Highland Community Justice Partnership
About Highland Community Justice Partnership
The Highland Community Justice Partnership is a sub-group of the Highland Community Planning Partnership with a distinct role in the delivery and development of Community Justice in Highland.
Community Justice is principally about organisations working together to ensure that people who have offended are held to account, address the underlying causes of their behaviour, and pay back to the community where appropriate. By promoting safe and effective alternative options to short term prison sentences, where appropriate, we will encourage rehabilitation, reduce reoffending and allow those who have offended to reconnect and contribute to their communities.
Membership of the Community Justice Partnership includes Highland Council, NHS Highland, Police Scotland, Third Sector, Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service, Scottish Courts & Tribunals Service, Scottish Prison Service and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. A full membership list can be viewed within the Highland Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan 2024 – 2029.
Further information is available on the Highland Third Sector Interface (HTSI) website: Community Justice Partnership | HTSI main (highlandtsi.org.uk) HTSI hosts the post of the Partnership Manager on behalf of The Highland Community Justice Partnership.
Highland Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan
Highland Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan 2024-2029
The Community Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 (“the Act”) requires community justice partners to produce a Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan (CJOIP) for each local authority area, outlining how they intend to work together to reduce reoffending. Partners must report annually on progress against locally and nationally determined outcomes.
The legislation states that partners must review their CJOIP:
After the publication of a revised national strategy for community justice; a revised national performance framework.
After the publication of a revised local outcomes improvement plan in relation to the area under section 7(5) of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.
When reviewing or revising the CJOIP partners must have regard to the national strategy, the national performance framework, and the local outcomes improvement plan.
Following a period of development and consultation, the Highland CJOIP for 2024-2029 was published in June 2024.
https://highlandcpp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CJOIP-2024_2029-FINAL.pdf
Review of National Strategy for Community Justice and Review of the Outcomes Performance and Improvement Framework
The Act sets out that Scottish Ministers must review the national strategy for community justice no later than five years after the strategy is published. Following such a review, the Scottish Ministers must either publish a revised strategy, or publish a statement indicating that they consider that the strategy should not be revised.
The Act also requires that Community Justice Scotland (CJS) must review the OPIF no later than five years after the framework is published. Following such a review, CJS must either make proposals to Scottish Ministers for the revision of the framework or publish a statement indicating that they consider that the framework should not be revised. The Scottish Ministers must consider proposals made to them following CJS’ review of the framework and then either publish a revised framework reflecting them (with such modifications as they consider appropriate) or publish a statement indicating that they consider that the framework should not be revised.
To comply with the Act, reviews of both the national strategy and the OPIF must therefore be completed by 24 November 2021 (though publication of any revised documents may take place after this date).
Scottish Government and Community Justice Scotland Update
In May 2021, the Scottish Government (SG) and Community Justice Scotland (CJS) issued a joint statement in relation to the review of the National Strategy for Community Justice and review of the Outcomes, Performance, and Improvement Framework.
It outlined the Scottish Governments intention to review the Strategy in Summer 2021 and informed that CJS have reviewed the OPIF and concluded that it needs to be revised. An OPIF revision project has now been established and aims to further define the specific revisions required and develop proposals for consideration by the Scottish Ministers. The project’s core group are currently developing the proposed approach and revisions.
The estimated timeframe for publication of the revised Outcomes Performance and Improvement Framework and National Strategy was April 2022 but this is now estimated to be June 2022 for the Strategy and September 2022 for the OPIF.
The National Strategy was published in June 2022 and it is now estimated that the revised OPIF will be published in April 2023.
Scottish Government and Community Highland Community Justice Partnership Position
In accordance with the above, the Highland Community Justice Outcomes Improvement Plan (CJOIP) 2018 to 2021 currently has an Addendum attached which expired in March 2022.
Work has been carried out over the past 2 years in relation to a Strategic Needs and Strengths Assessment and development work to identify the priorities for the CJOIP moving forward.
After considering the information outlined above, the Highland Community Justice Partnership have agreed that a further CJOIP will not be published at this time and will be compiled to reflect the contents of the new Strategy and OPIF once they have both been published.
Community Justice Scotland are aware of the situation within Highland and will be updated of this decision by the Community Justice Partnership.
It is anticipated that the Highland CJOIP will be published as soon as practicable following the publication of the revised Outcomes Performance and Improvement Framework along with the already published national Strategy.
In the meantime, the Partnership will continue to progress and finalise outstanding Actions from the current plan whilst identifying priorities for the CJOIP going forward.
Highland Community Justice Forums
Forums are hosted quarterly throughout the year, with a mix of in-person and virtual events. The Community Justice Third Sector Forum is open to all third sector organisations throughout Highland who have an interest in community justice, this might include working with those who have offended, or those who have been affected by crime. Below are the dates of this years meeting. Click the links to book your place:
Thursday 27th February, 10am-12noon (online)
https://members.highlandtsi.org.uk/events/674f0d4db94a0300087fd1cb/description
Thursday 29th May, 10am-12noon (online)
https://members.highlandtsi.org.uk/events/674f0da2b94a0300087fd647/description
Thursday 28th August, 10am-12noon (online)
https://members.highlandtsi.org.uk/events/674f0dd7b94a0300087fda41/description
Thursday 27th November, 10am-12noon (in person at the 1668 Cafe, Inverness))
https://members.highlandtsi.org.uk/events/674f0e0db94a0300087fde72/description