‘Naming And Shaming Yobs Is Not On My Agenda’

Council leader Ewan Aitken today vowed that there would be no “naming and shaming” of young offenders in Edinburgh if he is in charge after May 3 – despite a pledge by First Minister Jack McConnell to introduce the policy.

Councillor Aitken said it would be up to each local authority to decide whether to use proposed new powers to publicise the names of under-16s who had been given antisocial behaviour orders. He said if he was still leading the city council after the elections, he would not use those powers.

Labour’s Holyrood manifesto, published earlier this week, promised: “We will name and shame people who cause chaos in their communities.” The move follows a visit by Mr McConnell to Manchester, where leaflets naming youngsters served with Asbos are distributed in local neighbourhoods.

But soon afterwards, Cllr Aitken launched an all-out attack on the idea of naming and shaming under-16s, describing it as “legalised humiliation”, “counter-productive” and “frankly unacceptable”. Today he said: “I don’t move from that at all.” He said the party’s proposal was to give local authorities “a variety of tools”.

“Each local authority will be able to choose which ones they use and which ones they don’t,” he said. “My choice would be to use things such as restorative justice, community orders, acceptable behaviour contracts and antisocial behaviour orders where necessary.”

But a spokesman for Mr McConnell said: “We are making the powers available and we believe they should be used to make a difference. The important thing here is the wishes of the community rather than the wishes of an individual council or council leader. It is for local councils to answer to their electorate, but we have not been anywhere in Scotland where people have not welcomed tougher action against antisocial behaviour.”

The spokesman added that Labour’s proposed new community courts would also be able to name and shame offenders. He added: “Naming and shaming works in other places. Communities in Scotland should not be denied the same respite which other parts of the UK are getting from antisocial behaviour.”

However, Cllr Aitken insisted that he was not breaking ranks on the issue. He said: “According to my conversations with the Scottish party, what they are proposing is maximising the number of options so that you can design an antisocial behaviour strategy for your own areas.

“I’m not in conflict with the Scottish party on this, in that they are not going to force me to do it and I’m not going to tell others what they should do.” He said it was right that councils should have choices about what methods they used to tackle persistent offending.

Cllr Aitken added: “I would choose not to use that particular tool because I do not believe it is effective. We have a whole lot of different ways of tackling antisocial behaviour. We have Youth Action Teams, community wardens, Asbos, acceptable behaviour contracts, restorative justice – which we are pioneering here in Edinburgh – and community orders.

“My ward has more Asbos than any other area of the city, and I have supported them because that has been the right thing to do. I know what works in this city. I have seen changes in my own ward.”