Domestic Homicide and Suicide Review Statutory Guidance
Overview
This consultation seeks views on the draft statutory guidance for undertaking domestic homicide and suicide reviews in Scotland.
The Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Act 2025 creates a Statutory framework for undertaking domestic homicide and suicide reviews which look to learn lessons following a domestic abuse related fatality. To support the review process, the 2025 Act makes provision for the Scottish Ministers' to issue statutory guidance. The statutory guidance has been developed through collaborative working with stakeholders from justice, health, social work, local government, academia and the third sector in Scotland, the wider UK and internationally.
Collectively, these views have shaped and informed the draft statutory guidance which we are now seeking wider views on ahead of implementation of the model which is anticiapted to commence on 1st April 2026.
Read the consultation paper. The consultation paper contains full background information for this consultation. You may find it useful to read or refer to while responding.
Consultation questions preview
The consultation questions are included here for your reference. Please click 'Begin consultation' at the bottom of this page to proceed.
- Is the content of ‘Section 2 Legislation clear?
- Is the content of ‘Section 3 Review Oversight Committee Chair and Case Review Panel’ clear?
- Is the content of ‘Section 4 Death Notifications and Referrals’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 5 Notification of review revocation: Suspension and Discontinuation of Review Proceedings’ clear?
- Is the content of ‘Section 6.1 Terms of Reference for a review (including timeframe for the review’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 6.2 Data Sharing and Data Protection’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 6.3 Case Review Panel and Chair’ clear?
- Is the content of ‘Section 6.4 Assembling a Case Review Panel’ clear?
- Is the content of ‘Section 6.5 Additional expertise’ clear?
- Is the content of ‘Section 6.6 Combined Deaths and Joint Reviews’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 6.7 Combined and Joint Review Terms of Reference’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content on the ‘Section 6.8 National Hub for Reviewing and Learning from the Deaths of Children and Young People’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 7 Engagement with Family, Friends, Colleagues and Communities’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 8.1 Individual Management Review' clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 8.2 Animals’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 8.3 Requesting relevant information on person A and services, including children of person A’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 8.4 Involvement of family, friends and others including support services and bereaved children’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 8.5 Establishing a timeline/ chronology’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 8.6 Domestic Homicide Reviews – additional factors’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 8.7 Domestic Abuse Related Suicide Reviews – additional factors’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 9 Review Analysis’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 10.1 Identifying Learning, Recommendations and Actions clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 10.2 Preparing Review Reports’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 10.5 Anonymity of persons’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 10.6 Sharing draft review reports’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 10.7 Finalising draft review reports’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 10.8 Submitting report to Review Oversight Committee for Quality Assurance’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 11 Publication of Reports and Dissemination of Learning’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Is the content of ‘Section 12 Biennial Thematic Reports’ clear and do you have any comments?
- Do you think ‘Flowchart for each section of the whole process’ is useful?
- Do you think there are any ways that the guidance could be improved overall?
- Is there anything missing in the guidance that you would like to see included?
Useful information about responding to this consultation
As you complete your response, each page will provide the option to 'Save and come back later' at the bottom. This means you can save your progress and return to the consultation at any time before it closes. If you don't use this feature and leave the consultation midway through, your response will be lost.
Once you have submitted your response, you can enter your email address to get a pdf copy of your answers sent to you.
On the 'About You' page at the end of this consultation, organisations will have the opportunity to tell us more about their work and/or how their response was informed.
After the consultation has closed there will be a few months delay before any responses are published. This is because we must check any responses to be published abide by our Terms of Use.
All relevant submitted responses will be analysed. This may be carried out by third party organisations who Scottish Government, its executive agencies or non-ministerial offices, contract to do this work. Such data sharing will be governed by appropriate contractual arrangements to keep your data secure.
An analysis report will usually be published some months after the consultation has closed. This report will summarise the findings based on all responses submitted. It will be published on the Scottish Government website and you may be notified about it if you choose to share your email address with us.
You can also join our consultation mailing list where we regularly list newly published analysis reports (as well as new consultations).
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