Children: Protection

Tim Loughton
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of Criminal Records Bureau checks as a child protection measure.

Joan Ryan
[holding answer 16 May 2007]: Analysis from a recent independent poll indicates that the CRB is making a real difference to the protection of children and vulnerable adults; in the last three years, 60,000 unsuitable people have had offers of employment which involved working with children and vulnerable adults withdrawn on the basis of information contained on their Disclosure. This analysis also demonstrates that users of the Criminal Records Bureau’s (CRB) service feel that the information provided on Disclosures useful when making recruitment decisions.

The research, conducted by IPSOS MORI, shows that customer satisfaction levels are at an all-time high, reflecting the year-on-year improvements made by the CRB.

The National Audit Office (NAO) produced a report in 2004 (Criminal Records Bureau, Delivering Safer Recruitment?) in which it noted that CRB did not measure the impact that it had on society, whether it reduced crimes against the vulnerable or reduced the fear of crime. Following a CRB Internal Audit report in 2006, a proposal was put forward to adopt a system of outcome measures, which the CRB are currently exploring, that will be used to determine further the effectiveness of the CRB’s service in terms of child and vulnerable adult protection.