Victim Notification Scheme (VNS): independent review

Section 28: Police Scotland - Public Interest Disclosure

The process for disclosing sensitive personal information about an identifiable individual when disclosure is deemed necessary in the public interest, and there is a degree of urgency because no other options are applicable or there are no specific statutory powers available, is known as "Public Interest Disclosure". It had been suggested to us that Public Interest Disclosure might be a tool to notify victims where there was some urgency.

This procedure is designed for disclosing sensitive personal information about an individual to a body, agency, employer or person in a position to mitigate the risks arising from that person's behaviour.

We have been told that this process is used only very rarely and it would be unlikely to be used, other than in exceptional circumstances. There are a number of considerations and safeguards around the exercise of this power and this is not understood by victims.

Feedback from victims has been that they are concerned about their safety when offenders are released, but they do not clearly understand what safety planning has been done by the agencies involved, or how much responsibility they need to take themselves. Where voluntary support organisations are involved, this will assist, but they may not be involved in every case.

Our enquiries established that risk management arrangements are intended to be proportionate to the risk assessed. An action plan will depend on which agency has the lead, Justice Social Work or Police Scotland, for example. We learned that the SPS database, PR2, will flag to MAPPA partners that there is a VNS registration, but it goes no further and does not identify if there is one or multiple victims and what information they may have requested. We were told this limitation is perceived by MAPPA partners as a hindrance. We have commented on the shortcomings of this above.

We were told that unless there are specific licence conditions, an offender may not be made to reside in a specific place. Where an Environmental Risk Assessment is carried out, proximity to known victims is a consideration and may lead to an address being rejected.

With respect to information given to registered victims, we were not persuaded that there is a clear set of guidelines which link VNS notification to MAPPA or MARACs and this apparent gap should be addressed. If there were an expert victim contact team member managing information to the victim, much of this confusion could be avoided. The liaison person could also explain what the safety plans cover and what they do not. There would need to be an agreement or protocol between a victim contact team and these partnerships for this to be enabled.

Recommendation 16. VNS Flag. Section 28

We recommend that, where there is a VNS flag in respect of an offender, the VNS agencies and the MAPPA policy team should work together to address the anomaly of non-disclosure of relevant information to the safety planning partnerships.