News and Events

• NEW Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA)
  

  Changes to checks for those working with children and vulnerable adults will start from October 2009.

  The creation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) is part of the biggest overhaul of vetting and barring arrangements ever undertaken in this country. It will cover 11.3 million people wishing to seek work or volunteer with children or vulnerable adults.

  The ISA scheme will mean a single vetting authority maintains a constantly updated list of people who are not allowed to work with children or vulnerable adults - this will incorporate all existing barring lists. POCA POVA and List99.

  If a person is not barred from employment with vulnerable people they will be ISA registered, although it will remain the employer's decision whether to hire them. The authority will work alongside the Criminal Records Bureau, which will continue to issue criminal records disclosures to help employers make recruitment decisions.

  This mandatory scheme aims to prevent those who are deemed unsuitable to work with children and/or vulnerable adults from gaining access to them through their work. From October 2009 employers will be able to check that individual staff members have been assessed for work with vulnerable groups, further enhancing one of the most robust employment checking systems in the world

  The ISA is an independent body with its own remit and barring criteria which will decide on a case-by-case basis if an individual poses a risk of harm to vulnerable groups.

  The go-live date has been reached after consultation with key strategic partners to make sure that it is not only operationally feasible, but that it also gives employers enough time to fully prepare for the introduction of the scheme.

  This is a complex scheme which will cover 11.3 million people within a wide variety of workplaces. Starting in 2009 will allow us to ensure an improved level of safeguarding as well the development of better information sharing systems.

  We will keep you up to date with further developments as they happen.

  
  
  
• 2007 Sees Increase in Performance Levels
  99.8% of Standard Disclosures were issued within 2 weeks;
  96% of Enhanced Disclosures were issued within 4 weeks;
  98.6% POVAFirst requests were processed within 48 hours.
  
  
• Volunteers
  Volunteers The CRB is committed to providing free checks for all applications that meet its criteria for volunteers. About 20% of applications received last year were for volunteer positions, representing a total saving to the relevant organisations of about £22.8m. However, some customers are applying for free-of-charge checks for posts that do not appear to meet the criteria. The CRB is cracking down to ensure that a fee is paid whenever it is appropriate. The CRB definition of a volunteer is: "Any person engaged in an activity which involves spending time, unpaid (except for travel and other approved out of pocket expenses), which aims to benefit some third party other than or in addition to a close relative".