Responding to enquiries: service delivery through National Enquiry Point

Context

What is National Enquiry Point?

1. National Enquiry Point is COPFS’s customer contact centre. Many members of the public or organisations wishing to contact COPFS will call or email Enquiry Point in the first instance. It deals with enquiries from victims, witnesses, next of kin, accused, defence agents, other professionals and partner organisations seeking information or advice from or providing information to COPFS.

2. Enquiry Point’s aim is for its own operators to resolve enquiries at the first point of contact wherever possible. Where they are unable to do so, operators pass enquiries to other teams within COPFS for action.

3. Enquiry Point responds to enquiries made by both phone and email. Alternative arrangements are in place for those who need additional assistance to access Enquiry Point. This includes a text service for those who are Deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired; a video relay service for those who use British Sign Language; and a telephone interpreting service for those whose first language is not English.

4. Enquiry Point is a national service based in Dumbarton. During the course of our inspection, in August 2024, a second site was established in Glasgow. The two sites deal collectively with all calls and emails to Enquiry Point.

5. Between April 2023 and March 2024, Enquiry Point handled 135,890 calls. Operators handled an average of 546 calls each day that the Enquiry Point service was open.

6. Enquiry Point is not able to easily quantify the number of email enquiries it receives. This was previously possible, however, its ability to gather data on emails was affected by a change of systems in 2022. The most recent data available shows that in the year between February 2021 and January 2022, Enquiry Point received 75,456 emails. The average number of emails received per month was 6,288.

7. We estimate that, taking into account both calls and emails, Enquiry Point deals with over 200,000 enquiries each year.

Operating context

8. In its Strategic Plan 2023-27,^[1] COPFS identifies three transformation priorities, one of which is to improve how it communicates with its customers and partners. The strategic plan sets out COPFS’s intention to provide meaningful, consistent and more frequent contact specifically for victims and bereaved relatives to help reduce uncertainty throughout the prosecution or death investigation process. The plan also commits COPFS to delivering a compassionate, trauma-informed service. While COPFS communicates with its customers and partners in a range of ways, as the first point of contact for many, Enquiry Point is key to the delivery of this transformation priority.

9. In its service improvement plan, COPFS cites the Institute of Customer Service’s definition of good customer service: ‘doing best what matters most for customers’.^[2]

10. In its various plans, COPFS notes the need to improve communication with its customers and partners generally, while also noting its specific obligations towards victims and witnesses.

11. Section 1 of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 sets out general principles to which the Lord Advocate (and, consequently, COPFS) must have regard. These include:

• that a victim or witness should be able to obtain information about what is happening in the investigation or proceedings
• that a victim or witness should have access to appropriate support during and after the investigation and proceedings.

• that victims should be treated in a respectful, sensitive, tailored, professional and non-discriminatory manner
• that victims should, as far as is reasonably practicable, be able to understand information they are given and be understood in any information they provide
• that victims should have their needs taken into consideration
• that, when dealing with victims who are children, the best interests of the child should be considered, taking into account the child’s age, maturity, views, needs and concerns.

13. The 2014 Act also sets out a range of victims’ rights, such as the right to receive information (section 3C); the right to understand and be understood (section 3E); and the right to interpretation and translation (section 3F). Section 6 of the 2014 Act imposes a duty on COPFS, amongst others, to disclose information about criminal proceedings, such as a decision not to institute criminal proceedings, the nature of charges libelled, or the stage that proceedings have reached.

14. The 2014 Act also places an obligation on Scottish Ministers to publish a Victims’ Code for Scotland^[3] and on the Lord Advocate, as well as other justice agencies, to publish standards of service relating to the investigation and prosecution of crime and the procedure for making and resolving complaints.^[4] The Victims’ Code and the Standards of Service for Victims and Witnesses reflect the provisions of the 2014 Act, emphasising the importance of effective communication and access to information.

15. Enquiry Point plays a key role in delivering COPFS’s obligations and commitments under the 2014 Act, the Victims’ Code and the Standards of Service, whether it is responding directly to enquiries from victims and witnesses or acting as the gateway through which they make contact with staff working in other COPFS teams.

Previous scrutiny

16. HM Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland (IPS) previously inspected the operation of Enquiry Point in 2013.^[5] At that time, the inspectorate concluded that COPFS was committed to meeting the information needs of its customers, that Enquiry Point was performing well in some areas and that customer feedback was generally positive. We also found several areas for development and made 15 recommendations. Following the publication of our inspection report, COPFS advised us of work being done to address the recommendations. The recommendations were not formally followed up however, as that was not part of the inspectorate’s approach to scrutiny at that time.

17. More recently, we considered the role of Enquiry Point in our inspection of the prosecution of domestic abuse cases at sheriff summary level, published in April 2024.^[6] We noted the substantial role that Enquiry Point can play in COPFS’s communication with victims in domestic abuse cases. We were concerned, however, that Enquiry Point was taking on work that would traditionally have been carried out by COPFS’s Victim Information and Advice (VIA) service, and that this did not appear to have been planned for or been supported through additional training or guidance. We also noted the difficulties Enquiry Point operators faced when seeking to transfer callers to VIA and our concerns that contact with victims was not recorded in one centralised place by all staff, meaning that some contact was going unnoticed and unactioned by those managing and prosecuting cases. We explore those issues further in this report.

Other reviews

18. As well as our 2013 inspection of Enquiry Point, we became aware of two further reviews of Enquiry Point. The first was commissioned by COPFS and carried out by an external consultant in 2015. This review considered the operation of Enquiry Point, its performance and resourcing. It considered evidence from a range of sources and made a number of recommendations for short and long-term changes that would improve the service.

19. The second was an internal review carried out in 2016. This review was prompted by concerns about the disproportionate turnover of Enquiry Point operators compared to staff working in other teams within COPFS. It sought to establish the causes of operator turnover. Its findings were therefore based on interviews with Enquiry Point operators and managers, and their feedback about their role, the working environment and their terms and conditions. This review also made a number of recommendations.

20. Many of the findings and recommendations of our 2013 inspection and the 2015 and 2016 reviews of Enquiry Point remain relevant today. This suggests there is more COPFS must do to implement the recommendations it receives and to monitor the impact of action taken, to ensure intended outcomes are being achieved.