Change to prioritise frontline policing

Criminal justice efficiencies
We continue to work closely with criminal justice partners to drive efficiencies and improve the experiences of all victims, witnesses and offenders during the court process.
We are seeing positive progress with the summary case management scheme which continues to show a significant reduction in citations and re-citation of witnesses, including police witnesses with Dundee showing a reduction in police witnesses from an average 348 first citations per month to 88, and from 469 recitations per month to 45 in January 2025.
This streamlining of the process has significant benefits for victims, especially domestic abuse victims, as it reducing their time spent in court and cases are resolved much more quickly. It also means officers can spend more time in communities rather than being cited for court.
Police Scotland is committed to playing our part, and we are driving efficiencies through our own processes including supporting officers to manage case reporting more efficiently, supporting better use of direct measures and development of better analytics to measure demand.
We have also opened up our police estate to enable investigations and interviews with suspects to be carried out within police buildings in local communities other than our main custody hubs. This again is enabling officers to spend more time in communities rather than often travelling significant distances.