Thematic report on fiscal fines

To ascertain whether there has been any change in the use of Fiscal Fines since the new provisions came into force in March 2008 we compared data ¹⁰ relating to Fiscal Fines in the first six months of 2008-09 with the first six months of 2007-08.

The figures above show a 28% decrease in use of Fiscal Fines when comparing the two 6 month periods. It is assumed that part of the reason for the decrease could be the knock on effect of summary justice reform provisions for police forces that allow them to issue penalty notices for more types of crime. This should result in fewer minor crime cases being reported which would normally have been dealt with by Direct Measure.

The following table shows the difference in the number of cases reported over a period of two years - October 2006 to September 2007 and October 2007 to September 2008 ¹².