Financial Strategy 2024-2027

The COPFS Financial Strategy is designed to explain how COPFS plans to put in place sufficient resources (staffing/non-staff/capital) to deliver the COPFS Strategic Plan 2023-27 and, in doing so, the delivery of our corporate objectives.

Our Corporate Financial Strategy sets out how the organisation determines funding requirements that are sufficient to allow us to provide services which, as a minimum, meet reasonable public expectations with regard to the scope, quality and timeliness of the services that we provide and that we are able to meet our state obligations, clear the backlogs which resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate fully the additional deaths reported to COPFS due to the pandemic.  Our Financial Strategy defines the efficient use, management and strategic planning of our financial resources to meet corporate  objectives.

The Financial Strategy and the COPFS Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) (which analyses possible financial scenarios under which COPFS may be required to deliver its Strategic Plan), take account of the Scottish Government's Medium Term Financial Strategy.

The Financial Strategy also complements, and dovetails with, the other COPFS corporate strategieswhich can be found on the COPFS website. Along with the corporate strategies, COPFS develops detailed annual resource and business plans to set out how the organisation will transform the way it works and deliver its services, with a continued focus on minimising trauma for victims and witnesses and which allows us to work towards a sustainable resource baseline as the pandemic backlog casework is completed.

The COPFS Digital and Estates investments plans are critical components of the COPFS Financial Strategy and MTFP, our Resource Spending Review submissions (including capital reviews) and our Annual Business Planning Rounds.

The COPFS’ Annual Business Plan outlines what we will be doing each year to implement the long-term strategic priorities in the Financial Strategy.

This Financial Strategy recognises the budget consequences relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and from wider economic challenges.

The Financial Strategy and our Medium-Term Financial Plan will continue to be dynamic documents which will require periodic revision and refresh ensuring that COPFS aligns to Scottish Government Priorities.

COPFS is wholly funded by Scottish Government and is subject to annual budget allocations via Resource and Capital Spending Reviews.

Up until 2017-18 there had been a decade-long, very significant real-terms, decline in COPFS resource and capital funding. This had a correspondingly significant impact on COPFS’ ability to meet reasonable public expectations.

Capital funding was cut from £7.2m to £2.7m in 2010-11 followed by slight increases in years to 2022 reaching an allocation of £6.3m, but it had not reached the same level as 2009-10. As a result, COPFS had been unable to make the necessary investment in digital infrastructure and accommodation to enable ways of working and systems to be modernised.  The positive move forward now agreed with additional funding from 2023-24 to 2025-26 specifically for digital transformation will enable COPFS to progress the digital and estates investment required to modernise the COPFS infrastructure to support development of more efficient and effective ways working and make inroads to the decarbonisation of COPFS owned buildings.

COPFS Resource Spending Review 2024 successfully secured funding for 2025-26 to:

·       Meet the reasonable public expectations of a public prosecution and death investigation service;

·       Respond effectively to the increasing complexity of serious crime and changing patterns of crime following the Covid-19 pandemic;

·       Continue to reduce the court backlog created during the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and timebars returning to pre-pandemic time scales;

·       Investigate additional deaths related to the Covid-19 pandemic;

·       Pursue international investigations and prosecutions across the EU following the UK’s withdrawal;

·       Continue to make progress in modernising the criminal justice system;

·       Respond to the significant increase in sexual offence reports whilst reducing the journey time for these cases and cases involving children and vulnerable adults.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in court closures and significant backlogs of cases which could not be brought to trial in 2020-21.  This delayed the delivery of justice for accused and victims and increased the workload of staff in COPFS who continued to work in courts throughout the restrictions.  The continued funding for 2025-26 allows continuation of additional courts to be facilitated to reduce backlogs over the coming years.

It is uncertain how the future recovery from COVID-19 will progress where COPFS recognises the need to continually monitor the recovery programme with Justice Partners.  The subsequent impacts are assessed at Justice Partner level and the recovery programme is anticipated for at least 2 more years, to be reviewed periodically.

The 2024 Resource Spending Review resulted in the following funding allocation with 3 previous years’ comparatives:

Included in the funding allocation for 2024-25, Scottish Government had supported COPFS’s additional pay and workforce pressures.  The pay parity agreement with Scottish Government and Trade Unions was a result of negotiations over several years.  This ensures COPFS staff are paid in line with equivalent Scottish Government roles, retention is maximised, and it supports recruitment needs.

COPFS’s financial priorities are to:

·       Continue work force planning to ensure that staff in post meet both available financial resources and business need;

·       Carry out annual financial scenario planning and options analysis, taking into account all factors including demand and engaging with partners;

·       Continue to bear down on non-staff costs as far as possible in order to keep the percentage of our budget spent on payroll as high as possible and maximise non-staff savings opportunities;

·       Continue to invest resource and capital in digital and process systems, the estate, Human Resource policy and process changes which free up staff time;

·       Recycle staff time saved to higher value-added activity;

·       Contribute to Scottish Government priorities and to justice system modernisation.

The base scenario is that COPFS’ current staffing budget is at the very least maintained in real terms – to enable compliance with the public sector pay policy, maintain pay parity with Scottish Government,  and that non-staff expenditure is maintained in real terms for the following broad reasons:

·       there is no sign of a sustained reduction in levels/complexity of serious crime – in fact, in some respects, especially the complexity of cases is increasing;

·       the additional Court Recovery funding made available to COPFS enables COPFS to contribute to the justice system response to pandemic backlogs and the long-term court recovery programme;

·       new/amended legislation, notably in respect of tackling domestic abuse, changes to corroboration and supporting victims and witnesses, is likely to lead to heightened workloads in COPFS.

COPFS staffing costs account for 82% of its resource budget and senior managers in COPFS continue to look very closely at the scope for reducing staffing costs. It is, however, very difficult to project (and then deliver with any certainty) particular levels of staffing complement reduction whilst protecting service delivery standards because of the demand-led nature of COPFS activity, changes in or new legislation that creates new offences or brings more cases into court and/or further increases in caseload volume/change of profile, which could quickly outweigh any efficiency savings.  It is therefore crucial that COPFS continues to consider and implement transformational delivery methods and system wide improvements with Justice partners.

Plans for Public Service Reform within COPFS are being developed in 2025-26 supported by the COPFS Designed for Success Programme and will be taken forward to complement and support the Scottish Government 10-year commitment to Public Service Reform as detailed in Programme for Government published September 2023.  COPFS continually engages with Justice Partners and reporting agencies to explore new technologies and implement new ways of working.

COPFS has launched its Designed for Success programme which is a 12 to 18 month transformation programme to implement changes recommended by an independent review of senior structure, governance and succession planning pivotal in taking forward our reform programme.

COPFS has robust workforce planning, budgeting and forecasting systems and practices in place that ensure any changes to demand or environmental impacts are reflected, assessed and changes made to delivery models where practicable.  Strong procurement practises ensure COPFS maximises possible savings through competitive tendering, use of national frameworks and realising economies of scale in collaborative procurement activity.

Future planning and forecasting takes account of the following:

·       Staffing (82% of cash resource budget):

o   Trends in demand and complexity of cases over previous years;

o   Backlog cases and pace of court recovery;

o   Timing and anticipated costs of implementing changed/new legislation;

o   Known public inquiries;

o   Achieving COPFS Strategic Plan objectives;

o   Taking cognisance of all complementary COPFS strategies (People, Estates, Digital etc.)

o   Scottish Government Programme for Government priorities;

o   Anticipated savings from transformational projects/activity (e.g. Summary Case Management);

o   Anticipated savings from digital developments (e.g.DESC [Digital Evidence Sharing Capability], DAS [Defence Agent Services], Witness Gateway etc.)

o   Scottish Government Vision for Justice and published reports requirements (e.g. HMIP reports; Lady Dorrian review);

o   Cross Justice delivery improvement programmes;

o   Scottish Government Public Sector Pay Policy;

o   Commitment to no compulsory redundancies;

o   Commitment to pay parity agreement with Scottish Government;

o   Reasonable public expectations.

·       Non staff costs (18% of cash resource budget):

o   Case related expenditure makes up 51% of the non-staffing expenditure budget and comprises costs directly related to crime and death investigations, e.g. payment of witness expenses, expert report and court attendance costs, postmortems, neurology, mortuary, counsel costs, judiciary documents, kennelling etc.  As no two cases are the same in costs and complexity, COPFS assumes an average of the previous 2 years plus inflation as well as costs declared through the Financial Memorandum of new legislation.

o   Centrally managed expenditure accounts for 37% of the non-staffing expenditure budget and comprises corporate support costs e.g. non-domestic rates, non-recoverable VAT, IT software licencing, support of digital systems, hardware maintenance; therefore supporting the delivery of essential justice casework systems and stakeholder and citizen facing public services.  COPFS manages these costs through public procurement and framework call offs to secure value for money.  Forecasts are mainly known through multi-year contract awards and inflationary rises.

o   Office support costs accounts for the remaining 11% of non-staff expenditure budget and comprises postage, stationery, travel and subsistence, training, utilities etc. These costs are managed through collaborative contracts and forecasts based on business plans, previous years’ trends and inflation.

COPFS’ capital allocation of £9.7m in 2024-25 and of £10.2m in 2025-26 is a positive step forward after a decade long suppression of capital funding that has had a marked adverse impact on the Service, specifically our estate and our digital capability.

The new baseline of circa £10m will enable an appropriate level of investment in digital infrastructure and ensuring estates maintenance, modernisation including trauma informed approaches and estates rationalisation projects are progressed.  A more flexible and reduced cost estate in the west of Scotland is being considered and will inform the Capital Spending Review for 2026-27 and beyond.

COPFS is also contributing to and rolling out a Justice wide digital project to facilitate Digital Evidence Sharing across agencies and Justice Partners, including via the Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) programme with Scottish Government and justice partners.

The settlements achieved to 2025-26 are as follows:

COPFS will continue to need offices across Scotland but there is scope to adjust the footprint, including strategically considering our estates requirements and options and  increasing shared accommodation with other public bodies while recognising the impact of the agile working policy to reduce the running costs of offices. Despite an agreed increase in headcount over the past few years to support COPFS in tackling case backlog, investigating Covid deaths and delivering in a changing and complex justice system, we continue to test the opportunities for optimising the size and geographical spread of our estate that offers scope for a reduction in required office space but COPFS will determine whether, and to what degree, this is sustainable.

COPFS secured grant funding to decarbonise two owned buildings to satisfy the Scottish Government requirement for owned public sector office assets to be Net Zero Carbon ready by 2038, and this will become an increasing area of focus as part of our Climate Change agenda.

A properly resourced and sustainable COPFS makes a major contribution to maintaining public confidence in the state in Scotland by ensuring that crime at all levels is prosecuted effectively and timeously,  that the system of investigating sudden and unexpected deaths is effective and victims, witnesses and nearest relatives are treated in a trauma informed way.

Planned workforce reductions will take place when efficiency programmes are completed over the next three to five years, but this is subject to demand and therefore case complexity and volume remaining at the same levels as 2024-25.

Scottish Government continue to face real terms reductions in budgets and consequential funding from UK Government along with oversubscribed resource and capital budget requirements.  As COPFS have no income generating activities, there is no scope to supplement Scottish Government funding for COPFS.

If there is insufficient funding to cope with demand, then COPFS would review its priorities both as an independent prosecution authority and with the Scottish Government and other partner agencies to make decisions about what work is slowed down, shelved or stopped. The decisions would depend crucially on the gap between funding requirements to meet demand and the actual funding allocation.

In practical terms there will be constraints on the extent to which staffing levels could be reduced while the Scottish Government’s no-compulsory redundancy commitment remains in place, particularly given COPFS’ deliberate strategy of reducing temporary contracts to the absolute minimum and the trend towards an older retirement age. A recruitment freeze would have a major impact on service delivery.

A revised financial scheme of delegation has been put in place which balances the requirement to manage COPFS’ resources corporately with a sufficient degree of local accountability and incentives. Setting targets for savings will not alter the position that decisions about prosecution in individual cases are made without reference to the financial cost.

In terms of corporate governance and accountability, the Resources Committee owns the overall Financial Strategy on behalf of the Executive Board (EB). The other two Committees of the Executive Board – the Business Improvement Committee (BIC) and the Operational Performance Committee (OPC) - take the Strategy into account in all their decisions as part of the overall Governance arrangements. The Risk Management Group plays a key role in monitoring risk through the corporate and function risk registers with the Audit and Risk Committee having an oversight role.

The key finance related risks that COPFS faces include:

·       The inability to meet a reasonable level of public expectation in service delivery (because of unfunded new legislation, policy/process changes, or changes in volume/profile of crime);

·       The inability to recruit and retain sufficient staff;

·       The inability to release staff time for redeployment to high value-added activity;

·       The inability to reduce Non-Staff Expenditure (NSE) further in real terms;

·       Insufficient capital funding;

·       Unaffordable costs as a result of litigation.

These risk are managed through the relevant committees and risk registers and reported to the Risk Management Group.

This plan is built on an assumption that we will continue to be able to match our staffing resource to the demands of our work throughout that period. We recognise this assumption could become more challenging in light of the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and budgetary constraints but we remain committed, with this continued investment, to delivering a step change in the level of service we provide to the public by:

·       making improvements to our services which will benefit and empower women, improving their experience of the justice system and ensuring that the needs of children in the justice system as victims, witnesses, family members or those accused of crime are fully recognised and met.

·       transforming the way we prosecute sexual offences and domestic abuse and make improvements to the investigation of child deaths by COPFS.

·       providing meaningful, consistent, and more frequent contact for victims and bereaved relatives to help reduce uncertainty during investigations and case preparation and throughout the prosecution or death investigation process.

·       concluding complex death and criminal investigations more quickly, particularly cases involving children and vulnerable witnesses.

To achieve this improved level of service we have set ourselves a number of operational objectives:

·       transform the way we prosecute domestic abuse and sexual offending;

·       continue to digitise and modernise the way we work, supporting recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and wider reform of the criminal justice system, securing efficient and effective justice, and putting the public at the heart of all we do;

·       improve the investigation of deaths to increase public confidence and awareness, to ensure that bereaved relatives can effectively participate in the death investigation process and to reduce the journey time for concluding death investigations, including FAIs;

·       review how COPFS investigates the deaths of children in Scotland;

·       establish a specialist custody deaths investigation team to investigate deaths occurring in legal custody;

·       reform how we prepare and conduct summary cases, resolving more at an earlier stage by providing advanced disclosure of key evidence where possible;

·       openly engage with all current and future Public Inquiries in relation to the work of COPFS and ensure any relevant lessons learned are implemented and our service improved.