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Criminal Records Bureau set to cost taxpayer an extra £100 million
April 9, 2003 12:00 AM
Figures released today in a new report by Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow MP show that the taxpayer will be footing a £100million compensation bill as part of a Home Office deal with Capita to renegotiate its contract for running the Criminal Records Bureau.
In the report 'Counting the Cost - The facts behind the Criminal Records Bureau', Mr Burstow highlights the fact that:-
- The decision to postpone the introduction of basic checks (known as disclosures) from April 2003 is estimated to cost £99.3 million over the next 3 years in lost income.
- Capita is in the process of renegotiating its contract with the Home Office and is seeking compensation for lost revenue despite failing to adhere to the original terms of the contracts.
- The Home Office report Estimating the Demand for the CRB released to Mr Burstow shows that demand for checks in 2002 was 59% greater than the Home Office original estimated in 2000.
- 1 in 10 checks - has not been completed since the CRB started in March 2002 that is 121,335 of all checks.
- The Carter Inquiry commissioned by the Home Office to identify problems with the CRB has not been published and Ministers are refusing to publish. The report cost £585,000 to write Capita have not had to meet any of the bill.
Mr Burstow, who is meeting with Home Office Minister Lord Falconer on Wednesday (9th April 2003), has put forward 25 questions that need to be answered and a 12 point plan to begin recovering public confidence in the CRBs capacity to deliver.
Paul Burstow said:-
"The Criminal Records Bureau rapidly became a farce which descended into fiasco and is now in danger of becoming a costly failure. Even after a half and million pounds has been spent on finding out what went wrong Ministers remain clueless about the CRB's capacity to cope with the expected doubling in its workload. No wonder the Government is refusing to publish the Carter report in full.
"The Home Secretary owes an apology to the taxpayers and organisations up and down the country for the thousands of checks that have been held up and the hundreds of thousands of checks that have been postponed indefinitely. Ministers are now embarking on a costly renegotiation of the contract with Capita that calls into question how they could have signed up to such a poor system in the first place.
"The Home Office has failed to set out a clear timetable for starting checks on staff working with vulnerable adults. The CRB is a vital part of the safety net protecting the most vulnerable from abuse and neglect. Everyday the Government delays the checks on staff working with frail elderly people puts lives at risk."
Ends
The report Counting the Costs - the Facts behind the Criminal Records Bureau was published today and includes a brief history of the CRB, questions that must be asked and the following recommendations:-
Recommendations
- The Carter Report must be published in full
- The repercussions for voluntary organisations must be investigated. This should identify the i) financial, ii) human resource and iii) insurance liability implications following the delays in checks and the proposed recommendations in the Carter summary.
- The value for money to the taxpayer must be independently assessed.
- A timetable must be set and published for when basic disclosures will be available to the public and when postponed checks will commence.
- There must be full disclosure of all of the costs incurred in and arising from (i) negotiating the original contract and (ii) renegotiating contract.
- The computer systems employed by the CRB must receive a full IT upgrade and improved 'system releases' to provide full details of the breakdown of the numbers of each profession applying for CRB checks. The cost of this change should be borne by Capita. This should include a priority system should be introduced to protect against shortages of staffing levels in specific professions and provide an ability to see where the majority of staff are requiring CRB checks are coming from. A timetable must be announced to the House of Commons.
- Full consultation with all organisations affected must occur with the results of the consultation published in full.
- As a goodwill gesture - CRB checks for childcare agencies which were free in 2002/3 should continue to be free in 2003/4.
- Ministers should report every six months to Parliament the state of the Criminal Records Bureau to increase transparency and increase trust in the system.
- The Home Office must evaluate whether improvements are needed to improve the quality and reliability of data supplied by the Police National Computer.
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