Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill
As the minister for children, with responsibility for the protection of children and the implementation of the PVG scheme, my primary focus is on the protection of children, young people and vulnerable groups. The notion of allowing any group of people who have been convicted of a particular offence to opt out of the process is anathema to me. Everyone must be covered by the same regime. Once we start unpicking that regime, it will be extremely difficult and it could be the thin end of the wedge, with other special interest groups coming into play. The whole fabric of our protection scheme would be unpicked.
My ministerial role does not cover the issue of routes out of prostitution, so I turn to my colleague, who can give the committee a clearer exposition of the Government’s approach to that particular matter.
Thank you for that lengthy and detailed statement, minister. As you said at the beginning, the situation is complex. The more the committee has investigated the issue, the more we have realised the full complexity of it and the potential unintended consequences to which you referred. That is why we are taking evidence from you today with a view to deciding how to proceed or not, as the case may be.
You said that this had all come about because of paragraphs 162 to 164 of the committee’s report, which detail our meeting someone in the 218 centre. We were given to understand that they were excluded from certain work—they said retail and child care—and it seemed to us that prostitution was being singled out. However, we have since realised that that is not the case. The committee is aware that the situation is not confined to women or to particular offences but reflects the length of sentence. We also recognise the need to protect vulnerable groups.
That said, it nevertheless seems that there is a potential conflict between the Government’s aim to provide women with routes out of prostitution and the current situation whereby the prostitution offence must be disclosed not only when someone applies for work in child care. I was overwhelmed when I read schedule 4 to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Scotland) Order 2003 and saw the full list of occupations, professions and employments that are potentially covered. If we can tease out that issue, that would be extremely helpful.
Certainly. My colleague George Burgess can perhaps respond.
We will move on, as Elaine Smith wants to come in. I appreciate that we are considering employment in child care, as per the amendment, but we have also raised wider issues about employment, given the length of schedule 4. We can come back to that issue, and the committee would welcome further consideration by the minister on that point, because it might be at the heart of the routes out of prostitution legislation and the question of where a potential conflict might exist. Meaningful work could be done on that.
I thank the minister for coming, because we are discussing a complex issue. Before I go any further, I believe that we must make it clear at the start of our discussion that prostitution has been firmly viewed by the current Scottish Government and all through the previous Scottish Executive as being on the spectrum of violence against women. Most women who are involved in prostitution—the majority of prostitutes, although not all, are women—are vulnerable, and many have been abused.
Will the minister expand on his point that it might not be appropriate for women who have been involved in prostitution to work with young men or people with disabilities? We need to know exactly he means by that; I am slightly concerned. There is a view that prostitution involves a Belle de Jour/femme fatale type of person, rather than that it is violence against women, but that is not the reality.
12:00
Convener, we do not have time to check the Official Report, so I am reliant on the minister explaining again what it was that he said in his opening remarks about prostitutes working with young men or people with disabilities rather than children.
That was not my understanding of the minister’s previous comments, convener, but I will obviously have to leave it there.
I wish to consider the problem from a different point of view. I appreciate the need for consistency in the law, and I very much welcome the idea of examining individual cases, which is important.
George Burgess was talking about the guidance about attitudes that was issued by, I think, Glasgow City Council. It is important for that to be made more widely available. Members would like to see it, for a start. If it could be put on record, that in itself would be a step forward.
As Elaine Smith was saying, I think that it is now accepted that prostitution is part of the spectrum of violence against women. I am not suggesting that all the people who are used in prostitution are victims, but at least some of them form a very vulnerable group. The statistics indicate that some of them are drawn in at a frighteningly young age. The matter comes under the auspices of the minister.
I appreciate and welcome the move that the Parliament has made to challenge the demand for prostitution. We are now trying to move that forward. There will be suggestions from some people that we should decriminalise prostitution, but that has not been particularly successful in various countries.
How can we move forward? How will prostitution-related offences—and only those offences—be treated under the scheme? I expect you to say, “In the same way as everything else.” However, if everybody had a copy of the guidance that has been mentioned, if we were moving on and if there were more plans to continue the important work of Routes Out of Prostitution, it would feel much more like we were making progress.
12:15
This partly goes back to the earlier question about what risks someone who is a former prostitute might pose if they worked with teenage boys or a protected adult who displays sexualised behaviour. If the woman herself is vulnerable, there is a risk to that individual as much as there is a risk to the client. Abusive types of relationships could be established that would not necessarily be the fault of either the vulnerable woman in the post or the client who received the service. However, if the employer was completely blind to the woman’s past, they would not know that she might need help and support to succeed in her work. Removing such information from what the employer is entitled to know might not be in the best interest of a woman who has a troubled history of prostitution.
The PVG scheme provides a rounded picture, and there are good examples of employers employing people with troublesome histories relating to a variety of types of inappropriate behaviour. We certainly had a lot of discussion during the passage of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Bill about how such things as past drug convictions would be dealt with. Would the fact that someone had a serious drug problem as a teenager prevent them from working with children in the future? The answer to that must be no, in the same way as it would be for someone with a past history of work as a prostitute; they would not necessarily be unsuitable to work with vulnerable groups in the future. The key thing is that the information is known and understood, and that any residual risk is properly understood.
It is equally important for an employer to know that the person has had problems in the past and might therefore need some additional protection. That would protect the individual as well as the client. I can foresee a situation where someone with a history of having worked as a prostitute is put into a situation with teenage boys and, for whatever reason, their history becomes apparent. In such a situation, I think that the individual employee would be at quite a high risk of abuse from the clients with whom she is working. If that history is not known to an employer, you can imagine the story appearing on the front page of The Scotsman. I do not think that that is a position that employers would want to be in, nor indeed is it the position that the committee is trying to drive towards.
Are you suggesting that the employer might abuse their position?
That sort of scenario needs to be looked at. When information is given when an individual takes up employment, that individual needs to be protected, too, because they could be hugely vulnerable.
Yes. There are rules to which employers who use Disclosure Scotland services have to sign up. There is a code of practice about the information that they get, what they are allowed to do with it and what they are not allowed to do with it. Compliance with that is tightly controlled. The scenario that you gave, in which somebody uses the information on a disclosure certificate to exploit and abuse the individual employee, is much more difficult to control. As you said, that could happen with a range of other offences. The employer could discover that the individual was previously a pickpocket or shoplifter or had been involved in financial fraud and they could seek to exploit that information in criminal ways. All we can do is say that they are likely to be exceptions. We need to make it clear that the police could and should take very strong action in any case in which such issues are raised.
There are obviously a lot of scenarios. The PVG scheme and the guidelines seem to cover quite a lot. The committee might be reassured to an extent if the minister would take the point that we are raising, which is on another aspect altogether, and perhaps look at trying to strengthen the protection for the vulnerable person—the person with convictions under section 46 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982—who could be prey to an employer that sought to use the information in a way for which it was never intended or to take advantage of the employee. It might be good to re-emphasise some of the ethos and guidelines around Routes Out of Prostitution. To say to any potential employer, “This person is on the map and there will be checks and balances,” or at least to imply that, might just give a degree of extra protection, which might be helpful. If the minister would consider that, the committee would be very grateful.
I do not think that there is any specific evidence that would link difficulties in getting former prostitutes into employment with the operation of the Police Act 1997 or the disclosure scheme. However, in the Scottish Executive guidance that I mentioned, the starting point was that individuals with a history of prostitution will almost inevitably find it difficult to get into employment. When such a conviction is still quite fresh, it will be disclosed even in basic disclosures. There is also evidence that people with such a conviction on their record often have a history of abuse, with them as the victim. Misuse of alcohol and drugs is commonly involved, too. It is unlikely to be a prostitution conviction on its own that creates a difficulty for someone getting into employment.
As I said, services are available through the likes of Apex Scotland to help ex-offenders to present themselves as well as possible and to help them back into employment. There is also the other activity that I mentioned in Glasgow and elsewhere to work with employers and encourage them not to take a stereotypical approach to someone with such a conviction.
If we are leaving aside disclosure issues, my justice colleagues would need to be engaged in the exercise, so I hesitate to commit them to doing that. However, I can certainly feed back to my colleagues that the committee has a desire to investigate the issues, and I am sure that justice ministers would engage.
Go on, I dare you. [Laughter.]
12:30
I do not think so. We have gone over the ground fairly thoroughly. As I said, the issue is complex, given the interaction between various pieces of legislation.
I assure the committee that we are aware of the issues that members raised in relation to convictions for prostitution. We want to ensure that every case is considered on its merits and that a particular group is not singled out for adverse treatment. I hope that we have got that message over to the committee.
Item 3 is evidence on the Government’s response to our report on female offenders in the criminal justice system, to inform our approach to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill. I welcome Adam Ingram, Minister for Children and Early Years. He is accompanied by Scottish Government officials George Burgess, who is deputy director in the criminal law and licensing division, and Michael Proctor, who is the protection of vulnerable groups programme manager. You are all welcome. Minister, do you want to make an opening statement?
I struggled to think of an occupation that was not covered by the provisions. That is an indication of how lengthy the list is. To get back to the fundamental point, how does that play against the Government’s efforts to provide women with routes out of prostitution?
The Minister for Children and Early Years (Adam Ingram)
Yes, please, and I apologise for its length. This is a complex area, in which a number of pieces of legislation interact, so it would be useful to set out the situation in detail.
First, thank you for inviting me to the meeting. I am grateful for the chance to provide more information about the Government’s thinking on the issue that you raised in paragraphs 162 to 164 of your report on female offenders in the criminal justice system, which was published in November. In your report, you asked
“why women convicted of prostitution would pose a threat to children and vulnerable people”,
and you sought clarity from the Government on the issue. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice provided an explanation in his response of 14 January. However, during the parliamentary debate on the report on 11 February the convener said that the committee was not content with the cabinet secretary’s explanation. That led the committee to consider lodging an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, which would amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Scotland) Order 2003. The wording for the proposed amendment was provided at your meeting on 23 February. I know that the committee recognised the complexity of what it was considering and thought that a further contribution from Government would help its deliberations.
Disclosure Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government. It carries out criminal record checks under part 5 of the Police Act 1997, for the purposes of recruitment and other purposes, such as licensing. Three levels of disclosure are currently available: basic, standard and enhanced. The 1997 act does not operate in isolation but interacts with the 1974 act and the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003, which provides for the list of individuals who are disqualified from working with children. The list is held by ministers.
Under the 1997 act, a person who is convicted in Scotland’s courts of any offence will find that their conviction appears on any level of disclosure that is issued thereafter, irrespective of the type of work that they are seeking. Under the 1974 act, if the person is not convicted again during a period of time, which depends on the sentence that was received at the time of conviction, the conviction will become spent. That means that if the person is asked at interview whether they have any convictions, they can legitimately answer, “No”. Spent convictions will not appear in a basic disclosure. The time period that must elapse before a conviction becomes spent depends on the sentence. However, if the sentence is imprisonment for more than 30 months, the conviction can never become spent.
The prostitution offence under section 46 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 carries a maximum penalty of a fine of £500. The 1974 act provides that after five years have elapsed from the date of conviction, where the disposal was a fine, the conviction can be regarded as spent.
The 1974 act provides an order-making power that ministers use to exclude certain types of occupation, employment and work from the provision that I described. The effect of an occupation being included in such an order is that spent and unspent convictions must be revealed if they are asked about during the recruitment process. Child care work is included in the current order, and consequently a spent prostitution-related conviction—or any other conviction, for that matter—must be revealed. The committee heard that the disclosure requirement is having an adverse impact on the ability of former prostitutes to get employment.
When the 1974 act was enacted, it was realised that employers should be able to ask different questions about previous criminal convictions and that the type of work being offered would be the differentiating factor. For that reason, an order-making power was included in the 1974 act to exclude its provisions from certain occupations.
11:45
An order to do that was first made in the United Kingdom Parliament in 1975. In making the order, a balance was sought between the rights of a now law-abiding ex-offender to live down their past and the rights of a prospective employer to know as much information as possible about a potential employee. The current order for Scotland is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Scotland) Order 2003.
When the Police Act 1997 was enacted, the UK Parliament followed the principles established in 1974 and 1975. It decided that for basic disclosures only unspent convictions under the 1974 act would be provided, and that for standard and enhanced disclosures spent and unspent convictions would be provided. That general principle remains in place today.
The amendment that the committee is considering strikes at the heart of that principle by seeking to separate out a particular offence for particular work. The consequence of that could be far reaching, and the Government is concerned that such a change might lead to other special interest groups calling for similar amendments to be made.
Let me put the impact of the amendment in context. In 2008-09, Disclosure Scotland received 313,714 applications for enhanced disclosures for work with children. Some 21,157 of the disclosures that were issued included conviction information, in which prostitution convictions appeared on only 28 occasions.
In addition, the amendment will not entirely remove the possibility of a prostitution offence being revealed on an enhanced disclosure. That is because a chief constable can provide information for inclusion on the certificate on a case-by-case basis if he or she thinks that the information might be relevant to the post. An amendment to the 1997 act along the lines proposed for the 1974 act would be needed to guarantee that that could not happen.
The committee has recognised that the lifestyle of some prostitutes and some former prostitutes can be chaotic. That means that some who are in particularly challenging circumstances might be unsuitable for child care work, but that decision should be made on a case-by-case basis by an employer who has a full picture of the person’s past. It is Government policy that employers that offer child care work should have that full picture, and we are not persuaded otherwise.
Furthermore, while a former prostitute may well be suitable to care for young children, there is a real question whether it would be appropriate for her to work with, say, vulnerable teenage boys. In addition, it may not be appropriate for a former prostitute to work with some groups of vulnerable adults. For example, some people with learning disabilities display highly sexualised behaviours. Would it be appropriate for a former prostitute to work with them? How could a potential employer make that decision without all the facts of a person’s conviction history?
The protection of vulnerable groups scheme similarly is founded on the principle, learned painfully from the lessons of the Soham murders, that all the relevant information about an individual should be brought together and considered in deciding whether they are suitable to work with vulnerable groups. Choosing to remove one piece of that jigsaw risks unintended consequences. A prostitution-related offence, in itself, is unlikely to lead to someone being barred from working with vulnerable groups, but taken alongside the rest of that person’s conviction history it may lead to a different judgment.
Lastly, I should add that Disclosure Scotland is preparing to provide the protecting vulnerable groups scheme, which will be introduced later this year. The PVG scheme will end the use of enhanced disclosures for child care work and work with protected adults. So, the proposed amendment will become redundant as that legislation becomes redundant and is taken over by the PVG scheme.
I can write to you with more information about the changes if that would be helpful. I apologise for the length of my opening statement.
This Parliament, and Parliaments before it, have grappled with the issue of prostitution for a very long time—indeed, your colleagues on the Justice Committee, in the room across the way, will shortly be dealing with some further amendments in relation to prostitution. The Parliament previously considered prostitution in great detail back in 2007, during proceedings on the Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland) Act 2007.
In tandem with that act, which was intended to tackle the purchasers—the kerb crawlers—the then Scottish Executive prepared guidance for local authorities and community planning partnerships. The guidance was accompanied by funding to the four main cities where there was a recognised issue with prostitution. It covered all the issues: challenging demand, preventing vulnerable people from becoming involved in prostitution, minimising the harm and risk that is experienced by those who are involved in prostitution, and—of particular interest to the committee—assisting those who are involved in prostitution to leave.
I am not sure whether the committee has that guidance; we can certainly make copies of it available to you. It is quite comprehensive: the section on leaving prostitution in particular recognises that individuals who have been involved in prostitution can find it difficult to find employment, and it discusses the effect of the 1974 act and the importance of employer attitudes towards women who have been convicted of soliciting.
It also refers to the support that is available through organisations such as Apex Scotland to help ex-offenders to get back into work. It refers as a matter of good practice to guidance prepared by Glasgow City Council, and encourages staff who are involved in the recruitment process not to dismiss from consideration those who might have a prostitution conviction on their record.
I was trying to make the point that every individual must be considered on a case-by-case basis, along with the range of information that is available about a particular individual. I do not want to speculate on what would and would not be acceptable.
You propose to remove the information on convictions for prostitution, which is a significant piece of information that, interacting with other information, would lead somebody to determine whether the person was suitable to work with children. Under the new protection of vulnerable groups scheme, all that information will be taken in the round. If it was deemed that the person was not unsuitable or should not be considered for listing, information would be passed on to the employer that that person was not unsuitable for working with children or vulnerable adults. However, if all the information taken together led to the conclusion that the person should be considered for listing as unsuitable to work with children and young people, we should not brush aside or suppress that information.
I am not saying that at all. I am saying that each individual case must be considered on its merits. You need to be able to gather and collate all the information that is necessary to make a considered decision.
I introduce my colleague, Michael Proctor, who is responsible for putting this legislation together.
Michael Proctor (Scottish Government Directorate of Children, Young People and Social Care)
At the moment, the process is that if an employer applies for an enhanced disclosure, all the information that is either there in respect of convictions or that the police hold and consider might be relevant to the post is gathered together and put on a disclosure, which goes out to the employer.
Under the protecting vulnerable groups scheme, anyone who seeks to work with children or protected adults will apply for membership of the scheme to work with that group of clients, rather than for a disclosure. As part of that process, any relevant information that is known about the individual will be considered in deciding whether their past behaviour suggests that they pose an unacceptable risk to work with the client group. If the decision is taken that the person poses a risk, they will be barred from such work and they will commit an offence if they seek to work in that field.
About 7 or 8 per cent of the people who apply for enhanced disclosures have some conviction history, but the vast majority of that information is not relevant to the decision whether a person is a risk. That might be because the person committed a driving offence or a minor breach of the peace when they were a teenager, whereas they are now in their mid-40s and have had a blameless record since, or because nothing suggests that the individual poses a risk.
The information about a very small proportion of applicants is sufficiently serious to raise a concern. If that is the case, the person is placed under consideration for listing and all the information about them that can be gathered is brought together. At that point, every such individual has the opportunity to make representations, which gives someone who has a bad history but who has made significant inroads into turning their life around the opportunity to present their situation. That is all taken into consideration before a decision is taken about whether the person poses a continuing risk.
What is critical about the decision is not whether what the person did in the past was morally wrong or bad but whether, if they were allowed to work with vulnerable groups, the person would pose an unacceptable risk in the future to the wellbeing of such groups.
How would the individual in the case study in the committee’s report access the opportunity to make representations?
Clearly, the PVG scheme is designed for a specific purpose, which is to protect children and young people. However, it is probably fairer than the current system, because it will establish whether an individual is unsuitable to work with children or vulnerable groups. A person with previous convictions can, and for the most part probably will, become a PVG scheme member. The employer will therefore get not only information about previous convictions but information that the person is not unsuitable to work in child care or with vulnerable adults. Of course, in the end, the employer must make their own recruitment decision, which should not be entirely down to what appears on somebody’s disclosure certificate. We obviously have a job to do in educating employers in line with the kind of approach that the committee wants taken with vulnerable folk.
Okay. That would be helpful—thank you. I was also concerned about private employers. If someone came for a job who was a vulnerable person and had a conviction for prostitution, they would open themselves up to the possibility of exploitation. Is that a possible scenario?
We will respond to that.
I have pointed out some of the statistics that we have. The number of former prostitutes who are applying for child care positions or others in the list in the schedule that the convener mentioned is small.
Thank you.
Without wishing to commit the Cabinet Secretary for Justice—
I can say that the operation of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 needs to be revisited now that we have the PVG scheme. We have proposed some amendments, which I think the committee is aware of, to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill to provide protection, which is currently absent altogether, on certain disposals that are less than a court conviction. There is a strange anomaly in how the law operates at present.
In about 2001, the Home Office did work that led to the report, “Breaking the Circle: A report on the review of the rehabilitation of offenders”. There is a widespread view that the rehabilitation periods are rather on the long side. There is a private member’s bill at Westminster, which is sponsored by Lord Dholakia, that seeks to shorten the rehabilitation periods.
The United Kingdom Government’s position has been that the 1974 act and how it operates need to be revisited in the light of PVG developments and legislation. The Scottish Government has accepted that position and we have lodged a legislative consent memorandum in relation to Lord Dholakia’s bill, whose provisions would extend to Scotland. The Scottish Government’s position is therefore on the record. Both the UK and Scottish Governments say that the 1974 act, and rehabilitation periods in particular, need to be revisited in the light of PVG and other developments during the past couple of years.
When will the PVG scheme be introduced? Will that happen towards the end of the year? The information that we have is quite vague.
We hope that the operation of PVG will go live towards the end of this year. We must lay a series of Scottish statutory instruments, so committees will no doubt have to pore over those. Perhaps the Equal Opportunities Committee will not have to do that, but I am sure that the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee will have to deal with the instruments, which will set out, for example, the offences that will automatically lead to listing or consideration for listing. The detail of such issues will need to be approved by the Parliament. We will do that work during the next few months.
There might be an opportunity for the Equal Opportunities Committee to follow up with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice some of the aspects that we have discussed with you. The committee would be satisfied with such an approach. Do you want to make a final comment?
George Burgess (Scottish Government Justice Directorate)
The 2003 order is quite daunting and the list of professions, offices, employments and occupations is lengthy. I do not think that anyone has ever calculated exactly how many individuals would be covered by it, but a lot of the individual items that are listed in it could be a single post or a small group of people. There are some professions listed, such as medicine and teaching, that cover large numbers of people, but the order looks more daunting than it is and looks as though it covers more people than it does in practice.
I was saying that each individual case has to be considered on its merits. I would not be willing to say, as you appear to be saying, that anyone convicted of prostitution should not be ruled out from working with children or vulnerable groups.
I am saying that anyone convicted of prostitution should not be de facto ruled out. That is the point that I am trying to make. Perhaps I misheard you. There is no way of checking that until we get the Official Report.
We can look at that later, but the minister has made his point that it is done on a case-by-case basis. With that, and mindful of the fact that the minister mentioned the Soham murders as a case that demonstrated that every single piece of information, even those that might not seem relevant at the time, is a piece of the jigsaw that should not be overlooked, we will move on and see how that plays out.
Can you explain how the PVG scheme will operate and how it differs from the current arrangements? You referred to matters being dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I am interested in the provisions in the scheme that give guidance to potential employers on how to determine risk.
When all the information about an individual has been gathered from criminal history systems, employer referrals as a result of dismissal or other employer sources, it is made available to the individual whose listing is under consideration. They can then make written representations themselves or via anyone whom they choose to appoint as a representative. All that information is taken only in writing and is considered on that basis. When the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007 was passed, a deliberate decision was taken that personal interviews and face-to-face representations would not be used, because that would involve more of a tribunal setting rather than a consideration of evidence.
An important point about how the legislation is framed and the scheme is implemented is that the individual’s representations carry equal weight to that of all the other evidence that is gathered. The final judgment is on whether a person poses a risk and not on whether we cannot let them join the scheme because we need to punish them for what they have done in the past.
You mentioned listing and barring arrangements. What impact will the PVG scheme have on them? Will it change those arrangements?
The first point about the barring arrangements is that Scotland has no list of people who are barred from working with vulnerable adults; we have a list only of people who are barred from working with children. People are put on that list in two ways. The first is through referral by the court on the basis of its judgment that an individual whom it has convicted of an offence poses a risk. Anyone who is referred by the court is added automatically to the barred list. The other way for someone to get on to the barred list is if an employer makes a referral having sacked an individual on the basis that they have caused harm to a child or have put a child at risk of harm.
There are more routes under consideration under the PVG scheme. At the moment, someone could be referred by a court on the basis of a conviction. If the individual had committed the offence before the 2007 act was implemented, they would not be barred on the basis of that offence. The significant additional piece of information that is considered under the PVG scheme is the conviction history.
It is important to emphasise that among the things that the consideration team in the protection unit will look at is the length of time since the previous conviction. Aside from very serious convictions, those that took place more than five years previously are unlikely to lead, on their own, to the person being listed. However, if the convictions are there along with serious allegations by the police of some other type of offending behaviour that had not led to a conviction, it is important to consider all that as a whole, rather than just looking at part of the picture.
I will reverse the order of the questions that I was going to ask, in order to follow up those last points. How exactly are decisions on which individuals are unsuitable to work with vulnerable groups made? Will it depend solely on information relating to convictions and previous convictions?
No. A panoply of information is gathered on individuals. As Michael Proctor has indicated, there might be information from employers, regulatory bodies and other such organisations, which can refer someone to what will be the new barring unit for consideration for listing. There is more than one route into being considered for listing.
I will add something about the guidance. The main guidance to which I referred was guidance from the Scottish Executive of the time to all local authorities and community planning partnerships across a range of elements: protecting vulnerable people, challenging attitudes to prostitution and tackling demand. It is quite comprehensive guidance, which referred to examples of good practice such as Routes Out of Prostitution and to Glasgow City Council’s guidance on the employment of people who may have a conviction for prostitution. What I can certainly do is ensure that the committee has access to the Scottish Government guidance, which contains references to the Glasgow City Council guidance and to many of the other projects and bits of guidance that are available.
That is helpful. What if the employer—I will say “himself”—was not quite as enlightened? That is one of the scenarios that bother me.
Yes.
Yes.
That would be a criminal act, which would need to be reported to the appropriate authorities and the police.
There are confidentiality rules about what appears on disclosure certificates, are there not?
Some of the contributions thus far have indicated the danger of taking a generalised approach to this type of situation. Some of the stereotyping, or potential stereotyping, makes for uncomfortable listening, but the PVG scheme gives me some confidence, because it will operate on an individual basis. It strikes me that, in the rehabilitation of female offenders—of any offenders, for that matter—a person-centred approach is much more constructive than a broad-brush approach. I wanted to put that point on record.
I suspect that my more formal question is more appropriately asked of Mr Ingram’s justice colleagues, but perhaps not. Do we have any evidence that organisations that work with former prostitutes are finding it difficult to get them into employment—into another lifestyle, if you like—because of the operation of the current disclosure schemes? What is the Government’s strategy for their rehabilitation?
Perhaps the minister could help us in our deliberations on how we intend to progress. One reason why we considered lodging an amendment was as a probing amendment because, as the minister knows, we raised the issue in our report. It seems that we have done some of that probing, and we know that the issue is complex. The committee will have some options to think about after this evidence session, but if we were not to go ahead with a probing amendment, would it be possible to get a Government commitment at this stage—we cannot come back to you as we will make a decision on the amendment today—to have further sessions with us to pursue the issue?
We are reassured that the PVG guidelines and provisions will be helpful and that a case-by-case approach will be taken. However, we might want to clarify outstanding issues with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. We will keep open the option of doing so, given that there seems to be a consensus that such an approach would be welcome. Thank you for appearing before the committee. This has been a worthwhile session.
As we agreed, we will review the minister’s evidence in private.
12:33
Meeting continued in private.
12:46
Meeting continued in public.
The committee has considered the minister’s evidence on the protection of vulnerable groups scheme. We have agreed not to pursue a probing amendment to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, but we will pursue the issue by monitoring the impact of the PVG scheme. We are likely to take further evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice on the matter.
Meeting closed at 12:47.