Data Table

Charts

Sheriff Court - Summary, and Justice of the Peace Court

Definitions - these can also be viewed by holding the cursor over each trial stage on the diagram.

Summary case: A summary case is a less serious criminal case before a sheriff or justice of the peace, without a jury.

First Calling: The first time a summary case is called in court.

Continued Without Plea Hearing: A further opportunity for a summary case to call in court following no plea having been entered at first calling. This stage can sometimes be repeated more than once depending on the circumstances of the case.

Intermediate Diet: A hearing in summary criminal proceedings which allows the court to check whether the case is likely to proceed on the date assigned for trial. The purpose is to minimise inconvenience to witnesses et al., if the trial is adjourned.

Trial Diet: The legal action in a criminal court case.

Sheriff Court - Solemn

Definitions - these can also be viewed by holding the cursor over each trial stage on the diagram.

Solemn case: Serious criminal case before a judge and jury in the High Court or sheriff and jury in the sheriff court.

Section 76 Hearing: An accused person charged with a serious offence may give notice in writing that they intend to plead guilty to an indictment under section 76 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

First Diet: A date on which an indictment calls in the sheriff court in solemn proceedings to determine whether the prosecutor and defence are ready to go to trial.

Continued First Diet: A date on which an indictment calls in the sheriff court in solemn proceedings to determine whether the prosecutor and defence are ready to go to trial – continued from an earlier First Diet. This stage can sometimes be repeated more than once depending on the circumstances of the case.

Trial Diet: The legal action in a criminal court case.

High Court

Definitions - these can also be viewed by holding the cursor over each trial stage on the diagram.

Solemn case: Serious criminal case before a judge and jury in the High Court or sheriff and jury in the sheriff court.

Section 76 Hearing: An accused person charged with a serious offence may give notice in writing that they intend to plead guilty to an indictment under section 76 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

Preliminary Hearing: A hearing in the High Court of Justiciary in solemn proceedings to decide if the case is ready to go for trial. Also preliminary legal or factual issues may be determined before trial at a preliminary hearing.

Continued Preliminary Hearing: A hearing in the High Court of Justiciary in solemn proceedings to decide if the case is ready to go for trial – continued from an earlier Preliminary Hearing. Preliminary legal or factual issues may be determined before trial at a Continued preliminary hearing. This stage can sometimes be repeated more than once depending on the circumstances of the case.

Trial Diet: The legal action in a criminal court case.

Glossary

Term	Definition
Accused	A person charged with breaking the law. The term defendant is not used in Scotland
Adjournment	An interruption to the proceedings when the court stops the hearing of the case for part of a day or for a longer period.
Appeal	An appeal is a re-hearing of a case by a higher court than the court which first heard the case. A re-hearing means re-consideration by the appellate court of the evidence led and the legal issues considered by the court below.
Average time between pleading diet and evidence led trial, where evidence led trial occurred in the period shown (weeks)	When an evidence led trial occurs, the trial date can be compared to the pleading diet date to obtain a measure of how long it has taken for the case to come to trial. Many factors can impact on the time between pleading diet and trial diet e.g. court programme capacity, adjournments due to lack of court time, witness availability, parties affected by COVID-19 etc. Where the value is marked as N/A, this means that there were no evidence led trials in the period therefore an average could not be constructed.
Complaint	A statement accusing someone of breaking the law.
Continued First Diet	A date on which an indictment calls in the sheriff court in solemn proceedings to determine whether the prosecutor and defence are ready to go to trial – continued from an earlier First Diet.
Continued Preliminary Hearing	A hearing in the High Court of Justiciary in solemn proceedings to decide if the case is ready to go for trial – continued from an earlier Preliminary Hearing. Preliminary legal or factual issues may be determined before trial at a Continued preliminary hearing.
Continued without Plea	A further opportunity for a summary case to call in court following no plea having been entered at first calling.
Diet	The date for a case, for instance, to hear a plea of guilty or not guilty, at an intermediate stage or for a trial.
Disposed	The complaint or indictment has been concluded.
First calling	The first time a summary case is called in court.
First Diet	A date on which an indictment calls in the sheriff court in solemn proceedings to determine whether the prosecutor and defence are ready to go to trial.
First Instance	The court in which the case was first heard or tried as distinct from second instance which is where a case is appealed.
Hearing	Any part of a trial that takes place in a court.
Indictment	A document setting out the charge(s) of crimes or offences against an accused in more serious cases. A case on indictment is tried by judge sitting with a jury in the High Court (in the most serious cases), or the sheriff court. Cases tried on indictment are known as solemn proceedings.
Intermediate diet	A hearing in summary criminal proceedings which allows the court to check whether the case is likely to proceed on the date assigned for trial. The purpose is to minimise inconvenience to witnesses etc. if the trial is adjourned.
Jury	A group of lay persons chosen to decide upon issues of fact in legal proceedings. In criminal proceedings, a jury has 15 jurors.
Justice of the peace	A lay magistrate who sits in the justice of the peace court.
Lack of Court Time	Cases that are continued to another sitting day due to the sitting day having ended.
Petition	In criminal proceedings, the Crown (the prosecutor) may begin proceedings by petition before deciding whether to prosecute on indictment or by summary complaint. Only serious cases are begun by petition.
Plea	The answer the accused gives to the court at the pre-trial hearings or at the beginning of a trial when asked if he or she is guilty or not guilty.
Pleading Diet	Date assigned for a criminal case to call and for plea to be given, e.g., guilty or not guilty.
Preliminary hearing	A hearing in the High Court of Justiciary in solemn proceedings to decide if the case is ready to go for trial. Also preliminary legal or factual issues may be determined before trial at a preliminary hearing.
Provisional	A marking applied to statistical data to alert users that the data may be revised in the future and should not be considered as final data.
Second Instance	The court in which an appeal is heard as distinct from first instance which is where a case originated.
Section 76	An accused person charged with a serious offence may give notice in writing that he intends to plead guilty to an indictment under section 76 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.
Sheriff	The name for a judge in the sheriff court.
Sheriff and jury	Cases heard in the sheriff court by a sheriff and jury.
Solemn case	Serious criminal case before a judge and jury in the High Court or sheriff and jury in the sheriff court.
Summary case	Less serious criminal case before a sheriff or justice of the peace, without a jury.
Sustained appeal	An appeal that is upheld or granted.
Trial	The legal action in a criminal court case.
Trials called	All trials that have commenced or ‘called’ in court. Some trials will conclude due to a guilty plea being entered before evidence is heard/seen; some trials will be adjourned to a later date and some trials will proceed to hear or see evidence.
Trials called where evidence was led	A subset of ‘Trials called’ where witnesses give evidence and productions are seen.
Trials scheduled	The count of complaints or indictments that have a trial diet assigned but are yet to call in court.

Data Notes

Data source

The statistical information contained in this dataset is derived from a long-established series of internal monthly management information reports that are populated from a monthly data extract from COPII – the live operational case management system (an administrative database) used by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) to record activity on criminal court cases.

Data quality

It is important that the data extract is accurate. This relies on all validations of activity on court records being made on COPII by the extract date. The Management Information and Analysis team (MIAT) proactively manage this process by advertising the data extract date on the SCTS intranet and by issuing a clear reminder to High Court and Sheriff Court clerks through the weekly circular and by email that validations must be completed by the extract date. If a court cannot validate its cases by the data extract date, the court can advise MIAT and it may be deemed necessary to delay the extract date by a few days to enable the validations to be completed. Extreme weather has caused the data extract to be delayed on a small number of occasions.

MIAT receives technical support regarding the data extract and the production of internal management information reports from the company who support and develop COPII for the SCTS.

The internal management information reports that underpin this bulletin undergo robust quality assurance during the production process.

Further quality assurance is undertaken around the production of these monthly statistics including input from local and national operational managers and from justice partners.

Data confidentiality

Court cases are held in public and may be reported on by the media unless the court orders otherwise, for example where children are involved. While our aim is for the statistics in this bulletin to be sufficiently detailed to allow a high level of practical utility, care has been taken to ensure that it is not possible to identify an individual or organisation and obtain any private information relating to them. All data is at case level.

We have assessed the risk of individuals being identified in the tables in this bulletin and have established that no private information can be identified.

All counts are aggregated during the data extract process which ensures anonymity. No personal details relating to individuals or companies are seen by the tables’ producer (MIAT) nor the quality assurers.

Revisions

COPII is not designed for statistical purposes. If data anomalies are discovered that require a revision or correction to the tables, MIAT, at the SCTS, will comply with Scotland’s Chief Statistician’s current revisions policy.

Understanding the statistics in this bulletin

A case registered at court may have multiple accused persons and each accused person can have multiple charges. These statistics are focussed on the volume of cases that call at various key points in the court journey. Flowcharts have been provided to enable users to understand the journey that cases follow.

Comparisons with other sources

Care should be taken when comparing different data sources relating to the criminal justice system. For example the Scottish Government’s National Statistic on recorded crime statistics count crimes and offences at the time that they came to the attention of Police Scotland while the Scottish Government’s National Statistic on criminal proceedings reports on the convictions and sentencing of accused persons. A court case cannot have a gender or any other protected characteristic as cases can contain multiple accused persons. Data within this bulletin is at case level.

Comparisons with statistics from other countries

Direct comparisons with statistics from other countries should be taken with care as legal frameworks and legislation for criminal offences differ. In addition data collection techniques and recording definitions will vary between countries. The Ministry of Justice court statistics are based on information directly captured from the court’s operational databases.

Despite international differences, statistics are included in international reports collated by the United Nations and Eurostat such as:

• European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics
• Various analysis and reports on the Eurostat website.