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

Future developments

Review of administrative data source

We previously informed users of work to assess the suitability of different sources of data within Police Scotland on domestic abuse-related activity, to determine what the optimal source of information may be going forward for the production of these statistics.

As part of ongoing discussions with Police Scotland, we have chosen to continue using the iVPD as the source of these statistics for 2023-24. However, due to IT improvements within Police Scotland, from April 2024 domestic abuse aggravated crimes will now be recorded on the crime management system, rather than the iVPD. We will continue our work with Police Scotland to review the impact this will have on the statistics and their comparability and will inform users of any updates in this area, including any impact this may have on the next bulletin (for 2024-25).

We will also keep under review the completeness of the information we receive from the iVPD. As outlined in Section 2.7, the proportion of incidents where an ‘Unknown’ relationship has been recorded within the iVPD had been gradually increasing since 2016-17 reaching a peak of 21% in 2023-24.  Similarly the proportion of location classed as other dwelling has been increasing.  

Users can register for updates on the above work through the ScotStat network.

Users of these statistics

These statistics are used by a range of stakeholders within central government, the police and other public bodies for a variety of purposes.

Domestic abuse statistics are also used by a variety of external stakeholders, including victim support groups, national and local journalism, academics and students and school pupils writing dissertations and carrying out projects.

Official statistics are a tool used in decision making both inside and outside government, and for this tool to be effective it has to be designed to meet the needs of users. We always welcome feedback on the content and the uses made of our statistical bulletins and users are invited to submit their comments and any suggestions for improvement to: Justice_Analysts@gov.scot.