Scottish Government

PROTOCOL FOR INVESTIGATION/RESOLUTION OF DISPUTED DATA BETWEEN THE POLICE FORCES AND THE PROCURATOR FISCAL SERVICE

• The Forces will continue to deal with subject access requests in respect of criminal records subject to the requirement that all the conditions in terms of Section 7 of the 1998 Act are satisfied.
  
• If the individual disputes the accuracy of any of the data provided, initial enquiries will be made by the Forces processing the subject access to check the accuracy of the information.
  
• The Forces will contact the respective criminal justice agency responsible for providing the data.
  
• For the purposes of the Procurator Fiscal Service, the initial contact will be with the office manager in the respective Procurator Fiscal Office from where the data was obtained or if no Office Manager, the Procurator Fiscal.
  
• On being so advised of disputed data, the office manager will undertake internal procedures to ascertain the accuracy of the data. (The internal procedures will involve a legal check and any other necessary checks to validate the information).
  
• If, the data is found to be inaccurate, the Procurator Fiscals Office will advise the Forces.
  
• It is intended that the checks requested of the Procurator Fiscal Service will be completed within a stipulated period of time.
  
• If the data is held to be accurate, the Procurator Fiscals Office will advise the Forces.
  
• If, the data is still disputed and the Forces Data Protection Officer has continuing reservations regarding the accuracy of the data, a second check can be made with the Principal Depute who has responsibility for Data Protection Policy Issues in the Policy Group at Crown Office. Further internal checks will be made and thereafter the Forces will be advised if the data is still believed to be accurate.
  
• If, the individual still maintains that the data is inaccurate, the Forces should in accordance with Schedule 1, Part II, paragraph 7 make an appropriate entry to the data indicating the individual's objection.
  
• The data subject may be advised of the originator providing the disputed data whether it is the Procurator Fiscal Service, the courts or any other organisation. If the data is still disputed the individual may be advised to contact the Data Protection Commissioner or alternatively seek legal advice. (In this regard, it is inappropriate for any criminal justice agency to provide a data subject with any legal advice.)

ERROR HANDLING PROTOCOL

Introduction

This paper outlines from a Procurator Fiscal perspective the type of errors likely to occur in the transmission of data between the Procurator Fiscal and other ISCJIS partners. As the error handling between the police and Fiscal has been long established and this paper will disregard this aspect of the 'Primary loop' and will concentrate on the links between the Procurator Fiscal and SCRO and the Courts.

Types of Error

After investigation it is considered that the following types of error will occur:-

• Fiscal File incomplete/unreadable by receiving agency
  
• Unable to be found on SCRO
  
• The Fiscal's electronic data does not match the documentation supplied to the Court
  
• The S Number originally supplied is incorrect. Rectification of Error Once advised the Fiscal office will contact the Crown Office Helpdesk who will arrange for rectification and retransmission of the offending file. In this instance the offending file will be retransmitted to both SCRO and the Courts.
  
• There are several key reasons why something will mismatch, these are:- Incorrect S Number transmitted by the police - Police Records office advises PF by way of 'Subject Report'. The PF staff will fix the error and retransmit the relevant data for that Subject to both Courts and SCRO.
  
• Incorrect Incident Number transmitted by police - Police Records office advises PF by way of 'Subject Report'. The PF staff will fix the error and retransmit the relevant data for that Subject to both Courts and SCRO.
  
• Incorrect S Number added by PF staff - Police Records office advises PF by way of 'Subject Report'. The PF staff will fix the error and retransmit the relevant data for that Subject to both Courts and SCRO.
  
• Incorrect Incident Number added by PF staff - Police Records office advises PF by way of 'Subject Report'. The PF staff will fix the error and retransmit the relevant data for that Subject to both Courts and SCRO.
  
• An attempt to update SCRO prior to the incident being created on SCRO - Police Records office advises PF by way of 'Subject Report'. The PF staff will retransmit the relevant data for that Subject to SCRO only.

NB The courts may not have returned data in that instance there will be no problem with this part of the loop. If the Courts have attempted to transmit to SCRO this will be dealt with the Courts -> SCRO Error Handling protocols.

• In instances where the Court advises of a mismatch between the paper documentation and the electronic file the PF office will amend the incorrect one. If it is the electronic version that is incorrect this will be re-transmitted to both SCRO and the Courts. Timing of Changes

It is important that notified errors are updated a quickly as possible. As the initial contact is at local level it is considered that 'error handling dialogue' will be best served by local contact between nominated PF and police record office staff.