Welcome to the Independent Safeguarding Authority
Protection of Freedoms Bill
The Government has made commitments to improve disclosure and
barring services by scaling them back to 'common sense levels',
while ensuring a continued service to help safeguard children and
vulnerable adults by those who work or volunteer with them, but
that they operate in a way which reduces the burden on employers
and better respects the civil liberties of the individual. As part
of those commitments it undertook a review into the Vetting and
Barring Scheme and the Criminal Records Regime and the subsequent
recommendations were included within The Protection of Freedoms
Bill.
The Protection of Freedoms Act (2012) has now completed its
passage through Parliament and has received Royal Assent. The Act
will be introducing a range of key changes. However, they are
not yet introduced and will be phased in once the
legislative timetable has been agreed. We will provide you with
this timetable as soon as we can.
The key future changes include:
- abolishing the registration and monitoring requirements of the
Vetting and Barring Scheme
- redefining the scope of 'regulated activities'
- abolishing 'controlled activities'
The provisions also mean that the services of the Criminal
Records Bureau and Independent Safeguarding Authority will be
merged and a single, new non-departmental public body created.
The new organisation will be called the Disclosure and Barring
Service (DBS). The planned operational date for the DBS is December
2012.
Business as usual continues
As Royal Assent does not mean that the changes to disclosure and
barring begin immediately, it remains business as usual at the ISA
and CRB. Therefore the safeguarding regulations introduced in
October 2009 continue to apply, including the following:
- a person who is barred by the Independent Safeguarding
Authority 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 that knowingly employs a barred individual to
work with children or vulnerable adults will also be breaking the
law
- if your organisation works with children or vulnerable adults
and you dismiss 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 refer this information to the
Independent Safeguarding Authority
The Criminal Records Bureau continues to be responsible for the
disclosure of criminal records and the Independent Safeguarding
Authority for barring.
Related Documents
Phase 1 report
Phase 2 report
What's New
-
ISA Annual Report
Download the ISA's Annual Reports here
28 February 2012
-
10 February 2012