Spent Convictions Changes Proposed

Ministers are keen to reform the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act because it is now almost 40 years old. Proposals are currently going through Parliament to cut the current 10 years it takes for a 6 to 30-month sentence to be spent to be reduced to 4 years. The rules for sentences of over 4 years will not change and will remain unspent. The proposal will be included in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act leading to a reduction in the time in which convictions become spent in England and Wales and would see criminals’ records cleared earlier. For example, Community Order sentences, currently live for 5 years, would be spent after a year; the period for sentences of up to 6 months in custody would reduce from 7 years to 2 years and sentences of 30 months to 4 years, which are currently never spent, would only remain live for 7 years under the plans – and could relate to some serious assaults and sexual assaults. The proposal would mean a change from the current system where the unspent period would start from the beginning of the sentence; the new system, whilst introducing shorter periods for a sentence to become spent, would also require it to start from the end of the sentence imposed.

The proposal would shorten the period during which a conviction was unspent and has to be declared to prospective employers, insurance companies and in civil proceedings (spent convictions do not have to be declared). The proposal is aimed at getting offenders who have served their sentences back into work. The government believes that work reduces re-offending. “Criminals must be suitably punished for their crimes,” said Justice Minister Lord McNally. “but it is no good for anyone if they go to jail and come out and then can’t get an honest job and so turn back to crime again.” This was borne out by Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust who said people who are unemployed and homeless on leaving prison have a reoffending rate of 74% during the year after custody, compared with 43% of those with a job and somewhere to live.

The change would not affect work exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, for example those working with vulnerable people and children and in schools and hospitals.

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Agenda announces Dove House as 2012 Charity of the Year

Last year Agenda Security Services raised in excess of £300 for their chosen charity Dove House Hospice. Fundraising continued throughout the year including the raffle of a giant chocolate Easter egg, dress down days and office collections.

The directors at Agenda have decided to continue this support into 2012 with Dove House Hospice as Agendas chosen charity for the year.

Dove House is a charity providing excellent care for people in the local community with life limiting illnesses. They are specialists in the provision of palliative care which is the total care of patients whose illness is no longer curable and for whom the goal must be quality of life.

To find out more about the work they do and the excellent services they provide please visit their website: www.dovehouse.org.uk

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Thank you to all Christmas Quiz participants

This month saw another successful Christmas promotion from Agenda with over 500 people visiting our exciting online Christmas Quiz. We had fun setting up this quiz and it was great to see so many people taking part in the festive fun!

The winners were notified by email and for those who entered who may be curious about the 35 answers to our quiz; here they are:

  1. Blue Christmas
  2. White Christmas
  3. We’re walking in the air
  4. Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
  5. Santa Baby
  6. Silent Night
  7. Driving home for Christmas
  8. Fairytale of New York
  9. Little Donkey
  10. Last Christmas
  11. A Partridge in a Pear Tree
  12. Christmas Tree
  13. Silver Bells
  14. Away in a Manger
  15. Mary’s Boy Child
  16. I saw three ships
  17. Santa Claus is comin’ to town
  18. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
  19. Hark! The Herald Angels sing
  20. Baby it’s cold outside
  21. O little town of Bethlehem
  22. We three kings
  23. I saw mummy kissing Santa Claus
  24. Do they know it’s Christmas?
  25. Joy to the world
  26. Stop the  Cavalry
  27. Step into Christmas
  28. Lonely this Christmas
  29. Christmas Time
  30. Jingle Bell Rock
  31. Mistletoe and Wine
  32. I Wish it could be Christmas every day
  33. Let it Snow
  34. All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
  35. The Holly and the Ivy

The Agenda team enjoys finding new ways  to promote Agenda  during the festive period and will enjoy helping your company whether it be with sourcing of Christmas based promotional products, the execution of Christmas messages via our bulk email service, or by designing an interactive game, challenge or advent calendar for your clients. For an informal chat or for more information please give the team a call on 08456 44 55 45.

 

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Quality Focus Yields Results

Agenda understands that externally audited certification provides additional reassurance that we are continually developing our systems and processes to improve our services year on year.  This year we have developed more robust business continuity planning through our ISO27001 Information Security Management Standard Certification, linking it to the requirements of the ISO25999 Business Continuity Standard for example and by installing new backup generators at our facilities.  Despite the economic downturn, we have continued to invest heavily in new and improved screening processes, servers and our bespoke Candidate Input System that will go live in 2012; we have also improved site security with the provision of manned guarding outside of office hours.  We have hired 7 new people into our head office team during 2011 and earlier this year we were re-certified to the ISO27001 Standard.  All staff have also attended customer service and quality management training modules to support our culture of customer care and quality service.

All of our activities are underpinned by our commitment to quality, ISO9001 Quality Management Certification is an important aspect of our overall quality strategy. It sits alongside our quality forum, customer and candidate satisfaction surveys and continual process improvement initiatives.  We are delighted to announce that in December 2011 we passed our latest one day ISO9001 compliance audit with flying colours and with no non-conformances, conducted externally by ISOQAR this provides us with an external verification of our processes and our clients with reassurance that we are continuing our quality focus. 

The auditor wrote “The company management continues to be committed to the maintenance and improvement of the QMS and fully supports its implementation.” and “Agenda  has established and maintained a suitable Quality Management System that complies with all the requirements of ISO 9001: 2008.”  Agenda is delighted to once again get recognition for the efforts of all  our team.. We have embedded a quality culture that does not rely on a last minute panic before these inspections, as we are confident that we are doing the right thing. We are not perfect but we work hard to permanently resolve any issues – it is part of our culture. 

Katrina, Agenda’s Quality Officer wrote “These one day audits are very in-depth, but it is great to see that all of our continual hard work has been externally recognised.”  She went on to say “The Agenda Values focus heavily on customer care and quality. These are embedded in our policies, training, appraisal system and even in our monthly and annual quality awards. ISO9001 underpins all of this and I am proud that we have achieved another re-certification with no non-conformances.”

If you would like any further information about Agenda’s ISO9001 compliance or any other aspect of our quality management programme please contact, Katrina@agenda-security.co.uk.

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our subscribers

2012 promises to be an exciting year for Agenda not least because of the launch of our new Candidate Input System to further improve our pre-employment screening processes, with even higher levels of security, even greater Data Protection compliance, less paper, less duplication of data input, ease of client screening ordering and refined search and tracking capabilities. The system marks a significant milestone in the development of Agenda’s screening services. 

If you would like more information about the new Candidate Input System please contact us at 08456 445546 or e-mail screening@agenda-security.co.uk.

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How Safe are you online?

The internet is part of everyday life for most of us and see it as second nature to communicate, purchase items and book our holidays but is it safe to do so?

Are you aware of the following facts?

  • 19 people fall victim to cyber crime every MINUTE*
  • It costs the UK £474 million a year
  • In the last 12 months 3 times the number of people have been victim to cyber crime compared with offline crime

*Norton by Symantec Cybercrime Report 2011

So how do you protect yourself from becoming a victim?

There are ten basic measures which you should take:

  1. Set your computer security settings to meet your requirements; if you use your computer to do on line banking and make purchases the security settings should be set to high by activating the firewall
  2. Get the latest windows updates
  3. Apply appropriate up to date virus protection and check daily
  4. Apply appropriate up to date anti spyware and check daily
  5. Do not open e-mails (particularly attachments) from unknown sources
  6. Make sure your web browser is up to date
  7. Encrypt those important files particularly those which contain personal data including banking details etc
  8. Make regular backups
  9. If you use wireless technology make sure it is encrypted
  10. Report suspicious activity

The Rt Honourable Francis Maude, MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office recently said,

“The internet is a vital part of our economy.  The UK is now Europe’s leading e-retail economy with sales set to reach approximately £69 billion by the end of this year. The sector is growing at a rate of 18% per annum with an average of approximately £1,144 spent per person.

It is easy to see why this is the case, as the internet is often cheaper, quicker and more convenient than traditional means, offering 24/7 access. Mobiles are increasingly being used for more than just calls and sending text messages, with 39% accessing the internet from a mobile phone in the past year. With worldwide tablet sales estimated to rocket by 400% over the next two years, the internet economy will continue to grow.

Unfortunately, this thriving marketplace doesn’t escape the notice of those who would seek to exploit it unlawfully. Criminals have been quick to take advantage of the ease of access to victims and the relative anonymity that the internet affords”.

It is the responsibility of everyone to ensure the availability of the internet is not compromised by failing to take a few basic steps to protect not only yourself but others. 

It is estimated that over 100,000 computers have been accessed without the owner’s knowledge and consent and are now being exploited by criminals.  Is your computer one of these?  If you do not take the basic steps outlined above you will never know and it may be at your expense.

For further information go to http://www.getsafeonline.org

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Agenda – Happy Bloggers!

Agenda has developed a new system for blogging useful pre-employment screening and security news items; we have also re-blogged all of our older guidance and news articles to enable them to be searched more effectively. Using a series of key words and descriptions it means that all of our articles are now more easily found by the major search engines creating a treasure trove of information that is easier than ever to find.

Our blog will provide you with even more useful information than ever before and we promise to keep it up to date and relevant. Anna (the Agenda Marketing Manager) said “The blog is only a small part of our continued investment in social media and effective communication with all of our stakeholders, whilst we do not intend to inundate people with information we do want to provide a balance that enables all of our stakeholders to find information that is useful to them and easily to find.”

If you would like Agenda to produce some guidance or fact sheets on a specific pre-employment screening issue please let us know and if you would like to find out more about Agenda’s communications and social media strategy please contact Anna in our Marketing and Communications division at annas@agenda-mc.co.uk.

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Your Guide to Criminal Checks

The process for obtaining details of the criminal history for a person who resides in England, Scotland and Wales is conducted through the Criminal Records Bureau or Disclosure Scotland. This information is provided as a guide to understanding what is available from each organisation and the differences between their services.

View YourGuidetoCriminalchecks for more information

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Security Awareness Training Courses

Our security awareness training courses have evolved into various packages that are individually packed for each client to ensure that the information is up-to-date and relevant. It is worth pointing out that Agenda also provides voluntary “free” talks in the UK to schools and colleges on the subject of the use of animals in research and that we have done radio and newspaper interviews on behalf of the Institute of Animal Technology (IAT) and the Coalition for Medical Progress also free of any charge.

The training that we do charge for is presented by people who have worked in the research or security industry for many years, some of whom have been personally targeted and worked for organisations that have been targeted. They are also trained facilitators and so the courses are based on providing a positive learning experience, group exercises and an enjoyable (memorable) training course. We have already run over 100 courses, training over 3,500 individuals in the UK, Europe and the USA & Canada with excellent feedback and we can see that the tighter legislation is driving some groups to either more extreme (terrorist) activities or infiltration (PETA).

For more information or to book a course please contact usor call 08456 445546 or visit: http://www.agenda-security.co.uk/security_training.asp

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What Are The Top Ten Security Threats To Academia?

Agenda was proud to be invited to present at the prestigious Association of University Chief Security Officers (AUCSO) annual meeting in York in April. A presentation entitled “Delayering Research Facility Security” was delivered and extremely well received. During the meeting a survey of the top ten security threats was conducted by Agenda amongst the delegates. The top ten threats survey used was developed following a review of the guidelines provided by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, MI5 advice, Secured by Design principles and elements of the ISO27001 Information Management Security System. The delegates ranked the ten options in priority order and the results were as follows and show that Data and Information Loss is the primary concern, followed by Physical Security/Access, Lack of Security Awareness and Contingency/Business Continuity Planning. The graph below shows all of the results. This exercise was extremely useful to indicate the issues of concern to the University security professionals, issues in the free text comments section includes the screening of overseas students, financial constraints and issues around the failure/breakdown of security systems (alarms/access, control/CCTV) and resilience to outside interference. Feedback from AUCSO on the survey has been very positive and Agenda intends to compare the results across other groups that have been surveyed using the same format to compare the results for similarities and differences.

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