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Written question asked by Justine Greening (Conservative) on Friday, 12 December 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 17 December 2008. It was answered by Meg Hillier (Labour) on Thursday, 18 December 2008 on behalf of the Home Office.

Criminal Records Bureau: Checks

Question
(2) how much compensation has been paid by the Criminal Records Bureau for delays in processing criminal record checks to (a) applicants, (b) employers and (c) others in each of the last four years; to which types of disclosures such payments related; and how many (i) applicants and (ii) employers were so compensated in each year.
Answer

[holding answer 17 December 2008]: The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) does not pay compensation, the payments CRB makes are on an ex gratia basis, as an award to reinforce the sincerity of an apology.The CRB is bound by the Treasury Guidelines and must endeavour to put all individuals, not just those working within the education sector, back into the position they would have been but for any maladministration on the part of the Bureau. This scheme is called a redress scheme. The CRB award redress if they have not followed their procedures and it has caused the applicant a loss.The number of cases requesting redress and the amount paid by the CRB to applicants for delays in processing CRB checks in each of the last four years is detailed in the following table.

Cases received requesting redress Amount paid in redress (£)
2005 513 111,995.56
2006 559 52,733.97
2007 571 254,590.07
2008 (up to 30th November 2008) 823 154,420.55

The CRB does not provide redress to employers or organisations registered with them to verify disclosure applications.The CRB does not separately record the number of individuals that have received redress or the number of each type of disclosure the redress payments were made against. To obtain this level of detailed analysis would involve manually re-processing source records and this could be done only at a disproportionate cost.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
485 c1073-4W; 244628
Session
2008-09
Subjects
Standards Vetting Criminal Records Bureau
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk