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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

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