Commissioner initiates preliminary consultation on the shape and form of our next 4-year Strategic Plan
The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Dr Brian Plastow has this week initiated preliminary consultation on the potential shape and form of our next 4-year strategic plan.
Our current 4-year Strategic Plan will expire on 30 November 2025 and over the period since 2021 the Commissioner will have developed a National Assessment Framework, a statutory Code of Practice, laid 4 Annual Reports and Accounts before the Parliament, an Operational Report, 5 separate thematic Assurance Reviews, a Joint Review of the Laws of Retention with Scottish Government, two separate rounds of compliance assessments on the Code, and will have conducted the first statutory 3-year review of the Code of Practice and updated the Code. Our thematic Assurance Review topics have examined biometric data acquired from children and vulnerable adults, images and recordings, DNA, and retrospective image search within PND and CAID and where necessary, have made recommendations for improvement.
Our current Strategic Plan and our Annual Reports and Accounts can be found under the Information tab on our website, and our National Assessment Framework, Code of Practice and thematic Assurance Reviews on the Operations tab of our website.
In the preliminary phase of consultation, the Commissioner has written to Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority, and the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner seeking the views of the bodies to whom our functions extend. Other phases will follow over the spring and summer months as a draft of the next strategic plan is developed as the basis for wider public consultation. The Commissioner has also engaged the assistance of Evaluation Support Scotland to frame our next strategic plan around an outcomes based theory of change logic model.
Once fully developed, our next 4-year strategic plan will be presented to the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB) for approval in the autumn prior to laying in Parliament in October 2025.