Progress on the Review of Civil Judicial Statistics has been delayed due to other work pressures, most notably the work carried out with the Scottish Court Service to improve the quality of their data (see Accuracy of Civil Judicial Statistics for further details).
Given the delay, a new Project Board has been appointed and a new Project Initiation Document was signed off by the Board on 14 May 2009. The objectives and success criteria for the review are set out below:
'To review the content and publication of statistics on the civil justice system, and make and implement recommendations for change to ensure that accurate, relevant and timely statistics are collected in a consistent way across Scotland, are published in an appropriate format and are used with confidence.
The objectives of the Civil Judicial Statistics Review Project, for the users of Civil data are to provide:
- An accurate, relevant, up-to-date and practical data set that:
- Enables relevant policies and procedures to be monitored and evaluated;
- Informs future policy developments;
- Allows monitoring and evaluation of the use and performance of the civil courts;
- Meets management information needs; and
- Is published in the most appropriate format(s), depending on the audience;
The objectives of the Civil Judicial Statistics Review Project, for suppliers of data are to support the delivery of the user requirements in a manner where by:
- Data are provided with appropriate consideration and control over confidentiality, integrity, availability, timeliness and sustainability;
- Data required by users is prioritised and takes due consideration of the cost and time required to further develop existing systems/develop new systems for date provision.'
The next stage of the project is to carry out the Requirements Specification Phase. This will involve translating the information requested from the research held with users of civil judicial statistics (see Background Information on the Review of Civil Judicial Statistics for further details) into specific data items and holding workshops with key internal stakeholders and data providers to clarify, update and prioritise the requests and then assess the feasibility of producing each data item, along with any associated resources.
An options analysis will then be put to the Project Board and a decision will be made on what data should be collected.
The Requirements Specification Phase is scheduled to be completed by the end of September 2009, at which point timescales for the next stages of the project will become clearer.
Quarterly updates of progress made on the review will appear on the Review of Civil Judicial Statistics website in due course.