Section 15: Restitution order and victim surcharge
80.This section makes similar provision for Scotland in Part 3 of POCA to that made for England and Wales by the amendments to section 13 of POCA by section 6. The effect is to provide for the payment of the victim surcharge and the amount due under a restitution order to have priority call on monies paid under a confiscation order. A restitution order can be made under section 253A of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (this section is not yet in force) by the criminal courts in Scotland when a person has been convicted of an offence under section 90(1) of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 (police assaults etc) and the court considers it is appropriate that the accused pays a sum into a Restitution Fund (which is used to provide support services to the victims of this particular offence). A victim surcharge order is made under section 253F of the Criminal Procedure Act 1995 by the criminal courts in Scotland in certain circumstances and requires the accused to pay an amount into the Victim Surcharge Fund (which is used to provide support services to the victims of crime). The intention of these provisions is to ensure that, should the accused have insufficient means to satisfy all the financial orders against him or her in full, any amounts owed to the victims of crime will take priority over the amounts owed to the government.