Ms Barbara Gray:

I thank the committee for the warm welcome. I am the assistant chief constable with responsibility for the crime operations department, which covers our organised crime, serious crime, public protection, intelligence, and specialist operations branches. I am relatively new to the post, having just taken it up in September. With me are Detective Chief Superintendent Paula Hilman, who is the head of the PSNI's public protection unit, and Detective Superintendent Ryan Henderson.

It is important to put on the record an apology. Mr. Alan Smyth from the Northern Ireland Prison Service, NIPS, and chair of the strategic management board, which is under our public protection arrangements, would have liked to have attended. Unfortunately, he cannot. The board encompasses some of the multi-agency work that we do.

The Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 established the statutory basis for public protection. These arrangements are known as the public protection arrangements Northern Ireland, PPANI. In England, Wales and Scotland, similar arrangements are known as multi-agency public protection arrangements, MAPPA. The arrangements involve agencies working together and sharing information to better protect the public in a co-ordinated manner. However, the legislation does not form a corporate body to deliver these. The relevant criminal justice agencies, such as the police, NIPS, probation service, the health and social care trusts and others, deliver on their own statutory responsibilities and obligations relating to public protection in a joined-up and co-operative way. It is important to note that the public protection arrangements do not replace existing child protection procedures.

The PPANI are governed by a strategic management board, which comprises senior managers from all lead agencies and two lay advisers. The board is chaired alternately, on a rotational basis, by the PSNI, the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, PBNI, and the NIPS. Currently, it is chaired by NIPS, with responsibility transferring to the PSNI and Detective Chief Superintendent Hilman in April 2019.

There are a number of eligibility criteria for inclusion within the public protection arrangements.

It includes persons who are subject to the notification requirements of part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 or who have been convicted of a sexual offence or sexually motivated offence and are not subject to the notification requirements of part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 but about whom an agency has current significant concerns. It includes persons who have from 6 October 2008 been convicted of a violent offence, including homicide against a child or vulnerable adult or who have a previous conviction for a violent offence against a child or vulnerable adult and about whom an agency has current significant concerns. It includes persons who have from 1 April 2010 been convicted of a violent offence, including homicide in domestic or family circumstances or who have a previous conviction for a violent offence in domestic or family circumstances and about whom an agency has significant concerns. From 1 July 2013, new referrals into PPANI of violence in a domestic or family circumstance must have a minimum conviction of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, AOABH. It also includes persons who have from 1 September 2011 been convicted under certain circumstances of a violent offence, including homicide, and received an enhanced sentence and where the offence has been aggravated by hostility, and about whom an agency has significant concern. Persons subject to a risk of sexual harm order, RSHO are also included.

Within the PPANI arrangements offenders are categorised as category 1, 2 or 3. Persons in category 3 are deemed to pose the highest level of risk of harm. Where an offender is assessed as meeting the criteria for category 3, management of the case is allocated to the co-located public protection team, PPT. The PPT consists of line managers and practitioners from the PSNI, PBNI and the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. The aim of the PPT is to provide for a consistent level of management of risk for those offenders in the community who represent the greatest cause for concern. The different disciplines within PPT allow for the delivery of a tailored risk management plan alongside an individual intervention and support plan aimed at developing the offender’s internal controls.

Each year PPANI is required to produce an annual report outlining the work undertaken by the relevant agencies involved in public protection. It has recently published an analytical profile of offenders subject to PPANI arrangements. The policy and working arrangements for public protection in Northern Ireland are contained within the comprehensive PPANI manual of guidance.

Turning to the aspects of the proposed legislation highlighted within the invitation for today, I thought it would be helpful to highlight some pertinent points. With regard to notification requirements, in Northern Ireland the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as amended, requires all PPANI eligible offenders to notify within three days of being informed of their requirement to do so. The three days starts at midnight on the day they were informed. To notify they must attend at a police station. They are required to notify a number of matters, including an address at which they will be living, details of any absences of more than three days from that address, travel arrangements and accommodation arrangements during their absence, and proposed travel arrangements outside the United Kingdom. They are also required to provide fingerprints and permit a photograph to be taken to confirm their identity. These requirements work well in practice.

Offenders are encouraged to disclose details of their offending where appropriate and allow this disclosure to be verified. If an offender refuses, or the disclosure cannot be verified, then existing agency powers will be used, such as child protection protocols utilised by social services colleagues. If no power exists, then a PPANI disclosure form will be commenced. In such cases the PSNI Chief Constable is responsible for making the decision regarding disclosure.

The Justice Act 2015 also introduced the child protection disclosure arrangements. Under these arrangements a person may apply for conviction information where there are concerns regarding a named person and named children. If the criteria are met, then disclosure is made to the person best placed to safeguard the child. We believe these arrangements work well in practice.

There is no specific legislative provision for the electronic monitoring of sex offenders pre or post conviction in Northern Ireland. There are, however, general powers relating to electronic monitoring applicable to all offenders. The basis for electronic monitoring of offenders in general is found within the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. The legislation provides the power to impose a curfew or electronic requirement where a condition of bail is granted by a court, where a condition of a licence is specified in article 35(b) of the order, and where it is a requirement of a probation order or youth conference plan.

Foreign travel orders are set out in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as amended. Where there are concerns that a specific child, or children in general are at risk of serious sexual harm from an offender, we can apply to court for a foreign travel order which prohibits the offender from travelling to the specified country or any country outside the UK. The offender will be required to surrender his or her passport. The offender must be a qualifying offender, which in the main is an offender who has committed a sexual offence against a child or offences relating to indecent images or material relating to a child. To meet the threshold for a foreign travel order there must be grounds to believe that the offender travelling to a certain country poses a risk to children.

It is our understanding that there are no current plans for legislative change in Northern Ireland in terms of the management of sex offenders. If any such changes were planned, consultation and implementation would be progressed through the multi-agency public protection arrangements and the strategic management board which will be chaired by Detective Chief Superintendent Hilman from April of next year.