The Management of Offenders etc Scotland Act 2005 placed a legal responsibility on North Lanarkshire Council, South Lanarkshire Council, Strathclyde Police and the Scottish Prison Service to implement Multi-agency Public Protection arrangements in the Lanarkshire Community Justice Authority Area.

Within this area NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have a duty to co- operate and play a key role in these arrangements.

Which offenders are subject to MAPPA?

Category 1: Registered Sex Offenders - sexual offenders required to comply with the notification requirements (often referred to as registration) set out in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. (As of April 2007).

Category 2: Violent offenders - violent offenders convicted on indictment of a crime inferring personal violence and who are on probation or subject to licence following release. (To be confirmed when applicable to MAPPA).

Category 3: Other Offenders - offenders who do not fall into categories 1 or 2, but who have been convicted of an offence which leads the responsible authorities to believe that they continue to pose a risk of serious harm to the public and require multi agency management.

How dangerous are the MAPPA offenders?

MAPPA enable resources and attention to be focused on those who present the highest risks.

National MAPPA guidance indicates the use of three levels of management:

Level 1: the risks posed by the offender are such that they could be competently managed by a single agency without significantly involving other agencies. The majority of MAPPA cases fall into this level.

Level 2: Inter-agency risk management. This level of risk or complexity of the case is effectively managed by active involvement of more than one agency.

Level 3: Multi-Agency Public Protection Panels (or MAPPPs). The criteria for these critical few cases present as high or very high risk and require close co-operation and oversight at a senior level.

Why are all sex offenders not subject to the highest level of supervision (Level 3 MAPPP)?

It is important that we target resources at those persons who pose the greatest risk to the public. The MAPPP is intended to consider only those critical few offenders whose management is so problematic that multi-agency cooperation and oversight at a senior level is required, together with the authority to commit exceptional resources.

Sex offending spans a wide range of behaviour and it is important that the resources are concentrated against those offenders who may present the highest risk of harm to our communities.

Allocation to a MAPPA level is a combination of the level of risk and the complexity of risk management required.

The focus of MAPPA is the risk and serious harm to others. So all risk assessments, definitions, and decisions are against this criteria.

Who checks it is all working?

A Strategic Management / Steering Group has been established to monitor and review the effectiveness of MAPPA arrangements across the Responsible Authorities that make up Lanarkshire Community Justice Authority (CJA) area. The Strategic Management Board is chaired by a senior representative from one of the Responsible Authorities which include the Police, Social Work Services, Scottish Prison Services, Health and other local authority and voluntary agencies. Both local authority areas have a Chief Officers' Group for Public Protection who also are kept informed of necessary developments.