The 10 recommendations accepted by the strategic oversight group

THE review made 10 recommendations, all of which have been accepted by the Tayside Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangement

(Mappa) strategic oversight group:

1 – The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) should review the information provided to ministers to ensure the report gives a balanced reflection of a prisoner’s imprisonment period and the assessed risk.

2 – The SPS should review what information is considered during the risk management meetings. The full risk assessment should be considered in full.

3 – At the point where a prisoner is considered for progression to the open estate, the chairman of the risk management team within the SPS must ensure that assessments have been fully completed, endorsed by a senior prison-based social worker and that all documentation is forwarded to the open estate.

4 - The Scottish Government should work with partners to undertake a review of national Mappa guidance. Guidance should specifically lay out how the home leave and release decision-making processes interface with Mappa risk management arrangements in practice.

5 – The Tayside Mappa strategic oversight group should ensure that concise and accurate preread material for Mappa and multi-agency meetings is sent to attendees in advance of all meetings. Meeting minutes should be concise, accurate, ensure tasks are detailed and be clear in terms of ownership. Minutes should clearly reflect

the rationale for decision making.

6 – The SPS should develop how risk is assessed and mitigated within risk management meetings. Risk is the main consideration.

7 – The National Mappa strategic oversight group should ensure that standard documents are adhered to by all partner agencies.

8 – Police Scotland should review and improve lines

of communication between offender management units and local policing in cases involving Mappa.

9 – The Scottish Government and SPS should consider what technological options are available to assist with the management and monitoring of high risk prisoners who are being granted home leave – specifically evaluating the viability of GPS tagging.

10 – The SPS should review the start to end process of how information regarding individual prisoners’ unsupervised community access is consistently reported to and received by Police Scotland and criminal justice social work in a way that facilitates the identification and management of individuals who may pose a risk in the community.