Absolute discharges given per year since 2018: FOI release

Information requested

All offences where an individual was absolutely discharged for the financial years of 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23. For clarity, please provide a list of offences where an individual has been absolutely discharged and the number of times someone has been absolutely discharged for that offence.

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested. Please note that data for 2020-21 and 2021-22 are affected by the pandemic, subsequent court closures, reduced court capacity due to physical distancing measures and delays to cases where key participants were forced to self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19, and should not be considered indicative of long term trends. We provide the data using the same classification of crimes and offences used in the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2021-22 bulletin. Note: this classification is used for statistical reporting purposes only.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

For interest, our statistical bulletin 'Criminal Proceedings in Scotland - 2021-22' does contain data on absolute discharges by crime type in table 7a, however, this category also includes disposals of 'no order made'. The publication can be found here: Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2021-22 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government does not have the information

The Scottish Government Criminal Proceedings database is not a live system and the latest available information is for the financial year 2021-22. Criminal proceedings data are published for financial years, i.e. from 1 April to 31 March. Therefore data for later years will not be available until the relevant publications are published. The dates of all Scottish Government Official and National Statistics publications are pre-announced, and the up to date list of future publications can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/ForthcomingPubs.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202300384184 - Information released - Data

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