Increased reporting of sexual offending fuelling High Court workload

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service statistical bulletin providing quarterly statistics on criminal case activity in Scotland shows that were 215 trials scheduled at the end of Q2 2018/19 which is a 12 per cent increase compared to the 192 trials scheduled at the end of Q1 2018/19.

The percentage of trials adjourned due to lack of court time in the High Court fell from 2.2 per cent in 2014/15 to 1.3 per cent for the first two quarters of 2018/19 – a drop of 0.9 percentage points.

Relatedly, it is anticipated that the volume of petitions being registered will continue to be high due to the increase in prosecution of sexual offending cases.

The statistical bulletin provides quarterly figures on activity in the High Court, Sheriff Court and Justice of the Peace Court giving national trends as well as figures for local courts in solemn and summary criminal business.

The figures reveal:

• 109,881 first instance criminal cases were registered in 2017/18, 25 per cent fewer than in 2014/15;
• The number of trials scheduled fell by nine per cent at the end of September 2018 compared with March 2018 and
• the percentage of trials adjourned due to lack of court time in all criminal courts was down from 5.6 per cent in 2014/15 to 3.5 per cent in the first two quarters of 2018/19.

Commenting on the new report David Fraser, chief operations officer, said: “Overall the data in this report show the system is performing well. The number of trials scheduled and adjournments for lack of court time are both down which are good indicators of overall performance.”