SCOTLAND’S 3,000 registered sex offenders are to face partial disclosure of their whereabouts if they ignore warnings from the police about their conduct.

The move, announced by Cathy Jamieson, Scotland’s Justice Minister, is among a package of measures to allow police to deal with sex offenders living in the community.

The warning system could see information on offenders being passed to third parties such as landlords, employers or leisure centre bosses. If a registered sex offender ignored warnings from police to stay away from swimming pools, for example, or was living in a house where there were children, a chief constable could decide to pass that information on to the operators of the swimming pool or the householder.

The move was opposed by Tory MSPs and human rights campaigners who said that it could lead to vigilante action.

But aides to Ms Jamieson, who has stopped short of backing the full disclosure of a sex offender’s whereabouts demanded by parents of past victims of paedophiles, defended the partial disclosure decision on the grounds that it would place greater responsibility on the offender to amend his behaviour.

Ms Jamieson’s view is that those who do not contribute to their rehabilitation and monitoring can not expect “a lifelong blanket of anonymity”.

The announcement followed an independent review into the management and supervision of sex offenders undertaken by George Irving of Glasgow Caledonian University. Professor Irving’s report was commissioned by the Scottish Executive after Margaret Ann Cummings, whose eight-year-old son Mark was killed by a known sex offender living in the same tower block in Glasgow, called for a new law — to be known as “Mark’s Law ” — to make parents aware when predatory adults and paedophiles moved into their area.

But Ms Jamieson backed Professor Irving’s view that that would hinder rather than help the police and other authorities to monitor offenders and could drive them “underground”.

Registered sex offenders will also be required to give more information about themselves. As well as their name, date of birth and address, they will be required to give passport and credit card details. Police are also to get powers to enter a sex offender’s home to allow them to monitor their activities and offenders will also be required to provide a DNA sample to officers.

Ms Jamieson also announced funding of £150,000 to speed up the addition of intelligence to the national register of violent and sexual offenders (VISOR) after the murder of Rory Blackhall in Livingston. In that case Simon Harris, who police believe committed suicide after killing Rory in August, was on bail pending trial for sex abuse charges against children. There was, however, a delay in details of his court appearance being flagged up on the computerised register.

Ms Jamieson said that society had to look beyond punishment to the prospect of rehabilitation for sex offenders. “But rehabilitation has to be assessed at each and every stage and where necessary reviewed and revoked against the key test of public safety,” she said.

Professor Irving said that he hoped that similar incidents to the Mark Cummings case, if not entirely preventable, might be a little more avoidable as a result of the proposals. “This I suggest we owe to Mark Cummings and other young victims who have gone before and tragically since,” he said.

Professor Irving added that at present police had no specific powers to require sex offenders to undertake risk assessment. Neither did they have specific powers to monitor an offender’s conduct or activities in the community. Convicted sex offenders, he said, should be compelled to take part in risk assessments and it should be obligatory that sex offenders made themselves available for interview.

The Executive has said it will now examine whether sex offenders should be compelled to take part in risk assessments, whether homeless offenders should be made to report to police daily and whether offenders who move house should have to notify authorities in advance or within 24 hours, instead of the present three-day limit.

Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Conservative home affairs spokeswoman, said that sex offenders in Scotland were still being released halfway through their jail terms and called for a tougher sentencing policy. “There is simply no such thing as partial disclosure,” she said. “Information is either released or it isn’t, and if it is released in ultra-sensitive circumstances, then there is a very strong chance of vigilante action. ”

Ms Goldie was backed by John Scott, head of the Scottish Human Rights Centre, who said that if vigilante action followed as a result of partial disclosure, ministers could be found to be responsible.

The Executive’s proposals were, however, welcomed by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, which said that it was committed to implementing them.

Mrs Cummings, who collected thousands of signatures on a petition demanding a new full disclosure law in tribute to her murdered son, welcomed the planned measures, including the new formal warnings, but said they did not go far enough.

Paul Martin, the MSP for Glasgow Springburn and Mrs Cummings’s MSP, said that partial disclosure meant that if a known sex offender tried to befriend a child or appeared to target a family with young children the police would warn him off.

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