Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of (a) reviewing and (b) changing the probation guidelines to prevent convicted paedophiles from living within a certain perimeter of a school or park.

The decision as to where to permit a convicted child sex offender to live whilst subject to licensed supervision is made by the Probation and Probation Services working together under MAPPA (Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements).

Additionally, offenders subject to licensed supervision may be prohibited from entering specified geographical locations (exclusion zones) on account of the particular risks which those offenders present. A child sex offender might, for example, be prohibited from entering a specified area around a school or nursery. Exclusion zones may be reinforced in certain cases by satellite tracking, to ensure that any offender who enters an exclusion zone without permission faces being recalled immediately to custody.

The data required to answer PQs 33564 and 33565 are not collated centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.