Despite the fact that over 1500 individuals were mistakenly given a clean record or accused of more serious offences than they had actually committed the Home Office pointed out that 99.96 per cent of the CRB’s certificates were accurate over the past year. A copy of the CRB’s annual report, which will be formally published next month, shows that 3.9 million certificates were processed by the agency: an increase of 500,000 on 2007-08 and it is predicted that the numbers will continue to increase with 11 million adults required to be vetted after Ministers increased the scope of those who need to be CRB checked. The 1500 individuals affected by the anomalies had the right to appeal and 90 per cent of disputes were resolved within 21 days.
Norman Mortell of Agenda Security Services emphasised the importance of robust checking processes,
“Simply carrying out a CRB or any other type of pre-employment check alone is not sufficient. Information must be cross correlated and validated by as many sources as possible. For example, if a person was erroneously reported to have a prison record by the CRB this could be refuted quickly by reference to other known records such as University attendance and/or employment records. The CRB’s annual report also shows the importance of verifying and investigating gaps in employment, if the CRB mistakenly miss a conviction this may be picked up by a thorough review of the employment history and analysis of any gaps detected”.
He finished by saying that
“Another factor to consider is that it is vital to check the identity of the person that you are conducting the CRB check on to ensure the validity of the results that are reported, for example, people do change their names for a variety of reasons”.
For more information on Agenda’s CRB processes e-mail info@agenda-security.co.uk
