The Working Group That Isn't

Court transcripts sit at the centre of the appeal process in Scotland. An appeal depends on identifying what was said in court, how evidence was led, and how a jury was directed. Without access to that record, it becomes difficult to test whether a conviction is safe. For someone trying to challenge a conviction, often from prison, the cost of transcripts and who can access them go directly to whether that process works in practice.

In response to those concerns, Scottish Government has referred publicly to a working group examining court fees. Its review response now confirms that the group is not yet operational and that no substantive material is held on its structure, remit, or analysis.

This is not just an absence of paperwork. It means there is no identified membership, no agreed remit, no record of meetings, and no analysis on transcript access or cost within the Government’s own records. When asked about the work that would normally sit behind a group of this kind — internal discussions, draft material, early thinking — those questions were treated as a new request. No answer has yet been provided.

A separate Freedom of Information response from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service describes a different structure. It identifies a Fee Order Working Group, established in 2019, with its first meeting later that year. It provides terms of reference and an agenda from that initial meeting. Beyond that, the record is minimal.

The courts service states that it has located a single item of correspondence relating to the group’s creation, which can be seen in Annex A. It also explains that any further material from that period is likely to have been destroyed in line with a three to five year retention policy. No project initiation documents, scoping material, or briefing papers are held.

On transcript access itself, the position narrows again. The courts service explains that it administers the system set out in legislation and does not determine policy. As a result, it holds no material on reform, no analysis of access to transcripts for accused persons, and no equality or access-to-justice assessment. That matters because it is the body responsible for administering transcripts day to day, yet holds no evaluative material on how that system operates in practice.

Set against each other, these positions leave a gap that is difficult to ignore. The Scottish Government points to a structure that is not yet in operation. The courts service points to an earlier structure but retains almost no record of how it was created and no policy analysis on transcript access. No single body holds the structure, the analysis, and the oversight together in a way that can be examined.

The limited correspondence that has been disclosed adds to that picture. Emails between the Scottish Government and the courts service, released as Annex A, refer to the working group as something that will be “picked up” or revisited once it is “up and running”. The language is forward-looking. It describes something expected to happen, rather than something already in place.

The consequence is practical rather than abstract. Court transcripts are the foundation of the appeal process. If the structure responsible for reviewing their cost and accessibility cannot be clearly identified, and if the material that would show how that structure operates is not held or no longer available, then meaningful scrutiny becomes difficult for those trying to examine the record of their own case. Similar gaps have appeared in other responses across the system, where key structures can be identified but the material needed to examine them is either not held or not disclosed.

There are straightforward ways to improve that position. The basic administrative questions — which body is responsible, what structure is in place, and how it operates — should be clearly published and retained. Beyond that, there is a more substantive issue. There is still no visible analysis showing how access to transcripts affects the ability of accused persons to challenge convictions. Without that, the discussion remains incomplete.

If those elements are not visible, the issue does not simply remain unclear. It remains unresolved in practice for those who rely on access to the record of their own case.

Accused.scot has submitted Freedom of Information requests across multiple public bodies on this and related issues. The responses, together with our briefing pack and petition on transcript access for convicted persons, are available elsewhere on this site for those who wish to examine the wider picture.