Archive for crb
Taxi drivers will be eligible for enhanced background checks under new proposals announced today.
Today’s proposals will allow taxi licensing authorities to carry out enhanced criminal records checks on their drivers before they are issued with a licence. Current drivers will get additional checks when they renew their licence.
Under the current regime, only drivers who pick up children or vulnerable adults are automatically eligible for enhanced checks, although some firms do choose to get these extra checks for drivers as a matter of course.
Protecting the public
These proposals standardise the practice and simplify the system giving additional reassurance to women travelling alone and other ...
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Scottish government to consult on CRB. The scottish Government has begun a consultation on CRB’s
The Police Act 1997 (Criminal Record Certificates – Children’s Hearings) (Scotland) Order 2012
The purpose of the consultation is to seek views on the offences which should be included in the order which Scottish Ministers intend to make under section 113A(6) of the Police Act 1997, as amended by the Children’s Hearing (Scotland) Act 2011, to define the information which Disclosure Scotland can access and disclose automatically whilst discharging their functions of providing criminal record checks for recruitment and other purposes.
Contact: John McCutcheon
Address: Care and Justice, Area 2A(N), Victoria ...
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The Ministry of Justice have issued a report on concerning the Government’ response to human rights judgments. The report is titled “Report to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Government’s response to human rights judgments 2010-11” CRB/listing issues and prisoner rights are among some of the cases discussed.
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A Wrexham must pay a former employee more than £21,000 after failing to change fluorescent lighting that triggered her migraine attacks.
An employment tribunal found Genevieve Bove was discriminated against and victimised while working at the Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham (AVOW)
In a damning judgement, the tribunal accused trustees of failing in their duty to monitor the conduct of their paid officials.
But the organisation’s ...
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The Home Office has begun to look for a replacement for the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), with a tender for a company to run outsourced disclosure and barring services.
The new service will bring the CRB and ISA together, and is aimed at supporting the implementation of the protection of freedoms bill.
It will involve the receipt and processing of referrals for a barring decision, applications for disclosure, workflow management, customer and registration services, the issuing of certificates, payment services and running a call centre. All of the ...
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The following article appeared in the Liverpool Daily Post on 2nd August
A Liverpool law firm has raised concerns over the consistency of information released under Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks.
It followed a number of cases in which decisions were found to be unfair when challenged.
CRB checks were introduced to help employers make safer recruitment decisions, particularly for posts involving contact with children or vulnerable adults, by revealing information about relevant past convictions.
The Supreme Court recently considered the case of a teaching assistant who was dismissed by her agency when a CRB check disclosed an alleged ...
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This article by Kate Wiggins first appeared in Third Sector Online, on the 13th June 2011
MP tables Volunteering Bill to replace Criminal Records Bureau checks
Christopher Chope says ‘fit and proper person certificate’ would remove barriers to volunteering, but critics raise concerns about risk
The Conservative MP Christopher Chope has tabled a private member’s bill that would replace Criminal Records Bureau checks for volunteers with what it calls a “fit and proper person certificate”, which would be a declaration by volunteers that they did not have any convictions.
The Volunteering Bill, which had its second reading in the Commons ...
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The Manifesto Club has launched a Briefing Document, welcoming the scrapping of the Vetting Database. We are delighted that five years of campaigning has paid off.
Changes for the good…
The Vetting Database has been scrapped: individuals will no longer have to register with a state body, or submit to constant monitoring, in order to work or volunteer with children. This represents a major restoration of basic civic freedoms, and a return of the principle that we are innocent until proven guilty.
There has been a reintroduction of basic checks and balances in barring decisions – ...
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The Protections of Freedom Bill is currently passing through Parliament.
Of particular interest to falsely accused carers and teachers will the Committees scrutiny of plans to reform the CRB system and scale back ISA work to common sense levels.
Further information on the Bill can be obtained here
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This article by Sarah Harris first appeared in the Daily Mail (here) on the 14th March 2011
Excessive vetting checks are deterring volunteers and putting vital community services at risk, it was claimed yesterday.
Despite Coalition pledges to scale back vetting to ‘commonsense levels’, the Criminal Records Bureau is still checking vast numbers of helpers.
In total almost a million checks were made last year, a six-fold increase since the CRB was launched in 2002.
Under scrutiny: Volunteers who provide care for vulnerable groups such as the elderly are subject to a slew of checks
The figures were obtained ...
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The independent review by Sunita Mason on criminal records regime titled A Common Sense Approach – which FACT contributed to, has been published.
In announcing the Review the Home Office said …
“The first phase of this two phase review focused on issues concerned with the extent and demands of pre-employment vetting systems and the role of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).
Read the terms of reference of the review
Phase 1 of Mrs Mason’s review has now been submitted and will now be given careful consideration by ministers. A government response to the recommendations will be announced in due ...
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The following is an extract from a media release was issued by the Home Office Media Centre on the 11th February 2011 (here)
Millions of people will be protected from unwarranted state intrusion in their private lives, the Home Secretary has outlined today.
An array of reforms in the Protection of Freedoms Bill will put an end to unwarranted local authority snooping and unnecessary scrutiny of individuals.
It will see:
an end to the routine monitoring of 9.3 million people under the radically reformed vetting and barring scheme
millions of householders protected from town hall snoopers checking their bins or school catchment area
scrapping Section ...
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The Telegraph newspaper reports that the ISA is to be merged into the Criminal Records Bureau. More drastically, the onus will revert to employers. Instead of individuals having to put themselves on a register, employers will be responsible for making sure they check anyone they employ to come into contact with children. Frequency will also change – previously if you came into contact with children monthly you would have to register, but this will be changed to weekly
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This report by Brian Brady appeared in the Independent on the 30th January 2010
It is more than 50 years since a teenage John Crawford was hauled before Winchester Crown Court, accused of having consensual, but illegal, sex with another man. But it is only in the last decade that he realised exactly what a terrible effect it has had on his life and career.
But now, Mr Crawford and a group of men criminalised by a law that was repealed more than four decades ago are to be freed from a stigma ...
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The following report by David Harrison appeared in the Daily Telegraph on the 31st January
Nurses who were banned from working under a controversial vetting scheme are to launch a major test case against the Government in the European Court.
The move will embarrass ministers and could lead to hundreds more workers taking legal action, at a cost of millions of pounds to the public purse.
The three nurses bringing the case all lost their jobs following ...
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Desmond v The Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police 2011] EWCA Civ 3 (12 January 2011) Read judgment
The Court of Appeal has ruled that it is not possible to sue the police in negligence for not filling in an Enhanced Criminal Record Certificate (ECRC). The ruling shows that the courts are still reluctant to allow negligence claims against the police, and provides useful guidance as to the duty of care of public authorities towards the general public.
Vincent Desmond was arrested in 2001 for a late-night sexual assault in Nottingham. He denied the crime, and a week later the police decided to ...
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This post has been extracted from the BBC website (here)
An Essex barrister is calling for a change in the criminal records checking system because dozens of innocent people across England are being denied job opportunities.
Many professionals, including teachers and social workers, accused of offences which never came to trial or were dismissed in court, find the way blocked when they apply for new posts.
Alleged offences are often revealed to potential employers who make checks with the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).
Any information, whether proven or not, can be disclosed if it is considered relevant by ...
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The Government asked how we can all have more freedom. Citizens responded in their thousands. We reveal the red tape, rules, and regulations that many of us want swept away
The British people have a New Year’s message for their government: set us free. Invited by the coalition to suggest improvements to the way we are governed, thousands drew on their experiences and expertise to tell ministers that what they most want is for a match to be put to a bonfire of all the laws, rules and regulations ...
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She stands four-square, and across her generous bosom Mrs Annabel Hayter is holding a bunch of white longiflorum lilies. But for the green pinny, edged with red, she might be a plaster female saint with the flowers a symbol of piety or martyrdom. Her expression, however, is anything but pious. It is mess-with-me-if-you-dare.
From her picture, Mrs Hayter looks as if she has been deeply insulted, a pose she has had no difficulty in assuming. She is the unbiddable Gloucester Cathedral flower lady – chairman of the ...
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The following letter appeared in the Daily Telegraph on the 18th December
Volunteers put off by Criminal Records Bureau errors
SIR – Some years ago, the Criminal Records Bureau awarded me a conviction for a drugs offence committed almost 30 years earlier by a person with a different full name, date and place of birth, in a town I had never been to, and on a date when I could prove I was elsewhere.
In spite of extensive correspondence, including articles in the local and national press, and a live ...
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According to a report in the Liverpool Daily Post (here) more than 500 UK Border Agency and Criminal Records Bureau workers in Liverpool are to lose their jobs as part of government cost cutting.
Two hundred Charity Commission workers in the city are also awaiting the outcome of a review that will lead to 140 job loses across their four centres in England and Wales.
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The Manifesto Club brings glad tidings of a growing rebellion against senseless child protection rules…
VOLUNTEERS REBEL AGAINST VETTING
The churches are ringing to the sounds of rebellion, as volunteers across the country say ‘no’ to criminal records checks and other over-cautious child protection rules. These Campaign Against Vetting supporters are on the front page of the Spectator this week, in a cover story heralding this ‘Common Sense Revolution’. An edited version is republished in the Daily Mail. Lord Vinson, one of the rebel volunteers, made a speech in the House of Lords, in which he argued that vetting was a ‘dagger ...
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The following article by Josie Appleton appeared in the Daily Mail on the 26th November
Last January, Annabel Hayter, chairwoman of Gloucester Cathedral Flower Guild, received an email saying that she and her 60 fellow flower arrangers would have to undergo a CRB check.
CRB stands for Criminal Records Bureau, and a CRB check is a time-consuming, sometimes expensive, pretty much always pointless vetting procedure that you must go through if you work with children or ‘vulnerable adults’.
Everyone else had already been checked: the ‘welcomers’ at the cathedral door; the ...
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Oxfordshire County Council is being swamped with demands for more than 60 CRB checks every day as part of statutory vetting for teachers, care workers, youth football coaches and foster parents.
Councillors have called for a change to a system that has been “strangled with red tape”.
Over the past three years, the number of annual Criminal Records Bureau checks processed by County Hall has more than doubled — from about 7,000 to 15,827.
In some cases, the same individual is checked multiple times if they work in more than one role that requires CRB clearance.
The council has a ...
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High Court has ruled that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 breaches human rights law.
Background
The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) established under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (the Act) prevents those who are placed on the children’s barred list, and/or the adults’ barred list (the Barred Lists), from working with children and/or vulnerable adults.
The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) is the body which applies criteria set down in the Act to determine whether a person should be included in the Barred Lists.
Where a person is convicted or cautioned for certain offences (broadly, sexual ...
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