£12.5m to chase Scots fine dodgers

More than £80,000 a week is being spent chasing Scots criminals who refuse to pay court fines.

An investigation by The Sunday Post has revealed that for every £5 raised in raised in revenue over the last three years, £1 was spent chasing dodgers.

New figures also show more than 1,000 warning letters, court citations and arrest warrants are now being issued to criminals ignoring fine demands every working day with rates trebling in the last five years.

Critics last night claimed the crisis shows there’s something “fundamentally wrong” with the justice system.

Labour MSP Duncan McNeil said: “The police are being diverted from tackling organised crime and keeping our streets safe.

“Courts are being diverted from concentrating on the most serious of cases.

“And, to make matters worse, despite the huge cost involved in tracking down fine defaulters, tens of thousands of fines are going unpaid and offenders clearly don’t believe there will be any serious repercussions for not paying up.

“Kenny MacAskill needs to take responsibility for this mess.

“If he fails to get a grip on the situation there is a real danger that victims’ confidence in the justice system will be undermined, leading to fewer crimes being reported.

“There is also a risk that police officers become demoralised because they are being taken away from the very reason they got into the force, which is to protect the public.”

Figures released under freedom of information show that a total of 830,000 warning letters, warrants and citations were issued to criminals between 2009/10 and 2011/12.

But thousands are still simply refusing to pay.

The total number of citations and warrants issued in 2006/07 was 48,770, but by 2011/12 this had risen to 142,171.

Last year also saw a total of 156,215 warning letters issued, bringing the total number of enforcement actions to 1,179 every working day.

A 2011 Scottish Government study shows the estimated cost of sending a warning letter is £3.18, £131 for an arrest warrant and £112.71 for a court citation.

However, court bosses yesterday claimed the actual costs are much lower as only around 25% of citations result in a court hearing taking place and the majority of letters are now issued automatically.

The SCS does not keep figures on how much it spends on enforcing fines but estimates the cost between 2009/10 and 2011/12 to be around £12.5m.

Over the same period, a total of £62.4m was collected in fines from criminals.

An SCS spokesman said: “Improving collection rates are the clearest indicator that our collection and enforcement processes and sanctions are working well.

“We intend to continue with our policy of rigorously enforcing all fines.

“We do recognise there are opportunities to reduce enforcement costs and we are seeking changes that will reduce police and judicial involvement in the process and in turn reduce these costs.

“We are pursuing data sharing arrangements with other government bodies that will allow us to track a defaulter who moves from benefits into work through DWP information, and accessing DVLA records will let us clamp cars belonging to fine defaulters to secure quick payments.”