Rough justice, Society responds

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago the Journal covered the publication of the Rough Justice report. Over the course of the past few years the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has consistently heard from their members about the workload pressures facing them in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS). 

To summarise:

The growing understanding of the issues facing staff led PCS to commission UNITY Consulting Scotland to conduct research into the experiences of the COPFS and SCTS workforces.

The research involved interviews initially with a small number of employees which were then used for a survey answered by 376 people at the Crown Office and 237 at SCTS.

This report is based on the voices and viewpoints of those working in both the COPFS and SCTS. The views of the workers who took part in this research confirm what PCS already knew about the challenges they were, and still are facing, and the impact this is having on them and the delivery of justice.

Alongside IT and digital infrastructures being more than two decades old (in some cases) and bringing with it challenges for staff, they also shared that they are “drowning in emails”, along with making mistakes.

Employees regularly have to work unpaid through weekends to deal with the backlog.

When looking at the data, at SCTS, 76 per cent of those surveyed said they had experienced or seen mistakes made because of pressure on colleagues. At SCTS, 30 per cent said they themselves had experienced errors, with 26 per cent adding that they had witnessed them.

One member of staff at the Crown Office said: “Cases are being flung out of the door due to managing our caseloads. We are expected to also juggle post-indictment work including working along with [advocate deputes] which takes away a lot of time for reporting cases.”

Another said: “I myself have made mistakes in terms of not following up on tasks because we are constantly overwhelmed with work and expected to juggle multiple urgent issues, many of which are often not urgent but you are made to do them urgently.”

PCS has highlighted that the pressure and strain on staff is having a "knock-on effect on the delivery of justice".

Read the article here which includes access to the report, and the full response from PCS.

Stuart Munro, Law Society of Scotland Criminal Law Committee Convener, said: "Scotland's criminal justice system as a whole has been under pressure for a considerable length of time, whether that relates to our overcrowded prisons, delays in the courts or to the dire state of the legal aid system.

"Clearly people working across the criminal justice sector are feeling pressured, and are rightfully concerned about the potential impacts of that on the integrity of the system. A holistic approach is required to ensure all parts of the system are adequately resourced and supported."