Justice reform is too slow, says police chief

Judicial change is not happening quickly enough as the overtime bill for Police Scotland officers attending court has reached £3 million in the past year, the chief constable has said.

Jo Farrell described the Scottish judicial system as “very inefficient” compared to England’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), despite efforts at reform in Glasgow and Dundee sheriff courts led by “very forwardthinking” individuals.

The chief constable said the demands of court attendance – when in the majority of cases officers were not in the end required to give evidence – were also placing a strain on officers’ family lives.

Ms Farrell, who was chief constable of Durham Constabulary before taking the helm at Police Scotland, said she “welcomed” work by the Sheriff Principals in Glasgow and Dundee to improve efficiencies. But she added that it was “not fast enough” and victims turned to her officers for answers to the hold-ups.

She described the police 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 joinedup at all.”

Asked if a Scottish Police Federation description of the force’s approach as “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 £3m 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 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.”

A spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said: “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.”

BEAT GOES ON: Chief Constable Jo Farrell joined Police Scotland officers including Inspector Jonathan Watters on patrol in Glasgow on Friday.