lothian & Borders Project Team worked with Sheriff Clerks and District Court Managers to ensure a smooth transition to a unified court structure on 10 March 2008.
The L&B team established links with Lothian and Borders Police (Central Ticket Office and Safety Camera Partnership).
A group was established to take forward transitional arrangements and representatives from the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service, Lothian & Borders Police, Scottish Borders Council, West Lothian Council, Edinburgh City Council, Midlothian Council, East Lothian Council, Summary Justice Reform Programme Office and Lothian & Borders Court Unification team attended. Sheriff Clerks from each sheriff court also attended. The group looked at a number of issues which included financial arrangements, IT, communication and court programming.
The Sheriffdom Legal Adviser for Lothian and Borders, David Kemp, was appointed and took up his post on 18 June 2007. Before joining the Scottish Court Service, he was a senior solicitor with the City of Edinburgh Council and a clerk of court and legal assessor at Edinburgh District Court. He recruited a team of Legal Advisers and is working with his team to support the delivery of a first class lay justice court service in the Sheriffdom.
Training on change management was delivered to managers from the SCS and District Courts in May 2007. From this, a programme was developed and delivered to District Court and Sheriff Court staff in Lothian & Borders in November and December 2007.
A comprehensive training plan was developed and staff from both the sheriff and district courts received training before and after 10 March 2008.
A Fines Enforcement Manager for Lothian and Borders was appointed and took up post on 13 August 2007. One of his first tasks was to recruit Fines Enforcement Officers and interviews took place in September. The FEOs took up post in mid November and have received comprehensive training