Tameside Supporting People Programme

Criminal Records Bureau Policy

January 2008

Introduction

This document sets out the Joint Commissioning Body’s policy in relation to CRB checks.

Background

Supporting People commission a wide range of housing related support services that are delivered to vulnerable adults and young people. Ensuring the safety of service users is paramount and part of this process includes ensuring that adequate CRB checks are carried out on staff delivering services.

The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), an Executive Agency of the Home Office, provides access to criminal record information through its Disclosure service. This service enables organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors to make safer recruitment decisions by identifying candidates who may be unsuitable for certain work, especially work that involves children or vulnerable adults. The CRB was established under Part V of the Police Act 1997 and was launched in March 2002.

Tameside Council’s Supporting People Joint Commissioning Group adopts the following policy in relation to CRB checks:

Providers

Providers will be required to comply with the contractual requirement to carry out CRB checks.

The Supporting People team will use its best endeavors to carry out such verification, as they are able to do under existing legislation, as part of contract compliance.

Providers will need to show they have policies to carry out CRB checks and, in relation to the recruitment of ex-offenders, a policy that complies with the Secretary of State’s Code of Practice under s122 Police Act 1997.

Providers will also need to be a Registered Body for the purpose of he Code of Practice, or show that they use an appropriate umbrella body, to ensure that they have done everything reasonable within their powers to employ on fit and proper people to provide support services to the vulnerable adults and young people in Tameside.

We acknowledge that the CRB process can sometimes be a lengthy one. In this case the provider may wish to give a start date before the CRB check is complete provided the following conditions are met:

• That staff without valid CRB checks are supervised at all times by other staff
• That activities which involve direct contact with service users are kept to a minimum

Clause 14.4, within the SP Steady State contract, states:
You must carry out enhanced checks with the Criminal Records Bureau on all staff temporary or permanent employed or (if any) volunteers engaged to provide, or supervise the provision of the Support Services. These checks as a minimum must be undertaken every three years for staff and must be at the Enhanced level whenever possible. If an employee or volunteer cannot be checked at the Enhanced level, then a standard level check must be carried out (and the Council notified in each case).

Members of the Supporting People Team

All new members of the SP team will be CRB checked in line with TMBC’s Recruitment and Selection process.

Service Users (Recruitments of Service Users as Peer Reviewers)

As part of the recruitment process and immediately after training has been completed, service users are asked to complete a CRB application form for an enhanced CRB check.

SP Officers should provide help and assistance in completing the forms including an offer to pay for copies of birth certificates if necessary.

Once completed the application forms should be given to TMBC’s HR department who will process the application.

On receipt of a positive CRB check (ie one which indicates a criminal record) an SP Review officer will be responsible for completing a risk assessment – see below.

Once completed, the risk assessment will be check by the Lead Officer or other manager.

A hard copy of the risk assessment, which has been signed and dated, will be filed in the CRB folder and held confidentially in the SP teams office.

The electronic version of the risk assessment will be held confidentially by the SP team.

An SP Officer will review the risk assessment annually or earlier if there is any relevant change in circumstances.

Risk Assessment Guidance in the Event of Positive CRB Checks for Peer Reviewers

The Risk Assessment should consider the following:

Nature of the position

• Does it involve one-to-one contact?
• Is it unsupervised?
• Does it involve working in an isolated situation?
• Does it involve regular contact?
• Are the vulnerable people particularly vulnerable?

  Area of Risk	Comment
  Does it involve one-to-one contact?	Yes
  Is it unsupervised?	No, SP Officer always present.
  Does it involve working in an isolated situation?	No, peer reviewers only used in accommodation based services.
  Does it involve regular contact?	No, normally one-off interviews.
  Are the vulnerable people particularly vulnerable?	Yes.

*The above guidance is based on extracts from a NACRO policy and good practice report: ‘Getting Disclosures Right’, published 2006

Nature of Conviction / Other Matters

• Whether the conviction or other matter revealed is relevant to the position in question.
• The seriousness of any offence or other matter revealed.
• Whether the applicant has a pattern of offending behaviour or other relevant matters.
• Whether the applicants circumstances have changed since the offending behaviour or other relevant matters, and
• The circumstances surrounding the offence and the explanation(s) offered by the convicted person.

Relevance

For vulnerable adults, the relevant categories are violent and sexual offences.

Seriousness

It is important to look at the sentence given for a conviction in order to assess how serious the matter was. The offence label may sound serious – actual bodily harm for example – but if the individual were only given a conditional discharge, this would indicate that it was a minor incident. If an individual were given a caution, absolute discharge or bind-over, this would indicate that the incident was minor. If other punishments were given, there will be information to help you assess the seriousness. For example, if a fine was given, how much was the fine? If it was probation, community service or custodial sentence, how long was the sentence or order?

Offence Circumstances

An explanation of the circumstances surrounding an offence will often be plausible and reassuring. For example, the person who explains that, in fear and panic, they ended up assaulting someone who was threatening them may not be as culpable as an individual who caused serious injury with intent.

Age of Offences

Many of the offences on disclosures are old, going back to when the person was growing up. They are not relevant in most instances, as the people concerned will have put their pasts behind them. People who do not offend for 2 years after being convicted or released from prison are generally no more likely to offend than those who have never offended. This is reinforced by prison statistics that show that approximately 60% of discharged prisoners are reconvicted within two years, but only a further 5% are reconvicted within four years.

Pattern of Offending

People who have a pattern of offending right up to the present date have clearly not put their offending behind them. Those people with gambling, drink or drugs related convictions in particular may remain a risk unless there is evidence of a clear break in the pattern of their offending.

Changed Circumstances

For instance, those convicted when young, perhaps as juveniles, often do not re-offend once they have family or mortgage responsibilities, because they have too much to lose by getting into trouble. Most offenders, even those with long and serious records, do eventually change, as they simply grow out of a period of offending or seek help to address related problems.