-Caveat Lector- alamaine spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk Criminal records crisis deepens Child protection checks on 300,000 care staff postponed Alan Travis, home affairs editor Friday November 01 2002 The Guardian The crisis surrounding the criminal records bureau deepened last night when ministers were forced to announce that child protection checks on the background of more than 300,000 care home and nursing home staff are to be postponed. The Home Office said last night that without this emergency action hundreds of care homes would be forced to close because the CRB was unable to cope with the legal requirement to provide background checks by the specified deadline. "The government recognises the importance of criminal record checks but at the same time providers must not be prevented from operating," said Home Office minister Lord Falconer. It also became clear yesterday that the government is likely to abandon its plans to make available a basic criminal record check from next summer for the 10 million people who change jobs every year. It also seems increasingly likely that the future of the CRB's chief executive, Bernard Hardan, will be in doubt when an inquiry team headed by Patrick Carter delivers its verdict to the home secretary, David Blunkett, by the end of the year. The number of weekly checks done by the Liverpool-based CRB has risen from 24,500 a week in August just before the crisis over teacher recruitment to 40,000 a week. But application forms are still being sent to India to be saved on to computer disks and the process is taking an average of six weeks instead of the three weeks promised in the contract. The CRB is dealing with 194,000 applications, with 86,000 already taking longer than the three weeks promised delivery time. The project, which involves making greater use of police criminal records to ensure that those who work with children and vulnerable adults have no history of abuse, is a £940m private finance initiative joint venture between Capita and the Home Office. The decision, announced yesterday, to suspend the legal requirement for 300,000 people to have a CRB check affects those who work in care homes, nurses' agencies, domiciliary care agencies, and school governors. They were agreed this week between Mr Blunkett, the health secretary, Alan Milburn, and the education secretary, Charles Clarke. To ease the pressure the legal deadline for all existing staff working in care homes for adults to get CRB clearance is to be put back from March next year until the end of 2004, although all new recruits will have to get their checks done. But in the case of nurses supplied by nurses' agencies and staff supplied by domiciliary care agencies to nursing homes, the legal requirement to get a CRB certificate showing they have a clean criminal record is to be abandoned altogether. Instead they will be asked to make a personal declaration about whether or not they have any criminal convictions. "Care homes have to be able to continue to employ existing staff, and we believe that domiciliary care agencies and nurses' agencies should not be prevented from being able to place staff because they have not obtained checks," said Lord Falconer. On top of this the health secretary has postponed the introduction of a special register designed to check those working with vulnerable adults - the protection of vulnerable adults list - because it involves applications to the CRB. It has also been decided to drop for the time being the requirement on thousands of school governors to have a CRB check. The depth of the crisis surrounding the CRB means that plans which were to be introduced next summer for every new job applicant to obtain a "basic" certificate showing whether or not they had a clean criminal record is also likely to be postponed indefinitely. A Home Office spokesman said that this plan had been put on the back burner while checks for those working with children and vulnerable adults were sorted out. Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http://archive.jab.org/ctrl@;listserv.aol.com/ <A HREF="http://archive.jab.org/ctrl@;listserv.aol.com/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
