Employment vetting law has been rewritten, says Timothy Pitt-Payne
In 2004, a woman was employed by an employment agency that provided staff for schools. She worked as a playground assistant, supervising children during their lunchtime break. Her employer carried out a check with the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).
The CRB check did not show any criminal convictions; but it disclosed that the applicant’s son had previously been placed on the child protection register on grounds of neglect, and that he had been removed from the register after being convicted of robbery and given a custodial sentence. Soon afterwards she was told by the agency that it no longer required her services.
So far there is nothing unusual about this story. CRB checks are an increasingly common feature of working life. Some CRB disclosures (known as standard disclosures) are confined to information about past convictions held on the Police National Computer (PNC), including convictions that have become spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
Other disclosures—known as enhanced disclosures—may, in addition, include information from local police records about matters other than
