Recorded Crime in Scotland: year ending December 2022

Annexes

Annex 1: Background

These quarterly National Statistics cover a rolling 12-months of activity, up to the end of the latest quarter. They were introduced to inform users about the volume and type of crimes and offences recorded in Scotland, on a more frequent basis than the existing annual Recorded Crime in Scotland National Statistics.

The latest annual Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletin, covering the 2021-22 reporting year, was published on 28 June 2022. Users should refer to the annual National Statistics for more detailed contextual information regarding the statistics in this report, and the production of the recorded crime statistics more generally - including governance arrangements, a description of their quality, background methodologies and changes to recording practice.

Annex 2: Data Sources

Since 2020-21 the National Statistics on Recorded Crime in Scotland have been produced using data extracted from a single Police Scotland IT system called the Source for Evidence Based Policing (SEBP), which was created in 2019.

A technical review on the impact of changing from the previous IT system to SEBP, found strong alignment between both administrative systems for recorded crime in 2020-21. Further information on this is available in Annex 3 of the Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2020-21 bulletin.

Amendments to crime and offence records will always arise after data has been submitted by Police Scotland to the Scottish Government. Some crime or offence records may, on further investigation by the police, be redesignated to not constitute a crime or offence (a process known as ‘no-criming’). In other cases, the original crime or offence may be re-classified, which could shift the record between different crime or offence groups. As such it is important for National Statistics purposes that data is extracted at a similar point in time each year, to allow comparisons of any trends to be on a like-for-like basis.

The figures provided in this bulletin for the year ending December 2022 were extracted in January 2023. Data for the two previous years ending December 2020 and December 2021 was then extracted retrospectively to reflect the position as it would have been at December in each of those two years. This ensured a like-for-like comparison could be carried out, as discussed above. Due to earlier IT constraints, this retrospective extraction wasn’t possible for the years ending December 2018 and December 2019. However the impact this will have on any comparisons with those two earlier years, will be minor.

Annex 3: Comparisons with England & Wales and Northern Ireland

For further background information (e.g. classification of Crimes and Offences and comparisons with England & Wales and Northern Ireland) please see the Recorded Crime in Scotland User Guide.

Annex 4: Feedback

We are always interested to hear users’ views on our products, how our statistics are used and how they can be improved. As this is a new series of quarterly recorded crime publications we would particularly welcome feedback.

Please consider answering our short feedback survey on how you found this publication.

Or you can contact us with any queries, comments or suggestions at: Justice_Analysts@gov.scot.