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For people with criminal records
For people with criminal records

Author: Unlock Admin

Department for Education agree concessions on their guidance to schools

The NUT are reporting that the Department for Education has agreed concessions on their guidance about the childcare disqualification requirements. On the Nottingham City NUT website, it states:

“The Union’s threat to challenge the DfE’s supplementary advice on the Childcare Disqualification legislation and its application to schools in the High Court has successfully drawn concessions from the Government who are now proposing changes to the guidance.

The supplementary advice was published on www.Gov.UK in October last year, with no warning and no consultation with the relevant trade unions, causing widespread confusion and concern. Despite this, the Union was able to initiate legal proceedings before the Christmas break, challenging the DfE’s interpretation of the legislation.

As a result of the NUT’s challenge, the DfE conceded last week that:

  • the legislation applies only to those who work in nursery and reception, or who supervise activities outside school hours involving children under 8 years old;
  • enquiries about individuals living in a teacher’s household should be restricted only to those falling within the scope of the legislation
  • teachers correctly identified as falling within the scope of the legislation should not be asked to disclose the ‘spent’ convictions or cautions of people in their household.

We have agreed not to pursue the Judicial Review if these concessions are included in revised guidance to schools and local authorities. The DfE has now agreed to a specific meeting with the Union in addition to a round of stakeholder discussions, the last of which will be held on 27 January 2015. We have brought together other organisations who are supporting our position, and it is intended that a common position will be put forward on the content of updated guidance.

Our aim in the long run is to seek to change the relevant legislation. In the meantime, we are seeking that the Government amends the guidance to advise schools how to implement the legislation in a proportionate way, placing lowest level of burden possible on schools and teachers and providing advice and assistance to enable members return to work where they have been wrongly identified as ‘disqualified’ and suspended as a consequence.”

As soon as revised guidance is available, we will publish a link as a further update to the section about this in the policy area of our website.

Primary school teachers/staff ‘disqualified by association’

In October 2014, the Department for Education (DoE) published supplementary advice to schools on what are called the ‘childcare disqualification requirements’.

The requirements have been around for a number of years, and apply to registered childcare provision outside of schools, but it’s only since October 2014 that the DoE has made it clear that these also apply to primary schools, and one aspect that’s received the most attention has been the ‘disqualification by association’ part.

According to the DoE, these requirements relate to people who are working in early years and later years’ childcare – essentially, childcare up to the age of 8.

The requirements apply on top of what schools do in relation to enhanced DBS checks and checks against the barred lists.

For more information

  • Practical self-help information – We’ve published a brief guide which summarises how we understand this system to work, but also links to a number of more detailed documents which cover some aspects in more depth.
  • Our policy work – We’ve put a call out for individuals who this has affected. If you’ve been directly affected by the ‘disqualification by association’ element, please let us know what’s happened to you. More details can be found in the policy section of our main website.
  • Discuss this issue – There’s an interesting discussion on our online forum about this – read and share your thoughts.

Primary school teachers/staff ‘disqualified by association’ – does this affect you?

In October 2014, the Department for Education (DoE) published supplementary advice to schools on what are called the ‘childcare disqualification requirements’.

The requirements have been around for a number of years, and apply to registered childcare provision outside of schools, but it’s only since October 2014 that the DoE has made it clear that these also apply to primary schools, and one aspect that’s received the most attention has been the ‘disqualification by association’ part, as it includes the cautions/convictions of those that you live with.

According to the DoE, these requirements relate to people who are working in early years and later years’ childcare – essentially, childcare up to the age of 8. The requirements apply on top of what schools do in relation to enhanced DBS checks and checks against the barred lists.

This has led to primary schools asking their staff about the criminal records of those that they live with – and those that declare are often being suspended and their case being referred to Ofsted. Although there are rules around which offences this covers, there is a lot of confusion about what this means in practice, as well as what the justification is for such a system.

What we’re doing

As this is fairly new, there are a lot of unanswered questions. We’re still building a picture of how this is working in practice, and how it might be challenged. In the meantime:

  • Practical self-help information – We’ve published a brief guide which summarises how we understand this system to work
  • Policy work – We’ve put a call out for individuals who this has affected. If you’ve been directly affected by the ‘disqualification by association’ element, please let us know what’s happened to you. More details can be found in the policy section of our main website.
  • Discuss this issue – There’s an interesting discussion on our online forum about this – read and share your thoughts.

GOTHINKBIG article on getting a job when you have a conviction

We’re quoted on the GOTHINKBIG website in an article how to get a job when you have a conviction. You can read the article here.  An extract of the quote from Unlock is below;

….there are organisations out there who specifically deal with people who might need a little more help. Unlock helps people with convictions to move on in their lives, one of these being helping them into employment.

Co-Director, Christopher Stacey said in reality there are certain professions that will take these minor offences more seriously (think working with children, vulnerable adults, etc), but there are others that won’t. But the first thing he explains is that people don’t always understand their criminal record.

“People tend not to understand it,” adds Christopher. “It’s best to apply for a copy of police record and work out what the employer is asking of you. It might only ask you to disclose unspent convictions, so if it’s spent, you don’t have to disclose it. You’ve really got to understand what your criminal record is.”

Latest updates to our self-help information site – December 2014

We’ve just published a summary of the recent updates we’ve made to our Information Hub.

You can read the summary on our Hub here.

Read the new posts and stories on theRecord – December 2014

We’ve just published a roundup of recent articles that have been posted on theRec0rd, our online magazine for and by people with convictions.

Read the summary of new posts here.

‘Enforced subject access’ delays

The Ministry of Justice recently announced that the change to the Data Protection Act which makes enforced subject access a criminal offence has been delayed. It was originally meant to come into force on the 1st December 2014. It is now expected to commence early 2015.

As we understand it, the reason for the delay is a technical issue.

We will publish a further update once we have an implementation date.

Latest – 19/12/2014 – We’ve been informed that the technical encountered when finalising the introduction has now been resolved. Section 56 will now be commenced in March 2015. We don’t have a specific date as yet, but we’re expecting a further update, including the commencement date, in January 2015.

Latest – 16/02/2015 – This will be coming into force on the 10th March 2015. See here for more information.

Unlock give evidence to Parliamentary Committee on rules regarding becoming a trustee with convictions

Yesterday our Director of Services, Christopher Stacey, gave evidence to the Joint Committee on the Protection of Charities Bill.

You can watch the evidence below (the session Unlock takes part in starts from 15.15), or you can follow this link to watch it on the Parliament TV site.

Update (January 2015) – Following the oral evidence, we followed this with written evidence which can be downloaded here – it is also available on the Parliament website.

For more information about the policy work around becoming a trustee, click here.

New ‘information series’ – ‘Disclosing to employers’

Today, we’ve published a dedicated information series focused on disclosing to employers.

Each part of the series is designed to be brief and simple, summarising the key issues and providing links to more information on the Hub.

They’re all available to download as PDF documents, and they’re listed below. Links are also available on the new BETA ‘Disclosing to employers‘ home-page and on relevant information pages of the Hub.

 

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