When the report by the Crown Agent on the aims, objectives and targets in the criminal justice system will be published and what action it …

The Crown Agent's report will be published today.The Lord Advocate and I welcome the report, which provides a careful and reasoned diagnosis of the fragmentation in our criminal justice system. The report describes how a more coherent approach could be achieved. We are committed to a "joined-up" approach at local and national level and will now study the details to see how this can best be put into practice. As the report shows, local co-ordination and liaison are of fundamental importance and we very much hope it will be possible to implement arrangements to bring together criminal justice agencies into closer working relationships at local level. We will be discussing further with Sheriffs Principal what role they might play in convening such arrangements, bearing in mind the limits of their statutory responsibility to secure the speedy and efficient disposal of business in the sheriff courts of their sheriffdom.We also propose to set up a national Criminal Justice System (CJS) Board, consisting of the chief officers of the main criminal justice agencies.The remit of the board will be to make recommendations on the overall aims, objectives and targets for the Criminal Justice System and to monitor the performance of the system as a whole. To enable the board to carry out its remit, members will be invited to share information and to consider how information on the performance of the system as a whole should be presented and measured.We have discussed with the judiciary their possible involvement in the national board to be sure that nothing the Executive does risks being seen to compromise their independence.A High Court judge will attend the national CJS Board when issues that would benefit from judicial input at that level arise. The Convenor of the Sheriffs Principal has also agreed to attend the board.We are anxious to ensure that closer local working relationships are based on practical projects with achievable results.To this end, we plan to set up one or more funded pilot projects to illustrate how a joined-up approach could be implemented at local level. The pilots will be in the area of the summary criminal business of the sheriff courts, with particular reference to eliminating avoidable delay. We are already committed, under Action Point 10 of our youth crime action plan, to considering measures to increase the speed of referral to the courts, and the introduction of specific targets discussed with the judiciary.The pilots would be overseen by the national CJS Board.This report complements the report by Lord Bonomy on improving the efficiency of the High Court, and the work being undertaken by Sheriff Principal McInnes's Committee on summary justice. Together, these three reviews will pave the way for the most radical improvements in our criminal justice system for over 20 years.Andrew Normand has already consulted extensively but we would welcome wider debate. We have therefore placed a copy of the report on the Scottish Executive website, and in the Parliament's Reference Centre. We are sending the report to key organisations within the criminal justice system and making copies available to other organisations and to the general public on request and we would welcome any comments they wish to offer.