CRB mistakenly brand 100’s of people criminals as they get set to massively increase a new vetting programme
Telegraph
02.08.2009
By Christopher Hope
Criminal Records Bureau errors lead to hundreds being branded criminals
The number of errors by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has more than doubled in the past 12 months, despite intense pressure for it to improve its performance.
Many of the victims of mistakes would have been intending to take up jobs as teachers, nurses and childminders, or become youth volunteers.
Hundreds of innocent people have been accused of wrongdoing by the CRB. They are likely to have faced career problems or stigma from their communities as a result. They will also have had to go through an appeals process to clear their names.
The worsening figures are an embarrassment for the Home Office, which faced criticism after the number of errors by the bureau was first highlighted by The Daily Telegraph last year.
The latest figures show that 1,570 people being checked by the CRB were wrongly given criminal records, mistakenly given a clean record or accused of more serious offences than they had actually committed in the year to March 31.
This compares with 680 people in the previous 12 months. The disclosure is likely to deter innocent people from applying for positions that require scrutiny, for fear of being labelled a criminal.
It also raises the prospect of dangerous individuals slipping through the net and being approved for jobs with the vulnerable.
The CRB, a Home Office agency, was set up in March, 2002, to vet those working with children and young people. It checks for criminal convictions, cautions and reprimands. An enhanced check examines any other “relevant and proportionate” information held by the police.
A copy of the CRB’s annual report, which will be formally published next month, shows that 3.9 million certificates were processed by the agency: an increase of 500,000 on 2007-08 and the highest figure since the agency’s creation.
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The Register
17.07.2009
By John Ozimek
Would you leave your child alone with a cabinet minister?
When it comes to vetting adults who may come into contact with children, there is yet again one rule for politicians, another for the rest of us.
There is much fuss in this morning’s papers over a statement by Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials trilogy, that once the government’s new vetting system is in place, he will simply stop making visits to schools. In an interview in the latest Bookseller, he says: “This is Labour’s Section 28 — the implication being that no adult could possibly choose to spend time with children unless they wanted to abuse them. What will it say to children? It’ll say that every adult is a potential rapist or murderer, and that they should never trust anyone.”
He expresses his regret that he may never be allowed inside a school again, but adds: “I refuse to be complicit in any measure that assumes my guilt before I’ve done anything wrong. The proposal deserves nothing but contempt.”
Mr Pullman is not alone in his refusal. Other authors who object to being vetted include Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake. According to former Children’s Laureate Mrs Fine: “The whole idea of vetting an adult who visits many schools, but each only for a day, and then always in the presence of other adults, is deeply offensive.”
However, spokespeople for the relevant departments – including the Home Office and Department of Children Schools and Families – appear adamant that authors should be registered on the new database and vetted accordingly.
They are not so clear on the need for their own Ministers to do so. A Spokesman for Number 10 could not confirm whether Gordon Brown was planning to be vetted. A similar response was received at the Home Office in respect of Alan Johnson, who masterminded the legislation that put this requirement in place.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health appeared unaware of the implications of this legislation and opined that vetting was for “people with access in their work”. Therefore Health Secretary Andy Burnham “doesn’t need to be vetted as part of his job”.
Best of all, though, was the Department of Children Schools and Families (DCSF), where a spokesman argued that Ed Balls would not need to be vetted because he “doesn’t work with children directly and in an unsupervised way”. He went on: “the reason authors are required to register is because they go to the same school over and over again: familiarity means that a teacher could go out of class and leave them unsupervised, whilst a one-off visitor (such as a government Minister) would never be left alone.”
Whilst he was quick to re-assure that nothing was therefore implied about Philip Pullman or any other author, El Reg is concerned that the DCSF hasn’t done its research too well. As Anne Fine points out, most authors only visit a school once in a year or more. Therefore, the chances of them establishing a relationship based on frequency of contact is slight: and according to a school governor with whom we have spoken, best practice within schools is never to leave a visitor alone with children.
The new approach to vetting is due to launch this October, and will be introduced gradually over the next five years, although the likelihood of it surviving a Tory administration is slight. The system, to be supervised by the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), will function alongside the current system of criminal records bureau (CRB) checks. In many cases it will do away with the need for CRB checks that are currently carried out on anyone wishing to work with vulnerable groups (children, disabled and elderly) – and a key benefits is that it will do away with the need for multiple checks.
This is because it will consist of a database of people who have been vetted, and either passed as OK to work with the vulnerable or “barred”, and a Board to oversee vetting decisions. The standard of checking will be to what is known as the CRB enhanced level, which means that not only will actual criminal convictions be taken into account – but also allegations made to the Police and, it is expected, “soft intelligence” about individuals.
In other words, despite Home Office assurances to the contrary, the base will include elements that are no more than “gossip and rumour”. The use of such data was sanctioned by the case of John Pinnington, when courts ruled that even where police knew there to be little or no substance to an allegation, they had a duty to record it and pass it on to employers.
If the system survives, it is likely to impact on the lives of a significant proportion of the UK population. The Home Office estimates 11 million people will need to be vetted and added to the database (for a fee of £64): our own analysis suggests the figure could be much higher – perhaps as high as 14 to 16 million.
This will deprive thousands of children of the positive and educational experience of meeting an author, but at least they will still be able to enjoy the educational experience of meeting a government minister.
If the problem the DCSF is attempting to solve is that of unsupervised access, the solution is simple: never allow it.
Ministers need to take proper legal advice and not simply decide that they are exempt from vetting, as the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 makes it clear that an individual who avoids vetting in this way could be liable to a fine of £5,000 and possibly prison.
Related:
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Adults without children to be interrogated by park wardens and risk being thrown out *
LA Times - Study shows politicians share personality traits with psychopaths *
CCTV Software Alerts Authorities Of Non-Crimes… For More Public Harassment *
Father jailed over one complaint about a slap on his son’s leg
