CRB to increase cost burden on users

1 May 03
The Criminal Records Bureau is to place more of the administrative burden for criminal checks on employers while charging them for new services under plans to generate much-needed revenue for the beleaguered agency.

02 May 2003

According to sources, the CRB, a public-private partnership between the Home Office and Capita, is in dire financial straits. It has been plagued by backlogs for criminal checks and has been warned to stem its overspend by the Treasury.

'The overspend is pretty significant and the contract is certainly not operating at a profit,' one source told Public Finance.

Under proposals in a consultation paper, the agency hopes to stem some of its spiralling costs by making registered bodies (RBs), which include NHS trusts and councils, legally responsible for routeing applications for all criminal checks through to the CRB.

They will become responsible for the quality of the applications and for verifying identities – issues that are understood to have held up checks last year.

Their responsibility is also likely to include forwarding applications to the CRB's yet-to-be-launched service for basic disclosures – a print-out of a criminal record or unspent convictions. This service is likely to have much wider appeal across all sectors and could prove to be an important source of revenue for the CRB.

'Applications for basic disclosure could be handled by existing RBs or new ones registered expressly for this purpose,' states the consultation paper.

'The latter could include major employers, recruitment agencies, employer organisations and chambers of commerce.'

It costs £300 to register as an RB and up to now only 1,200 organisations have done so – mostly local authorities and health trusts.

But with the prospect that registered bodies may also be able to charge individuals 'market rates' for passing and countersigning applications, companies such as recruitment agencies are likely to sign up. The fee could be £30 per application, although this has been described as a conservative estimate by some sources.

The CRB is also floating the idea of charging RBs a fee for using a 'gateway' database that would give them access to individuals' dates of birth, national insurance numbers and driving licences – all essential for verifying identities.

The Employers' Organisation said most local authorities had responded positively but with caution to the extra responsibilities planned for RBs.

'There is a preparedness to do some checking but only if this gets some results,' said Mike Walker, assistant director of negotiations at the EO.

While basic disclosures are of little interest to councils, Walker said, adding extra fees for basic information would 'turn people off from making recruitment decisions'.

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