The series stars Suranne Jones, Lesley Sharp, Amelia Bullmore, Nicholas Gleaves, Danny Miller and Pippa Haywood.

Scott & Bailey was commissioned after the concept was introduced to executive producer Nicola Shindler, who brought it to writer Sally Wainwright.

[4] Jones later spoke of the programme, saying it is "the Cagney & Lacey of Manchester",[6] though she acknowledged that Scott & Bailey as a drama was more "gritty" and "real".

[7] Subsequently, Wainwright paired up with Diane Taylor,[7] a former Detective Inspector from Greater Manchester Police, to create the programme, and the production expanded from Jones and Lindsay's original concept.

[8] Scott & Bailey is produced by Manchester-based Red Production Company, which itself is majority owned by StudioCanal following an acquisition estimated at £30 million in December 2013.

[9] Nicola Shindler, who founded the company in 1998, is the programme's executive producer alongside writer Sally Wainwright and Tom Sherry.

Amelia Bullmore, who plays Gill Murray, wrote three episodes; Wainwright had wanted to get other writers involved in the process.

Jones, who had always envisaged herself playing Rachel Bailey when the idea of the project came in to mind, was given the role, though at the programme's pre-production stages the character had a different first name, Cathy.

[22] In a continuing story arc for the third series, Nicola Walker was cast in the role of Helen Bartlett, a character driven to emotional instability by past events unearthed by the Manchester Metropolitan Police.

[11] When discussing the filming of Scott & Bailey, Jones said "I can't pretend it wasn't a tough shoot, both emotionally and physically, because it was",[28] before adding that on the last day of filming she had to shoot a gruelling scene involving her chasing a suspect from a crime scene, while Sharp and Bullmore "were having massages and facials ready for the wrap party".

[29] In November it was reported that while filming on Hamilton Road, Whitefield—the set of DC Scott's home—that an emergency call was made after a member of the television crew, a lighting technician, became stranded on top of a "cherry-picker style platform" 12 metres (39 ft) above the ground.

Tom Sutcliffe of The Independent remarked that although it was a "less-than-courageous decision" for ITV to commission a detective drama for Sunday nights, Scott & Bailey had "genuine signs of life in the thing".

[48] Sam Wollaston of The Guardian, however, questioned the plausibility of the idea that the character of Rachel would not realise her partner of two years was already married, considering she was a detective, and described the series as "Lewis with skirts on".

[47] Horatia Harrod, reviewing the third series for The Daily Telegraph, praised the programme's script and its likeness to reality in portraying the professional conduct of modern policing, stating: "this is a beautifully engineered programme: it's both pleasingly sudsy and deliciously grisly, but manages to transcend both the soap and detective genres [...] Somehow Sally Wainwright, the show's creator and writer, has made the traditionally dull quality of professional competence seem positively thrilling".

[52] John Preston of The Daily Telegraph gave a mixed review: though he commended the acting of Sharp and Jones, he stated that "it badly needs some shape and tension".

Dianne Butler, who reviewed the programme upon its airing in Australia, made a similar point, questioning the relevance of the show's male characters: "there are some men in this but they're fairly incidental".

The programme's closest rival was a broadcast of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which received 20.9% of the audience share.

[61] Scott and Bailey aired as the follow-on programme from Britain's Got Talent, which had received 9.86 million viewers and a 40.4% audience share in its timeslot.

[66] The programme continued to outperform its competitors in its timeslot until the end of its first series, beating competition including BBC One dramas Case Histories and Stolen.