NEW documents confirm that senior officials at the Scottish Executive pressurised an independent body to alter figures on youth offending which did not correspond with government targets.
The papers, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show the annual report of the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration was altered 19 times, and figures, which revealed rising levels of persistent young offenders, were removed after months of correspondence and meetings between top civil servants and the body.
Its published annual report contains no mention of a 12% increase in persistent offenders which appeared in the draft, after dozens of e-mails in which the executive questioned the reliability of its figures. The SCRA was told it would suffer a "catastrophic" loss of confidence if it did not agree with new baseline figures.
The documents undermine public assurances from Jack McConnell that the reporter administration was "independent" and call into question executive officials' denial of the existence of the figures when approached by The Herald.
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