PROSECUTORS have warned justice is being eroded as courts buckle under the weight of budget cuts and a massive rise in sexual abuse cases.
Legal staff insisted their health and welfare is in “jeopardy” as they struggle to absorb increased demand, and raised concerns over “letting victims and witnesses down”.
It comes just months after a major report found Scotland's prosecution service was operating under "considerable pressure".
The FDA, a trade union which represents the vast majority of prosecutors, said its members had endured a real-terms budget cut of £35 million in recent years.
Herald View: Cases of historical sex abuse are putting great pressure on Scotland's justice system
It said three quarters of the workload in the High Court now centred on complex sexual offence cases, with a boom of more than 50 per cent in the last year alone.
In evidence submitted to Holyrood’s justice committee, it added: “We believe that there is a risk that current conditions may place the health and welfare of prosecutors in jeopardy and that this presents a risk to the effective delivery of justice.”
Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Liam Kerr MSP urged the Scottish Government “to listen to these calls before it is too late”.
He said: “The Crown Office is already struggling to deal with the huge number of cases that have been sent their way.
“They need to be properly resourced to ensure that they can deal with this increased demand, but that simply isn’t happening.”
MSPs will quiz the Lord Advocate on Tuesday, with justice committee convenor Margaret Mitchell MSP insisting there will be “gravely adverse consequences for Scotland’s prosecution system” if the Crown Office’s workload is not addressed.
She added: “We do not want there to be a major tragedy or a trial thrown into question before this problem is taken seriously."
The FDA said upcoming legislative changes would heap further pressure on resources, with staff now working unpaid overtime on a regular basis “out of a sense of dedication, professionalism and commitment”.
It said: “There was a strength of feeling that our members are bearing workloads which are such that they are increasingly unable to deliver an effective service and fearful of mistakes being made, and that the impact will be on the broader quality of work and a sense of concern that we are letting victims and witnesses down.”
Herald View: Cases of historical sex abuse are putting great pressure on Scotland's justice system
One manager told the union he was “stressed to death”, while another prosecutor said: “I suspect that if the public were to know the whole truth about how understaffed, demoralised, overworked and underfunded the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service actually is, there would be outcry.”
They said the quality of case preparation had continued to decline, adding: “The bare minimum is the norm now whereas it used to be exceptional.”
Insisting “it is not if, but when something will go wrong”, they said unqualified staff were now "left to draft complicated charges in historical sexual abuse cases".
Another said the courts were “overloaded”, adding: “Advance preparation trials (often stalking cases) are a fraud. We tell victims and the public these cases are given high priority when the reality is that they are allocated to a trials depute who is not then allocated preparation time and just has to fit them in with the rest of the workload.”
Others said the boom in sexual offence cases was “overwhelming”, while one prosecutor revealed “mistakes, often not minor, are made with more regularity”.
Some legal staff are even “abandoning ship” from the Crown Office to the Scottish Government in order to secure pay increases and promotion.
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said its draft Budget, unveiled on Thursday, provided more than £114 million for the Crown Office next year – a real-terms increase.
He added: “The Scottish Government has provided additional funding of £2.4m in each year since 2015-16, towards the Courts and Crown Office, in addition to their budget allocations, for extra fiscals, court staff and judiciary to help deal with cases involving domestic abuse and sexual offences.”
But the FDA said the Crown Office’s budget in 2009/10 was £118.3m – and would now stand at £145.6m if it had kept pace with inflation.
A major report by Holyrood’s justice committee earlier this year found the Crown Office was facing more complicated cases at a time when budgets cuts were reducing staff.
Herald View: Cases of historical sex abuse are putting great pressure on Scotland's justice system
Crown Agent David Harvie – head of Scotland's prosecution service – said he welcomed the increase in budget announced by the Government.
He added: “We will continue to serve the people of Scotland and find ways of getting the most from our budget, through reducing non staff costs and supporting our skilled and dedicated people to prosecute crime, and investigate deaths, effectively.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel