Deputy prime minster Nick Clegg (pictured) today announced that more than nine million people working or volunteering with children and vulnerable adults will no longer need to register and be monitored by the state following a scaling back of the Vetting and Barring scheme (VBS). Criminal record checks will be portable between jobs to cut down on needless bureaucracy.
"The new system will be less bureaucratic and less intimidating. It will empower organisations to ask the right questions and make all the appropriate pre-employment checks, and encourage everyone to be vigilant," Clegg said.
The plans are part of a new Protection of Freedoms Bill and update the VBS, which was due to start in July. The bill includes an end to a requirement for those working or volunteering with vulnerable groups to register with the VBS and then be continuously monitored by the Independent Safeguarding Authority, and a halt to employers knowingly requesting criminal records checks on individuals when they are not entitled to them.
"The Freedoms Bill will protect millions of people from state intrusion in their private lives and mark a return to common sense government. It delivers on our commitment to restore hard-won British liberties with sweeping reforms that will end the unnecessary scrutiny of law-abiding individuals," said Clegg.
"We inherited a messy criminal records regime that developed piecemeal and defied common sense. Our reviews concluded that the systems were not proportionate and needed to be less bureaucratic. They will now be scaled back to sensible levels while at the same time protecting vulnerable people."
Registration for the first wave of workers and volunteers with the VBS was halted on 15 June last year pending the remodelling of the system. Only those working most closely with children or vulnerable adults will now need to undergo a criminal records check.
The VBS report makes a number of recommendations including a new streamlined body to provide a national barring system and criminal records disclosure service. The new scheme will capitalise on technological developments to provide an online checking function for employers and applicants while allowing checks to be transferred easily from one company to another.
The bill is expected to become law by early 2012. The new regime would be introduced as soon as possible after this.
