Scottish Ministers have made the Parole Board (Scotland) Amendment Rules 2026, with commencement on 25 March 2026. The instrument amends the Parole Board (Scotland) Rules 2022 and applies to cases referred to the Parole Board for Scotland on or after 25 March 2026.
A new Rule 11 requires any panel considering a case to take into account the likely impact of its decision on the safety and security of any victim and any family member of a victim. This implements commitments in the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 that place victim safety more squarely within parole decision-making. (gov.scot)
Alongside the new duty, the Rules retain the established factors a panel may consider, including the nature and circumstances of the offence, the person’s conduct in custody, assessed risk of offending or causing harm on licence, the credibility of proposed release plans, and the potential effects on others (including the person’s own family) if released or re‑released. These reflect the 2022 framework already used by the Board. (scottishparoleboard.scot)
For clarity, “victim” is defined for these purposes as the person against or in respect of whom the offence was committed. The revised Rule 11 also states that panels are not obliged to seek additional information about victims or their family members, signalling that the new duty is applied to the information already before the Board rather than creating a separate investigatory function for panels.
A new Rule 12 applies to cases where a person has been convicted of murder or culpable homicide in Scotland, or an equivalent UK offence, and the victim’s remains have not been recovered. In such cases, when deciding whether to release (other than specified statutory exceptions), the panel must take into account whether there are reasonable grounds to believe the person has information about how or where the remains were disposed of and has not disclosed it. This converts what was previously a permissive consideration into a mandatory one in these circumstances. (gov.scot)
The duty under Rule 12 is not an automatic bar to release and it operates alongside the wider statutory tests. It does not apply to decisions under sections 3A(4) or 17(4) of the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993, reflecting that certain re‑release and recall provisions follow separate statutory routes.
These amendments give practical effect to provisions introduced by the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Act 2025, which passed the Scottish Parliament on 17 September 2025 and received Royal Assent on 30 October 2025. The Act’s reforms include measures requiring the Parole Board to consider victim safety explicitly and to factor in non‑disclosure of remains in no‑body homicide cases. (parliament.scot)
Operationally, dossiers prepared for panels should now surface victim safety considerations and any relevant exclusion‑zone proposals with greater specificity, while maintaining existing data protections. Panels must record how victim and family safety was weighed against risk assessments and release proposals, with reasons communicated through established post‑decision arrangements. (scottishparoleboard.scot)
For victims and families, the change means that safety implications are a required part of the Board’s assessment rather than simply one possible factor. For prisons, social work, and legal representatives, case preparation should anticipate closer scrutiny of release plans where risk to named individuals is a concern and, in no‑body homicide cases, the practical steps taken by the person to disclose information (or explain non‑disclosure) will be material to the panel’s judgment. (gov.scot)