Business plan 2025-26
Introduction from the Crown Agent and Chief Executive
I'm delighted to share our Business Plan for 2025-26 - our roadmap for this financial year.
I regularly see examples of colleagues working hard to achieve our transformation priorities: improving the experience of women and children; improving our communication; and achieving quicker conclusions in our casework.
Looking back, we have made significant headway in reducing the pandemic backlog and reforming the criminal justice system. Our innovative digital services – the Witness Gateway, Defence Agent Service, and Digital Evidence Sharing Capability – and Summary Case Management are working well and making a real difference.
Like all public services, we will always be constrained in our resources. But our progress with reform and the extra funding we have been given this year to recruit more staff should give us confidence that we are well-positioned to tackle the challenges ahead:
- Meeting pandemic solemn time bar deadlines ending November 2025
- Reducing waiting times for justice in death and complex criminal investigations
- Continuing to reduce the solemn court caseload
- Completing our Covid-19 death investigations
None of this would be possible without the dedication and expertise of our people. They make it possible to meet our ambitious goals and continue delivering justice for the people of Scotland.
We are committed to supporting our people through these changes. We will improve the training and guidance needed to deliver high-quality services and help our people build their leadership and management skills to better support our ambitions.
Our new governance mechanisms, including enhanced corporate structures, will help us track progress and stay accountable.
John Logue
Crown Agent and Chief Executive
Our strategy
Our strategic plan for 2023-27 sets the priorities and direction of our work.
Our values
- Being professional
- Showing respect
Our transformation priorities
- Improve the experiences of women and children within the justice system
- Improve how we communicate with our customers and partners and the support we offer to the most vulnerable service users
- Achieve quicker conclusions to criminal and death investigations
Our strategic aims
- Continuously improve our service
- Deliver high quality casework
- Support our people to deliver excellence
Our business plan for 2025-26 matches the work of each unit and function in COPFS against our strategic aims and transformation priorities.
The plan focuses on high level strategic priorities that senior leaders will monitor throughout the year. Function and team business plans explain the detailed work we need to do to achieve our organisational goals.
Strategic aim 1: improving our service
We will continue to improve the service we provide to the people of Scotland. We want it to be trauma informed, consistent and clear for our service users.
| Action | In 2025-26 we will | How it meets our aims and priorities |
|---|---|---|
| Improve correspondence times with victims and witnesses | - Respond to correspondence within 10 working days - Provide all summary case victims with an update on their case within 5 days - Notify summary case victims of custody or bail decisions within 24 hours - Respond to all phone call or emails within 4 hours |
Provides victims and witnesses with a responsive and professional trauma informed service. Promotes public confidence in our service by ensuring timely updates on our work and decisions. Victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence, usually women and children, will have confidence in our work. |
| Increase digital services available for our service users | - Complete national rollout of Witness Gateway to summary cases by April 2025 - Pilot Witness Gateway for serious and complex cases in High Court and Specialist casework - Complete Defence Agent Service national rollout by 31 July 2025 |
Improves our trauma informed service by offering service users choice in how they engage with us. Increases communication and accessibility. Vulnerable victims will feel better prepared to give evidence. |
| Improve communication with bereaved nearest relatives | -Continue Deaths Investigation Improvement programme to better support nearest relatives | Bereaved relatives are supported in a trauma informed way that is timely and compassionate, increasing their confidence in the effectiveness of our investigations. |
| Consider Sexual Offences Review recommendations | - Create a delivery plan for implementing appropriate recommendations | Victims will be supported through the prosecution process in a trauma informed way. Our people will be better supported to manage these cases and maintain their own wellbeing. |
| Implement recommendations of HM Inspectorate of Prosecution for Scotland report Responding to enquiries: service delivery through NEP | - Implement all recommendations by end of 2025-26 | Our service users will receive trauma informed communication that is timely and professional, increasing their confidence in the effectiveness of our investigations and case preparation. |
| Implement trauma informed justice framework | - Create delivery plan - Increase training and support for our people |
Improves the service we provide by minimising the impact of trauma on victims, witnesses and nearest relatives. |
Strategic aim 2: delivering high quality casework
We will secure justice through our professional decision-making, case preparation and presentation. We will continue our work to improve the quality of our casework and prosecution decision making. We will explain our decisions, be open about our work and conclude our investigations more quickly.
| Action | In 2025-26 we will | How it meets our aims and priorities |
|---|---|---|
| Comply with the end of extended legislative solemn time bar provisions on 30 November 2025 | - Maintain the increased number of cases reported and indicted in Sheriff and Jury and High Courts to comply with end of extended timebar provisions - Work with Scottish Government and justice partners to plan casework in line with confirmed legislative timeframes |
We will achieve quicker conclusions in our most serious prosecutions. |
| Reduce the age profile of our deaths investigations | - Complete first review of all Covid-19 deaths - Conclude, lodge first notice, or initiate criminal proceedings for all pre-2022 death investigations - Continue to close routine death investigations within 6 weeks |
We will achieve quicker conclusions in our death investigations. |
| Support criminal justice reforms | - Complete national rollout of Summary Case Management across Summary Sheriff Courts by December 2025 - Work with justice partners to develop court scheduling modelling - Improve standard prosecution report (SPR) process - Rollout Police Witness Scheduler app from April 2025 |
We will achieve quicker conclusions in our prosecutions and support better outcomes for other public services such as the courts and policing. |
| Prosecution decision making | - Support the rollout of Summary Case Management - Make high quality case decisions timeously, developing our specialist expertise in the National Initial Case Processing unit - Continue to work with community justice stakeholders to understand and use their services in relation to case decisions - Case decisions: exceed 75% of initial decisions taken within four weeks |
Making case decisions in a timely manner and improving the quality of those decisions supports quicker conclusions and the confidence of victims and witnesses. |
| Major crimes resourcing | - Increase resourcing for major crime teams | Improves the quality of our casework by ensuring teams handling long and complex investigations have adequate resources to undertake their work. |
| Reduce Summary case caseload | - Eliminate the pandemic criminal case caseload in summary courts by reducing caseload to pre-pandemic levels set in 2019-20 | Reducing the caseload will improve the service we provide by reducing case journey times. |
| Pilot single complainer sexual offences cases | - Improve victim experience and evidence presentation | Victims will receive a trauma informed professional service and cases will conclude quicker. |
| Improve disclosure of evidence | - Review and improve disclosure practice | Effective disclosure practice is essential to securing justice in our criminal casework. |
| Complaints against the Police | - Complete investigation of complaints against the police within 6 months in 75% of cases | Timely investigation will improve public confidence in policing and the criminal justice system. |
| Respond to changes to law of corroboration | - Review impacts on our work - Support staff with guidance and training |
Victims will receive a quality service that reflects the current legal position. Our people will receive the support and guidance they need to prepare high quality casework that reflects the new legal position. |
| Support and enhance digital casework management | - Complete national implementation of Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) - Support rollout of Body Worn Video and training and guidance for our people - Launch Next Generation Case Management programme to modernise casework systems and processes. |
Our people will be able to manage casework in an effective and efficient way. Service users will be able to engage with us through digital platforms, increasing efficiencies across the justice system. |
Strategic aim 3: supporting our people to deliver excellence
We will give our people the guidance and support they need to deliver an excellent service.
| Action | In 2025-26 we will | How it meets our aims and priorities |
|---|---|---|
| Implement Designed for Success programme | - Improve our organisational and governance structure - Review management structures, roles and responsibilities - Embed leadership and management framework and create improved training |
Improves processes and capacities for managing our essential service. Supports our people through a period of significant change in the justice system and our organisation. Improves the ability of our people managers to get the best from their teams. |
| Implement People Strategy | - Improve our approach to performance with an enhanced focus on the importance of standardised objectives which link clearly to our strategic business plans - Reduce sickness absence - Improve completion of essential training courses - Improve our employee engagement index |
Ensures our people are supported to give their best through providing adequate training and wellbeing support. |
| Strategic review and development of the COPFS estate | - Undertaking a comprehensive review of the corporate estates strategy to support organisational transformation and enhancing operational efficiency and effectiveness (reporting by August 2025). - Complete Crown Office decarbonisation refurbishment project by September 2025 - Working with Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service to support Edinburgh Sheriff Court refurbishment by July 2025 |
Improves the quality of the working spaces for our people. They will have the spaces they need for different tasks and ways of working. |
| Digital systems modernisation and continuous improvement | - Drive the modernisation and innovation of our digital technologies and services to ensure all COPFS employees have seamless access to secure, efficient, and user-friendly technology. - Minimise system downtime through proactive monitoring, resilient design, and continuous service improvement. - Invest in emerging technologies and smarter digital tools that enhance productivity, collaboration, and service delivery |
Our people are empowered by reliable, modern and innovative systems to support their work and delivery of quality public services. |
Performance measures for 2025-26
In the following measurement tables, unless otherwise indicated, the 2024-25 performance is the overall average for 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 and the target will be the average for 2025-26.
Strategic aim 1: Continuously improve our service
|
Measure |
2024-25 performance |
Target |
|---|---|---|
|
Witness citations in Sheriff Summary courts |
Total citations across Sheriff Summary courts First cites: 157,615 Re-cites: 179,655 |
Reduce citations by 25% in courts where SCM is live |
|
Correspondence from victims and witnesses responded to within 10 working days |
Quarter 4 2024/25: 72% of correspondence from victims and witnesses responded to within 10 days in Local Court cases. |
75% of victim / witness correspondence requiring a response is responded to within 10 working days in Local Court cases |
|
Reduce summary court backlog |
Position at 31 March 2025: 17,752 outstanding |
Reduce to fewer than 14,000 trials by 31 March 2026 |
|
Clear legacy death investigations |
N/A |
Conclude, lodge first notice or initiate criminal proceedings for 100% of legacy cases (total of 124 cases occurring in 2020 or earlier excluding covid deaths as at 26 May 2025) (Excludes cases where we cannot proceed due to factors outwith our control) |
|
Enquiry response time |
65% of queued calls answered in 2024-25 |
Answer 90% of queued calls |
|
IT systems availability during working hours |
Case Management Systems: FOS, PROMIS & SOSR Availability: 99.7% Case Management Systems: Other Availability 99.7% Virtual Desktop Availability 99.9% COPFS Network Availability3 99.7% |
99.5% availability during working hours (6am – 10am) across all systems (Network availability measure covers 24 period) |
|
Completion of Trauma Informed e-learning courses |
Performance data not available |
90% of staff in legal roles to have completed modules 1 and 2 |
|
FOI response time |
95% responses within statutory deadlines |
Maintain our high response rate with at least 90% responses within statutory deadlines |
|
SAR response time |
99% responses within statutory deadlines |
Maintain our high response rate with at least 90% responses within statutory deadline |
Strategic aim 2: Deliver high quality casework
|
Measure |
2024-25 performance |
Target |
|---|---|---|
|
Initial marking decisions taken by NICP within 4 weeks |
84% of reported cases marked within 4 weeks |
75% of reported cases marked within four weeks |
|
Sheriff and Jury present work in progress |
5,193 as at 31 March 2025 |
Reduce to 4,500 or fewer by 31 March 2026 |
|
Unindicted Sheriff & Jury cases in extended timebar |
1,342 as at 31 March 2025 |
Reduce to 500 or fewer by 31 March 2026 |
|
High Court initial marking decisions taken within 4 weeks |
86% of reported cases marked within four weeks |
75% of reported cases marked within four weeks |
|
Unindicted High Court cases over 10 months |
30% as at 31 March 2025 |
No more than 5% of unindicted High Court cases over 10 months by 30 November 2025 |
|
New petition cases allocated to case preparer within 1 month of CFE/FC for High Court sexual offence cases |
66% of PWIP cases over one month unallocated at 31 March 2025 |
0% of cases over one month unallocated by 31 March 2026 |
|
New petition cases allocated to case preparer within 3 months of CFE/FC for all other High Court Cases |
44% of cases over three months unallocated at 31 March 2025 |
0% of cases over three months unallocated by 31 March 2026 |
|
Death investigations concluded within 6 weeks |
97% of investigations closed within 6 weeks (where no investigation required) |
Close 90% of investigations within 6 weeks of receipt of the death notice (where no investigation required) |
|
Complete investigation of complaints against the police |
89% of cases completed within 6 months |
75% of cases completed within 6 months |
Strategic aim 3: Support our people to deliver excellence
|
Measure |
2024-25 performance |
Target |
|---|---|---|
|
Employee engagement index |
63% overall engagement index in 2024 Civil Service People Survey |
Increase to 65% (Cabinet Office have advised that the Civil Service People Survey will change in 2025 and it is not yet known if the engagement index will be directly comparable with that of previous years) |
|
Employee sickness absence |
10.1 Average Working Days lost as at 31 March 2025 |
9 average working days lost per employee per year by 31 March 2026 |
|
Performance appraisal process completion |
51% completion rate on average across quarterly conversations and end of year reviews at 7 May 2025 |
75% completion rate for end of year reviews by 30 April 2026 |
|
Mandatory training completion |
47% completion of mandatory courses by target audience |
Mandatory courses completed by 85% of target audience |
|
Learner needs met |
91% of learner needs reported as met |
95% of learners’ needs are met following SPC training courses |
Resources
Our structure
Through the Designed for Success programme, this year COPFS will implement a new operational structure designed to deliver our objectives and a high-quality service for the people of Scotland.
Financial resources
COPFS is a demand led organisation that is required to meet state obligations to deliver justice and meet reasonable public expectations. Expenditure is determined by demand and statutory compliance with limited availability for discretionary spend.
COPFS received the following budget allocation for 2025-26:
| Cash allowance | 2025-26 £m |
|---|---|
| Running costs | 225.2 |
| Capital (excludes IFRS 16 allocation of £2.2m) | 10.2 |
Staffing
Staffing levels (full time equivalents) at 31 March 2025 were as follows:
- Senior Civil Servants: 29.32
- Prosecutors (including trainee solicitors): 740.47
- Business Managers, Case Support and other professional staff: 1,642.58
- Total: 2,412.37
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