Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: business and regulatory impact assessment

Options

Option 1 – Do nothing

The policy impact of doing nothing and retaining the status quo is that little or no improvements are likely be made to improve people's experiences of the justice system, resulting in continued distress and re-traumatisation for those who come into contact with it, which will affect public confidence in the justice process.

There may be less of an impact to do nothing in relation to the measures that extend special measures in civil cases. There is existing provision in the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 ("the 2020 Act") which covers child contact and residence cases, in which there is a strong likelihood of there being vulnerable parties and witnesses. As such, there is an option to implement the provisions in the 2020 Act, rather than proceed with the measures in this Bill.

Option 2 - Non-regulatory / more restricted legislation

For some of the measures in the Bill, this is not an option as legislation is required for them to be implemented.

For measures where a non-regulatory route is an option, the policy impact is likely to be limited, for example the Victims and Witnesses Commissioner would not have the requisite powers to undertake their role effectively and there may be much less consistency in how trauma-informed practice is embedded without legislation.

This option also includes creating specialist divisions of existing courts, namely the High Court and Sheriff Courts to hear sexual offences cases. This option would likely require legislation to implement but on a much more restricted basis as there would be no need to create a new type of court with bespoke judicial appointments, sentencing powers or rights of audience. Again, the policy impact of this would likely be limited as it would facilitate only iterative, cosmetic changes and would therefore fail to deliver the meaningful and lasting improvements necessary to deliver a better experience for complainers.

Option 3 – Regulatory option

This option would take forward the legislation as planned. This option will have the greatest policy impact as it will provide the legislative framework that is required to create new rights for victims, witnesses and vulnerable parties and to embed practice and procedure designed to improve the experiences of those who come into contact with the justice system.