By Grant Smith

THE PROCURATOR fiscal service in Tayside has an official policy of “taking action only when necessary” and is prosecuting criminals in “the lowest appropriate forum.”

Staff are also seeking to influence the quality of the crime reports they receive from the police and are promoting the use of fixed penalty notices by officers so some cases never have to be sent to them at all.

This is outlined in the service’s business plan for 2008/09, which says the number of outstanding summary trials in the region has more than halved since 2004/05.

On Saturday a senior Dundee solicitor said there had been a “quite drastic” recent decline in the caseload at the city’s sheriff and district courts. Mr George Donnelly spoke of a suspicion among lawyers that a cost-cutting experiment was under way.

The Courier has asked the Crown Office, responsible for the procurator fiscal service, how many fiscal fines had been imposed in Dundee as an alternative to prosecution. Staff declined to release the information, saying it was due to be published soon anyway.

The concern among solicitors relates to changes linked to the summary justice reforms, which aim to make the criminal justice system faster and more efficient. These include a wider range of alternatives to prosecution, such as greater use of direct measures by procurators fiscal.

The Tayside service’s business plan said its caseload had already been falling before the reforms, from 30,000 police reports received in 2004/05 to 28,000 in 2005/06. That had dropped again to 26,500 in the year to October 2007.

“This is likely to be attributable to the continuing use by the police of the fixed penalty scheme, allied to the works done in relation to improving police knowledge in respect of case reporting and the greater use of discretion by them,” the plan said.

In anticipation of the reforms, staff had slightly increased non-court disposals and reviewed the policy on whether or not to bring a case on indictment—reserved for serious crimes—so “only those cases which must be prosecuted on indictment are so prosecuted.” The plan said “robust guidance” had been given to legal staff “to ensure they take action at the lowest most appropriate level.”

It said, “We have sought to embed a culture … of taking action only when necessary and at the appropriate level— prosecuting in the lowest appropriate forum. The preliminary indications of compliance are encouraging.”

It also said its police training programme on the need for better quality reports was “having a positive effect.”

This year’s objectives include continuing to “influence the timeousness and quality of police reports” and regular discussions with the force “to improve on the management of the flow of standard police reports to procurator fiscal offices.”

There was also an end-of-June target to “monitor agreement with police on cases which should not be reported or for which they will take informal action or issue a fixed penalty notice”.

Officers from central division’s case processing unit work in the fiscal offices in Dundee. This had improved communications and helped to “build in quality to police reporting”. Co-location will also be considered for eastern division if suitable premises can be found in Arbroath.

Internally, staff have been instructed to follow guidelines for the way cases are dealt with to maintain a consistent prosecution line and also encouraged to use summary justice reform options and monitor compliance.”

Priority will go to the prosecution of serious crime, including drug trafficking and persistent offenders.

Figures from November 2006 to October 2007 show 62 Tayside cases went to the High Court, with another 305 serious offences going to a jury in a sheriff court.

At summary level, there were 453 trials before a sheriff plus 6560 cases where a plea was made before the trial stage, although 1245 of them were made only on the day the trial was due to go ahead. The district courts dealt with 4341 cases, three quarters resulting in a plea at the first opportunity. Only 132 cases went to trial.

The Crown Office says sheriff court cases fell 13% in the three months after the summary justice reforms—7079 in March to May, against 8092 for that period in 2007—which is slightly less than expected.