Domestic abuse: statistics recorded by the police in Scotland, 2023 to 2024

Annex 3: Auditing of data by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS)

HMICS Crime Audit 2020

HMICS Crime Audit 2020 aimed to assess the state, efficiency and effectiveness of crime recording by Police Scotland and the extent to which recording practice complies with the Scottish Crime Recording Standard (SCRS) and Counting Rules. The SCRS requires that all incidents, whether crime-related or not, will result in the creation of an auditable record. HMICS tested the accuracy of crime recording by auditing incident and crime records in five categories, including sexual crime, violence, domestic abuse, non-crime related incidents, and no-crimes. The section below provides information and outcomes on the audit of domestic abuse incidents.

Police Scotland’s recording system STORM has been audited to assess the compliance for domestic abuse incidents. HMICS examined 3,150 incidents relating to domestic abuse, 1,001 of which resulted in a crime record. HMICS found that the compliance was good overall, as:

• 94.6% of domestic abuse incidents examined were closed correctly
• 92.6% of domestic abuse crime records were counted and classified correctly
• 95.2% of domestic abuse crimes were recorded within 72 hours of the incident being reported to the police, with 10 of the 13 divisions achieving over 95% compliance

Whilst the HMICS Crime Audit 2020 did not extend to data on domestic abuse included on the iVPD, it highlights the quality of domestic abuse information provided by STORM.

Since the HMICS Crime Audit 2020, HMICS have undertaken a follow-up inspection relating to Domestic Abuse and published the results of the HMICS Thematic Inspection of Domestic Abuse Phase 1 in January 2023.