The legalities of CRB

SarEl

marcouk wrote: »

Enhanced CRB's already do cover that scenario:

No, they do not. An enhanced CRB is a statement of what is known about that person at the time it is applied for. It does not mean that an employer is notified of, or has any knowldege, a relevant offence a year later. That would not show on the system until another CRB is requested.

Uncertain

SarEl wrote: »

Rubbish. Nobody was suggesting that employers should sack people simply because allegations were made. But all a CRB tells you that no information is available on that person at the time that it is done. But are you genuinely trying to suggest that, for example, a teacher of your children (assuming you have some) who has been arrested on suspicion of being involved in a child pornography ring should continue to teach your children and have unsupervised access to them and the employer should not know about this, or should blithely ignore the potential risks because that person is inncoent until proven guilty? Or that a social worker or a doctor - or anyone else for that matter - should be able to continue to have access to vulnerable groups of people who they may very well offend against because they offended "between CRB's" and their employer has no idea about it?

Personally speaking if such a live update system could save one child from an "occasional headline grabbing atrocity" it would be worth every penny.

I don't have a problem if somebody has been arrested because they are at least then aware of what they are being accused of and have, or will have, a chance of refuting the allegations.

What I object to is people being blocked based on a suspicion or allegation of which they have no knowledge and therefore can't dispute.

It is all very easy to trot out the "could save one child" argument and obviously that has an easy appeal to any right minded person but you have to balance that with the fundamental right of an individual to know what it is they are being accused of doing.

As an aside there are plenty of things that could be done that would save far, far more children (and adults come to that) each year. Requiring and enforcing a much higher standard of driving, reducing the drink drive limit to virtually zero and banning anybody caught using a mobile at the wheel would be a good start. Trouble is that is not a vote winner and doesn't appeal to the average Daily Mail or Sun reader!

SarEl

Uncertain wrote: »

I don't have a problem if somebody has been arrested because they are at least then aware of what they are being accused of and have, or will have, a chance of refuting the allegations.

What I object to is people being blocked based on a suspicion or allegation of which they have no knowledge and therefore can't dispute.

It is all very easy to trot out the "could save one child" argument and obviously that has an easy appeal to any right minded person but you have to balance that with the fundamental right of an individual to know what it is they are being accused of doing.

As an aside there are plenty of things that could be done that would save far, far more children (and adults come to that) each year. Requiring and enforcing a much higher standard of driving, reducing the drink drive limit to virtually zero and banning anybody caught using a mobile at the wheel would be a good start. Trouble is that is not a vote winner and doesn't appeal to the average Daily Mail or Sun reader!

All of which appeal to me but perhaps because I read neither publication. With the possible exception of "vitually zero" - I would make it zero.

But I think you are confusing the term allegation here in relation to checks. In this context it is linked to "police intelligence", and is based on an assessment of information and the probability of risk, not unfounded allegations which have not been proven. There are, unfortunately, a number of predators (and not just sexual predators) out there that the police know about but cannot do anything about, either because the victims are unwilling or unable to testify, or because the evidential requirement is such that a conviction is unlikely in the view of the DPP.

I would certainly agree that there are immense difficulties with allegations which cannot be proven either way easily in some cases, but these attach themselves much more to the protection registers maintained by civil authorities. These, I think are very much open to abuse, despite efforts to make them "fair", and contain information from employers which may not be verifiable in any form through the legal system because they do not require this check. But that has nothing to do with CRB checks - it is an entirely separate system altogether.

Oldernotwiser

Uncertain wrote: »

However it raises a fundamental question about whether anybody should be discriminated against on the basis of an unproven allegation, especially one of which they may have no knowledge and therefore can't dispute.

Whatever happened to the concept of "innocent until proved guilty"?


.

Two words - Ian Huntley.

SarEl

To be fair, Ian Huntley was well aware of the allegations against him - although I admit that the details are a bit foggy in my mind now, he had been interviewed by the Police previously and fell into the category I described above. Or would have done had the CRB systems been in place. That is very different from the circumstances of civil registers which can ban someone for life or for very substantial periods for "crimes" reported by employers (and we all know that they never get things wrong, accidentally or deliberately) in which the police have had no involvement, and which may (or even may not) be based solely on a disciplinary process which has no rigours or legal protections of the law.

Uncertain

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Two words - Ian Huntley.

Indeed. That is a classic headline grabbing case which thankfully is incredibly rare.

From what I remember in that case the current procedures, had they applied then, should have prevented him getting a job in a school. They would not have prevented him from getting other types of job and one can only speculate about whether some other poor children would have become his victims.

My point is simply that you have to balance the understandable knee jerk reaction that something like this causes with the fundamental rights and freedoms we should all hold dear. You have also to keep the risk in proportion and accept that there are many other simple and completely fair steps a government could take that would save VASTLY more lives.

Anyway, this is getting well off the OP's original question.

cm2011

Each College or organisation has its own policy on employing people without CRB checks in place - at my College we will let you start employment before your CRB check has come back, because we put in place numerous other checks including risk assessments and making sure you are not going to be left in a situation where you may potentially be one to one with a student, and we can look at previous CRB checks as well as long as they are recent. I would advise that you check with any potential employer what their policy is, there can often be a work around.

SarEl

Uncertain wrote: »

Indeed. That is a classic headline grabbing case which thankfully is incredibly rare. Unfortunately, not rare enough. The headline grabbers are chi8ldren who die or risk to loads of children. The fact is that there are still too many cases that do not grab headlines.

From what I remember in that case the current procedures, had they applied then, should have prevented him getting a job in a school. or with any vulnerable group. They would not have prevented him from getting other types of job and one can only speculate about whether some other poor children would have become his victims. True - had he worked in a factory or been unemployed.

My point is simply that you have to balance the understandable knee jerk reaction that something like this causes with the fundamental rights and freedoms we should all hold dear. Speaking as a lawyer - the freedoms we hold dear are an illusion - and many of them should remain so. I do not uphold the freedom to be a risk to children, nor the freedom to incite racial hatred, or many myriads of "freedoms". You have also to keep the risk in proportion and accept that there are many other simple and completely fair steps a government could take that would save VASTLY more lives. What is wrong with saving ALL those lives? It isnt a competition as to what saves more lives. One life is as valuable as 100. If we do not believe that, then there is no freedom.

Anyway, this is getting well off the OP's original question.

I don't think we are. I sympathise with the OP's situation and if live reporting was available they wouldn't be in this situation. And it would be immensely more useful to employees and to the people they seek to work with.

caramel_syrup

I've got an idea - this happened to my close friend before. She always had clean CRB checks, when she was offered a new post, she had to undergo enhanced CRB check again. Rather than waiting for months, she managed to convince the new employer to use the most up to date CRB check whilst waiting for the results to come back. Her employer was willing to take the risk by relying on her latest enhanced CRB check and she started working immediately. The result came back a few weeks later and there was no difference in the outcome at all. Hope this helps x

SarEl

caramel_syrup wrote: »

I've got an idea - this happened to my close friend before. She always had clean CRB checks, when she was offered a new post, she had to undergo enhanced CRB check again. Rather than waiting for months, she managed to convince the new employer to use the most up to date CRB check whilst waiting for the results to come back. Her employer was willing to take the risk by relying on her latest enhanced CRB check and she started working immediately. The result came back a few weeks later and there was no difference in the outcome at all. Hope this helps x

And if it hadn't come back clear - the employer was willing to take full legal liability for claims? And explain to their safeguarding board and inspectorates why they broke the law - thus risking their entire registration. If so - fair enough. Most agenbies/ employers are not that stupid.