concerns have been raised that nationwide powers allowing parents to find out if a known sex offender has access to their children are not being taken seriously enough by police.
New figures reveal that since the Sex Offender Community Disclosure Scheme was introduced in Scotland three years ago, 446 applications have been submitted from anxious parents and guardians who want to know whether people who have contact with children pose a risk.
A total of 87 child concern reports were submitted by police to the Reporter to the Children's Panel and there were 49 disclosures made to parents, carers, or guardians, the statistics obtained through Freedom of Information legislation showed.
It means only one in 10 applications result in a disclosure. Separate data released today shows that UK-wide 4754 applications were made, resulting in more than 700 disclosures.
One parent group said it was concerned that the numbers are too low, saying that police have been known to put people off from making an application for disclosure.
Ian Maxwell, national development manager at Families Need Fathers Scotland, said of the new figures: "The low number of hits isn't surprising.
"One of the reasons that there are [a lower number of disclosures] in some police forces is that different forces are doing things differently. We had one case recently where someone went to the police and tried to follow the procedures and just got told to grow up and live with it.
"This is a person who didn't even manage to engage with the scheme. He was brushed off before he got there."
The decision to roll the Keep Children Safe scheme across Scotland came in 2010 after a pilot project in Tayside that gave parents, carers and legal guardians a right to register a "child protection interest" in any individual who has unsupervised access to their children.
It allows a parent to make a background check on a new partner, child-minder or family friend.
Police would be able to inform people who have made an application whether the named person has been convicted of sex offences. The system was tried out following the well-publicised case of Mark Cummings, the eight-year-old who was killed by convicted sex offender Stuart Leggate in Glasgow in 2004. Mark's mother, Margaret Ann, led a high-profile campaign for a new law - Mark's Law - which would require police and councils to inform people if sex offenders are living in their area.
Although the new plan does not go as far as Mrs Cummings's proposal, the policy was expected to provide parents with an unprecedented amount of information about sex criminals.
The new figures reveal geographical differences in the proportion of disclosures and child concern reports made to the number of public applications.
Around one in three of the inquiries, disclosures and child concern reports made in the scheme since 2010 were made by the Lothian and Borders force, Scotland's second biggest police force before the new unitary national police force was launched in April.
Speaking about the separate UK figures, Donald Findlater, director of research and development at Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a charity which works with sexual abusers as well as victims, said that the number of applications was small but the "conversion rate" of one in seven resulting in a disclosure was "encouraging".
He said: "Our concern here would be the other six out of seven people who made an application but did not get a disclosure.
"The police know of only a proportion of offenders - many have not been caught and are not on any police database. For members of the public to make an application to police they must have had some concerns."
A Police Scotland spokesman said: "We are confident that the Keeping Children Safe scheme creates a real opportunity to ensure that children across Scotland are properly protected.
"In the vast majority of applications to the scheme, the police and partner agencies may not have information about the subject to give to the applicant. In these circumstances we would support them by providing advice.
"We would encourage any member of the public who has concerns about an adult who may pose a risk to children to contact the police."
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