"No proceedings" in nearly 50,000 cases last year
1 Sep 06
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service releases annual figures
Almost 50,000 criminal cases were marked as "no proceedings" last year, but the proportion of cases so marked was down by a fifth, according to a report just released.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service's figures for 2005-06 record the number of reports from police or other reporting agencies where the procurator fiscal decides not to take action by way of prosecution or an alternative to prosecution (such as a fiscal fine or warning).
The figures show:
- 14.4% of cases reported in 2005-06 were marked "no proceedings" (48,929 out of 339,415).
- the proportion of cases marked "no proceedings" in 2005-06 was 22% down on the level in 2004-05 (i.e. 18.5%).
- with the exception of 2003-04 (when the proportion was 13.4%), the proportion of cases marked "no proceedings" in 2005-06 was at its lowest level since at least 2000-01.
- the proportion of all cases marked for no proceedings because of delay accounts for 1.9% of the total figure.
Procurators fiscal may decide not to take proceedings for a number of reasons, including lack of admissible evidence, mitigating circumstances, lack of jurisdiction over the offence, or the fact that the suspected offence is not a crime.
Solicitor General Elish Angiolini QC said that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service was working closely with police forces to put in place a joint protocol on police reporting.
She added that this would "allow early and effective action and greater scope for police to use more immediate measures to deal with the most minor crimes - such as police warnings and fixed penalties - instead of sending a report to the fiscal".
Chief Constable David Strang, chair of the criminal justice business area of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, said: "We are working with our partners in the criminal justice area to look at a number of non-reporting options, which include fixed penalties and warning letters.
"A vast amount of work is already underway to address these issues and we expect to see even more positive results in the future."
A copy of the No Proceedings statistics for 2005-06 can be downloaded from http://www.copfs.gov.uk/Publications/2006/08/CasesNoPro200106 .