Category: News on policy issues

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’ – 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.

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.

Charity Commission respond to our concerns about governing documents

We recently met with the Charity Commission, where we discussed a number of areas of concern as part of work to enable people with unspent convictions to become trustees of charities.

In particular, we discussed an issue that we raised in our report of February this year relating to a charities’ governing documents, and how the way that the Commission were interpreting these were causing problems for charities like Unlock to recruit people with convictions.

We’re pleased to report that the Commission have, following our meeting, provided us with the response below.

Turning to one of the specific issues we discussed, I referred the governing document point to one of our lawyers I can confirm that we seem to have been mistaken in 2011. The Articles as they were then did not mean a waiver would have been ineffective. If one had been granted it would have meant, as we thought at the meeting, that the individual was no longer disqualified and so could have been appointed as a trustee.
Charity Commission representative

We’re pleased that the Commission has taken a more common-sense approach to this. It removes what was otherwise a cumbersome bureaucratic hurdle that many charities would have had to go through (amending their governing documents) and now makes it somewhat easier for a charity to recruit somebody with unspent convictions.

You can find out more about our work on enabling people with convictions to become trustees of charities here.

Government publish Draft Protection of Charities Bill

Last week, the Government published their Draft Protection of Charities Bill, following the consultation they held earlier this year.

This paper sets out the Governments plans.

We’re continuing to raise a number of issues that we addressed in our consultation response, in relation to how people with convictions are treated.

One year into the Ban the Box campaign; pioneering employers change their practice, but more must follow their lead

Business in the Community’s Ban the Box campaign, which Unlock actively supports, has reached its one year anniversary. It was launched in October 2013 in response to widespread and costly discrimination against people with convictions who are seeking work.

So far 24 employers, with a combined UK workforce of over 200,000, have committed to support the campaign. They assess jobseekers on their skills and abilities first, taking criminal convictions into account later in the recruitment process. This gives candidates equal opportunity to get to interview based on their competency for a role rather than excluding them because of an unrelated conviction. And employers benefit from a wider pool of diverse talent and contribute towards reducing the estimated £11 billion annual cost of re-offending.

But when 1 in 5 unemployed jobseekers has a criminal conviction, much more must be done to ensure that a tick box approach is not blocking them from work. Ban the Box isn’t about positive discrimination, or removing disclosure altogether. It is the first step that all responsible employers can take to level the playing field for people with convictions whilst still protecting themselves from risk.

“In the last year, we’ve seen real benefits to individuals who are simply trying to do the right thing by getting a job and becoming taxpayers. The employers who have signed up give people with convictions the confidence to apply” said Christopher Stacey, Co-Director of Unlock. “People with convictions simply want a fair chance to provide they’re the best person for the job, and that’s what Ban the Box is all about. And the end result is that employers have the best possible opportunity to recruit the best people. But people with convictions continue to face widespread blanket attitudes by many employers. That’s why, in the year ahead, we’ll be doing to more to encourage employers to support this campaign. We’ll also be doing more to work alongside employers to help them to develop and implement positive recruitment practices.”

“Business has a huge opportunity and responsibility to make the workplace more accessible to ex-offenders that simply want to contribute their skills to society” said Catherine Sermon, Employment Director, Business in the Community. “24 pioneering firms have banned the box and ask about convictions later in the recruitment process – sending the message that they value applicants’ skills and potential over past mistakes. If just 5% of UK private sector employers followed their lead, over a million roles would be more accessible to ex-offenders. Now is the time to dramatically improve the life chances for the huge numbers of people with convictions and make fair consideration of criminal convictions the norm.”

You can find out more information about Unlock’s support for employers here.

Visit www.bitc.org.uk/banthebox for more information about Ban the Box. Follow the campaign at #BantheBoxUK

Google removes search results of person with spent conviction

Today, the Guardian has published an article on Google’s response to the ‘right to be forgotten’.

In response to a particular example on their website, Google said: “A man asked that we remove a link to a news summary of a local magistrate’s decisions that included the man’s guilty verdict. Under the UK Rehabilitation of Offenders Act this conviction has been spent. The pages have been removed from search results for his name.”

Radio 4’s ‘The Report’ looks at ‘the right to be forgotten’

On the 18th September, Radio 4’s ‘The Report’ broadcast an edition which focused on the ‘right to be forgotten’.

In particular, they look at some particular cases that relate to people with criminal convictions.

You can listen to the recording here.

Have you got a job in a ‘regulated’ role, industry or sector? We’re looking for your examples!

A common message we get from people with convictions is that they think it’s impossible to find (and keep) work in ‘regulated’ roles, industries and sectors.

Likewise, in our work with employers, there are lots of myths from employers, thinking that they can’t employ somebody with a conviction, because their industry or sector is ‘regulated’ in some way.

Technically speaking, there is rarely a rule that prevents people from being employed in a particular role; it’s usually up to the discretion of the employer or regulator, depending on the sector of work.

What are we looking for?

We want to highlight what other people have done, so that this will give confidence to both people with convictions, and employers in particular sectors.

So we’re putting a call-out for examples of individuals who have been employed in some of the common ‘regulated’ industries and sectors. We want to show people that it is possible. We also want to show other employers how they could go about things better by learning from others.

What types of work are we looking at?

We’re looking for people to get in touch with us who have convictions and who have been employed in sectors where it is more common for ‘DBS checks’ to be done. This includes:

Financial services (e.g. FCA-approved roles, banking industry, insurance sector)
Security industry (e.g. working as a doorman)
Legal profession (e.g. solicitors, barristers, paralegals)
Criminal justice system (e.g. probation officer, working in prisons, courts, police)
Health and social care (e.g. NHS, social worker)
Education (e.g. teacher, lecturer)

We’re keen to hear about other examples from other sectors too – the list is potentially endless!

Find out more about what we’re looking for, and how to help, here.

The number of people with unspent convictions

We regularly get asked how many people have unspent convictions.

Since the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act was amended in March 2014, the number of people whose conviction is unspent is expected to have reduced significantly, but nobody really knows by how much.

So, as a first attempt, we’ve pulled together some data which tries to do this, and the key findings are below.

Key findings

Before the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 reforms, which came into force on the 10th March 2014, there were approximately 2,514,987 individuals with unspent convictions in England & Wales.
Following the reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which came into force on the 10th March 2014, there were approximately 735,652 individuals with unspent convictions in England & Wales.
7,232 individuals receive a conviction each year that can never become spent.

Additional findings

2.03% of people that apply for a basic disclosure in England & Wales have unspent convictions disclosed.
6.94% of people that apply for a basic disclosure in Scotland have unspent convictions.
89% of the basic disclosures that Disclosure Scotland carry out are for people in England & Wales.

Got a different way of working this out?

We are interested in hearing about the efforts of others to better define the number of people with unspent convictions. Please send your thoughts to policy@unlock.org.uk or comment on this post below.