Section 14 – Publication of reports on hate crime convictions
84.Section 14 places a duty on the Scottish Ministers to publish reports, on an annual basis, on convictions for offences aggravated by prejudice within the meaning of section 1 of the Act, and offences under the Act. The reports must include information about offences under section 3 or 4(1) (which relate to the characteristic of race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins), about the characteristics to which offences under section 4(2) relate and about the type of prejudice by which offences aggravated by prejudice within the meaning of section 1 were aggravated.
85.Subsection (3) requires that the Scottish Ministers must take reasonable steps to establish whether supplementary information can be provided about any subgroups to which the offences relates, as set out in paragraph (a). If they establish that any such supplementary information can be provided, they must take reasonable steps to obtain it and include it in the report.
86.Subsection (4) provides that these reports must not include information which is capable of identifying an individual in relation to any of the reported matters.
87.Subsection (5) provides that the report may be in any form that the Scottish Ministers consider appropriate, and in particular may be part of another document. This would allow for reports under section 14 and section 15 to be combined.
