To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of sex offenders in prisons attended the Sex Offender Treatment Programme in each of the last five years.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

Improvements made in the SPS PR2 prisoner records system provide accurate information on recorded sex offenders over the last two years. Based on this information the population of sex offenders in prisons who attended sex offenders treatment programmes are:

Numbers of prisoners entering programmes annually are limited by factors such as sentence length and willingness to change on the part of individual offenders.

Sex offenders also need to undertake STOP programmes at the right stage in their sentence, therefore some may have already completed a STOP programme in previous years either during their current sentence or during previous sentences. Some offenders may also have undertaken Core STOP and been subsequently assessed as requiring to participate in further STOP programmes such as Extended STOP to address their offending behaviour. Some may also require access to other interventions such as mental health support in advance of participation.