Estates Strategy 2026-30

Estate Strategy 2026-2030

This strategy explains how the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Services (COPFS) will manage our estate until 2030. Our estate is the offices that our staff work in.

This strategy aims to provide an estate that is efficient, safe, and fit for purpose for our staff and the public.

This strategy is designed to create an estate that helps us deliver a high-quality service across Scotland. We will do this while also ensuring value for money, aligned to the Scottish Government Single Scottish Estate (SG SSE) programme.

The strategy is not standalone and compliments other COPFS strategies: financial, digital and people strategies that all support the Corporate Strategic plan in meeting its aims and objectives and is deemed an enabler for the companion strategies.

We will track progress against this strategy using delivery plans. These will try to reduce our estate running costs, improve quality, wellbeing and accessibility so that we can invest more in our core purpose of prosecuting crimes and investigating deaths.

Our priorities for our estate

The following priorities will guide our decisions about the size and shape of our estate:

Right place:
We locate our buildings where they can best support an efficient and effective service. This helps us provide reasonable access to justice across Scotland.

Right size

We shape our estate to the size we need, with enough flexibility to work well with our criminal justice partners.

Right configuration

We provide good‑quality buildings that give staff the right facilities to deliver our work effectively, support wellbeing and meet the diverse needs of the people who use our services.

Right condition

We keep our estate in a sustainable and safe condition, so it supports the smooth delivery of our business and reduces the risk of disruption.

Right price

We deliver services and make investments that offer value for money, at the right time and the right quality.

Delivering our strategy

Delivering this strategy means that we will:

• be in a position to determine our future location strategy.
• reduce the number of private leases we occupy.
• maximise how we use the space available to us.
• improve how we manage and reduce energy use in our offices.
• reconfigure and modernise the environment for staff and visitors.
• centralise how we store and manage productions.

Key principles

To deliver this strategy, the Leadership Board accepted the seven key principles:

• We will reduce the size of the estate over the life of this strategy.
• We will not renew private‑sector leases, in line with the Scottish Government’s Single Scottish Estate programme.
• When we rationalise the built estate, we will retain a visible COPFS presence in Sheriff Courts. We will not always need a separate COPFS office at every court location.
• We will base office locations on service needs and support for court prosecution, rather than the need to hold local records or files.
• We will give staff a designated base but not necessarily a specifically designated desk.  Staff will be able to book a desk, use hot desks, private/quiet spaces or collaboration spaces whenever they attend an office.
• We will minimise storage by applying records‑management policy, scanning documents, reviewing files, and using suitable storage systems within and outside offices.
• We will rationalise production rooms and storage in geographic hubs to support future estate rationalisation.

As of November 2025, COPFS operates from properties across Scotland as detailed in this strategy. The locations of these offices are shown in Appendix A. The properties are held on a variety of tenures summarised below:

*NIA is Net Internal Area

**Embedded properties are where COPFS is located in a court owned building managed by SCTS.

*** The FTE for COPFS as of November 2025 is 2490.76

A full schedule of properties is provided in Appendix B. Of the eight owned properties it is noted that Crown Office, 25 Chambers Street, Edinburgh accounts for 36% of the total net internal area (NIA).

Of the 8 properties in the private lease estate, Ballater Street accounts for 45% of the leased estate by area (and 21% of the NIA of the total estate). With regard to the 27 embedded offices, Edinburgh Sheriff Court accounts for 33% of the NIA of all embedded properties.

The above table shows the total NIA of the COPFS estate as 23,976m2 .

The nature of services provided by COPFS means that the total estate is standard office accommodation of various types, ages and configurations.

Within the four-year period of this estates strategy all but one of the eight leased properties (10 Ballater Street Glasgow) will have a lease break/end date.

Appendix B provides additional information of office proximity to nearest COPFS estate and staff numbers per location as recorded in our corporate apps system.

The owned estate was valued in March 2025 with the resultant market valuation of these properties being £6,440,000. A summary table of valuations is below. The primary valuation for Crown Office 25 Chambers Street Edinburgh (currently valued at £4,450,000 needs to be updated following the office decarbonisation project, which finished in November 2025). This office currently accounts for 69% of the entire value of the owned estate.

Note: *Crown Office will be fully revalued in March 2026 to reflect the decarbonisation works.

As part of the development of this estates strategy, COPFS has reviewed how the buildings are used, based on the net internal area and the staff numbers in our corporate apps system. The summary outcome is shown in the attached table for the different property tenures.

There is significant variation across the individual properties. The above table does not separate out functional use of buildings, production stores or conference, meeting and training facilities, nor does it consider that for three offices there are no dedicated FTE staff on site and some of the historic buildings will not be as efficient in the use of internal space.

All properties are above the current public sector workplace standard of 8m2 per FTE for new or refurbished offices with the most recent “State of the Estate Report” indicating that it is currently 9.9m2 per FTE in public sector offices.

The introduction of mobile technology, the Agile Working Policy and the new organisational structure have resulted in greater opportunities for staff to deliver the business in a different way. The result has been that the occupancy levels across all COPFS offices have vastly reduced. This reduced occupancy is particularly acute on Monday and Fridays. This provides the opportunity to rationalise our privately leased estate and locations where we are embedded.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, office occupancy has been measured for selected offices across the estate. The methodology for collating this information is the NET2 door entry system where available and a physical headcount in the remainder of the offices. The measured occupancy figures for current calendar year January 2025 -November 2025 are detailed below for selected offices. These offices were selected as they were the most populous and therefore gave meaningful measurable data or they were offices with a private lease to assess future office requirements.

Table: COPFS office occupancy figures Jan - Nov 2025

An independent survey of the COPFS estate was completed in 2023 that estimated the backlog maintenance of £5.5 million over a five-year period for the owned and leased estate.

Since the survey was conducted, investment has focused on the high priority compliance works and as of 27 June 2025, all Priority A works were completed with a range of priority B-D also undertaken totalling £2.15 million. Summary Details of the survey are in the table below.

Column 5 in the table below details the cost of maintenance works which have been carried out in each of the offices to date as per the five-year condition survey and column 6 indicates the cost of potential works that still have to be undertaken.

*** The Crown Office decarbonisation project completed all works detailed in the five-year condition survey.

Information on the existing estate running costs at 2024/25 are summarised below:

Of the eight owned properties, 25 Chambers Street Edinburgh accounts for 39.36% of the total cost. In the leased estate, Ballater Street Glasgow accounts for 54.63% of total costs. Within the embedded estate Edinburgh Sheriff Court has 47.23% of the total running costs. Together these three properties account for 50.66% of the estates total running costs.

As set out in the COPFS Strategic Plan to 2030, the purpose of COPFS is “securing justice for the people of Scotland” through five strategic priorities:

• Deliver high quality casework: We will secure justice through how we take legal decisions and how we conduct cases involving violence and women and girls by:

  • the publication and application of a revised Prosecution Code,

  • resetting our approach to the disclosure of evidence

  • providing increased definition on what we expect to be contained within Standard Prosecution Reports submitted by Police Scotland.

  • integrating, following the Tanner Review, identified improvements in respect of the prosecution of sexual offences reports

  • implementing outstanding recommendations from HMPS’s in the prosecution of domestic abuse cases at sheriff summary level

• Improving the Experience of Victims, Witnesses and Bereaved Nearest Relatives: We aim to deliver a service that is more consistent, more humane, and more responsive to the needs of those affected by crime and death, while maintaining the independence, rigour, and professionalism that underpin public confidence in our role. Across the period of the Corporate Strategic plan to 2030, we will focus on reducing avoidable distress, improving communication, and ensuring people are kept informed and treated with dignity throughout the justice and death investigation processes.

• Enabling Our Staff to be Their Best: Our people are central to delivering justice and our enduring priority is to enable them to be their best. We will do this by ensuring that all of our people can access the learning they need for current and future roles, by providing our leaders and managers with the skills to support, coach and lead; by implementing proposed organisational design changes and by refreshing our employee wellbeing strategy and action plan.

• Modernising The Way We Work: In the context of Public Sector Reform and operating in a fiscally constrained environment, we must continue to modernise the way we work.  We will achieve this by replacing our current ageing casework system, utilising AI; developing a standard approach to core business processes and national ways of working; and introducing a single national performance framework.

• Transforming Criminal Justice: Our ambition to transform aspects of criminal justice rests on both our long-standing view that fundamental changes are necessary, and our present assessment that it is now imperative because of increased casework pressures. In addition to supporting the new statutory based Sexual Offences Court, our activity will be prioritised around two key areas:

  • Supporting Court Business Reform

  • Digital Delivery

The way in which the COPFS delivers has fundamentally changed following the COVID-19 pandemic with the Agile Working Policy, the Future Ways of Working Programme and the enhanced uses of digital and mobile technology. The current Designed for Success programme will reshape the COPFS structure to meet evolving business needs, and the estates strategy and vision incorporates all of these initiatives and changes to reflect a future estates model consistent with organisational needs ensuring our people experience a well-equipped working environment that enables them to work safely and productively.

The overriding vision for the COPFS estate, which reflects our corporate strategic aims, is to provide modern fit for purpose, accessible and environmentally friendly workplaces that:

• align to utilisation profiles and allow us to work alongside criminal justice partners

• maximise the use of our owned estate

• reduce unnecessary operating costs

• align to the Scottish Government Single Scottish Estate programme by seeking alternative options to private leases undertake investment in the properties we occupy

A review of the existing estate has been undertaken to inform the estates strategy. It is also essential to align the COPFS priorities for estates with Scottish Government’s Single Scottish Estate Programme (SSE) which aims to enhance public sector property management in Scotland with the primary goals of:

• efficiency

• cost reduction

• sustainability

This approach will bring the key benefits of:

• a collaborative approach to shared resources

• improved property utilisation for current properties

• public value by streamlining property management

A summary assessment to which the COPFS estate currently meets the strategic priorities is set out below.

The existing COPFS estate is diverse in terms of tenure and is closely aligned with the location of courts across Scotland. While COPFS staff need to access courts, they do not need to be located directly adjacent to court buildings therefore some flexibility exists in terms of location. There are currently eight private leases across the COPFS estate, and to align to the SG SSE programme, alternative locations must be explored when lease breaks or lease end dates occur.

• Aberdeen – Lease break February 2029 – proposed move to local authority location (rationalise operational footprint)

• Airdrie – Lease break March 2028 – alternative public sector location to be identified (rationalise operational footprint)

• Glasgow (Ballater Street) – Lease until 2049. Major refurbishment project 2025-2028

• Glasgow Legal House – Lease expiry May 2028. Re-locate all staff to Ballater Street following refurbishment. This building is also a decant solution for the Ballater Street refurbishment project 2026-2028

• Hamilton – Lease end October 2028 – relocate to public sector premises (rationalise operational footprint)

• Kirkcaldy – Lease break Feb 2028 – relocate to local authority premises (rationalise operational footprint)

• Perth – Lease break March 2027 – relocate to Pullar House (local authority headquarters) (rationalise operational footprint). Currently underway

• Tain – Owned asset- Opportunity to move to local authority hub and dispose of asset. The current condition and flexibility of useable office space is not sustainable

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the increased use of digital and mobile technology and the introduction of the Agile Working Policy, there has been a dramatic reduction in office occupancy across the whole of the COPFS estate. This reduction in office utilisation has provided an opportunity to reduce the overall size of the estate across all tenures.

The estate comprises a range of building functions with the main COPFS requirement being for traditional office accommodation. Whilst much of the estate remains fit for purpose, utilisation levels measured over the last three years provide the opportunity to focus on desk booking for office attendance, touch down desks for staff, quiet workspaces, flexible and collaboration workspaces and a trauma informed approach to meeting spaces for staff, victims and witnesses.

With the rationalisation of office space and alignment to the SSE there is an opportunity to centralise the storage of productions to four main geographical hubs:

• North – Aberdeen (current model)

• East – Edinburgh (current model)

• Tayside, Central and Fife – (Dundee -Planned)

• West - (Glasgow)

This revision of production storage will give greater flexibility when rationalising the current estate when lease opportunities arise, realise significant savings in terms of refurbishment and fit out costs for alternative premises and greatly reduce risk through the centralisation and the reduced movement of label productions.

There is a detailed five-year condition survey for the offices for which the COPFS has responsibility. There has been significant investment over the last two years, and through the Facilities Management contract, the remainder of the works will be addressed to ensure compliance and to provide a safe and sustainable working environment for our staff. There are opportunities for significant savings within the maintenance schedule in the consideration of future office locations and rationalisation.

A key requirement for COPFS is to deliver significant savings in the estate costs. This would be through a combination of reduction in size and improved efficiency including through joint working initiatives with justice partners. This will be a key factor in taking the estate strategy forward in the published timeframe of this document.

We recognise that there will always be a greater demand for investment in our estate than we will be able to afford in the current financial environment. Given this, it is important that we ensure any investment in our estate not only aligns with the five strategic priorities noted above, but that it does so in the most effective and impactful way. To support and inform our investment decision making process we have developed three “investment drivers” which, in tandem with the strategic priorities and a requirement to ensure value for money, will be used to determine which activities we will prioritise.

1. Maintain and improve our assets: the investment will ensure our estate is fit for current and future purpose by conducting scheduled maintenance, statutory compliance and improvement works. It will improve the assets and facilities to deliver a high quality and safe working environment.

2. Maintain and improve operational efficiency: the investment will improve the estate utilisation, minimise running costs, improve flexibility and operational efficiency. It improves the wellbeing of staff and access to justice, supports the digital innovation and rationalisation agenda.

3. Building sustainability and social responsibility: the investment will ensure that COPFS is more sustainable and supports carbon reduction. It will improve our performance in relation to public sector equality and diversity duties.

Our strategic priorities and investment drivers set out a clear high-level framework for the future development of the COPFS estate. The following table sets out objectives that will be taken forward over the next four years. The table below also demonstrates how these objectives align with our strategic priorities and investment drivers.

To deliver the main objectives set out above will require engagement and flexibility across all operational functions throughout the full five-year term of this strategy. In addition, as the strategy requires the relocation of multiple offices and the refurbishment of Glasgow PFO, budgetary planning and oversight is essential as well as keeping business disruption to a minimum. The objectives within the strategy are not aspirational as the Scottish Government has directed all public sector organisations to consider their future requirement and align their physical estate to occupancy, utilisation and digital capability. It is an imperative that private leases should be minimised and that all public sector bodies should look to rationalise their existing estate and consider a shared occupancy model where possible.

COPFS has seven private leases and through the life of this strategy the opportunity will arise to reduce that to one, Glasgow Ballater Street, which is on a long-term lease without a break option. To utilise these opportunities, it is essential that COPFS rationalise the estates footprint we retain in these geographical areas and align our requirement to the operational business that is essential to the geographical location, for example, the estates footprint in Hamilton should be aligned to staff who deliver Hamiton business.

It is also a key principle that for our owned estate (including Glasgow Ballater Street), that we should strive to maximise the utilisation of those buildings and consider siting national units within these offices.

COPFS currently maintain a presence within 27 SCTS court buildings. To ensure that we consider utilisation, occupancy and maintenance under the guiding principle of value for money, COPFS will assess current use and future requirements as we seek to reduce costs. The primary site to consider for rationalisation is Paisley, however, all locations will be assessed. 

To allow flexibility in terms of our future office model there is an essential requirement to reduce the dependence on a local model for the storage of label productions. An essential principle is that we move to a production storage model with geographical centres in the four main city offices of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

At present Aberdeen is the only production room within Grampian Highlands & Islands (GH&I) therefore the suggested operational model is currently in place. This model is replicated in Lothian and Borders (L&B) with Edinburgh being the sole production store for that Sheriffdom (minimal storage within Jedburgh/Selkirk). For Tayside, Central and Fife (TCF), it is planned for Dundee to absorb the production storage for Perth and Kirkcaldy as both offices will move to Local Authority premises and rationalise their office footprint within the span of this strategy. The main challenge will be to move productions for the West of Scotland to Glasgow.

In addition to Glasgow, there are currently eight production stores in the West: Kilmarnock, Paisley, Dumbarton, Greenock, Hamilton, Dumfries, Lanark and Airdrie. Although the production stores at Paisley and Hamilton both hold extensive productions, all of the productions held at all of these offices could be centralised to Glasgow with the introduction of rolling racking to be put in place during the Glasgow Ballater Street refurbishment project. This would be an incremental move over the first three years of this strategy with Kilmarnock, Paisley, Dumfries, Lanark, Dumbarton and Greenock moved initially, followed by Hamilton when the lease end occurs and the office relocates.

It is acknowledged that much of the current capacity, particularly within Kilmarnock, Dumbarton and Airdrie, is underutilised and that many of the productions currently stored are related to closed cases awaiting uplift by Police Scotland. In addition, the introduction of DESC and DAS will greatly reduce the storage of discs and documentary productions.

It is acknowledged that the centralisation of productions will require consultation with Police Scotland. It is anticipated that for our more remote locations, such as Dumfries, Police Scotland will replicate the model employed in GH&I and outlying offices within Northern Scotland in South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway (SSDG) and undertake the duties of lodging the production at court within the agreed timescales. This model would negate travel to a COPFS production hub for Police Scotland staff to lodge label productions and reduce the risk of loss if the requirement to transfer productions is minimised.

Many of the key milestones are defined by dates aligned to lease breaks and, in terms of delivery, there is a clear framework and timescale set by Scottish Government in terms of notification periods, documentation and approval routes that must be met to allow any proposals to be fully appraised.

The proposals and key milestone dates for offices are set out in the table below:

In addition to the actions detailed above there are additional opportunities to reduce the estates running costs by rationalising the space we occupy within the SCTS estate or leasing space out to other parties where practicable.

There is an opportunity to greatly reduce the operating costs for Paisley by relocating the National Print Unit to Dumbarton (owned estate) and identifying an alternative location for NICP. This would allow the rationalisation to a single floor within Paisley Sheriff Court with only Paisley Court Business being delivered from that site. This would realise a significant cash saving in terms of shared service and maintenance costs.

COPFS has successfully completed decarbonisation projects for the Elgin and Crown Office sites achieving an A+ EPC rating at both sites. These projects were only possible with grant funding through Scottish Government. Revised decarbonisation feasibility studies have been commissioned through an independent external contractor for the remaining owned offices across the COPFS estate to determine the scope of opportunities and the costs of the projects. It is noted that further central funding would be required to carry out whole office decarbonisation works to any of the remaining sites. However, works to improve the energy performance of our estate such as windows, heating systems, lighting, photovoltaics and insulation can be factored into future maintenance works where possible in line with budget availability.  

This strategy has been developed internally within COPFS with external consultation with the SCTS Director of Estates. Having determined the scope of the strategy, COPFS is committed to using it to direct future investment decisions and prioritisation which will be detailed in future COPFS Corporate Plans. It will be used by the COPFS Estates function to inform detailed business unit planning and operational prioritisation.

The strategy does not stand alone, and successful delivery is dependent on, and linked to, other key activities taking place within COPFS. The key strategic dependencies are: -

• COPFS Strategic Plan

• People Strategy

• Finance Strategy

• Digital Strategy

The strategy will be subject to periodic review, updated to demonstrate the range of projects to be undertaken in the delivery of the key priorities of this strategy. Formal reviews of this strategy will be undertaken to align with spending review settlements and to ensure it continues to be aligned with COPFS objectives and strategic priorities.

Appropriate governance and controls will be put in place for individual activities taken forward under the strategy – with oversight of their delivery provided by the Head of Estates to the Director of Finance, Procurement and Estates. The chart below indicates the structure from the management of the COPFS estate.

A range of measures will be taken in relation to governance and management to ensure the successful delivery of the strategy. For all major projects these measures are:

• draft and submit a public bodies business case template to Scottish Government Property Controls within 24 months of lease break or expiry date for approval;

• annual review of the delivery capabilities of the COPFS Estates team and development of service requirements to support delivery of the Estates Strategy;

• clear processes for engagement with partners, service providers and users;

• engagement of external Project Management services for construction or refurbishment projects in excess of £2 million;

• monthly project updates provided to PMO for organisational oversight;

• to undertake a commercial options appraisal and use optimal procurement routes for projects where required. The Facilities Management contract with OCS allows for all projects to be undertaken by OCS under Tier 3 of the contract framework, however, for projects within Tier 3 the contractor must ensure procurement of service to ensure best value.

In addition to these specific actions and controls, COPFS maintains and monitors a suite of estates Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure that day to day delivery of estates business supports the effective operation of the estate and is in line with the priorities set out in this strategy.

COPFS has established contractual arrangements with delivery organisations who provide facility management (FM) services for the estate. This includes Service Level Agreement’s and a range of KPIs, which set standards for a series of performance criteria including availability of facilities, customer satisfaction rating, maintenance, security and cleaning etc. This FM contract will be renewed in 2031, and we will ensure it continues to incorporate robust and challenging KPIs that reflect our priorities, whilst delivering value for money.

In addition, the COPFS Estates Team will continue to assess the ongoing effectiveness of the estates function using the following KPIs:

• Utilisation: we work towards a utilisation of 8m2 per FTE and a rate of six workstations to ten occupants for office accommodation over the period of the strategy.

• Building conditions: subject to sufficient funding we will strive to have less than 20% of the estate in condition categories C/D by 2030.

• Backlog maintenance: subject to sufficient funding we will work towards a reduction in backlog maintenance by 2030.

• Carbon reduction: we will continue to monitor emission levels, aiming to achieve an annual 3% reduction in carbon emission levels.

• BREEAM: all major new build projects will be assessed in line with BREEAM best practice standards to deliver sustainable value and efficiency.

• Equality Act Accessibility: All new or refurbished accommodation will be assessed for compliance with the Act to ensure accessibility meets required standards.

Our investment decisions will be made in an open and transparent manner, based on fully developed business cases to SG PCD and agreed by Leadership Board which support the corporate plan objectives and are in line with the vision, themes and objectives set out in this strategy.

We take a structured approach to managing change in COPFS, based on best practice methodologies. All organisational changes are managed as either Projects or Programmes and a robust process of project reporting and monitoring is used to ensure both spend and programmes are adhered to and exceptions highlighted at the earliest opportunity. The Estates Unit will work, where appropriate, with external resource as necessary to ensure continued strong project and financial management.

The following principles are an integral part of the management ethos for operation and investment in the estate supported by Leadership Board of COPFS.

• Value for money and value engineering is a foundation principle in all constituent contracts and new projects managed by the estates function;

• Maximising VAT reclaims is a principle adhered to directly managed by COPFS finance division;

• The principle of a reducing estate is accepted for the life of this strategy;

• The principle of not renewing private sector leases is accepted for the life of this strategy and is a key SG principle under the SSE programme (subject to suitable public sector accommodation being available);

• In the context of rationalisation of the built estate – where COPFS provide services from within a court, it shall be a minimum locational principle that COPFS retain a visual presence in Sheriff Courts – and not a necessity that an actual COPFS office need be retained at all sites. In effect, that presence need not be a building or a room necessarily as long as an erected sign is present;

• Building on our strategy to improve digital processing, office locations will be based on service provision and support for court prosecution rather than the need for local records and files;

• COPFS Leadership Board have confirmed that the COPFS Director of Finance, Procurement and Estates is responsible for the utilisation/allocation of the estate and is consulted on any office changes which affect the estate footprint;

• Collaboration by COPFS in Justice Centre projects is an established principle;

• Collaboration by COPFS with SG, SCTS & Police Scotland Estates Strategies is an established principle;

• The principle of access to a desk or workstation per person at their designated base is established – depending on the nature of the visit, all staff are to operate from hot desks, planned collaboration spaces, flexible or private/quiet spaces at other offices when visiting and fully utilise the desk booking system;

• The estate should provide spaces for staff to be together to build up relationships, understand what we do and why we do it;

• The principle of minimisation of storage through business implementation of records management policy, electronic scanning, file reviews and adequate storage systems, both within and out with offices is established;

• The full and effective implementation of the existing Clear Desk Policy is an essential component to secure rationalisation of the estate, primarily in minimising security risks;

• The minimisation of productions and related storage is key to the future rationalisation of the estate and is an established principle of the COPFS Estates Strategy.

While these principles are not exhaustive and must operate within the confines of effective delivery of COPFS business, they are key to continuing to deliver an estate for COPFS which is adequate, safe and effective.