Statistical Bulletin Crime and Justice Series: Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, 2006/07

Notes on Statistics Used in this Bulletin
Annexe A - Data sources

Court proceedings

A1. Statistical information in the Scottish Government Court Proceedings Database is derived from data held on the Criminal History System at the Scottish Police Services Authority ( SPSA), previously the Scottish Criminal Records Office ( SCRO).

Recorded crime

A2. The statistical return from which the figures on recorded motor vehicle offences in this bulletin are taken is a simple count of the numbers of crimes and offences recorded by the police. The 8 Scottish forces are included; other police forces, such as the British Transport Police, are not. One return is made for each council area in Scotland and these are aggregated to give the national total. The return is submitted quarterly to the Scottish Government and gives the information as known at the end of each quarter. Thus amendments (such as the deletion of incidents found on investigation not to be criminal) which arise after the end of the year are not incorporated.

Bail

A3. The source of the statistical data on bail orders available to the Scottish Government is the Scottish Police Services Authority ( SPSA). Each day a statistical extract is created at SPSA which picks up records for any bail orders granted three days before which are still associated with live pending cases on the SPSA database. For example, the extract run at the start of a Thursday will pick up any bail orders granted on the Monday of that week which a) have been recorded on the database by the start of Thursday, and b) which are associated with pending cases still live at the start of Thursday. The information covered in the data extracts includes the date of the bail order, the court which made it, the charge(s) involved, the police case reference number and the SPSA reference number of the accused.

Other

A4. Information on procurator fiscal conditional offers made for motor vehicle offences is derived from summary data collected by the Crown Office from procurators fiscal.

A5. Information on police conditional offers made for motor vehicle offences are based on figures provided by police force traffic departments. Estimates have been for missing data.

A6. Separate statistical returns to the Scottish Government are made annually by each police force for the number of "stationary" offences dealt with by the issue of a fixed penalty notice by the police or traffic wardens. Estimates have been made for missing data.

A7. Prior to 2004/05, statistics on police conditional offers, police fixed penalty notices and local authority penalty charge notices for parking infringements are only available on a calendar year basis.

A8. Information on penalty charge notices in Aberdeen City, City of Edinburgh, Glasgow City, Perth & Kinross, Dundee City and South Lanarkshire has been provided by the local authorities in these areas.

A9. The population figures used as denominators in Table 5 and Chart 5 are the relevant mid-year estimates prepared by the General Register Office for Scotland ( GROS).