Tagging figures wrong, says government

Compiling error led to mistaken report of increase in breaches

News, 16 January 2008

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Electronic monitoring is proving more successful than was previously thought.

Criminal justice statistics published by the Scottish Government in December stated that there had been a 61% increase in breaches of restriction of liberty orders. In fact, revised figures actually show a 7.6% decrease in the number of breaches.

The difference in figures came about because of the way the breach statistics were collated by Serco Ltd, the company which provides the electronic monitoring equipment. No differentiation was made between level 2 breaches that resulted in a warning letter and those which resulted in a report to the court.

Because of this, breach figures included the total number of warning letters issued, as well as the number of reports issued to the court. These warning letters are not classed as a breach and have now been removed from the statistics.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "The unfortunate mistake in the figures has now been rectified.

"We are setting the record straight and reviewing procedures with Serco Ltd who provided this information, to ensure any lessons are learned so that we avoid further mistakes in future."

Mr MacAskill added that  the new figures provided further evidence that community penalties could play an increasing part in the government's penal policy.

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