In this section you will find topic-specific publications produced by diverse work areas of our organisation, as well as partner organisations.

These include:

• Victims and Witnesses – You may have a lot of questions about what to expect as a victim or a witness of a crime. The COPFS booklets listed in this section aim to guide you through various aspects of the court process in which you may be involved, as well as provide you with information about your legal rights.

o   For information specific to victims, you can also visit our Resources for Victims page.

o   If you are interested in witnesses’ information only, you may also find useful our Resources for Witnesses section.

o   For information aimed specifically at those charged with an offence, please visit our Resources for Accused page.

• Prosecution Policy and Guidance – This page offers a range of resources in relation to the policy of COPFS on the prosecution procedure. It is divided into six distinct subject areas: Book of Regulations, Crown Office Circular, Disclosure Manual, Guidelines and Policy, Lord Advocate’s Guidelines and Protocols/Memorandum of Understanding.
  
  

• Information following a death – This section can now be found under Investigating deaths, where you can find information and advice for the bereaved relatives of a deceased. We expect that The role of the Procurator Fiscal in the investigation of deaths booklet, along with its translated versions, should be of a particular relevance.
  
  

• Finance and Procurement – In this page a range of COPFS Finance manuals and reports have been made available. These include procurement information, annual reports and accounts, as well as statements of expenditure produced by the Finance Division of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service since March 2014, in line with the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.
  
  

• Business and Strategy Plans – This category of publications contains information on our business news and developments, available through reports, reviews and minutes of monthly Executive Boards.
  
  

• Equality & Diversity – Our Equality & Diversity publications section includes downloadable copies of the annual Hate Crime report. This publication provides insights on historical trends of various types of hate crime in Scotland, such as race, religious and disability crime. 
  
  This section also contains reports and records relating to the work of COPFS towards promoting Equality.
  
  

• Statistics – Our Statistics section contains information in regards to the COPFS performance against pre-set targets, including targets relating to case processing. 
  
  Annual reports by the Civil Recovery Unit (CRU), which aims to use civil court proceedings to disrupt crime, are also available in this page. Statistical information on domestic abuse charges and retained organs are also published here.
  
  Subject to the statistical data topic COPFS does not provide statistical information for groups of fewer than five and relevant numbers are replaced with an asterisk. Some values of five or more may also be replaced with an asterisk to ensure that no suppressed values can be deduced by subtraction from a total.
  
  COPFS applies this approach, where appropriate, to requests for data such as FOI responses, parliamentary questions and other statistical reports which are published on the COPFS website. This practice best meets the COPFS legal responsibilities under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation implemented in 2018.
  
  COPFS should not be providing information that identifies, or potentially allows to be identified, an individual person or some personal information about that individual. The prosecution service can receive separate requests over a period of time for related but slightly different information e.g. by age, sex, location, crime, etc. and for overlapping time periods or geographies. These separate pieces of information taken together for numbers fewer than five could create the potential risk of identifying individuals.
  
  
  

• Easy Read Publications – In this page we have made available a number of useful resources in an accessible format for those involved in a legal process with a learning disability or a visual impairment.
  
  

• Other organisations information – This page includes a list of useful publications and resources produced by partner organisations, such as Epilepsy Scotland, Police Scotland, and the Police Investigations & Review Commissioner (PIRC).

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