Public performance reports

Justice social work

The Council Plan Connect, outlines our outcomes for 2022-27. Connect Outcomes should not be seen in isolation, they interact with each other and as we achieve success in one, we move closer to success in others. In delivering our vision to ‘improve the quality of life of everyone in South Lanarkshire’ our Outcomes show how our work links with our partners including our Community Planning Partners.

For daily updates, stories and what’s going on in your area, visit our information and news website South Lanarkshire View.

Each year we produce an Annual Performance Spotlights which summarise how we have performed in achieving our Connect Outcomes. To complement these we have created a suite of individual Public Performance Reports which focus on key areas of council business. This report outlines the performance in relation to our justice social work service and how this links to the outcomes of our objectives.

Local councils have a duty under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to assess a person's community care needs and decide whether to arrange any services. Any assistance should be based on an assessment of the person's care needs and should take into account their preferences.

The implementation of the Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 led to Justice Social Work Services forming part of a wider Community Justice Partnership (CJS). The CJS established by the Scottish Government in 2016, provides leadership, opportunities for innovation, learning and development and provides assurance for the delivery of improved outcomes for those who re-offend. CJS is directly accountable to Scottish Ministers for overseeing the delivery of community justice national outcomes. Diversion from Prosecution Guidance (June 2020) was issued by CJS to be used by all agencies involved in diversion from prosecution as an alternative to prosecutorial action.

The Scottish Government's Community Justice Strategy 2022-2027 was introduced in June 2022 and has a number of associated documents:

Delivery Plan
Performance Framework
Community Justice Scotland's Improvement Tool
Care Inspectorate's Self-Evaluation Framework

All the documents contribute to ensuring the new Strategy's aims and priority actions are successfully achieved.

Justice social work services ensure that those in conflict with the law are appropriately assessed and managed within the community. In undertaking this work justice services contributes to the wider aim of enhancing community safety and wellbeing for all residents of South Lanarkshire by working closely with partner agencies to ensure that it is contributing towards the Community Justice Outcome Improvment Plan (CJOIP).

Justice Services is a key partner of the South Lanarkshire Community Justice Partnership. The partnership is a collection of individuals, agencies and services that work together to support, manage and supervise people who have committed offences, from the point of arrest, through prosecution, community disposal or custody and alternatives to these, until people being released from prison are reintegrated back into their communities.

The Lanarkshire Court Service provides social work provisions across the three Sheriff Courts in Lanarkshire, namely Hamilton, Lanark, and Airdrie Sheriff Courts. The court social work team provides assessments and support to individuals who appear from custody, as well as those who appear in court for trial and sentencing. The court social work team also provides any advice and guidance required to support individuals and their families attending court; this includes signposting to relevant support services and agencies within the local community.

Unpaid Work Services is a model of service delivery that is most familiar to our community. The range of work that is undertaken as a reparation for harms that have been caused as a result of offending behaviour continues to grow. With the use of, and support of, voluntary and third sector agencies this ensures that we have a broad range of options to allow those in conflict with the law to payback for the harms their offending has caused. The Unpaid Work service also supports the commitment of South Lanarkshire Council to the Lanarkshire Armed Forces Covenant, ensuring the correct support is available to veterans within Justice Services by signposting and referring them on to a range of specialist veteran organisations.

Percentage of people on CPO unpaid work requirement seen within five working days by their case manager - Target 75%

What this means
This indicator measures the council's performance in relation to timescales for unpaid work requirement meetings.

Why this matters
As well as benefitting the community, there is also a range of opportunities and supports offered to service users to reduce their risk of repeating their behaviour.

Our Performance and how we compare

Comparator	2021-2022	2022-2023	2023-2024	Are we improving?
SLC	68%	69%	72%	Yes

How we have performed in improving this public service
Justice Social Work implemented a text reminder service for all unpaid work service users as of 18th October 2023 to encourage attendance at unpaid work. This is further supported by 4 weekly reviews for all non-attenders as standard, regardless of circumstances, to ensure robust management of the order(s).

Percentage of people starting their unpaid work within 7 days of Community Payback Order – Target 75%

What this means
This indicator measures the council’s performance in relation to timescales for unpaid work requirements.

Why this matters
The Unpaid Work service has been impacted by a legacy of non-attendance by service users. The majority fail to show for appointment or were late, whilst other reasons include illness, paid employment, or a return to custody.

Our performance and how we compare

Comparator	2021-2022	2022-2023	2023-2024	Are we improving?
SLC	65%	67%	70%	Yes

How we have performed in improving this public service
Justice Social Work implemented a text reminder service for all unpaid work service users as of 18 October 2023 to encourage attendance at unpaid work. This is further supported by 4 weekly reviews for all non-attenders as standard, regardless of circumstances, to ensure robust management of the order(s).

The Care Inspectorate are the regulatory body who lead on scrutiny and assurance to support the implementation of the community justice model across Scotland. A guide to self-evaluation has been developed by the Care Inspectorate that aligns to a range of national and local community justice outcomes.

Feedback, participation, and consultation with individuals who use Justice Services is an area of ongoing work for the service as we want to ensure that we are always learning and developing our service delivery in line with our need. This is also an area of work with stakeholders and the community to provide the best service we can.

The Justice Social Work Services have created additional opportunities for those who come into contact with our services to tell us about their personal experiences of our services via the Care Opinion website. The comments and stories told by those who use our services will be carefully monitored and considered and any changes to our service delivery will be implemented and action taken accordingly in order to ensure we are responsive to the needs of individuals who use our services.

The Community Justice Partnership, developed a Community Engagement Strategy which aims to communicate and engage with a wide range of audiences that have an interest or say in what we do to ensure we deliver the best possible service to all our key stakeholders.

Links to other websites and information that may be of interest:

Resource Plans are prepared each year by all council Resources to outline the key developments they intend to take forward in the year. In the coming year Social Work Resources will take forward all necessary actions, where reasonable and appropriate, to mitigate or reduce the Resource’s exposure to these risks. More information on performance and actions relating to Justice Services can be found in the Social Work Resource Plan, the Chief Social Work Officer Report.

Twice a year, performance reports are presented to council committees on progress against the Resource Plans. In addition, reports detailing progress against the Council Plan Connect Priorities are prepared. See Quarter 2 (September) and Quarter 4 (March - year end) for performance reports for further information.

More information on our outcomes can be found in the Council Plan Connect and Annual Performance Spotlights.

Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) allows councils to work together, to use performance information in a way which will help understand variations, share knowledge, expertise and good practice, with a view to making improvements. For more information and links relating to this framework go to the 'Benchmarking' paragraph on the Improvement and how we compare page on our website.

The information contained within this report reflects the position based on the data available at the time of publication (March 2025).