Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 10 March 2016
10 Mar 2016 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
General Question Time
Sex Offenders (Monitoring)
Decisions on where sex offenders live are based on where they can be appropriately monitored and supervised and on minimising any risk that they might pose. In their report on the MAPPA procedures that we operate, HMICS and the Care Inspectorate picked up issues of streamlining and reducing the bureaucracy of the environmental risk assessment that is undertaken by the MAPPA responsible authorities in considering any accommodation issues.
As I set out to Mr Martin, work is being taken forward to implement that report’s recommendations. I assure Christine Grahame that we regularly monitor issues relating to sex offenders to ensure that, when the operation of the robust measures that we have in place can be improved, we improve it.
In the same item of business
2. Paul Martin (Glasgow Provan) (Lab)
Lab
To ask the Scottish Government how many registered sex offenders there are in Scotland and what resources are being allocated to monitor them. (S4O-05647)
The Cabinet Secretary for Justice (Michael Matheson)
SNP
Police Scotland’s national offender management unit is responsible for collating and publishing statistics about registered sex offenders, the details of whi...
Paul Martin
Lab
I do not want to be directed to a website; I want the specific figure. I advise the cabinet secretary that the latest figures provided by the Scottish Govern...
Michael Matheson
SNP
I am aware of the statistics that the member refers to, but he will be aware that a significant proportion of those are associated with historical cases that...
Christine Grahame (Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale) (SNP)
SNP
On the housing of registered sex offenders, I return to a regular concern of mine: the national accommodation strategy for sex offenders. As the cabinet secr...
Michael Matheson
SNP
Decisions on where sex offenders live are based on where they can be appropriately monitored and supervised and on minimising any risk that they might pose. ...
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (Lab)
Lab
I think that the cabinet secretary is aware of my particular concern about the rehousing of sex offenders in multistorey flats and other properties with comm...
Michael Matheson
SNP
As the member will be aware, I just pointed out that under MAPPA and the national accommodation strategy for sex offenders, an environmental risk assessment ...