The Lord Advocate:

Over the past five years, there has been a sizeable increase in the number of prosecutors and the cohort of Crown counsel has increased from 18 to 25, with eight ad hoc deputes in regular use. As a result of successes of police forces throughout Scotland, we are receiving more and more major project cases involving, for example, organised crime and murder, which we are tackling at a higher and more sophisticated level than we have ever been able to. As those new cases raise challenges, we have changed our working practices to ensure that teams are set up to deal with them and that Crown counsel become involved at the very earliest stage. Moreover, according to police forces in Scotland, 42 cold-case murders have become subject to the same kind of investigation as the case under discussion this afternoon.

As a result of our information technology, skills and training, we have never been better prepared for dealing with such cases. However, major pressures and challenges continue to exist for the prosecution service. The time constraints are a major issue and the disclosure measures, which came to us some 18 months ago through a case in the Privy Council, have added to that. I constantly consider the available resources with the aim of making better use of our people and IT to ensure that we provide an efficient, effective and resilient prosecution service. I am in discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth about the current financing of the department.