Current status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 15 August 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many of the recommendations of the Independent Review of the Victim Notification Scheme have been implemented.
Whilst the Independent Review of the Victim Notification Scheme (VNS) made 22 main recommendations, some of these recommendations included further separate recommendations, for example, recommendation 8 involved nine separate recommendations.
In our response to the review we set out our position on each of the review’s recommendations:
In our response to the review, the Scottish Government committed to a programme of work that would bring about transformational change to the VNS. We are delivering that programme of work through legislative and non legislative routes.
We have prioritised those recommendations which required changes to primary legislation through the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill (VWJR Bill) as outlined in our letter to the Criminal Justice Committee on 4 March 2025. The Stage 2 amendments were passed by that Committee and we will lodge the amendments at Stage 3 of the Bill. Together these amendments relate to 11 of the recommendations of the review. We will only be able to take forward these recommendations if the VWJR Bill is passed by Parliament.