§ Mr. McAvoyTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the procedure for processing complaints from members of the public about procurator fiscal offices. [21215]
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§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonMy noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate informs me that the Crown Office has recently completed a review of its complaints system. The revised system, which is about to be implemented, involves the introduction of a standard form for noting complaints. This will form the basis of a central record of the types of complaints received by the Department and the outcome of inquiries into those complaints.
The Crown Office has also produced a leaflet which will be available to members of the public and which will describe the procedure for making complaints and the way in which they will be handled. Complaints will be investigated by or under the supervision of procurators fiscal, regional procurators fiscal or the Crown agent as appropriate.
§ Mr. McAvoyTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland on how many occasions disciplinary action was taken against employees of the procurator fiscal service as a result of complaints from members of the public in each of the last five years. [21217]
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe Crown Office has no record of disciplinary action being taken against any member of staff in the last five years as a result of complaints from members of the public.
§ Mr. McAvoyTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) how many complaints about the operation of the Glasgow procurator fiscal office he has received from members of the public in each of the last five years; [21216]
(2) how many complaints against the operation of procurator fiscal offices in Scotland he received in each of the past five years. [21214]
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonMy noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate informs me that this information is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost as there is no central record of the number of complaints made about the operation of procurator fiscal offices. The procurator fiscal at Glasgow has checked his records for 1995 and 1996 to date. During that period only one written complaint was received from a member of the public about the actions of a member of his staff.
§ Mr. McAvoyTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the work of the procurator fiscal service in respect of on-going staff training and development. [21218]
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonMy noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate informs me that the Crown Office and procurator fiscal service committed to the principles of "Investors in People" in December 1994. A departmental training and development group works with regional groups to take forward the training and development of staff in accordance with a training strategy agreed by senior management which addressed induction, core and development needs of each staff group. The group is currently revising competences which will form the basis of performance appraisal and be a420W foundation for future training. The link between competences and vocational qualifications is under consideration. The training strategy reflects the overall objectives, values and business requirements of the organisation and includes an objective to provide training on a complaints system which is about to be implemented.