The Independent Schools Council is a politically independent, not-for-profit organisation representing 1,270 independent schools educating more than 500,000 children. It exists to promote choice, diversity and excellence in education, developing talent at all levels of ability and from all backgrounds.

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CRB Consultation on Draft Registration Regulations

18 October 2005

Response from the Independent Schools Council

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) represents 500,000 children in 1,272 independent schools. ISC exists to promote choice, diversity and excellence in education; the development of talent at all levels of ability; and the widening of opportunity for children from all backgrounds to achieve their potential. Its schools rely on the quality of Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks to prevent unsuitable people from gaining access to these young people. Following CRB guidance sent to schools in May 2002, 1,000 schools represented by ISC applied to be and were accepted as Registered Bodies (RBs), these schools make up nearly 8% of the current RB network.

Although ISC supports many of the new proposals to improve the security of the current system, it is extremely concerned that the proposal to place a threshold on the number of applications an organisation has to make in order to remain registered as a RB will have a negative impact upon the security of the Disclosure process. ISC has met with Andy Burnham, Parliamentary under Secretary of State and Vince Gaskell, CRB Chief Executive to discuss these concerns and this response seeks to set out the issues discussed more formally.

ISC notes with disquiet that 34% of the current RB network were assessed as posing a risk to the integrity of the Disclosure service and that 16% of applications have to be returned to RBs to correct errors of omissions. ISC, therefore, supports those regulations that it feels will better ensure the security of the Disclosure service. Indeed, ISC questions why many of these regulations, which would improve the security of the Disclosure service, are not already in place, given that proposals to introduce regulations governing identity checking, a duty to complete application forms accurately, payment of Disclosure fees on account, publishing fees charged by Umbrella Bodies (UBs), compliance with the Code of Practice and inspection rights of CRB staff, were resoundingly approved in the December 2003 consultation nearly two years ago.

ISC would like to register its support for ‘Option 2', as outlined in the Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment, and also Regulation 10, to impose a limit on the number of countersignatories acting on behalf of a single RB. It would also suggest four further steps to improve the effectiveness of this option:

i) The redesigned version of the Disclosure Application form currently in the final stages of consultation should be adopted as soon as possible. The reason that the form is being revised by the CRB is because it is unclear and far from ‘user friendly' and this situation needs to be quickly rectified.
ii) This new version should be accompanied by an online version with simple software sequences that crosscheck repeated data and will not allow submission unless all boxes have been completed.
iii) All RBs should be issued with clear guidance on the Code of Practice.
iv) Any RBs forwarding incorrect submissions should be required to pay a new fee on resubmission.

ISC feels that the above measures, once adopted, should ensure the quality of the Disclosure process. However, it does not logically follow that reducing the number of RBs will do the same. In fact, forcing de-registered RBs to process their applications through UBs will increase, rather than reduce, risk. It will introduce a blurring of lines of responsibility, wider distribution of sensitive data, and the double-handling involved will inevitably introduce delays in the procedure.

The last point is particularly significant, given that the CRB public service standards for the year 2004/05 show that 10% of Enhanced Disclosures take longer than the target 4 weeks. At the moment, when such an unexpected delay occurs, it is left to the discretion of the head teacher to decide whether the person can commence employment in the school prior to the completion of CRB checks as long as there has been a check of List 99 or an earlier check by the Teacher Training Institution. Fortunately, at present, the number of occasions upon which this decision has to be taken is limited, but if the time taken to send forms from schools to UBs to the CRB and then back through the same chain is added, it is likely to increase. Introducing any extra risk into a system designed to protect children is unacceptable.

It is also important to point out that much of the CRB's argument for reducing the number of RBs is based on the premise that low volume users of the disclosure process are less reliable than high volume users. The consultation document does not offer information in support of this. It says that 34% of RBs pose a risk to the integrity of the system, but does not provide any further analysis of who is making the mistakes and why they are being made. ISC has repeatedly asked for a more detailed breakdown of these figures in order to assess where mistakes are made. However, no further information has been offered. If the CRB is in possession of these figures, it is unreasonable not to have provided them for the purposes of this consultation. If it has not undertaken this analysis, it will not be justified in forcing the small RBs that process Disclosure applications well to pay for the services of UBs [2] where no fault has been established.

Once a Code of Practice with clear guidance has been established and the Disclosure application form made more ‘user friendly', then appropriate sanctions, including deterrents such as payment for resubmission and the threat of deregistration, should be set in motion. This would ensure that only those, be they large or small organisations, which operated within the Code of Practice, were allowed to remain RBs.

It is unreasonable to deregister small organisations, such as independent schools, which were originally specifically recommended to register as RBs, on the arbitrary basis of quantity, when it is the quality with which they process Disclosures that counts.

At the Education Sub-Group Meeting, Tuesday 21 June 2005, the CRB representatives were asked to provide a breakdown of these figures and reminded again at the last meeting, Tuesday 20 September 2005. Despite its obvious relevance to the consultation, they have not yet provided this information.

Option 3 of the Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment explores the cost of smaller organisations using Umbrella Bodies. It estimates the cost at between £1 and £65, which is a very wide ranging estimate and appears to bear little relation to the reality of UB charges. The lowest figure of £1 is far below the lowest figure that ISC has been quoted and the highest figure nearly twice as much as an Enhanced Disclosure costs at present and more than twice as much as a Standard Disclosure.

‘Should schools register with the CRB? ...independent schools and any other schools that provide their own personnel services in-house should register with the Bureau in their own right.' Child Protection: Preventing Unsuitable People from Working with Children and Young Persons in the Education Service (Executive Summary) (CRB, May 2002)

ISC suggests that the CRB analyses the difference in time taken to obtain clearance where an organisation moved from being an RB to using a UB. In one case ISC has examined where a Trust obliged a school to use a UB, the average number of days from posting the application to receiving clearance increased from an average of under 25 days to over 53 days, which, given that there were no problems with the original Disclosure process, is an unacceptable level of delay.