Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
While the witnesses are being found, I will recap the stage that we have reached on this issue. At our meeting of 28 March, the committee agreed to take evidence from the Crown Agent on the structure and organisation of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. I am aware that not all members were present for that, but I think that there was general agreement that, given that this will be a big inquiry, we would like to understand at an early stage how the various offices operate. We can have a discussion after questions about anything else that members would like to do to assist in the gathering of information in the inquiry.
Although we have not yet put together a report outlining the focus of our inquiry, I hope that the evidence that we take this morning and the visits that we make will give us some idea about that.
I welcome the witnesses to the meeting and ask Mr Normand to introduce his team.
Andrew Normand (Crown Office):
Thank you, convener. I am accompanied by Len Higson, who is the regional procurator fiscal for Glasgow and was formerly the regional procurator fiscal for Grampian and Highlands and Islands at Aberdeen. Sitting beside him is Frank Crowe, who was the regional procurator fiscal for south Strathclyde and Dumfries and Galloway at Hamilton and is now the deputy Crown Agent. They have substantial experience of the Procurator Fiscal Service and the Crown Office. Our director of resources, Sandy Rosie, completes the team.
I understand that the committee has asked for an initial presentation containing factual information, which I am happy to provide. However, I shall look to my colleagues to assist in dealing with the committee's questions. We welcome the committee's interest in the work of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and are interested to learn that it is considering undertaking an inquiry into the department. Indeed, it would be helpful if we could find out more about what the committee has in mind, as that would allow us to assist its work.
I hope that, in the time available this morning, we will succeed in providing enough useful information about the areas outlined in the clerk's letter of 11 April to give the committee a better understanding of our structure. We will be happy to try to provide any additional information that the committee needs after the meeting.
Information about the structure and functions of the department was supplied to MSPs shortly after devolution in the form of a booklet called "What does the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service do?" Although members might have reminded themselves of its contents in preparation for this meeting, an updated version of the booklet will be published shortly and sent to members.
Our strategic plan for 2000-01 and our annual report for 1999-2000—both of which have been given to all MSPs—provide other sources of information about the department. However, as we are currently collecting, collating and analysing information for our annual report for 2000-01, some of the figures to which we refer today might be provisional.
The COPFS is a national prosecution and death investigation service that covers the whole of Scotland. The Crown Office is the head office, and the service is organised into six regions that correspond to the six sheriffdoms. Apart from Glasgow, each region has a network of procurator fiscal offices of varying sizes. Scotland has a total of 49 procurator fiscal offices, including regional offices.
The department operates a system of regional management, with each regional procurator fiscal having management responsibility for the resources and offices in the region. The Crown Office is organised on a divisional basis. Its main divisions are the operations division, which is headed by the deputy Crown Agent; the policy division, under the head of policy; and the management services group, which is headed by the director of resources. The regional procurators fiscal and the Crown Office divisional heads are the budget holders in the department for delegated budgets and make up the departmental management board, which I chair.
Table 1, which I have circulated, shows the structure of the service and the lines of management responsibility. In general, there are three types—or sizes—of procurator fiscal office. First, there are six regional offices—at Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley and Hamilton—which are headed by a regional procurator fiscal who combines regional management responsibilities with operational responsibilities as procurator fiscal of the regional office. Regional procurators fiscal are supported in their administrative role by regional administrative managers, and will generally have an assistant procurator fiscal or senior principal depute procurator fiscal as a second-in-command of their regional offices. In addition to that, as the table shows, there will be a number of principal procurator fiscal deputes, fiscal deputes and precognition officers. Table 2 shows the set-up of a typical regional office.
Table 3 shows the set-up of larger district offices, of which there are 13. They are located mainly in the central belt, but they exist as far north as Inverness and as far south as Dumfries. They are headed by a fiscal who is a member of the senior civil service. Those offices will have a principal depute fiscal as second-in-command and will have a smaller number of deputes and precognition officers than regional offices do. In most of those offices, there will be four or five lawyers and one or two precognition officers.
Smaller district offices are located in the smaller towns, from Lerwick in the north to Stranraer in the south. There are 30 such offices, all of which are headed by non-senior civil service procurators fiscal. In the smaller rural offices, which have a lower case load, the fiscal is usually the only lawyer on the staff. In such offices, there will generally be only one or two administrative staff in support. In some of the larger rural offices with heavier case loads there is a fiscal depute as well as the procurator fiscal.
Each procurator fiscal is responsible for the management of his or her office, subject to the oversight of the regional procurator fiscal. Each fiscal holds a commission from the Lord Advocate and is accountable to the Lord Advocate for prosecution decisions in his or her jurisdiction. From their current or recent experience, my colleagues, Mr Higson and Mr Crowe, are well qualified to answer any questions on this area.
On staffing levels, experience and types of work, table 4 shows Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service staffing levels by region and table 5 gives information about levels of experience of legal staff in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Replacing staff who have retired and strengthening our legal staff numbers in recent years has resulted in a relatively high proportion of legal staff who are fairly inexperienced. However, they include a number of former trainee solicitors in the department who have spent a further two years of intensive training in the work of the department. Table 5 shows that we also retain a large number of experienced staff.
The main group of legal staff in the department is the procurator fiscal depute group. Procurator fiscal deputes cover a wide range of legal work in court and in the office. They deal, for example, with case marking, court work in the sheriff court and the district court and precognition work in the preparation of serious cases for trial on indictment in the High Court and in the sheriff and jury court. Generally, deputes are managed, often in teams, by principal procurator fiscal deputes. I have referred to the position of principal deputes in describing the types of office. Their role is also shown in the typical office structure diagrams that have been circulated. For completeness, I should mention that principal deputes fill some of the specialist posts in regional offices and in the Crown Office. Again, my colleagues are well placed to answer more detailed questions about those matters.
On work load, table 6 shows a three-year comparison of reports received by the service, principally from the police but also from a large number of non-police reporting agencies. The level of reports received has fallen slightly but there has been an increase in the amount of serious criminal case work, as the committee will be aware.
The committee will also know that serious or solemn cases begin their life on petition and that those are the cases that will be precognosed by fiscals, reported to the Crown Office and prosecuted on indictment before a sheriff and jury or in the High Court. They are, therefore, typically the most complex and time-consuming cases.
Tables 7, 8 and 9, which have been circulated, show three-year comparisons of precognition work, disposals of solemn cases and net petition cases that have been dealt with in the various regions. The figures illustrate a national increase in that type of work over the three-year period. That increase has been more dramatic in some areas, such as Glasgow. Tables 10 and 11 illustrate that in graph form.
The committee will be aware that our strategic plan states our commitment to prioritising the investigation and prosecution of serious crime. We have sought to strengthen our staff resources to deal with that type of work by appointing additional precognition officers as well as taking on extra lawyers, including Crown counsel.
Some indication of the work load of individual offices and of variations between offices was given in written answers by the Lord Advocate to questions from Richard Lochhead MSP on 22 November last year. Copies of those answers have been provided to the committee. Work load and variations depend on various factors such as the nature and size of the office, the mix of work or the system of organisation of work in the office as well as external factors, some of which may be unpredictable. It is difficult to generalise, but Len Higson and Frank Crowe can provide further explanation, including, perhaps, an indication of the typical work and work loads of individual staff and information about the management of resources within regions to deal with the peaks and troughs of work that occur.
I have mentioned external factors. It might be useful to refer to some examples. The first is the incorporation of the European convention on human rights. Although we have generally been successful in meeting the challenge that incorporation presents, some changes to working practices have been necessary and a new dimension has been added to the consideration, preparation and processing of cases. We could say more about that, if the committee wishes.
Secondly, there are enforcement initiatives by the police and other enforcement agencies. Such initiatives may be local, area-wide or national, but they can lead to a sudden increase in certain types of report in a particular area or more widely.
Thirdly, there are unusual or major cases, which quite often seem to occur in the jurisdiction of some of the smaller offices, which require regional or national support.
Fourthly, there are criminal justice policy initiatives. An example is the proposal for drugs courts in Glasgow. Len Higson may be able to speak about that, if the committee wishes.
The clerk offered us the opportunity to address concerns that have been put to the committee about staff morale and lack of resources in the service. I am not aware just what concerns have been put to the committee or by whom. However, other senior managers in the department and I have concerns about morale. Those concerns result principally from the staff survey that we carried out last year and to which the Lord Advocate referred when he gave evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee last September. We have taken the findings of that survey seriously and have set in hand action to address them.
We have previously provided members with a copy of our staff survey questionnaire, a summary of findings and our action plan. The action plan is due for review at the end of this month, and we have told staff that we will let them have a full progress report shortly. I expect that to be issued in May. We could let the committee have a copy of that, if it is interested.
On resources, I have mentioned that we have sought to strengthen legal resources and that we are engaged in recruiting more lawyers. I should also say that we have been making progress with investment in the important new initiatives announced by the Lord Advocate, for example in new technology, future office systems and services to victims, which I know are of interest to some members of the committee.
This is a time of major and challenging change in our department, as we aim to provide a modern, high-quality public prosecution service. It is unsurprising that there is some anxiety about that, but we are trying to address the uncertainty and anxiety about the change programme. We will say more about that if you wish.
I understand that the committee wishes to discuss funding and resources at a meeting in May with the Justice 1 Committee. It occurs to me that it may be sensible to defer discussion of funding and resources until then and to concentrate today on trying to give the committee a fuller understanding of the department's structure, but we are in the committee's hands.
I thank members for their attention. We are happy to answer any questions.
Thank you for that statement, for the paperwork that you provided and for the useful diagrams, which will help those of us who are new to understanding the issue to get our heads round the structure.
Andrew Normand's last point concerned deferring our discussions about resources. The purpose of today's meeting is to try to understand from the outset how the Crown Office operates and the variety of grades of staff. We have just under an hour in which to do that, but I want to try to get that done today. Whatever the focus of the inquiry—that is still a matter for members to decide precisely—the inquiry will be lengthy. I am sure that I speak for all members when I ask the Crown Office representatives to attend future meetings. That will help us along the way in the inquiry.
It might be useful to start with the sections that Andrew Normand used—the structure of the offices, staffing and work load. That will allow members to ask questions as issues occur to them.
First, I want to find out whether you share the initial impression that the committee formed, after its visit to Glasgow sheriff court, that the Procurator Fiscal Service was under some strain. I think you said that you were concerned about the level of morale throughout the service. Do you share our concern that resourcing—or perhaps another reason—is putting strain on the people who work in the service?
I am not necessarily cynical about the quality and practice review unit, but in other disciplines, we have heard people say that they must spend so much time on monitoring, self-evaluation and comparisons of outcome that their concentration on the job that they are employed to do is diluted.
I will ask Len Higson to deal with the question that arose from the visits to Glasgow. I felt that it would help the committee to have an opportunity to see the issues from the fiscal side as well as the Glasgow Bar Association side and the court side. I think that Mr Higson would welcome a visit, but I will leave him to deal with that.
Generally, it is evident to the organisation's senior management that people have felt under pressure. I referred to some of the reasons for that, which included incorporation of the ECHR and the increase in serious crime. I also said that we tried to increase and strengthen our resources to meet those pressures. We also mentioned the staff survey, which provided evidence of a feeling of pressure. As I said, we are seeking to address that. The committee has a copy of our action plan.
On the quality and practice review unit, it seemed to the Lord Advocate, the senior management team of the department and me that the organisation needed to set up a separate unit, in the nature of an inspectorate, to check the quality of practice around the service to ensure, for example, that the Lord Advocate's policies were being implemented and whether they made sense or there was a need to revise them. That reassures me, as head of the department, and the Lord Advocate, as a member of the Executive, that the policies are appropriate for the purpose and are being implemented properly.
That is at one level. At another level, we took the view that there was a need not only to consider areas of policy and practice thematically, but to consider the way in which individual offices operate. Members will be aware that the unit has conducted thematic reviews of complaints against the police. It has also conducted a thematic review of the handling of cases resulting from fatal road accidents, such as prosecutions, fatal accident inquiries and more general cases. It is our intention to publish a summary of findings and recommendations from that inquiry within the next week or so.
I think that Ms MacDonald was suggesting that the operation of a unit such as the quality and practice review unit inappropriately diverts staff from mainstream work.
I was not suggesting that, but trying to find out whether that has been suggested to you.
No, it has not, although the unit has been created using our increased resources over the past few years. I hope that in future we will be able to strengthen the unit further. For example, I would like the unit to have a faster cycle of office visits than is proposed at present, although we would need to consider carefully our ability to provide the resources for that. I mentioned a possible comment from Len Higson on the questions about Glasgow.
Len Higson (Procurator Fiscal Service):
The criminal courts in Glasgow are the busiest in Scotland. It is a demanding place for a lawyer to work, whether they are a prosecutor or work for the defence. Apart from the statutory framework, there are tensions between the volume of work and the desire that is shared by the criminal justice agencies to bring cases to conclusion in a reasonable time. I see it as my job to ensure that, despite those tensions, the staff are not overly stressed. Some people thrive on stress and others suffer from it, but that is very much one of my responsibilities. The committee would be welcome to visit my office.
Before I ask members whether they wish to ask questions, I ask them to bear in mind that we are dealing with the structures of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service at the moment. We will defer the discussion on resources to a later date.
I am mindful of that, but the perceptions that we are getting from the consumer—to use that awful expression—are that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is overstretched and that, as a result, cases are sometimes not prosecuted properly, with major cases, such as Chhokar and Collie, failing. This might sound melodramatic, but in the lower courts the system would collapse if plea bargaining was not operating. I have concerns about that.
Mr Normand pointed out the experience of the procurators fiscal who currently work in the service. Table 5 shows that there are a substantial number whose experience is either less than one year or one to two years. There is then a falling-off in the middle of the table. The figures are for March 2001 only. If the falling-off trend continues, I presume that the number with over 10 years' experience will decrease. My constituents have brought to my attention the fact that fairly inexperienced procurators fiscal with heavy case loads will then be dealing with very sharp defence lawyers. That is not in the interests of justice. I do not wish to criticise individuals or attack the service, but such concerns are arriving on our desks. I would like to answer those concerns and want the committee to investigate them.
I also have a question on the general structure and the general handling of resources. I may have got this wrong, but I understand that each regional management has its own resources. I would like to know about the bids for those resources and how the resources are allocated. How does the allocation procedure work before managers are asked whether they have money, which I suspect that they do not? Should the committee investigate that?
I am not aware of the source of those consumer perceptions, but if members were receiving many representations from the public of the kind that Christine Grahame suggested, I would obviously be concerned. However, I am not sure that the perception about experience is correct. We freely admit that there is a fairly high proportion of inexperienced prosecutors. That is inevitable when we are taking on more people. In September 2000, the Lord Advocate told the Justice and Home Affairs Committee that:
"fiscals do not grow on trees".—[Official Report, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, 27 September 2000; c 1773.]
They do not. They have to be trained. We select good people. There are a large number of candidates for advertised vacancies in the fiscal service and we get good-quality new recruits. We train people on the job and in training sessions that I attend. I speak to members of the new group.
I do not think that it is correct that the proportion or number of staff with greater experience will fall. If anything, experience has shown that people join us and stay with us, which suggests that the level of experience will increase. More junior deputes are with us now with one to two, or two to three, years' experience. They will remain with the organisation and there will be a larger and more experienced group of staff than we have currently. I am not sure whether my colleagues want to comment on that. Len Higson has such staff in his office. I think that there is potential unfairness. I know that the committee has sought only to comment on the issue, but there is an implicit criticism of the ability of those staff.
Our view has been that we should investigate the issue, which has been put to the committee and to other MSPs and might be only a perception. We are trying to get behind that perception—that is why we invited you to the committee and why we would probably like you to come back. We want to get to the root of the matter. That is why the committee has asked such questions.
I will give an example from Glasgow. We deliberately place new deputes who have no previous procurator fiscal experience in either the justice of the peace courts in Glasgow or the stipendiary magistrate courts in Glasgow, because such environments are less threatening. The cases are perhaps less complex than may be encountered in the sheriff court. We have put in place a supportive structure to assist the new deputes to learn and to become experienced. They usually remain in those courts for four to six months before they move—graduate, if you like—to the sheriff court.
Frank Crowe (Crown Office):
I conducted a fairly successful exercise to recruit new deputes last year. The committee must not get the perception that everyone we recruit is aged 23 or 24. We recruited a number of more experienced lawyers, some of whom had been partners or salaried partners in criminal defence firms. Those deputes were a useful addition to our numbers. They helped to boost the experience of staff. Table 5 does not give the whole picture.
As the Crown Agent said, many of us joined when the service doubled in size after we took over the district courts in the mid-1970s, and the majority have stayed. Perhaps there was a time of flux in the 1980s and 1990s when legal aid was more attractive and some staff went off to those apparently greener pastures. However, we are interested in recruiting new lawyers; we give them excellent training and good back-up, and those who choose to stay in the service can have an interesting, varied and valuable career.
You referred to deputes. Do fiscals enter regional or district offices at the same grade? Are there a variety of grades after they enter?
In my introduction, I mentioned that the main legal staff grade is depute procurator fiscal. New staff enter at that grade, which covers a general, multi-purpose group of legal staff involved in court and office work. The higher staff grade is principal procurator fiscal depute. Staff at that grade, as some of the diagrams show, typically fill the role of second-in-command in an upper level office such as those in Perth, Inverness or Dumfries, or manage a team of deputes or precognition officers in some of the bigger offices. We can tell the committee a bit more about that if members are interested. Principal deputes also fill the more specialised posts in the Crown Office.
What are your criteria when you embark on a recruitment exercise for new deputes?
We are obviously—but not exclusively—looking for candidates who have experience in criminal law or criminal law qualifications; for example, we have found good candidates with other court experience. Although someone who comes from a chambers legal environment might not have thought of themselves as a confident court practitioner, we offer an initial training course and advocacy skills training which can boost their experience and confidence. There are opportunities to do more chambers-type work such as investigation, but all the staff are attracted by the court-based nature of the work and the fact that it is a job worth doing.
It might be useful to leave this line of questioning for another day. After all, your table on the experience levels of your staff would be more helpful if it were more sophisticated. I would also be interested in trends, but the table covers only a year.
It might not be worthwhile to do so, but I want to ask about resources. I had not understood that, for example, Barlinnie prison's different halls operated independently in financial terms with an overall umbrella. Does the Procurator Fiscal Service operate in a similar way? Is the overall budget allocated on the strength of the bids that are submitted by different regions?
Sandy Rosie (Crown Office):
As the head of a Government department, the Crown Agent is the accountable officer for all the spend within the department. In that sense, the budget is not delegated. However, internally, the head of each of the six regions and the four units of the Crown Office marked on table 1 has a delegated budget within the department.
In an annual planning process, the head of each of those groups submits a draft management plan, which is considered by the senior management team. Based on that bidding approach, decisions are taken for the next 12 months to finalise budgets for each of those delegated areas. That is a sound and fairly typical business and resource planning process.
Is the quality and practice review unit independent? You said that it was an inspectorate but it seems to be somewhat in-house. Does the unit have lay members, such as victims and witnesses?
At present, there are no lay members. We are looking at introducing that element, which I agree is important. The quality and practice review unit is independent in the sense that it is directly accountable to myself and to the Lord Advocate and operates under our authority. It can therefore demand any information and make any findings that it wishes. It is not independent in the sense of sitting entirely outside the organisation.
Okay.
It is under the budget heading.
That is right.
I want to return to the question of the staffing establishment. You spoke about the factors that had affected the work load in the service. Is there a formula for deciding what staffing is required?
No.
How then do you determine how many deputes you need or how many advocate deputes are required in the prosecution service?
There is no formula as such. The reference that I made to the uncertainties and unpredictabilities of pressures, both departmental and local, is relevant to that. Perhaps the director of resources would like to comment on that point.
We are now asking each regional fiscal—following consultation with individual fiscals in their region—to present a management plan. That plan takes account of the history of the requirements that are needed by the department to respond to casework. The plan also enables us to look ahead objectively to indicators about changes in work load that we can anticipate, to some degree, with our knowledge of police initiatives and changes in policy. In determining staffing levels, we also take account of work load statistics. Our system is output-based in that we are trying to anticipate collectively what staffing levels are required. We try to anticipate all the resources that are needed, including IT and other support resources.
What response has the service had to its work load over the last year? I know that there have been increases in staffing levels but, for the record, can you say what those are and how you have responded to the increase in work load?
As somebody who has to submit a management plan, I can give a concrete example of the increase in work load. Our strategic priority, as set out in our strategic plan, is to deal with serious crime. Almost 12 months ago, I took up my appointment in Glasgow. In June of last year, I realised that there were extremely heavy pressures on the Glasgow office arising from an increase in serious crime. That increase is shown quite clearly in table 7, which members have before them.
Members will note that, in the three-year period covered by table 7, the volume of precognition work—that is our name for the serious crime work that is in progress—rose from 1,900 to 2,400, which is an increase of around 22 per cent. In that three-year period, there was no real change in the resources available in the Glasgow office to deal with serious crime.
Having identified the pressure and the problem, I made an in-year resource bid for additional staff to deal with that pressure. The need was justified and accepted and, as a result, I received resources for two additional precognition teams in Glasgow. Does that give you an example of the dynamics—
Are those additional teams up and running?
There were five precognition teams initially, so the increase has been from five to seven teams. A precognition team is headed by a principal depute and has two members of legal staff and five precognition paralegals. The first additional team was recruited in December 2000 and January 2001, and the second is almost in post now.
I want to revisit a point that Christine Grahame made about plea bargaining. My comments are not based on my perceptions but on my experience, before I became an MSP, of sitting on the bench in the district court. In my experience, if we did not have plea bargaining, the system would grind to a halt. If there were no break after cases call initially, nothing would be done on those cases that are listed. I am curious about one aspect of the listing of cases and the staffing levels that you identified. Might the increasing use of fiscal fines have an impact on staffing levels?
I have a further question about budgeting. What happens when you meet your budget? You might want to take this opportunity to be very clear in your response.
I will answer your question as a budget holder: no reward or incentive scheme is involved.
I am so glad that you took that opportunity to be clear.
I am glad that you are not paid more for catching more—
Can we go back to my question about fiscal fines?
Members will be aware that most criminal justice systems in the world survive on some sort of plea negotiation or plea bargaining. That reflects the fact that, generally speaking, most systems correctly identify the accused persons who are alleged to have committed offences. However, it is clear that if plea negotiation were banned, or if problems were to develop with that system, our resources and those of the district and sheriff courts and of the High Court would need to be increased substantially.
Our figures suggest that the level of fiscal fines has not increased. I am not sure what influence those fines have had on the figures in the past year or two: there was an increase, but the level then flattened out. Policy on fiscal fines has not changed.
A lot of fiscal fines are imposed in Glasgow—perhaps Len Higson can say something about that.
A fiscal fine is a useful part of a prosecutor's armoury. My simple explanation is that if more options are available to a prosecutor, he or she will be better able to make decisions that are appropriate to the circumstances of individual cases.
Our colleagues are sometimes concerned about the take-up rate of fiscal fines, which varies across the country. However, those fines are a useful option for prosecutors.
Still on fiscal fines and their increasing popularity and increasing use, it was envisaged, as I understand it, that, because of the decreasing work load that the district courts would have, some of the lesser-end-of-the-scale work from the higher courts might come down. My information from colleagues still sitting on the bench is that that does not appear to be the case.
The position on that varies throughout the country. My understanding is that the district court in Glasgow could not accept any more business. That is by far the busiest district court.
Indeed it is. I am thinking further down the line to the one that was under Mr Crowe's jurisdiction when I worked out of Motherwell.
He is the ideal person to answer.
I thought that.
I certainly took steps to increase the use of the district court in, for example, East Kilbride. As a manager, I was conscious of the delay factor and the busyness of Hamilton sheriff court and the relative capacity that there was in East Kilbride district court. Motherwell district court was well organised and well run. To some extent, the change occurred after I left at the end of 1998. It is a matter of balancing and using resources.
With the increased use of fiscal fines when the legislation was last changed, it is not possible for us to put into the district court all the extra cases that we would like. There are some legislative difficulties. No-insurance cases are ideal cases for the district court. They are serious matters but they are relatively simple in that there are two facts that must be proved: whether the person was driving or using their car and whether they had insurance. I would be most happy for justices to deal with those matters and would have every confidence in them doing so, but it would require a legislative change that would probably need to come from the Westminster Government, as it is a road traffic matter. There are other cases of that type that lend themselves to being heard in a district court.
We also must consider with some recidivists, for example, whether prison should be an option. Prison is not always in the forefront of some justices' minds. In fairness to justices, the 60-day limit that a justice has does not give very much leeway for imposing a custodial sentence if that is appropriate disposal. They will probably impose the maximum sentence, 30 days or a non-custodial disposal. The appeal court has made inroads into that.
I would always advocate the most balanced use of one's resources in a fiscal's area. That was always my approach.
Before I ask my question, might I put that into straight layman's terms? Did you just suggest that some of the work load might be devolved from very busy sheriff courts to district courts if there were a legislative change to allow that, but that the barrier to that would be that the change would require to be made by Westminster because, in the case of a road traffic offence, it would be a reserved matter?
That is one example. In Glasgow—Len Higson can perhaps comment on this—I would say that the shrieval jurisdiction at summary level is about right in that they also have stipendiary magistrates. Stipendiary magistrates are only utilised in Glasgow. The local authority has the power to appoint them. From our perspective, other major conurbations could have taken that step. In that way, a number of the serious but less complicated sheriff summary cases could be dealt with through the district courts with the same level of punishment available as at the sheriff court.
In Glasgow, the sheriff's summary jurisdiction is about right. Other areas might consider that approach.
The committee might want to bear that in mind.
It seems that the management plan will be central to the operation of the service. I am interested in the principles behind the production of the management plan. I am not getting at anyone; I am trying to discover exactly what the principles are.
Is it true to say that the introduction of a management plan to manage financial and human resources is quite a departure for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and that it has not previously thought of organising its work load and personnel in that way? The only parallel that I can think of is the sort of management plan that might exist in a local area social work department where people work with case loads. If that is a parallel, how would the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service determine what a reasonable case load would be? You have already said that, due to the change in the pattern of crime in Glasgow, you have had to take on another two precognition teams. What measurements are applied when you are putting together the management tool for the delivery of the service?
I have a final question: do you have the precognition teams to keep, or do you have them on approval?
I can say that Len Higson has them to keep. I can also say that the approach to management is not new; we have been using a management plan-based approach for some years. The approach is not perfect by any means but, as I mentioned earlier, the number of uncertainties and unpredictable factors make the situation difficult. I was the regional procurator fiscal in Glasgow for several years and I am aware that using a management plan is not an exact science and is not easy. However, through a combination of historical information and information about current trends and anticipated developments, it is possible to produce worthwhile and useful results. Len Higson can probably say more about that.
My plan is not only my plan, it is the office plan, which I hope that all staff accept and understand. It reflects what is expected of them, not just me, and it is not only about money but about people and the pressures affecting them. The staff survey from last year, which was mentioned in the introduction, is a key issue in relation to the management plan for the current 12 months.
The ingredients of the plan are based on our performance. We have departmental targets that show how quickly we have to do things and how quickly we would like to do things. A key part of the process is work load, which must be viewed together with the targets to enable us to determine what we need to do to support performance against that work load. That is not a perfect science, but we are able to make a good job of it because of our experience and our management information.
That is my point. How does the fact that you are able to make a good job of it sit with your finding that morale is not particularly high in the service?
Sometimes our aspirations—namely, our conclusions in relation to resources—are limited by the resources that are available. I am sure that most senior civil servants who come to this committee will tell you that their first step is to ensure that they are best using the resources that they have before they seek additional resources. There is a transition.
You talk about seeking additional resources. Would it be within the remit of the Crown Office to ask the Executive for more resources if it was felt that the work load had got to such a level that more resources were needed? How would that be done?
Yes, we have done that. Our resources have increased considerably over the past three years. For illustration purposes, in 1997 the department's funding was about £47 million. We are just starting a year in which it is £55 million. That figure will increase as a result of taking our case to the Treasury before devolution, and to the Executive since devolution, with regard to the Scottish block. We did that in last year's spending review, and we gained additional funding. One result of that is an increase in staff. Two years ago, our total staff numbered 1,087. As members can see from the figures that they have been given, the number is now 1,200. We have been successful and active in bringing our case, in getting more resources and in bringing in more staff. We accept the committee's interest in the question of how that increase is used internally. The business of predicting and tracking the use of resources within the department is not easy.
I will add a point about the planning system. We do not rest—having set out our stall for the year ahead—on the management plan bidding process. We monitor the situation actively every month, through the senior management team and we have a mid-year review. Len Higson has already given an example of how that review process has, in year, led to us altering our resources in Glasgow. It is an active, on-going process to monitor the resource situation and the workload, and to make the appropriate adjustments. It is not a static, annual exercise.
I have two questions, starting with one on resources. I am wondering about how the regions apply for resources through their management plans. Do they submit their plans to you? Are those assessed overall, and does the bid then go to the Executive?
Secondly, and in relation to what Mr Higson said about making a mid-term emergency bid—if I can loosely call it that—how often are such bids made? Is that very unusual, or is it fairly frequent among different regions that find that things are changing? What is the trend with resources?
Thirdly—although this was meant to be my second question—I want to ask more about the tables. You said that the information shown in table 7, which is headed "Precognition Workload: Case Reported plus Work in Hand", refers to serious crime—although I may have got that wrong. Could you make it plain to us what the table represents and what serious crime is? The lives of many members of the public are more affected by, and can be made miserable by, petty crime. I am referring to the wee burglaries, to car damage and to other such crimes. I would like to know something about those crimes. Could there be a table for them?
Christine Grahame raises a number of points, but I will comment on timing. From last year's spending review exercise, we gained a three-year baseline. That is our position with regard to the Executive.
We have management plans that deal primarily with the first year budget head in great detail. They also set a horizon for the three-year planning situation. We review that through an annual exercise, which formally re-establishes the budgets for the following 12 months. Beyond that, we review the planning situation in the senior management team regularly.
Changes occur from time to time, notably at the half-year review that I mentioned. It is largely a question of tracking the actual experience of workload against the assumptions and estimates that were made at the beginning of the year. The management board discusses that and makes whatever adjustments are appropriate. Part of the process of adjustment can involve moving staff around the country, as members may already appreciate. It is not a static situation. We are actively engaged in dealing with the case situation and the staffing situation through the year.
My presumption—probably wrong—is that Mr Higson was asking for financial resources, rather than for human resources. That would allow him to take on more personnel. Am I wrong?
No, that is right. The money must be credited to my budget to pay for the increase in staff.
Perhaps you cannot answer my question today, but it would be useful to know about trends. Is that practice increasing and how often is it being undertaken? Your answer would allow us to consider whether the budgetary process is sufficiently stable. I appreciate that this is not a science and I did not know whether your bid was unusual.
I do not think that I could quantify the occasions on which that happens. Our planning process has sufficient flexibility to respond to changing demands. I am confident that it is soundly based. I will give another example of how such a situation was dealt with when I was in my previous post in Grampian, Highland and Islands region. That job was different, because the region has 15 procurator fiscal offices. The regional procurator fiscal's aim there is to smooth demand throughout the region. That involves distributing the people resource—as far as possible within the regional resource—among 15 offices, to alleviate pressures. That is a continuing, week-to-week process.
There will be only a few final questions. It is 12.35 and time is getting on.
I have a quick question.
No other members have pressing questions that they would like to hear answers to, so Margo MacDonald will have the last word.
I will ask about the smoothing of resources throughout the Highlands and Islands and Grampian. That smoothing means that, if you have just bought your nice wee house on the west coast, you would want to smooth it over to the east coast. My question returns to morale and the rate of drop-out of people from the service. I presume that they graduate, qualify, enter the service for a year or two and then start putting roots down. Is a practical human difficulty involved?
The Crown Agent and Mr Rosie will be able to give you their perspective. My view is that legal staff and support staff are less willing to move throughout the country to develop their careers than they were hitherto. That is because of domestic commitments, partners and jobs. That constrains managers and can lead to staleness. Some members of staff might have been in one place for too long and might have become too comfortable in their environment. That can lead to negativity.
We must deal with and manage that phenomenon. However, several of our most remote offices have vacancies and we have good candidates for those posts.
I could give you some names of folk for remote postings, too.
We will conclude there. I thank Mr Normand and the rest of his team for giving evidence. I hope that they will not mind if we must call them back.