Community Justice Performance Framework

The Guidance and Technical Notes was updated 09:30am 19 March 2024.

What is the Community Justice Performance Framework?

The Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (the Act) provides the legislative framework for the model of community justice.

As part of that model, s17 of the Act requires the Scottish Ministers to publish a performance framework, setting out nationally determined outcomes which are to be achieved in each local authority area, and national indicators which are to be used in measuring performance against these. The first version of this, which was called the Outcomes, Performance and Improvement Framework (OPIF), was published in 2016.

The Community Justice Performance Framework (CJPF) is a revised version of that framework, and is being published as per s18(4)(a) of the Act. It supersedes the version that was published in 2016.

There are two main components to the CJPF (as per s17 of the Act):

• 9 nationally determined outcomes which are to be achieved in the area of each local authority
• 10 national indicators which are to be used to measure performance in achieving the outcomes

The CJPF also contains advice relating to the collection of local evidence, which will supplement the national indicator data, and the work of Community Justice Scotland in providing improvement tools to support ongoing improvement work.

The below documents also support the community justice performance model:

National Strategy for Community Justice:

The National Strategy for Community Justice (the strategy) sets the national direction for community justice by building on progress made to date. It is designed to provide a clear roadmap for future improvement work, by highlighting key areas for partners to focus on. The CJPF helps to assess whether the priority actions set out in the strategy are being achieved. The CJPF has re-framed priority actions in the strategy as nationally determined outcomes, so that partners are clear on what they are aiming to change.

Delivery plan:

From spring 2023, the strategy will be accompanied by a delivery plan which will contain time-limited deliverables. It details the agreed activity which the Scottish Government and national community justice partners are taking forward to drive improvement towards each of the priority actions in the strategy. If the delivery plan is achieved, it should support progress towards achieving both the priority actions in the strategy and ultimately the outcomes set out in the CJPF. Progress towards the deliverables in the delivery plan will be monitored by governance structures which are coordinated at a national level.

Guidance:

The CJPF Guidance and Technical Notes is primarily for statutory community justice partners acting jointly at a local level. This document is published as a supporting document to the CJPF and includes guidance on how to use the CJPF and technical notes on each national indicator.

Statutory guidance to support statutory community justice partners to understand their roles arising from the Act (as per s24 of the Act), including in relation to reporting and the CJPF, is also published by the Scottish Government and is kept under review and updated as necessary.

Community Justice Scotland Improvement Tool:

The Community Justice Scotland improvement tool (published on its website) sets out the local evidence that will supplement the national indicator data. Local evidence will provide further context to the national indicators, and help to drive improvement and better understand performance in relation to the nationally determined outcomes.

Self-evaluation framework:

The Care Inspectorate's updated guide to self-evaluation for community justice in Scotland (which will be published on its website in 2023) reflects the 2022 Vision for Justice in Scotland and the National Strategy for Community Justice. The guide promotes collaborative self-evaluation and provides a range of quality indicators to support community justice partners in considering how they contribute to improving the life chances and outcomes of people with living experience of community justice in Scotland.