Progress Against Improvement Actions

Progress on implementation of the 5 remaining strategic recommendations from HMICS continues to be dependent on (i) the incremental rollout of the National Crime System, COS UNIFI (due to be complete by December 2023) and (ii) the implementation of business changes focused on development of nationally consistent process for crime management.  These business changes have been proposed by Service Design to ensure compliance with SCRS and release internal capacity.

Following an internal review and prioritisation of Police Scotland projects, the Force Middle Office Remodelling (FMOR) project was concluded and the Crime Audit recommendations being progressed by this project have been realigned with other existing working and stakeholder groups including the Data Integrity Audit Working Group, Crime Managers Forum and a newly established Gold and Silver Group structure to review Crime Management backlogs.

When designing implementation of COS UNIFI it was agreed that Crime Managers would be responsible for assessing and final filing all Crime Reports (CRs) at the end of their lifecycle.  This was subsequently embedded within the system.

However, this approach did not reflect legacy arrangements within all divisions and, as a result, as CRs were migrated from legacy systems into COS UNIFI from the north and east regions, the system created large backlogs for the final filing of CR's that did not previously exist.

Due to the large volume of CRs in these backlogs and recognising the need to reduce and maintain these going forward, a risk was raised in the Local Crime Risk Register.  A Gold and Silver Group structure was implemented, chaired by ACC Wendy Middleton and Detective Chief Superintendent Suzie Chow respectively, with all relevant stakeholders involved, including HMICS and SPA representatives.

A planned approach has been developed and agreed by the Crime Management Backlogs Gold Group and will take a phased approach to managing and mitigating the risks surrounding final filing backlogs as well as developing nationally consistent processes and practises for Divisional Crime Management Units (DCMUs) which ensure compliance with SCRS, reduce demand and release capacity.

The actions arising from this work will have an impact on the delivery of Crime Audit recommendations and are detailed within Appendix A – Crime Audit Improvement Plan.  In particular, this activity will progress HMICS recommendations 3 and 4 by establishing a consistent and risk based crime management final filing business process with a related and robust assurance process.

An ongoing programme of Data Integrity Audits by the Police Scotland Crime Registrars continues alongside the rollout of COS UNIFI to both identify issues at an early stage and assist in the future development of business processes and system upgrades.

The findings and required mitigations from these audits, so far undertaken in A, D, N and P Divisions are actioned with improvements monitored through the Crime Audit Tactical Group and Strategic Crime Audit Group to ensure appropriate oversight and direction.  E and J Divisions are currently being audited with reports expected in October 2023.  

Progress made against each of the 5 open recommendations contained within the HMICS Report is summarised in the table at Appendix A.       

In consideration of the identified backlogs and the dependency of the actions on the full COS UNIFI rollout these have been delayed; a revised target date of 30 June 2024 is considered achievable to complete the delivery of the plan.     

Actions towards meeting this target date are currently being reviewed by the Tactical Leads are ensure that actions reflect current landscape and remain fit for purpose.