Category: Latest

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.

Latest updates to our self-help information site – October 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.

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

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.

Film about disclosing convictions – “Making your past pay”

Earlier this week, there was a film launched by Staffordshire and West Midlands CRC about disclosing convictions to employers.

We helped them out with some of the content, and they mentioned Unlock and our Disclosure Calculator, which is good to see.

You should be able to watch the film below, and there’s more details about the video on the SWM CRC website.

Let us know what you think – feel free to comment at the bottom of this page!

Making Your Past Pay – Help with disclosing previous convictions to employers from SWM Probation on Vimeo.

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.

Article in Inside Time on ‘filtering’

We’ve written an article for Inside Time on the ‘filtering of convictions.

You can read the article here.

Latest updates: unlock.devchd.com/information-and-advice/ – July/August 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.

DBS say that employers need to use the new DBS application forms

We’re pleased to hear that the DBS has today sent out a news update about their application forms, following Unlock’s complaint to the ICO.

In March 2014, the DBS announced that they were changing the question on their application form after a complaint by Unlock to the ICO. The complaint was about the DBS’s failure to promptly update their application form after ‘filtering’ came into force in May 2013.

In response to the complaint, the DBS updated the question they asked about criminal records, so that it made reference to ‘filtering‘, meaning that people with cautions and convictions didn’t need to disclose a caution or conviction when applying for a DBS check if it would be filtered.

Unfortunately, even after they took this action, we were still receiving calls to our Helpline from individuals who were applying for jobs, volunteering and university courses where they’d been given an old DBS form. This old form asked about “all convictions and cautions”. In one example we dealt with, a University was insisting that the individual disclose her conviction from 15 years ago, even though it was now filtered and so didn’t need to be disclosed. Although we eventually managed to resolve this issue, there were clearly still problems.

The main problem was that, although in March 2014 the DBS updated their form, they didn’t require registered bodies to use the new forms. This meant that many were still using the old form, causing lots of confusion about what individuals should and shouldn’t disclosed.

We raised this issue with the DBS, and the ICO, following our original complaint, and we are pleased that the DBS has now responded by making it clear that registered bodies need to use the new form, as well as sending these new forms to registered bodies for them to use.

The DBS has also produced an “Application form insert” which should be given to applicants who are doing DBS checks. This helps to explain to individuals what ‘filtering’ means, and helps to make it clear what individuals do and don’t have to disclose when applying for a role that involves a DBS check.

If you’re an employer, find out more useful information here.

If you’re an individual, find out more useful information here.

New articles on theRecord

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.