Vetting

Mr. Ruffley
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of records of offences committed outside the United Kingdom held by the UK Central Authority were made available to the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and used in CRB disclosures in 2008-09; and whether there are data on categories of offences held by the UK Central Authority which may not be passed to the CRB for such use.

Mr. Malik
The UK Central Authority for the Exchange of Criminal Records (UKCA-ECR) receives conviction notifications in respect of UK citizens who have been convicted of crimes in EU member states. Convictions that are recordable under the National Police Records (Recordable Offences) Regulations 2000 are added to the Police National Computer (PNC) and are therefore available to the CRB for disclosure purposes.

Between 1 October 2008 and 31 December 2008 the UKCA-ECR received 1,166 notifications, 250 of which were for non-recordable offences. All recordable offences were added to the PNC. It is not known what percentage of these have been subsequently used in disclosures.

Under Section 113A (3) of Part V of the Police Act 1997 criminal record certificates—standard and enhanced disclosures—must contain details of “every relevant matter” recorded in “central records”. This means all convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings held on the Police National Computer (PNC), including spent convictions. Any EU conviction information added to the Police National Computer by the UKCA-ECR would be included on CRB disclosures.