Electronic monitoring compliance statistics: FOI release

Information requested

• The compliance rate for all individuals fitted with an electronic device.
• The compliance rate for all individuals fitted with an electronic device as a condition of court bail.
• The compliance rate for all individuals fitted with an electronic device as a condition of court bail as a result of court order.
• The compliance rate for all individuals fitted with an electronic device as a result of a Restriction of Liberty order.
• The compliance rate for all individuals fitted with an electronic device as part of Home Detention Curfew.
• The compliance rate for all individuals fitted with an electronic device as a condition of early release.
• The compliance rate for all individuals fitted with an electronic device as a license condition following release from custody .

With all statistics to be broken down by sheriffdom, local authority, gender, age, and crime and offence category, where appropriate. (Compliance rate being the percentage of individuals who abided by their electronic monitoring conditions without breach, revocation or resentence).

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested, in table format.

The following tables provide statistics broken down by sheriffdom, local authority, gender and age of each order or licence for electronic monitoring during the period April-September 2023, and shows those orders or licences where the electronic monitoring conditions were abided by without breach, revocation or resentence.

There are a number of important points of context for the information provided. The first is that the decision makers as to breach, revocation or resentence are not the Scottish Government, they are instead the relevant authority that monitoring is being done on behalf of (for example court, prison or Parole Board). Therefore, the information held by the Scottish Government is in relation to the status at the end of electronic monitoring, which in some cases will mean an outcome for the order or licence is not yet known.

It should also be noted that the concepts of breach, revocation and resentence, which are not disaggregated here, are not mutually exclusive and may occur in different combinations and sequences, depending on the circumstances of each individual case. Where, for example, a court determines that an order is breached they may decide to continue the order, vary it to extend it or revoke it and impose an alternative sentence. Further information on the outcomes of cases in those instances may be held by the Scottish Court and Tribunal Service.

The interpretation of this information is likewise not entirely straightforward. Revocation of electronic monitoring (EM) may be for reasons of non-compliance – for example, a person is taken into custody and the EM order is revoked. But the removal of the EM requirement may instead be an indication that a person is complying well with their order or licence conditions. This is particularly true in the context of parole licences, where it is common for a person to be on EM for a period of time and then for that electronic monitoring condition to be revoked (removed) while a person remains on licence for a longer period of time. In those cases, revocation can be indicative of a positive record of compliance with the licence.

The data presented below shows, based on each order monitored, the status at order or licence end. This shows those the % of those monitored where G4S at the point of order or licence end, considered the order to be completed with no information held about a confirmed breach, revocation of EM or resentence. While a short absence might trigger a compliance response, for example a report back to court, it is for the court themselves to determine if the circumstances amount to a substantiated breach.

Percentage of individuals and gender

	Female	Identify as Female	Identify as Male	Male	Neutral (non- binary)	Total
Restricted Movement Requirement as part of a Community Payback Order	62.50%	N/A	N/A	71.23%	N/A	70.37%
Restriction of Liberty Order	68.18%	N/A	N/A	75.74%	N/A	74.80%
Home Detention Curfew	91.67%	N/A	N/A	83.52%	N/A	84.47%
Parole licence*	100%	N/A	N/A	19.35%	N/A	20.21%
Total	69.29%	N/A	N/A	73.02%	N/A	72.60%

By age group

	Under 18	18-20	21-25	26-30	31-40	Over 40	Total
Restricted Movement Requirement as part of a Community Payback Order	N/A	100%	85.71%	72.73%	62.96%	64%	70.37%
Restriction of Liberty Order	70.59%	72.48%	72.69%	71.05%	77.17%	76.05%	74.80%
Home Detention Curfew	N/A	100%	100%	82.35%	77.55%	92.59%	84.47%
Parole licence*	N/A	100%	20%	6.66%	27.27%	17.50%	20.21%
Total	70.59%	74.14%	73.19%	68.97%	74.18%	72.36%	72.60%

By Sheriffdom

	Restriction of Liberty order	Restricted Movement Requirement as part of a Community Payback Order	Total
Glasgow and Strathkelvin	79.12%	78.57%	75.38%
Grampian, Highlands & Islands	71.25%	66.67%	71.08%
Lothian and Borders	74.17%	60%	73.6%
North Strathclyde	74.13%	69.57%	73.76%
South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway	73.74%	50%	73.01%
Tayside Central and Fife	75.78%	75%	75.76%
Sheriff Appeal Court	100%	100%	100%
High Court	100%	100%	100%

By local authority area

Aberdeen City	56%
Aberdeenshire	79.31%
Angus	79.31%
Argyll & Bute	75%
Clackmannanshire	75.76%
Dumfries & Galloway	62.75%
Dundee City	73.53%
East Ayrshire	82.14%
East Dunbartonshire	70%
East Lothian	63.16%
East Renfrewshire	66.67%
City of Edinburgh	71.05%
Falkirk	72.22%
Fife	80.49%
Glasgow City	72.35%
Highland	71.43%
Inverclyde	67.86%
Midlothian	70%
Moray	70%
Na h'Eileanan Siar	100%
North Ayrshire	72.22%
North Lanarkshire	72.09%
Orkney Islands	100%
Perth & Kinross	78.13%
Renfrewshire	68.92%
Scottish Borders	87.5%
Shetland Islands	100%
South Ayrshire	77.78%
South Lanarkshire	71.29%
Stirling	69.56%
West Dunbartonshire	71.43%
West Lothian	77.78%
Not known*	60%
Total	72.6%

* Records either lack postcodes or postcode information is not mappable onto local authority level breakdown.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we do not have the information are explained below.

Reasons for not providing information.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because statistics for crime and offence categories for those electronically monitored between April and September 2023 is not held by Scottish Government as part of this same data set. However, the criminal proceedings national statistics provide some data on the number of individuals receiving a restriction of liberty order by offence type. https://www.gov.scot/publications/criminal-proceedingsscotland-2020-21/

The Scottish Government does not hold the information you have asked for about compliance with electronic monitoring as a condition of bail.

The information held by the Scottish Government relates to status of electronic monitoring orders at order end. Electronically monitored bail orders do not have a fixed order end in a way that other orders and licences do, and the various possible reasons for which an EM bail order comes to an end cannot be captured in a comparable way. Electronic monitoring of bail is still relatively new, and work is currently underway within the Scottish Court and Tribunal Service to seek to develop the range of information generated and held by the courts about cases where people have been subject to EM bail.

As such, I hereby provide you with formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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