Ross,
That's right AFAIK but I think we should not view CRB's as a "nice to have, so why not".
I am no lawyer either. But the law in the UK protects people who have come out of prison against discrimination. For this reason CRB checks are limited to people who need them for valid reasons, as listed. Some organisations do take a very liberal view of what "in direct contact with children" means and hope that they will win trial by tabloid if they get caught (since ex-prisoners do not have much popular support). But you should not regard CRBing everyone as being "safe, just in case". That's misuse. Overuse of CRB is as dodgy underuse of CRB checking.
In these circumstances I would say the correct route is to appoint the board without CRB checks but get them to approve a CRB policy with checking as necessary before people undertake activities requiring them.
Andrew =============== On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Ross Gardler ross.gardler@oucs.ox.ac.uk wrote:
Andrew Cates wrote:
Friends,
If I may add a comment on this? I think you are in danger of breaking the law in requesting a CRB from a candidate.
I'm no lawyer, I can only speak from experience.
It was a requirement of the (public) funding of a social enterprise working with children (in this case very young children) that all volunteers *who came into direct contact with children* were CRB checked.
It was *not* a requirement for the board members to be CRB checked, although the board agreed to implement a voluntary CRM checking scheme for all volunteers.
Ross
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