Scottish HAs fear too many offenders are being housed in poor areas
Ruling due over sex offender addresses
Scottish law lords will announce within weeks if police will be forced to reveal the areas in which sex offenders are housed, following a court case by three housing associations.
Blochairn Housing Co-operative, Craigdale Housing Association and Dunbritton Housing Association are taking the action because they believe that sex offenders are being housed in disproportionate numbers in poorer communities.
The associations have taken action against the information commissioner after repeated attempts to obtain infor-mation about the areas in which sex offenders are housed were rejected by Strathclyde Police. An appeal to the Scottish information commissioner was rejected in February last year. The case was heard at the Scottish Court of Session at the end of March.
Inside Housing has also learned that the associations have built up a £25,000 support fund, including financial contributions from other housing associations which also want to find out the information.
Michael Carberry, director of Blochairn, said it was not asking for any information that would identify individuals or addresses. ‘The purpose of our enquiry was to investigate the theory that poorer communities carry a disproportionate burden in terms of the management of offenders. It is symptomatic of the way that social rented housing is allocated.’
The associations’ initial inquiries were prompted by the murder of Glasgow schoolboy Mark Cummings by known sex offender Stuart Leggate in 2004. Margaret Cummings, the boy’s mother, and Mr Leggate were tenants of Glasgow Housing Association.
Mr Carberry said he thought decisions about where sex offenders are housed were being taken behind the scenes without giving local communities a chance to have a say. ‘It is often said that sex offenders live in every community,’ he added. ‘That is a separate issue from devising a strategy that actively places dangerous offenders in certain communities - communities with disproportionate numbers of vulnerable children and families.’
A spokesperson for the Scottish Information Commissioner said it was awaiting the outcome of the case and was unable to comment as a result.
The issues
What the associations want to know
The location of sex offenders by post code to the fourth digit. In the G21 2 postcode they say this covers nearly 6,000 people.
Why the police turned down the request
Police felt even speculation about the number of sex offenders within a relatively large geographic area would lead to attempts to identify individual offenders and public order problems.
Why the Scottish Information Commissioner backed police
There was a risk of identification through matching data from another source of publicly available information.
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