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Latest ISA updates
Please note, the registration element of the Vetting and
Barring Scheme (VBS) has been halted as part of the
Coalition Government's VBS review. There is no longer
a requirement for those working or volunteering with
vulnerable groups to register with the ISA.
Criminal records review
The Government’s independent adviser for criminality information
management Sunita Mason was commissioned to undertake an
independent review into the criminal records regime. This work,
which was undertaken in two phases, has now been completed with Mrs
Mason’s second report being published today.
To read the report, click
here.
The Government has also published its formal response to both
phases of the review today.
To read the Government’s response, click
here.
To note – This review into the criminal records regime follows
the recent review into the Vetting & Barring Scheme (under
which the Independent Safeguarding Authority operates). Both
reviews made several recommendations which require legislation.
These are included in the Protection of Freedoms Bill.
The recommendations within the Bill scale back the scheme. This
will include the abolition of the requirement to register with the
Scheme and its monitoring requirements, and the reduction in the
range of posts in which barred people cannot work or volunteer. The
provisions also mean that the services of The Criminal Records
Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) will be
merged and a single, new Non-Departmental Public Body created in
place of the previous two organisations.
The new organisation will be called the Disclosure and Barring
Service (DBS). The planned operational date for the DBS is by the
end of November 2012.
ISA
Press Release
Please see the ISA's response to the
NHS Information Service's announcement this week that 96,000 of the
most vulnerable people in our society were allegedly abused in
the last year.
The
Review
On February 11 2011 the Coalition Government published
the findings of its Review into the Vetting and Barring Scheme. You
can read the report at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime/vetting-barring-scheme/
Key recommendations from the VBS
Review include:
- the merging of the Criminal Records Bureau
(CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) to form a
streamlined new body providing a proportionate barring and criminal
records checking service;
- a large reduction of the number of positions
requiring checks to just those working most closely and regularly
with children and vulnerable adults;
- portability of criminal records checks
between jobs to cut down on needless bureaucracy;
- an end to a requirement for those working or
volunteering with vulnerable groups to register with the VBS;
and
- stopping employers who knowingly request
criminal records checks on individuals who are not entitled to
them.
We are currently awaiting further details and will be working
with the Home Office, the Department for Education, the Department
of Health and the CRB to help implement the new arrangements.
The Coalition Government has confirmed that until all the
appropriate legislation has been introduced and the new
arrangements are established, the existing responsibilities of
employers and the ISA will remain.
These include:
A person who is barred from working with children or
vulnerable adults will be breaking the law if they work or
volunteer, or try to work or volunteer with those groups.
An organisation which knowingly employs someone who is
barred to work with those groups will also be breaking the
law.
If your organisation works with children or vulnerable
adults and you dismiss or remove a member of staff or a volunteer
because they have harmed a child or vulnerable adult, or you would
have done so if they had not left, you must tell the Independent
Safeguarding Authority.