Minutes of the Operational Performance Committee – January 2022

Present:

• Stephen McGowan Deputy Crown Agent – Serious Casework (Chair) (DCA)
• Kenny Donnelly, Procurator Fiscal, High Court (KD)
• Ruth McQuaid, Procurator Fiscal, Local Court West (RM)
• Jennifer Harrower, Procurator Fiscal, Specialist Casework
• Anthony McGeehan, Procurator Fiscal, Policy and Engagement (AM)
• Gioia Ezzi, PA DCA – Serious Casework (Secretariat) (GE)

Apologies:

• Graham Kerr, Head of Business Management, Local Court
• Fiona Roberts, Head of Management Information Unit

Welcome and Apologies

The DCA welcomed everyone to the meeting, apologies were noted. Thanks were expressed to Fiona McLean who is being replaced by Rob Tinlin as Non Executive Director on committee.

Minutes of previous meeting

The minutes of last meeting were agreed and can be published.

Outstanding actions

Action 4/21: Discussion on governance of committees with all DCAs. Due to structural change, action now closed

Action 5/21: Issue of covering public holidays to raise with Workforce Planning Group. Continue to have difficulties but with watching brief. Action Closed

Monthly stats

High Court

• Petitions down 11% year to date, Precognition Work in Progress increase of 16% on last year.

Priority is the throughput of work.

Impression that court programme seems to be running with higher degree of attrition post Omicron.

Lost 5 courts in one week due to covid related issues.

Local Court

• National Initial Case Processing should be able to meet published target of 75%.
• Work in progress is sitting at just under 15,000 and that is about 5 weeks which is the Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
• Over half unmarked cases are over 10 weeks old, which is a
• Solemn is a concern regarding age profile of old Pre pandemic there were only 108 cases over 8 months, now there are 1,403.
• KPI for business over 8 months is 5%, now sitting at 22%. It was 2% pre- pandemic.
• Considerable variation across sheriffdoms in solemn performance. Sheriffdoms are meeting KPIs for sexual offences initial decision making but on journey times there is some variation in performance over country. 17% increase in legal staff but rises in business quite significant. Summary Trials 150% up on pre pandemic figures.
• Live indictments - 172% increase from pre pandemic

Specialist Casework

Nothing on exceptional basis to add to paper which was submitted for the cancelled December meeting.

Policy & Engagement

Paper was noted.

Recovery Mapping

Modelling on recovery funding was done before most recent shutdown on much of the summary business and slow down in relation to solemn work. What we do not have at the moment is information on whether or not we are on track to meet that and there appears to be a gap in the management information. What we are looking at is a suite of info on health of the casework which was fit for purpose in 2018/19 and would probably still be fit for purpose if there had not been a pandemic. There is a question as to whether or not we need something which tracks towards that recovery so we can be in a position to report on that at next budget negotiations. We need our own version and not rely on court statistics and would propose in the first instance to have a traffic light system on whether we are clearing our feet on a monthly basis then a more in depth piece of work on recovery tracking – in general an indication of health of system.

We need reduce outstanding work, back to where we were before lockdown would be ambition but not the only ambition. Productivity better, actually exposes how big problem elsewhere, such as court estate. Useful to show what we are resourced to do, important for use to demonstrate we have done what we can do. Opportunity if we get suite of stats correct that it gives opportunity to paint bigger picture. It is a whole system issue.

Committee agreed it has to be done on corporate rather than functional basis but with functional input.

Two things:-

• material on clearing our feet any given month; and
• material mapping onto recovery

Action 1/22: SMcG to meet Heads of Business Management Local Court and Serious Casework along with Fiona Roberts to take this forward with view to reporting to Executive Board.

AoB

There was no AoB.

Date of Next Meeting: 2 March 2022