On 4 May 2023 the Scottish Government published a report, ‘Prisoner Voting in Scottish Devolved Elections’. It reached the paradoxical conclusion that whilst it considers that “there is not at present sufficient data available to assess the impact of any potential change to the sentence threshold” it also “does not plan to revisit the 12-month threshold for prisoner voting”. We made unsuccessful attempts to engage with the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee which was covering this.

On 20 April 2023 the Scottish Government published a report entitled, Journey Times in Scotland’s Criminal Justice System’. It found that the time from offence to sentencing had increased during the Covid pandemic: in the first 9 months of 2022-23, 'median journey times' were about 2 years and 10 months in the High Court (a rise of 71% pre Covid), 1 year and 5 months in Sheriff Solemn Court (55% rise), 11 months in Sheriff Summary Court (141% rise) and 10 months in the Justice of the Peace Court (82% rise). The starkest difference was the rise in waiting times for victims of sexual assault whose case goes to the High Court, with the median time in these cases being around 4 years.