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

Scotland does not have controlled activity; that is the difference. I shall set that out for the noble Baroness when I write to her. The noble Baroness referred to concerns that this scheme is about people who work with children, whereas a great deal of child abuse takes place in families. That is an area of concern and that is why last week we launched our report on the progress that we have made on the review of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, on safeguarding in the UK. We are working to make sure that we have a safeguarding strategy across the piece but we can never be sure that people who work with children are perfectly safe. The scheme does not promise that and we are careful not to raise expectations. Our communications need to be crystal clear on this. The scheme complements, for example, safe recruitment and employment practices; it excludes those who pose a risk—the barred people—from regulated activity and gives information about them to employers; but it does not indicate that there is no reason for someone not to work with children. We have to be clear about what the scheme can do, as both noble Baronesses have said. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, asked for clarity about who is covered in controlled activity. The Government issued detailed guidance on this last week, including case studies and examples to illustrate the coverage of the scheme. I shall be happy to copy that information to the noble Baronesses and we shall be interested to receive any feedback from them. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, was concerned about security. The ISA has new IT systems which are built to the Government’s confidential criteria and are more secure than any other government IT system. Vigorous safeguards mean that personal information is properly protected and cannot be downloaded from the system or accessed from less secure computer systems. The ISA has set in place a robust security system. Any potential breaches can quickly be identified and dealt with through audit, and we are confident that we are well placed effectively to deliver our security requirements. These are, as the noble Baronesses would expect, also reviewed and tested on a regular basis. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, wanted to know what the Government’s position is on the Singleton recommendations. When Sir Roger published his report, we accepted his recommendations and clearly indicated to him that we would need to operate interim arrangements pending the longer-term consideration of those recommendations; otherwise, we would have barred people entering into controlled activity and employers would not even know that they had been barred. Therefore, we have had to tighten up the loophole that we identified, but this is a light-touch requirement to prevent the risk of barred people entering into controlled activity. We accept Sir Roger’s analysis, and his suggestion that the scheme can be simplified is very helpful. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, was interested in knowing the percentage of convictions in England and Wales given to offenders with no previous criminal history. The figures that I have for autobar offences—those where the offender is automatically placed on the barred list, either with or without representations—show that in 2008 46 per cent of convictions in England and Wales were given to offenders with no previous criminal history. That is quite an interesting figure. I agree with the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, about the impact of mistakes and wrong information being supplied to employers. It is an extremely important point on which to focus in these deliberations. In the event that a dispute is raised by an applicant, the CRB works with the relevant police force to ensure that the dispute is resolved very swiftly and ensures that the registered body—the employer—is made aware that any information released in a disclosure has been disputed. That swift action is important. In accordance with Treasury policy, the Criminal Records Bureau makes financial awards to redress customers for maladministration. Again, that is important. The CRB also awards customers for any loss of earnings that arise as a direct consequence of the CRB’s maladministration. Again, I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that we take this very seriously. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, touched on a point about which I, too, feel very strongly—that is, getting the communications right. I am glad that the myth-busting document has been helpful. A host of communications has been prepared and is in train as we go towards the July 2010 deadline. However, we recognise that it is important to make sure that parliamentarians are properly informed as well. We produced detailed guidance about the scheme in October 2009, and, as I said, full guidance was released last week. We have been publishing information about the scheme in various media, as one would expect, and have just finished a large-scale and, I am advised, well supported sequence of roadshows, which are about going out and talking to those who will be using the scheme. We are advised that the feedback that we have had from the roadshows and surveys that we have conducted indicates that there is general support for the approach that we are adopting with the scheme. We should feel encouraged and reassured by that. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked for more detail on overseas workers, but I will write to her with the latest update on that. With regard to working with the Department of Health, this is, I believe, about self-employed private health practitioners in particular. As the law currently stands, when the patient attends one of these practitioners, it will be a private arrangement. Therefore, although the practitioners may register with the scheme, there will be no requirement for them to do so. However, the intimate nature of the medical treatment may suggest that these practitioners should be registered. The Department of Health will lead on this in collaboration with the DCSF and healthcare regulators. I hope that, by the time I write to the noble Baroness, I can tell her how closely we are working on that. I worked very closely with Phil Hope and other Department of Health Ministers on several issues. The whole vetting and borrowing scheme is pressing ahead apace. It is not the just the DoH that we need to work with; we also work with the MoJ and the Home Office. I recognise that that is very important. We are launching consultation on the timetable for the review of the CRB checks today. The noble Baroness made a good point from the case studies that she described, which I absolutely recognise as an important issue that this consultation on the use of CRB checks must address. I hope that the noble Baroness will be happy to share the details with me so that I can look at them further. My view is that ISA registration, particularly for volunteering, must be a great step forward for all those who volunteer and work in different settings. We must work towards making this an effective, user-friendly, proportionate system.