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| CRIMINAL
RECORDS SERVICE WINS PRAISE IN REPORT |
12/02/04 |
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A
National Audit Office (NAO) report has praised the running of the Criminal
Records Bureau (CRB), despite recent heavy criticism of the service by the
charity sector.
The NAO report, "Criminal Records Bureau: Delivering Safer Recruitment?",
says that the CRB represents a "more comprehensive and consistent checking
service" than the previous arrangements under the police.
Although it acknowledges there were performance problems in the first few
months of service, the study says significant improvements have been made,
and that the CRB now reliably delivers over twice as many criminal record
disclosures as under the previous system.
Home Office minister Hazel Blears says: "I welcome the report and its findings.
I am pleased an independent body, such as the National Audit Office, has
recognised the improvements made to the CRB.
"We have always acknowledged that the CRB's initial performance was unacceptable.
As the NAO have said, as soon as the initial operating difficulties were
identified, the CRB and Capita initiated a service improvement plan, recruiting
extra staff to increase performance and capacity. We then commissioned an
independent review of the CRB's operations.
"But, since September 2002 the situation at the CRB has been transformed.
Since June 2003, it has issued 93% of standard and enhanced disclosures
within two and four weeks respectively. It now processes over 50,000 disclosure
applications per week, over twice as many as under the previous system.
"The backlog of applications outstanding for over six weeks has been eliminated
and the disclosure service has been extended to existing staff working in
care homes and domiciliary agencies.
"The agency remains a vital part of the government's work to provide better
protection for children and vulnerable adults and the NAO report recognises
that through it, more organisations have access to criminal record information
than ever before.
Vince Gaskell, chief executive of the CRB, said: "The NAO emphasise the
need for public and private partners to work together and, having recently
signed a revised contract, both the CRB and Capita are firmly committed
to partnership working.
"We have acted already on many of the NAO's concerns and will continue to
build upon our improved service performance. In a recent survey over 70%
of our customers say that the disclosure service is a useful additional
recruitment tool.
"Furthermore almost one in five customers have decided not to recruit
a job applicant as a direct result of the information that we provide."
Action will now be taken to further improve the CRB, including:
- Implementing the recommendations of an independent review of the CRB's
business processes to further increase capacity and strengthen its resilience;
- Following consultation, introducing regulations to strengthen the role
of registered bodies in the disclosure process and to clarify the criteria
for eligibility for enhanced disclosures;
- Consulting on introducing a registered body quality assurance team to
provide reassurance that bureaux properly discharge their functions;
- Completing the checks on existing care staff;
- Issuing further guidance to police forces on how they should approach
the task of determining what "soft" intelligence on an applicant
should be disclosed.
There was no mention of the growing costs involved in carrying out checks,
an issue which the NCVO raised in a letter to Blears prior to the report.
An increase of 17% is now set to take affect from April this year, raising
the cost of a standard check to £28.
In its letter, NCVO chief executive Stuart Etherington says: "Future savings
could offer the opportunity to considerably reduce the financial burden
of criminal records checks on the CRB's customers. It would be very disappointing
if this opportunity was missed.
"By passing on savings made by the CRB to its customers, the government
could provide the crucial protection that the most vulnerable in our society
need without placing an unacceptably high financial burden on voluntary
organisations."
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