Research and engagement

The Scottish Sentencing Council conducts a broad range of research and engagement activities. Research reports, including reviews of existing academic literature on a topic, focus group studies on specific offences, and other sentencing related work are published on our ‘Research Publications’ page. These reports include work undertaken by the Council’s research team, as well as work commissioned from independent contractors and are grouped by year of publication, with the newest reports first. The Council’s Research Framework, which explains the factors the Council takes into account when deciding its research plans can be found here.

The Council has a statutory duty to undertake both draft (to accompany consultations) and final impact assessments on all guidelines it produces. These are undertaken by the Council’s staff and are published both on the guideline’s page and our ‘Impact Assessments’ page. Impact assessments are organised by guideline, with the newest first.

The Council also undertakes informal data gathering and evidence collection through engagement with criminal justice stakeholders and academics. Where appropriate, the Council produces and publishes short feedback reports on these sessions for its reference during the guideline creation process. For transparency, these are published on our ‘Engagement’ page.

All aspects of the Council’s public consultations, including consultation papers, published responses, and analysis can be found on the Council’s consultation hub.