Scottish Courts

Change of speaker, Mark Todd stepped in at the last minute.

In 2017 Mark was introduced to the Club by Ian Grieve but five years on Mark gave an interesting insight into his work as Service Delivery Manager with the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS). We 

Mark has been with the service for 35 years starting at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, has held various admin roles as he progressed up the career ladder. He is now based at Saughton in Edinburgh.

With the declared purpose purpose to support justice SCTS is independent body. It’s function is to provide administrative framework and is managed by a board chaired by Lord Carloway. The board is made up of Judicial Members, Legal profession and Lay members.

Jurisdictions - Courts, Tribunals, Office of the Public Guardian, 

There are four different kinds of courts
*Supreme Courts - whole of Scotland
(Civil, Criminal and Appeals)
*Sheriff Appeal Court 
*Sheriff Courts
(Criminal, civil, commissary, adoptions)
*Justice of the Peace Court
(Criminal, Utility Warrants)

Mark explained how Remote Jury Centres (RJC) were instigated by covid initially as a pilot. These RJCs have Quad views and there are now 10 RJCs with 41 screens including 3 in Dunfermline.

There are 39 Sheriff Courts, 34 JP Courts mainly co-located.

Value of fines collected in 2020-2021:-
Sheriff Courts £4.5m
Justice of the Peace Courts £1.89m
Direct Measures
* Fiscal £2.5m* Police just short of £1m

Confiscation Orders - £1.78m (2019-2020 was £5m)

The service had a £154m budget in 2020, employing 1800 staff and engaging 319839 participants on WEBEX.