Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2023-24

Annex 4: User engagement

Scotland’s recorded crime Accredited Official Statistics presented in this bulletin are used by a large number of stakeholders within central government, the police and other public bodies for a variety of purposes. We continuously engage with users to gather their views on how best to ensure that these statistics remain of high value and relevant, through their capacity to support understanding of the important issues relating to crime in Scotland (alongside other complementary sources of official statistics and research).

As part of this, we ran a consultation in 2021 on behalf of the Scottish Crime Recording Board (SCRB). This focused on the production and dissemination of Scotland’s recorded crime statistics, and on the possible development of new statistical products covering other types of policing activity. The consultation built on earlier engagement with users in 2019^[13] and invited views on an alternative way to group and present recorded crime statistics. The full Summary of Responses to the 2021 consultation can be accessed online.

Following consideration of the responses received, along with other feedback from the associated consultation events and previous consultation, the SCRB approved a number of changes to the recorded crime statistics which were implemented for the first time in the 2021-22 bulletin. Annex 5 of the 2021-22 Recorded Crime publication provides details on these changes.

Further information on previous user consultations and uses of the statistics can be found in the User Guide.

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 to: justiceanalysts@gov.scot.

If you would like to be kept informed about developments in crime statistics, we suggest registering with our ScotStat. Please note that the Scottish Government moved to a new system on the 1 March 2022. While the underlying system has changed, the ScotStat branding will be retained and the new system will serve the same function. Existing ScotStat users should re-register with the new system to continue to receive updates. Further information and a signup form is available at the following link: ScotStat Register: Guidance.