National Community Justice Strategy and Performance Framework: impact assessments

Community Justice Performance Framework: Fairer Scotland Duty (FSD) Summary

Title of policy, strategy or programme

Community Justice Performance Framework - Revision

Summary of aims and expected outcomes of strategy, proposal, programme or policy

The Community Justice Performance Framework (CJPF) supersedes the Outcomes, Performance and Improvement Framework published in 2016. The CJPF revision will not introduce a new policy, but will build on existing policy.

The Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (the 2016 Act) requires the Scottish Ministers to publish a national performance framework in relation to community justice, 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 Act requires community justice partners for the area of a local authority to publish a Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan (CJOIP), setting out which nationally determined outcomes are a priority for action and planned actions required to achieve or maintain the nationally determined outcomes, and any other locally determined outcomes. Community justice partners for each local area are also required to publish an annual report on progress towards achieving the outcomes.

The 2016 Act also requires Community Justice Scotland (CJS) to review the performance framework from time to time, and at least every 5 years. If CJS makes proposals for the revision of the framework, the Scottish Ministers must either publish a revised framework reflecting its proposals (with or without modifications) or confirm that the framework will not be revised. CJS formally submitted proposals to Scottish Ministers on 29 September 2022 for the revision of the framework. CJS carried out extensive stakeholder engagement to develop these proposals.

Following receipt of CJS’s proposals, modifications were made before a revised framework was published on 31 March 2023. As required by the 2016 Act, CJS was consulted by the Scottish Ministers in relation to those modifications. Compared to the previous version, the CJPF has been significantly streamlined, with a clear focus on robust and measurable indicator data.

The CJPF is aligned to the National Strategy for Community Justice (the strategy) which was revised in 2022. Specifically, the outcomes included in the CJPF align directly with the priority actions contained within the strategy, reframing these in a way which will allow related progress and performance to be assessed.

Summary of evidence

Evidence suggests that community based interventions are more effective than short-term custodial sentences, when looking at the 2016-17 offender cohort. Those released from a short prison sentence of 12 months or less are reconvicted nearly twice as often as those sentenced to serve community payback orders.^[18]

There has been little change in the pattern of arrivals of people to prison, with most likely to be from the 10% most deprived areas of Scotland – a consistent pattern over the past decade. The 10% most deprived areas of Scotland accounted for 31% of all arrivals to prison in 2021-22 - a small reduction from 34% in 2020-21.^[19]

People in the justice system commonly experience severe and multiple disadvantage, including homelessness, substance use, mental ill health and domestic violence or abuse.

For example in 2020-21, there were 1,765 homelessness applications from people departing the prison system.^[20] This is approximately 5% of all homelessness applications in Scotland.

In addition, information collected on Community Payback Orders (CPOs) and Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTOs) show over the last five years when employment status was known, the majority of people tended to be unemployed. This ranged from 55 to 62% for CPOs and 62 to 68% for DTTOs.^[21] The range of people who were economically inactive i.e. people who are retired, supported by family, caring for home/family or long-term sick/disabled was between 14 to 16% for CPOs. This range was much higher for DTTO over the five years ranging from 25 to 29%.^[22]

Effective community justice can help address offending behaviour and its underlying causes. If individuals are rehabilitated effectively, reoffending rates will reduce further over time, there will be fewer victims of crime and communities will be safer.

Summary of assessment findings

No significant changes have been made to the proposal as a result of this assessment, we are content that officials have properly considered the issues associated with socio-economic disadvantage throughout the development and drafting of the performance framework, not just following the completion of this impact assessment. The development of the performance framework has been informed by significant engagement with a range of SG policy and analytical colleagues and external partners (both by CJS in their development of the proposals and the SG following receipt of the proposals). It has taken into account evidence of a range of different publications - including by the SG and other partners.

Our aim is to ensure that individuals who are engaged in community justice receive the support they need to reduce the likelihood of further offending and to engage positively in their communities, while protecting the public and robustly managing risk.

In the performance framework nationally determined outcomes have been identified, along with national indicators which can be used to measure progress towards achieving these.

As per above, enhanced leadership and governance arrangements and expanded data collection could improve the outcomes for those in community justice, many of whom commonly experience severe and multiple disadvantage, but we consider that the approach taken – including through planned development work on data collection and through further work with partners on delivering improvement action on the eleventh priority action contained within the strategy (“deliver improved community justice outcomes by ensuring that effective leadership and governance arrangements are in place and working well, collaborating with partners and planning strategically”) – is appropriate.

We recognise that there is no single way to experience poverty, but individuals will face a wide range of unique experiences. The focus of the performance framework is consequently multi-faceted, with inclusion of national outcomes and indicators on health, employability, and the provision of housing, in reflection of the criminogenic and non-criminogenic needs facing many individuals who have lived experience of the justice system and the structural barriers that a significant number will encounter.

In relation to the two specific areas identified for potential improvement, one – in relation to data collection – will be taken forward as part of future work, as the issues noted cannot be resolved within the timeframe required for the launch of this revised framework. In relation to enhanced leadership and governance arrangements, the nature of the performance framework is such that this is not suitable for a specific nationally determined outcome or indicator, but will instead be demonstrated through progress on the framework overall – and, specifically, the aforementioned priority action contained in the strategy which focuses on this matter.

Sign off Name: Cat Dalrymple

Job title: Deputy Director Community Justice

Date: 3 April 2023