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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (Controlled Activity and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2010

My Lords, I shall also speak to the second and third Motions in my name. These orders help to implement the vetting and barring scheme under the 2006 Act. Two are from the Department for Children, Schools and Families and one is from the Ministry of Justice. The 2006 Act reforms arrangements for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults from the risk of harm by workers with significant access. The scheme covers two categories of work: regulated and controlled activity. Regulated activity is most of the scheme, covering specified settings, activities or posts, such as work in schools, caring for children, or treating the sick. Controlled activity covers fewer posts, mainly in further education or health, outside regulated activity. These do not involve activities such as caring, but give an opportunity for contact with, or access to, sensitive records about vulnerable people. The scheme creates different safeguarding measures for each category. The first order narrows the circumstances where work is regulated activity and so an individual must register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority, or ISA, as we now refer to it. The controlled activity regulations introduce a narrow arrangement to exist only while we roll out the scheme. It closes a safeguarding gap by requiring employers, before employing individuals in controlled activity, to check whether they are barred from regulated activity. The third instrument, amending the exceptions order under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, enables the arrangement created by the controlled activity regulations. The first order narrows the scope of regulated and controlled activity, which partly depends on work being intensive, so that work is only intensive if it takes place on more than three days in a 30-day period. Previously we specified work on more than two days. This implements a recommendation by Sir Roger Singleton, accepted by the Government in December. The order also adds to regulated activity a small number of specialised categories, which cover relatively few people, and lets the ISA share information with the police in Scotland and Northern Ireland to help us to join up safeguarding across the UK. The controlled activity regulations create interim arrangements to prevent the risk of certain employers appointing people without knowing whether they are barred. The regulations require employers to ascertain whether individuals are barred from regulated activity before letting them start a controlled activity in England. Welsh Ministers have laid before the Assembly draft regulations making provision for Wales. Modifications to the Police Act in the regulations that we are debating cover England and Wales, and support both sets of regulations. Regulations 2 and 3 state when an employer may permit an individual to engage in controlled activity. They apply only to permitting an individual to start controlled activity after the regulations come into force, and the scheme will provide a new checking service for this. If the person is barred, the Criminal Records Bureau will issue an enhanced criminal record certificate as usual. If the person is not barred, and if entry into controlled activity is the only reason for the application, the CRB will issue only a notification, with "not barred" being the response. We aim to avoid an individual starting in controlled activity without an employer knowing of a bar from regulated activity. While the law does not prevent a barred individual applying for controlled activity in England, we want to enable any employer choosing whether to employ in such cases to be aware of the applicant’s status and history. The purpose of issuing only a notification where there is no bar is to balance providing information for safeguarding vulnerable groups with keeping the information disclosed proportionate. Notifications will state "not barred" without disclosing any cautions or convictions. This is in keeping with the Government’s aim of supporting rehabilitation of offenders by limiting how far rights to CRB disclosures are extended to workers. We intend this requirement to last until we replace it either by permanent requirements for workers in controlled activity generally to be ISA-registered, which we plan for 2015, or by any alternative arrangements that emerge from a review of controlled activity recommended by Sir Roger Singleton, on which we plan to consult shortly. This is an interim arrangement. It is light-touch, with no criminal penalties for non-compliance. Its purpose is to give legal backing for making checks that responsible employers want to and should make. If Parliament approves these regulations, they should come into force on 1 April, subject to final confirmation of operational readiness. The CRB is about to consult on a fee for the checks. We expect nearly all employers to receive a "not barred" notification, which will cost less to produce. Therefore, the fee should be under £10, which is much less than the cost of "ordinary" disclosures. I apologise for a minor error in the drafting, which will be corrected before the regulations are made. Regulation 9(6) refers to a regulation in a previous order. It should refer to an article. The regulations make minor changes to when the ISA must automatically bar a person, adding any Channel Island or Isle of Man offences that equate to England and Wales offences. Finally, they make minor amendments to tidy up the treatment of a few Scotland and Northern Ireland offences. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 provides for certain convictions, after a period of time has elapsed, to be deemed as "spent". Ex-offenders are not required to disclose their spent convictions for most purposes—for example, when applying for most employment or for insurance—in order to aid their resettlement into society. However, we have to balance rehabilitation with the need to protect members of society from people who pose a risk to them. To that end, the exceptions order exempts particular employers, bodies and proceedings from the general provisions. As a result, sensitive areas of activity, such as work with vulnerable groups where there are particular opportunities to abuse trust and cause harm, are excluded from the Act’s regime by the exceptions order, and the employer is entitled to a CRB check containing details of spent convictions. This allows employers to make a fully informed decision on whether an individual may safely be offered a post in that area of employment. The controlled activity regulations propose to entitle an employer to an enhanced CRB check if an individual has been barred by the ISA. Therefore, a very limited amendment to the exceptions order, to exclude that situation from the Act, is necessary to underpin this narrow scheme. It gives employers the chance to do that check. Permitting disclosure of spent convictions in these circumstances does not mean that an individual is necessarily prevented from working in controlled activity. Rather, it ensures that the employer is fully aware of the history of that person and can choose to put appropriate safeguards in place if they offer employment. The other provision in the exceptions order relates to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In 2009, this House passed an amendment to extend the exceptions order to cover the Channel Islands as part of the process of extending the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act to the islands. Following this amendment, Isle of Man Ministers requested that a similar provision be made for them, so that they might also be protected by the vetting arrangements being introduced in England and Wales and to prevent any possibility of those who are barred from working here moving to the Isle of Man to avoid detection. In order for those working on the island to be subject to vetting by the ISA, and for their employers to be able to obtain CRB disclosures, it is necessary that they are covered by the exceptions order. For the sake of clarity and logic, the provision aligns Channel Island and Isle of Man provision. However, it makes no substantive change to the law in relation to the Channel Islands as made by this House in the 2009 amendment. The provision as it appears in the draft order has been agreed to by the relevant authorities. I hope that noble Lords agree that the instruments take useful steps towards underpinning the Government’s commitment to safeguarding vulnerable groups in our society. I beg to move.