Last June, the Government made a commitment in its Coalition Agreement to make CRB checks more proportionate and fair. Since then, the CRB, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the Home Office have been working together to achieve this aim.
New regulations were laid in Parliament on 6 December 2010 to set out which police data sources will be searched by the CRB. These new regulations mean that an Enhanced CRB check will now focus on a more targeted search method, instead of sending the applicant’s details to each force where they have lived in the past five years. This can often result in no additional information being returned, lead to delays and cause unnecessary intrusion into applicant’s private lives.
All applicants’ details will continue to go through the CRB’s matching process to establish if any details are held on the Police National Computer (PNC) or are included on the police local cross referencing database, which highlights which local police forces and other data sources hold information on the applicant. In doing this, we can target only the forces which may hold relevant information and hence speed up the process.
The only two exceptions to this are where the occupation of the applicant is to be principally home-based and where we have matched the applicant to a criminal record on the PNC.
We would like to reassure you that the process will still continue to provide customers with all information held about convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings, as well as any relevant non-conviction information held locally by the police. As such, the changes do not increase the risk of harm to the vulnerable.
Once all the changes to the Enhanced checking system have been implemented we expect that they will:
- Significantly reduce unnecessary intrusion into citizens’ private lives;
- Reduce the length of time many of our customers wait for their CRB
- Improve customer satisfaction.
How long will this take?
The changes are currently being implemented through a phased approach for different police forces and should be completed by 31 March:
- Phase one began on 6 December 2010 with the Metropolitan Police Service, who currently deal with the largest volume of CRB applications;
- Phase two commenced on 17 January and included a further 23 forces;
- The final phase launched on 14 February includes the remaining 29 forces.
Are these changes part of the Criminal Records Review?
No. The timeliness of CRB checks remains a high priority for the CRB and is in line with the Government’s commitment to make CRB checks more proportionate and fair. These changes, which have been agreed by Ministers, will help to address public concerns over proportionality, the intrusion into citizens’ private lives and the timeliness of the CRB checking service, are in line with the outcome of the Criminal Records Review.
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