The prosecution of domestic abuse cases at sheriff summary level

Supporting continuous improvement

492. To support continuous improvement in its management and prosecution of domestic abuse cases at sheriff summary level, we would expect COPFS to use quality assurance and to monitor performance data, information arising from complaints and Victims’ Right to Review applications, and feedback from service users and stakeholders. While we found some evidence of these approaches being used to varying degrees, there did not appear to be a systematic, organisational approach to identifying and acting upon issues or to sharing good practice. There is scope for some of these approaches to be developed further, and for their use to be less ad hoc, so that continuous improvement can be more readily achieved.

Quality assurance

493. Carrying out quality assurance is a useful means of ensuring that cases are being managed consistently and to the desired standard. During our inspection, we found limited evidence of quality assurance being used to routinely monitor the quality of summary case management and to provide senior leaders with confidence about the quality of the service being delivered. There was also limited evidence of quality assurance being used to monitor the service being delivered by VIA. We heard about some initiatives in particular teams or in respect of newly appointed staff, but there appeared to be no embedded, systematic and organisation-wide use of quality assurance to drive service improvement in cases prosecuted at sheriff summary level.

494. This is in contrast to, for example, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England and Wales which has a national system of quality assurance of case work whereby a manager checks a certain number of cases per prosecutor each year. Other quality assurance approaches used by the CPS include peer review, dip sampling of particular types of cases (such as those where the victim has withdrawn due to delay) and the quality assurance of correspondence with victims.

495. While quality assurance appears generally to be under-used within COPFS, we did find some examples of effective quality checking. For example, following the introduction of the child aggravation for an offence under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, COPFS carried out an audit of all cases featuring section 1 charges to ensure the aggravation had been used appropriately. This audit included checking all uses of the child aggravation so that it could be removed from any charges where it was not competent and added to those charges where it had been wrongly omitted. Feedback was provided to COPFS staff with a view to encouraging the appropriate use of the child aggravation. Auditing of the child aggravation was later repeated, with an operational reminder being sent to all staff, feedback being provided to individual staff members and the appropriate use of the aggravation being reinforced during staff meetings and training.

496. Ad hoc quality assurance, such as that relating to the use of child aggravations, is a useful tool and should continue to be used to address specific areas of practice or concern. We consider, however, that COPFS should review whether it is making sufficient use of routine quality assurance to support continuous improvement in summary case management. Quality assurance activity should cover not only the legal management of cases and their efficient progress, but also communication with victims and witnesses. Some of the COPFS staff we interviewed expressed a desire to carry out quality assurance more frequently, but felt constrained by a lack of resources.

Recommendation 25

COPFS should review its use of quality assurance to support continuous improvement in the management of summary cases and in communication with victims and witnesses.

Complaints

497. Complaints are a valuable source of information about the quality of a service. As well as investigating and addressing an individual complainant’s concerns, an organisation should analyse all complaints and the lessons learned with a view to improving its service design and delivery.

498. Within COPFS, Stage 1 complaints are those which are capable of frontline resolution. These complaints are often straightforward, requiring little or no investigation, and can be resolved quickly and usually at a local level. Stage 2 complaints are those which are not resolved at the frontline, or which are more complex and require further investigation. Stage 2 complaints are managed by COPFS’s Response and Information Unit (RIU).

499. COPFS records the volume of both Stage 1 and Stage 2 complaints. RIU also records the subject matter of Stage 2 complaints. For example, in 2021-22, the most common issue raised by complainants was a failure in communication.^[97] Complaints data, as well as recurring issues and lessons learned from Stage 2 complaints, are shared within COPFS and are reported to its Service Improvement Board. The Board has acknowledged, however, the need to further develop how it uses information arising from complaints – including Stage 1 complaints – to support continuous improvement in service delivery. At the time of our inspection, work was ongoing in this regard which we welcome.^[98]

500. Currently, the nature of complaints is not recorded in such a way that it is possible to easily identify all complaints relating to domestic abuse cases. This is a missed opportunity to gather feedback and identify corrective actions.

Victims’ Right to Review

501. The exercise of Victims’ Right to Review can be a useful indicator of the quality of decision making by prosecutors. The Victims’ Right to Review is a mechanism by which victims can request a review of a decision by COPFS not to prosecute or to discontinue a prosecution that has already commenced. Unlike complaints however, COPFS is able to identify the number of applications for review which relate to offences involving domestic abuse (see Table 3). In 2022-23, 23% of all review applications related to offences involving domestic abuse.

502. Applications for review are dealt with by RIU. We asked RIU whether it could identify any themes arising from the review applications for offences involving domestic abuse. In respect of decisions that were overturned in 2022-23, RIU indicated that no recurring themes to inform wider learning could be identified. RIU considered that clear policy and guidance supported decision making in domestic abuse cases. Moreover, the requirement to seek approval not to prosecute domestic abuse cases with a sufficiency of evidence helped to minimise the likelihood that decisions would be overturned.

503. While RIU could discern no themes in overturned decisions in 2022-23, it will be useful for COPFS to continue to monitor review applications for recurring issues (including those where the decision is not overturned but where the applicant’s dissatisfaction has led to a review being requested). This information, together with themes arising from complaints and other feedback, should be considered at a strategic level within COPFS, with a view to improving service delivery.

User feedback

504. Regularly seeking the views of service users and acting on their feedback is another means by which an organisation should seek to improve its service. As yet, COPFS has no mechanism in place by which it can routinely gather the views of victims and witnesses in domestic abuse cases or to measure their user satisfaction. It has, however, committed to seeking user feedback to support continuous improvement more generally in its recently published service improvement strategy.^[100] It is expected this work will be taken forward under its VIA Modernisation Programme. We welcome this commitment and consider that efforts should be made not only to gather user feedback generally, but also to gather feedback specifically around its management of domestic abuse cases. Such work is already carried out by other justice organisations. For example, Police Scotland carries out monthly user experience surveys and, in 2023, launched an online survey specifically for victims of domestic abuse, rape or sexual crime to inform improvements to policing.

505. While COPFS currently has no routine mechanism for gathering user feedback from victims and witnesses in domestic abuse cases, we nonetheless identified various ways in which COPFS has identified and acted upon feedback from users and support organisations. This has included, for example:

• COPFS involvement in the Victims’ Taskforce
• COPFS participation in an advisory group for government-commissioned research on victims’ and witnesses’ experience of court since the introduction of the 2018 Act
• engagement with domestic abuse support organisations at local and national levels to discuss both operational and strategic issues
• monitoring of COPFS-related issues highlighted in the weekly bulletin distributed by ASSIST.

506. While COPFS’s involvement in these activities is welcome, the feedback arising from them appears to be gathered in an informal and ad hoc manner, and it is not always clear how the information is disseminated and acted upon across COPFS. There should be a means by which feedback from such activities, as well as data on domestic abuse cases and information arising from quality assurance, complaints, Victims’ Right to Review applications, is monitored and acted upon. A regular domestic abuse forum, attended by key individuals from across COPFS, could, for example, be one means of exercising appropriate governance over the management and prosecution of domestic abuse cases. The agenda of an existing forum that allows for cross-sheriffdom discussion of domestic abuse issues could be developed further to incorporate these issues. We consider domestic abuse cases merit this attention given their strategic importance and the need to safeguard public confidence in COPFS’s response to domestic abuse, as well as the fact they represent a substantial proportion of COPFS’s case work and often feature issues not seen in cases involving other crime types.

Recommendation 26

COPFS should gather feedback from victims and witnesses about their experience in domestic abuse cases. This feedback should be used to support improvements in its service.

Recommendation 27

COPFS should ensure there is a national mechanism by which information about its management of domestic abuse cases (including the results of quality assurance activity, complaints, Victims’ Right to Review applications, feedback from service users and support organisations, and performance data) is monitored, discussed and acted upon, with a view to supporting continuous improvement in its service.

Summary case management pilot

507. In respect of the summary case management pilot, we found a far greater degree of monitoring of cases, processes and data to help assess the pilot’s implementation and identify improvements. We heard that feedback was being shared more routinely between teams, issues were discussed and escalated, and action was taken to address challenges or support further improvements. This included COPFS assessing its own progress in implementing the pilot, as well as liaising with partner justice agencies to assess implementation more broadly.

508. While work was being done by COPFS to enhance its engagement with victims in pilot cases and to monitor how well this was being taken up by victims, gathering information about victims’ experience of the enhanced engagement and of the pilot generally remained a gap.