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A joint report by the Social Work Inspection Agency and HM Inspectorates of Constabulary and of Prisons on the management of serious violent and sexual offenders was published today.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said:

"Public protection is a key priority for the Scottish Government as we deliver a record number of police to help drive crime down to its lowest level in a quarter of a century.

"Over the last decade the Parliament has legislated to significantly reform the public protection regime, building on Lord MacLean's 2000 report into serious violent and sexual offenders, and the Cosgrove and Irving reviews of sex offender management.

"Given these changes to law and practice by which police, social work, prison and other agencies are tasked with protecting our communities, we must continually assess progress and I'm grateful to the Inspectors for conducting this review.

"They acknowledge the improvements delivered by integrated case management for long-term prisoners and multi-agency public protection arrangements introduced in 2007 to strengthen how criminal justice professionals work together to deal with sex offenders.

"The first MAPPA annual reports, published last year, confirmed that the vast majority of offenders now managed under this regime comply with the conditions imposed on them.

"As the Inspectors note, even when agencies work well to reduce risks posed by serious violent or sex offenders, such is the nature of these people that risk can't be fully eliminated.

"I've announced plans for a pilot to begin in Tayside this autumn to give parents improved access to information about individuals who may be registered sex offenders who have direct contact with their children.

"Public protection is a continuous process and the Inspectors have outlined the key areas where we and our criminal justice partners can further strengthen processes - some of which we have been driving forward already since they undertook their local inspections.

"Much collaborative work is now in place to support improved, consistent standards across the country for supervising high-risk offenders, including robust testing of new methods of risk of harm assessment, and for further safeguarding communities.

"The report's findings and recommendations provide a benchmark against which the Scottish Government wants to see continuous improvement and progress measured, using the new scrutiny structures that we are setting up."

Since the Inspectorates began their review, the Scottish Government and criminal justice partners have:

• Committed record investment in the prison estate and launched an offender management programme to reduce re-offending and help tackle overcrowding, enabling prison officers and other professionals to focus on serious, dangerous criminals
• Introduced a Criminal Justice & Licensing Bill, giving law enforcement agencies and courts greater powers to impose obligations, as well as restrictions on convicted sex offenders
• Completed the national implementation of, and trained more than 800 police, prison and social work staff in, dynamic risk assessment of sex offenders - the first part of the UK to do so - to ensure all Registered Sex Offenders are assessed this way
• Begun the development of a national risk assessment and risk management framework and progressed the penultimate phase of work to roll out a single shared risk assessment and management approach, including risk of serious harm, across prison and community settings
• Further expanded criminal justice social work access to, and specialist training in, the offender information-sharing network, ViSOR, and extended ViSOR access to the Scottish Prison Service and Scottish Government Mental Health Division
• Enhanced the technical capability of ViSOR, which will free up valuable resources by reducing the amount of staff time spend entering information onto the system

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