West Lothian's Justice Teams and their Services

The number of services run by Social Policy's Justice Services has increased dramatically in the past twenty years. We note here the structure of our service, to help you understand the different teams and the services that each one provides.

Senior Manager (Justice and Looked after Children)

Pauline Cochrane

  • Senior management responsibility for some elements of children's services, and for Justice Services. Strategic responsibility for all Public Protection outcomes and objectives.

Group Manager (Justice Services) 

Gillian Oghene

  • The Group Manager has overall responsibility for the delivery of our services on a day-to-day basis. She also co-operates with other Justice Service managers across Scotland on the planning, implementation and delivery of new national services through membership of the Social Work Scotland Justice Standing Committee.

 

Assessment and Early Intervention Team

Manager - John Young

The Team is responsible for:

  • Provision of Court Social Work Service service at Livingston Court.
  • Preparation of all Court Reports on people aged 21 and over who are awaiting sentence and who are not current users of CJ services.
  • A structured deferred sentence is a flexible intervention providing structured social work support for individuals post-conviction but prior to sentencing. They can be used for people who have offended with underlying issues that might be addressed through social work and/or multi-agency intervention.
  • Bail Services - Bail Information and Bail Supervision
  • Diversion from Prosecution Scheme

 

Community Payback Team

Managers - Richard Amos, Norma Paterson (Supervision) and Jacqueline Norris (Unpaid Work)

Supervision of all people aged 21 and over who are sentenced to:

  • Community Payback Orders
  • Probation Orders.The Community Payback Order replaced community service orders, supervised attendance orders and probation orders on 1st February 2011 and is available to courts for offences committed on or after that date. The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 provides the legislative framework for Community Payback Orders.
  • Community Service Orders (including Unpaid Work as a condition of a Probation Order).
  • Procurator Fiscal Work Offers.
  • Running of offence-focused groupwork programmes.

 

Justice Throughcare Team

Manager - Amy Queen

The Team is responsible for:

 

Drug Treatment and Testing Order Team

Manager - John Young

The Team is responsible for:

 

Youth Justice Team

Manager - Kevin Carter

The Youth Justice Team works with young people who:

  • are aged under 21 years;
  • are assessed as being at medium to high risk of re-offending; and
  • are subject to Children's Hearing Supervision Requirements or Community Payback Orders.

The Youth Justice team supports:

  • voluntary engagement and work with young people at risk of harm to themselves or others.

 

Assess and Connect Team (ACT) / Early and Effective Intervention (EEI)

Team Manager - Craig Turner

The Assess & Connect Team work with young people who:

  • are aged from 10-16 years of age;
  • display an early pattern of antisocial behaviour in the community as part of an early intervention approach; and
  • have no current or recent Social Work involvement.

We take a contextual safeguarding approach to our work. This means we consider young people's situations with respect to both their peer groups, and the places they spend time socialising in within the community, as part of our overall assessment and support. We work with young people and their families on a voluntary basis.

 

Early and Effective Intervention Forum:

The overarching aim is to intervene and divert young people from the Justice System. Where there has been an alleged offence, an assessment is made around possible interventions that will reduce the likelihood of further reoffending episodes. 

Early and Effective Intervention forms part of West Lothian Council's overall Early Intervention Strategy.   

 

HMP Addiewell Prison-based Social Work Team

Manager - Mary Graham (based at Addiewell Prison)

The Prison-based Social Work Team's main responsibilities are:

  • Involvement in Integrated Case Management (ICM) system
  • Risk-assessment of long-term prisoners
  • Liaison with community-based Social Workers

 

High Risk Offenders

Lead Officer - Viv Murphy

Responsible for:

  • administration of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), for sexual offenders.
  • involvement in the management of high-risk behaviour through participation in:
    • Multi-Agency Partnership for Violent Offenders (MAPVO),
    • Multi-Agency Tasking and Co-ordination (MATAC), for perpetrators of domestic abuse.
    • Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences  (MARAC), which address the needs of victims of domestic abuse

 

Service Development- Community Justice

Fiona MacKenzie and Zoe Stewart

Responsible for:

  • Planning and implementation of services, performance review and publicity.
  • Developing strategy for rolling out of Community Justice arrangements in West Lothian.