Criminal Records Bureau is failing to protect the public

The agency set up to check the criminal records of people who work with children and vulnerable adults is failing to protect the public, Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow MP revealed today.

Despite forecasting 3.3 million disclosures on criminal records in its first year, the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) only managed 1.4 million - 57% less than planned. The teacher clearance fiasco at the start of the new 2002 school year was a direct result of this failure. Around 700,000 checks were postponed, including those people working with vulnerable adults.

Organisations ranging from care homes to individual child minders now face the prospect of massive increases in the cost of criminal record checks to pay for a succession of blunders by the CRB.

In a new report published today, Paul Burstow was highly critical of these failures and outlined an eight point plan to turn the CRB around. He said:

"There is no excuse for sheer incompetence. Despite this fiasco of an agency, no one has been held to account. The officials involved in the initial planning and inception of the CRB should step down.

"This Government agency has delayed or postponed hundreds of thousands of checks on people who look after young children unsupervised, go into elderly people's homes alone, care for patients in hospitals, and work with the victims of rape, sexual offences and other crimes.

"I now call on the Home Office to revise the demand forecasts, financial estimates and business plan of this Agency; set a clear timetable for introducing checks on those who work with vulnerable adults; and work with the voluntary sector to set up a new network of regional registered 'umbrella' bodies who can process local requests."

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. Mr Burstow published his report and recommendations to coincide with a debate called by him in Westminster Hall on Wednesday 30 April.

2. The summary and recommendations from Mr Burstow's report Criminal Records Bureau - The Anatomy of a Systems Failure can be seen below. A full copy of the report is available on request.

3. Mr Burstow's report follows 150 Parliamentary Questions and two Early Day Motions on the subject.

4. The National Audit Office is expected to complete its assessment of the CRB in July 2003.

Summary and recommendations

The CRB was first proposed by the then Conservative Government in 1993. The Home Office has been working plans to establish a centralised agency to provide criminal records for 10 years. An extensive programme of research had been conducted to develop the business plan. The whole process of devising and delivering the CRB was overseen by Programme Board chaired by the Chief Executive of the Passport Agency.

Criminal record checks were to be available from the CRB from August 2001, twelve months after the private sector partner, Capita, signed the contract to deliver, manage and own the IT side of the operation. Over those crucial twelve months every stage of the implementation programme suffered delay and setback.

The CRB went live on 11th March 2002 - seven months late. The first six months of operation saw a gradual increase in the number of applications for checks. Despite the unexpectedly low volume of demand the CRB failed to cope. The system lacked the capacity.

The CRB was drowning in paper. The decision in May 2001 to include a full-scale paper-based application route had a serious impact on the CRB's capacity. It had been envisaged that customers would use the telephone or electronic routes to apply for disclosures. In practice, eight out of ten applications are by paper. The failure to identify at a much earlier stage such a basic customer requirement as how they would prefer to apply is staggering. To compound this omission the CRB lay much of the blame for the backlog in processing applications at the door of applicants and Registered Bodies for filling in the forms incorrectly, rather than critically examining the design of the forms.

Three months after going live, and under intense pressure to deliver checks on teaching staff in time for the new school year, the CRB announced a package of measures to improve performance; which included shifting initial processing of paper applications to Madras, India and seconding hundreds of staff from the Passport Agency.

Five months after going live the CRB commissioned an independent review, headed by Jack Straws best man, Patrick Carter of the core systems provided by Capita. The Home Office have refused to publish the report which cost the taxpayer £585,000. But published sources, including answers to parliamentary questions, reveal a system that had already undergone substantial 'enhancements and improvements' since its original delivery and was still in need of further significant modification to make it fit for its intended purpose. To what extent the Home Office's system requirement contributed to the CRB's difficulties needs to be understood. The question is: did the system originally delivered by Capita fit the Home Office specification?

Six months of poor performance and panic measures end with the Home Secretary calling in trouble shooters. The independent review team led by Patrick Carter found no evidence that the CRB has the capacity to cope with the levels of forecast demand. Initial feedback was given to Ministers in September with a final report submitted to Ministers in December 2002. To date, only a summary of the main findings and recommendations has been published.

Eleven months after go live and the Home Secretary accepted most of the recommendations of the Carter review team. The introduction of the basic disclosure is to be postponed until the system can reliably cope with all the demand for standard and enhanced disclosures. Just two and a half years after awarding Capita the contract the Government is to embark on a costly renegotiation to secure a system capable of delivering the original business plan.

One year in and capacity is still a problem. Plans to extend checks to staff working with vulnerable adults from April 2003 have been postponed indefinitely. The decision to postpone checks was an admission that the CRB was ill equipped to meet the demand anticipated in its business plan. A plan that had only been published in March 2002 was already out of date and urgent need of rewriting.

The CRB is meant to be self-financing by 2007. The Home Office secured HM Treasury approval in 2001 for a five year cumulative cost recovery plan. This plan has to recover all of the set-up costs incurred by the Agency and Capita, all of the running costs of the Agency and Capita, and the cost of waiving charges for volunteers.

The unanticipated demand for, and use of, a full-scale paper based application route on top of significant changes to the capabilities of the IT have increased the unit cost of producing a disclosure. The estimated loss of £100 million in revenue from the basic disclosure over the next three years means that fixed and set-up costs have to be spread over fewer standard and enhanced disclosures; disclosures which are more expensive to administer leaving less scope for paying off 'loans' from HM Treasury. Unless the Home Office can strike a deal with HM Treasury charges for disclosures will have to rise sharply to bridge the gap.

Commercial confidentiality offers a convenient means of clouding questions of accountability. It is hard to pinpoint whether Capita delivered the system specified by the Home Office or not. The fact that the system has undergone countless changes suggests a serious flaw in the specification and a breakdown in communication during the design stage.

So far no one at a senior level connected with CRB project has resigned. Perhaps it is time they considered their positions.

Recommendations

CRB customers should not be made to pay for poor project planning and incompetent implementation. Fee increases for disclosures should be indexed to prices.

The Home Office should seek the agreement of Capita to waive commercial confidentiality and publish the Carter Inquiry report in full.

The Home Office should seek the agreement of Capita to waive commercial confidentiality and publish the French Thornton Partnership review of the core system delivered by Capita.

A clear timetable should be published for the introduction of checks on staff working with vulnerable adults. This should include a start date for the Protection of Vulnerable Adults List (PoVA) by the Department of Health.

The demand forecasts, financial estimates and performance targets in the Corporate and Business Plan should be recast to reflect the new environment in which the Agency is operating.

The Home Office should work with the voluntary sector to determine the best way of establishing a network of regional Umbrella Registered Bodies with sufficient funding to enable them to develop sound databases and process to ensure local voluntary and community organisations have equal access across the country.

The Home Office must review the insurance liability implications for registered bodies (RBs) and umbrella registered bodies (URBs) of implementing the Carter Inquiry recommendations that RBs and URBs should validate applicant's identities and that the CRB should determine the level of disclosure to be issued.

The Home Office should ensure that full consideration is given to the responses to its consultation on reform of the disclosure process, before tabling amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, there should be a Written Ministerial Statement setting out the Government's intentions.