The Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
Publication Scheme
Freedom of Information Publication Scheme for HM Chief Inspector of Prosecution in Scotland
1. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prosecution - Introduction to the Publication Scheme
The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) provides information with a right of access to all recorded information held by Scotland's public authorities. Anyone can use this right, and information can only be withheld where FOISA expressly permits it.
Section 23 of FOISA also requires that all Scottish public authorities maintain a publication scheme. A publication scheme sets out the types of information that a public authority routinely makes available. This scheme has been approved by the Scottish Information Commissioner, who is responsible for enforcing FOISA. We are also obliged to review this scheme from time to time.
The purpose of the scheme is to provide you with details of the range of information that we routinely publish. The scheme also provides details of how you can access this information, and tells you whether it is available free, or if there is a change for the information.
This is Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prosecution in Scotland's publication scheme as required by Section 23 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). Under the Act Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prosecution is required to specify:
- The classes of information it publishes or intends to publish;
- How information is published; and
- Whether the information is available free of charge or on payment of a fee.
This publication scheme has regard to the public interest in the disclosure of information which will help to provide an informal background to the work of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prosecution.
The publication scheme will be available on our website and in hard copy.
Alongside FOISA, the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EI(S)Rs) provide a separate right of access to any environmental information that we hold. The EI(S)Rs place a duty on all public authorities to actively disseminate environmental information.
Where information is not published under this scheme, you can request it from us under FOISA or, in the case of environmental information, the EI(S)Rs. For further information on accessing information not covered by this scheme, refer to - How to access information not available under the scheme (Section 9).
2. Role of the Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland
The Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland (IPS) is the independent Inspectorate for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the sole prosecuting authority in Scotland and which is also responsible for investigating sudden deaths and complaints against the police which are of a criminal nature.
The aim of the IPS is to make recommendations that will contribute to improvements in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) service delivery, making COPFS more accountable and enhancing public confidence.
The principal functions of the IPS are:
- To inspect or arrange for the inspection of the operation of COPFS
- To report to the Lord Advocate on any matter connected with the operation of COPFS
The IPS operated on a non-statutory basis from December 2003. Since the coming into effect of the Criminal Proceedings etc (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007 Sections 78 and 79 in April 2007 the Inspectorate has been operating as a statutory body.
The 2007 Act provides for the appointment by the Lord Advocate of an officer known as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prosecution in Scotland.
The statute requires the Inspector to secure the inspection of the operation of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The Lord Advocate may also require the Inspector to submit a report on any particular matter connected with the operation of the Service which the Lord Advocate refers to the Inspector. An annual report must be submitted to the Lord Advocate on the exercise of the Inspector's functions.
All of the reports of the IPS will be published and details of these can be obtained on our website.
Joint reports will also be undertaken with criminal justice partners and again these will be published.
The IPS does not deal with individual complaints although comments from individuals are welcome. Individual complaints about specific cases should be referred to the Crown Office or appropriate Procurator Fiscal's Office.
The Scottish Government funds the Inspectorate, which is completely independent of COPFS.
The Chief Inspector reports directly to the Lord Advocate. The internal management structure of COPFS is bypassed.
The Inspectorate has unrestricted access to all COPFS records and personnel. We inspect COPFS Offices to check compliance with COPFS policy and publish our results online at www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/ipis.
Additionally we carry out themed reviews (thematic inspections) the findings of which we publish in hard copy form and on our website. In evidence gathering we take a "consumers" perspective and collect evidence from as many "consumers" as possible.
3. How to Access Information from this Publication Scheme
All information included in this publication scheme and the scheme itself can be obtained in the following ways:
Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland
Legal House, 2nd Floor
101 Gorbals Street
Glasgow G5 9DW
- By telephone - 0844 561 2433
4. Charging for Information
Information will be free of charge if downloaded from the website although printing costs etc will have to be met by the user. For those without access to the website a printout on hard copy would be available by post, on request, from the address shown in Section 3 above. These will be provided free of charge.
Requests for multiple printouts of material on the website or multiple hard copies may attract a printing charge, postage etc. These will not exceed 10p per sheet. If charges are to be made you will be told of these (and how they have been calculated) at the time of your request and these are payable in advance.
We will reply promptly and in any event within 20 working days once a request is received. This time can be extended or interrupted by a request for additional information in order to identify and locate the requested information or for payment of a fee.
5. Exemptions
We are committed to the spirit of the legislation and the end product of all of our work is published. Our aim is to be as open as possible.
However, information may be withheld from any of the classes of information listed below where FOISA (or in the case of environmental information, the EI(S)Rs) permit this, for example where disclosure may seriously prejudice law enforcement, legal proceedings or our regulatory or enforcement activity or where the disclosure is otherwise prohibited by law. FOISA also permits information to be withheld if its disclosure would breach the law of confidentiality or seriously prejudice the commercial interests of any person or organisation. We may also withhold information which is personal information, the release of which would breach the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998.
In these cases, we will withhold the information and indicate why the information is being withheld. If you wish to complain about information which is being withheld, please read Section 12 Complaints below.
6. Copyright Statement
The information we produce is subject to Crown copyright, which is administered by the Queen's Printer for Scotland. The material listed in this publication scheme is Crown copyright unless stated otherwise. The copyright in some of the material which may be found in this publication scheme has been waived. This means that you can re-use this material freely. Categories of material for which copyright has been waived include: press notices, legislation, and explanatory notes on the legislation, ministerial speeches, consultation documents, documents featured on official websites (except where expressly indicated otherwise), headline statistics and unpublished public records. More details of these and other categories can be found at: http://www.oqps.gov.uk.
For other types of material, the supply of documents under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) does not give the person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the documents in a way that would infringe copyright, for example, by making multiple copies, publishing and issuing copies to the public.
Brief extracts of any of the material included in this publication scheme may be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research and non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and news reporting.
Details of the arrangements for re-using Crown copyright material can be found on the website of the Office of Public Sector Information at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm.
Authorisation to re-use copyright material not owned by the Crown should be sought from the copyright holders concerned.
7. Our Records Management and Disposal Policy
While the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 is retrospective, most records as a matter of course have a natural lifespan and will be destroyed in accordance with our records management and disposal policy. It is therefore only possible for us to provide records that are still in existence.
The Inspectorate of Prosecution follows the Scottish Government's policy and procedures in relation to records management and disposal, which are set out in the records management manual available under the Scottish Government's publication scheme at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/FOI/19260.
Records that are retained for permanent preservation are made available for public viewing at the National Archives of Scotland. You can search for such information at http://nas.gov.uk/.
8. Maintenance of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prosecution's Publication Scheme
The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 requires public authorities not only to maintain a publication scheme approved by the Scottish Information Commissioner but also from time to time to review the scheme. As part of this ongoing process we would be glad to receive any comments or suggestions on the publication scheme and in particular comments from users on their experiences in obtaining information from the scheme. Comments or suggestions for particular classes of information which we might add to the scheme would also be welcomed.
Comments about this scheme should be sent to the address shown in Section 3 above.
9. How to Access Information which is not available under this Scheme
If the information you are seeking is not available under this publication scheme, then you may wish to request it from us. The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) provides you with a right of access to the information we hold, subject to certain exemptions. The Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EI(S)Rs) separately provide a right of access to the environmental information we hold, while the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) provides a right of access to any personal information about you that we hold. Again, these rights are subject to certain exceptions or exemptions.
Should you wish to request a copy of any information that we hold that is not available under this scheme, please write to:
HM Chief Inspector of Prosecution
Legal House 2nd Floor
101 Gorbals Street
Glasgow G5 9DW
E-mail: IPS@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
10. Charges for Information which is not available under the Scheme
The charges for information which is available under this scheme are set out under Section 4. If you submit a request to us for information which is not available under the scheme the charges will be based on the following calculations:
General information requests:
- There will be no charge for information requests which cost us £100 or less to process.
- Where information costs between £100 and £600 to provide you may be asked to pay 10% of the cost. That is, if you were to ask for information that cost us £600 to provide, you would be asked to pay £50, that calculated on the basis of a waiver for the first £100 and 10% of the remaining £500.
- We are not obliged to respond to requests which will cost us over £600 to process.
- In calculating any fee, staff time will be calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour.
- We do not charge for the time to determine whether we hold the information requested, nor for the time it takes to decided whether the information can be released. Charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you.
- In the event that we decide to impose a charge we will issue you with notification of the charge (a fess notice) and how it has been calculated.
Charges for environmental information:
We do not charge for the time to determine whether we hold the information requested, nor for the time it takes to decide whether the information can be released. Charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you.
In the event that we decide to impose a charge we will issue you with notification of the charge and how it has been calculated. The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. If you decide not to proceed with the request there will be no charge to you.
Charges are calculated on the basis of the actual cost to the authority of providing the information.
- Photocopying is charged at 10p per A4 sheet for black and white copying, 30p per A4 sheet for colour copying.
- Postage is charged at actual rate for first class mail.
- Staff time is calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour.
The first £100 worth of information will be provided to you without charge.
Where information costs between £100 and £600 to provide you will be asked to pay 10% of the cost. That is, if you were to ask for information that cost us £600 to provide, you would be asked to pay £50, that calculated on the basis of a waiver for the first £100 and 10% of the remaining £500.
Where it would cost more than £600 to provide the information to you, however, we will ask you to pay the full cost of providing the information, with no waiver for any portion of the cost.
11. Classes of Information
Listed below are the classes of information which the Inspectorate of Prosecution publishes or intends to publish. Copies of all information listed under these classes are available online or in hard copy on request.
Class - Area Inspection Reports
HM Chief Inspector of Prosecution's principal statutory duty is to secure the inspection of the operation of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The Procurator Fiscal Service is geographically divided into 11 separate areas and Area Reports are the main mechanism for fulfilling this statutory duty. These reports cover a wide range of criminal justice topics currently including review of casework, bail issues, disclosure issues, views from criminal justice partners and others and management and budget issues. The programme is designed to be flexible and risk based and in the future will include topics which give rise to public concern.
Class - Office Inspections
Each of the Procurator Fiscal areas is divided into smaller units or "districts". As part of our original Business Programme and in the wake of public concern concerning race issues all district offices were inspected to include an examination of race cases, translation and interpreting issues, recruitment of minority ethnic staff, outreach initiatives, investigation of deaths etc. These are now concluded but the Area Reports referred to above include elements of these and other equality issues.
Class - Thematic Reports
In addition to the current Area Inspection Programme we additionally carry out thematic reviews either singly or more usually in conjunction with criminal justice partners covering a range of criminal justice issues. We aim to be 'evidence based' and take a 'consumers' perspective and therefore collect as much evidence as possible from users of the system. This we do by face to face interviews, questionnaires and requests for information by way of public advertisement. A 'risk based' approach is adopted for the selection of themes thus our first thematic report was on the Crown Office's Response on race issues. Reports to date include:
- The Crown Office's Response on Race Issues
- The Provision of Service to Witnesses (jointly with the Witness Service)
- Case Management (jointly with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland)
- Complaints Against the Police
- Natural Justice: the arrangements in Scotland for preventing, investigating and prosecuting wildlife crime (jointly with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland)
Current ongoing thematics include:
- The use of enhanced Fiscal Fines
- A review of the Proceeds of Crime Act (in conjunction with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland)
Class - Annual Reports
The Inspectorate has a statutory obligation to prepare an Annual Report for the Lord Advocate which is laid before the Scottish Parliament. These summarise the work of the Inspectorate for the year in question.
Class - Corporate Information
This includes background material on the creation of the Inspectorate including the original proposals, the results of a public consultation exercise, current staffing levels and background information on team members, an information leaflet and contact details for other related agencies.
12. Complaints
Our aim is to make our publication scheme as user-friendly as possible and we hope that you can access all the information we publish with ease. If you do wish to complain about any aspect of the publication scheme, however, then please contact us, and we will try and resolve your complaint as quickly as possible. You can contact:
Joseph O'Donnell (HM Chief Inspector of Prosecution) at
The Inspectorate of Prosecution in Scotland
Legal House 2nd Floor
101 Gorbals Street
Glasgow G5 9DW
Tel: 0844 561 2432
Any complaint will be acknowledged within two working days of receipt and we will respond in full within 20 working days.
You have legal rights to access information under this scheme and a right of appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner if you are dissatisfied with our response. These rights apply only to information requests made in writing or another recordable format. If you are unhappy with our responses to your request you can ask us to review it and if you are still unhappy, you can make an appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner.
The Commissioner's website has a guide to this three step process, and he operates an enquiry service on Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 5.00pm. His office can be contacted as follows:
Scottish Information Commissioner
Kinburn Castle
Doubledykes Road
St Andrews
Fife KY16 9DS