Responding to enquiries: service delivery through National Enquiry Point

Scope and methodology

Scope

21. The aim of this inspection was to assess how COPFS responds to enquiries received by Enquiry Point. We sought to assess how efficiently and effectively enquiries are addressed, including where enquiries are resolved by Enquiry Point at the first point of contact and where they are transferred to other teams within COPFS for action.

22. While ‘customer’ is not a term usually used in the context of the criminal justice system, we essentially assessed COPFS’s ‘customer’ service. We sought to highlight effective practice and any areas for improvement.

23. In carrying out our inspection, we were guided by our Inspection Framework.^[7] The framework provides a structure within which we ensure a consistent and professional approach to our work. Based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Model, our framework has three overarching themes, each supported by a key question:

• Outcomes – What is the service achieving? What does it intend to achieve in the future?
• Direction – Why does this service exist? What purpose does it fulfil?
• Delivery – How does this service deliver on its purpose?

24. The key inspection questions we sought to answer were:

• What is the role of Enquiry Point? What role will Enquiry Point play in the service delivered by COPFS in the future?
• How well does COPFS support Enquiry Point and other teams within COPFS to respond to enquiries?
• How well does COPFS meet the needs of those who contact Enquiry Point? How well does Enquiry Point address enquiries at the first point of contact? How well do other staff within COPFS address enquiries where they are passed on by Enquiry Point?

25. During our inspection, we considered how well COPFS understands and meets the needs of those who may require additional support to communicate with COPFS. We also considered the extent to which COPFS is meeting its commitments to deliver a compassionate, trauma-informed service.

26. As well as responding to enquiries, those working in Enquiry Point may also deal with complaints about COPFS and requests from victims to exercise their right to review decisions to take no proceedings or take no further action in a case. We chose to exclude these aspects of Enquiry Point’s work from our scope, given they have each been the subject of previous scrutiny by IPS.^[8]

Methodology

27. To support our inspection, we gathered evidence from a range of sources including:

• a review of COPFS strategies, policies, guidance, procedures and other documentation relating to the management of enquiries
• analysis of available data about the service provided by Enquiry Point
• observation of the work of Enquiry Point
• interviews with more than 30 Enquiry Point operators and managers, as well as almost 40 staff from across COPFS who deal with enquiries passed on by operators or whose role is otherwise linked to the Enquiry Point service
• interviews with key stakeholders, such as organisations whose staff and/or clients regularly contact Enquiry Point
• a survey for those who had used the Enquiry Point service in the last two years (see from paragraph 29)
• an audit of a random sample of 200 calls and emails received by Enquiry Point (see from paragraph 33).

28. We have also drawn on evidence previously gathered to support our inspection of how COPFS prosecutes domestic abuse cases at sheriff summary level.^[9] The issue of how COPFS responds to enquiries had been raised often during that inspection, including during interviews with domestic abuse victims and with the advocacy workers who support them.

Survey

29. We invited those who had contacted Enquiry Point in the last two years to respond to an online survey regarding their experience of and views on the service. We publicised the survey on our website and on social media channels, and distributed it to our networks and key stakeholder organisations. The survey was open between 27 August and 13 September 2024. We received 85 responses. Of those who responded:

• 33% were from an organisation providing support to victims and witnesses
• 33% were from the police
• 14% were a victim or a witness
• 12% were a solicitor
• 2% were from the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA).

30. The remaining 6% of responses included a family member of a victim, a social worker, a non-police reporting agency, a person working at the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS), and a person working at a charity.

31. More than half (55%) of respondents said they had contacted Enquiry Point more than 10 times, while 6% said they had contacted the service only once.

32. Respondents chose whether to take part in our survey, meaning the results are not representative of all those who contact Enquiry Point. For example, the proportion of respondents who were victims or witnesses was likely smaller, and the proportion of professionals larger, than if the respondents had been representative. Nonetheless, their feedback has been invaluable and echoes much of the evidence we gathered from other sources. The results of the survey, as well as comments from respondents, are highlighted throughout this report.

Contact audit

33. By auditing calls and emails received by Enquiry Point, we sought to assess how well enquiries were responded to by COPFS. We assessed how the call or email was dealt with, whether it was resolved by Enquiry Point or passed to another team within COPFS for resolution. Monitoring how enquiries were handled from start to finish allowed us to better understand the enquiry handling process and to identify what works well and any areas for improvement.

34. A secondary purpose of our contact audit was to gather information about calls and emails to Enquiry Point, including their nature and source. We gathered this data because it is not routinely collated by COPFS itself yet we consider it essential to understanding and developing the service.

35. We audited a random sample of enquiries received by Enquiry Point in the week commencing Monday, 22 April 2024. We carried out our audit in June and July 2024. By auditing enquiries received in April, we intended they would be sufficiently recent so as to provide information about current practice. We also hoped that sufficient time would have passed so that any enquiries that required more protracted work to address them would nonetheless be fully resolved by the time of our audit.

36. We were able to listen to calls from April as all calls to Enquiry Point are recorded and stored for a specified period. We were able to directly access the Enquiry Point email inbox to identify emails for audit. Inspectors had direct access to relevant COPFS systems, including its case management systems, to observe what action had been taken in response to an enquiry.

37. During the week commencing Monday, 22 April 2024, Enquiry Point received over 4,000 enquiries.^[10] Of these, 72% were received by phone and 28% by email. We audited a random sample of 200 enquiries, made up of 144 calls and 56 emails.^[11] The calls were received between Monday and Friday of that week, during Enquiry Point’s opening hours. The emails from which we selected our sample were received any time between Monday and Sunday.

38. We make reference to the findings of our audit throughout this report. We will sometimes refer to the results of the ‘contact audit’ – this means the overall findings from our audits of both calls and emails. We will sometimes refer specifically to the results of the call audit or the email audit. This will be done where the process for handling enquiries varies according to the means by which the enquiry was made, or where there is variation between the results of the call and email audits that is worth noting. For example, while 55% of all enquiries we audited were from victims or witnesses, this group were more likely to make an enquiry by phone rather than email. Victims and witnesses made 65% of the calls we audited but sent only 27% of the emails.