I thank the Chairman for the invitation to attend today's meeting. Access Northern Ireland began work on 1 April. I come to the meeting with three weeks of operational experience. I am not sure whether that makes me an expert but I will do my best to explain the issues.
Access Northern Ireland is the culmination of several years' work and a €2 million investment in resources and technology. It is a disclosure body, working under the same legislation and on the same basis as the Criminal Records Bureau in England and Wales and Disclosure Scotland. Our purpose is to provide criminal history information to enable employers make decisions about individuals wishing to work for them on either a paid or unpaid basis.
As Dr. Bailey observed, the main legislative basis for our work is Part V of the Police Act 1997. This enabling legislation allows the Secretary of State to issue information about criminal history. The police must disclose that information to us, as Dr. Bailey said. There are several supplementary regulations which cover the registration and disclosure process in Northern Ireland. We undertake three types of disclosure. A basic disclosure is applied for by an individual and we provide the latter with a copy of the unspent criminal record. That costs £26. A standard disclosure is applied for by a registered or umbrella body. It provides a full criminal record and costs the registered body £28. An enhanced criminal disclosure must also be applied for by the registered or umbrella body. In this case, we provide the full criminal history record as well as the relevant non-conviction information. In addition, we check all the lists from throughout the United Kingdom of people who are disqualified from working with children or vulnerable adults. In other words, it is a triple check. We provide this information to the employer, who must then decide whether to employ the individual in question. If the individual is on one of the disqualified lists, he or she cannot be employed. It is an offence for such a person even to seek employment to work with children or vulnerable adults.
The basic check is used as a general trustworthiness check. In the Northern Ireland civil service, for instance, all applicants are subjected to a basic criminal record check. As a member of the civil service, I must have passed this check. A standard check is done in respect of persons seeking to enter a profession in respect of which there is an exemption under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. This would include judicial appointments, medical posts, probation officers working in schools and so on. The enhanced check is designed for persons working in care positions with children or vulnerable adults. These are defined by the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Northern Ireland) Order 2003, and include specific posts, such as worker in a school, foster parent, social care worker and day care worker in a nursing home. Interestingly enough, taxi drivers must have an enhanced disclosure before being issued with a licence. The definitions under the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 are quite wide and draw in a broad range of groups, including voluntary groups such as church organisations and children's clubs. People working on a voluntary basis in any of these organisations come within the scope of the legislation. The general rule of thumb is that an enhanced check must be undertaken in respect of persons with unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults.
We can directly access the Northern Ireland Criminal Records Bureau. In addition, we can check records in the police national computer, which holds records for England, Scotland and Wales. We do a full criminal history check across the United Kingdom for all our disclosures. We stop there with the basic disclosure, take out the unspent sections and send it out. For a standard disclosure, we include the full criminal record in the disclosure certificate. For an enhanced check, we check the disqualified list for the entire United Kingdom and add in any known conviction or soft intelligence information that any of the police forces decide to disclose to us.
Each check begins with us asking the PSNI whether it has any information on the individual in question. If the person has ever had an address in England, Scotland or Wales, we ask the local police force in that jurisdiction for any relevant information. As Dr. Bailey said, we are also able to check a United Kingdom-wide database for any flags on the individual. If a flag has been posted, we can ask the police force in question for any relevant information. This is useful because not everybody discloses their full address history. If a person withholds the information that they lived in London for a period in the last five years, we may still be able to access any information held by the metropolitan police about the individual concerned using this flagging database. Any such information can be disclosed both to the registered body and to the applicant.
The methodology of applying for disclosure is simple, beginning with the applicant filling out an application form. In the case of basic checks, we send applicants to their local police station to have their identity checked. The identity confirmation is submitted to us and we perform the check and send out the disclosure certificate. In the case of a standard or enhanced check, the applicant fills in part of the form and the responsible or umbrella body must then countersign the application and verify the identity of the applicant. We then ask the PSNI for the relevant information, check the address history, check the databases and issue a disclosure certificate. One of the differences under the new system is that one copy of the certificate goes to the registered or umbrella body and the other to the applicant. Both receive the same information.
We aim to have 90% of our basic tests completed within two weeks. The target is three weeks for standard checks and four weeks for enhanced checks. We are committed to meeting these service standards. We have put certain systems in place with our colleagues in the PSNI, the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, ACPO, and others to ensure we can send information back within those timeframes so that people are not delayed in making a decision on whether to employ an individual.
One of the main changes in the new system is that people now have to pay for the service. In line with other disclosure bodies, Access Northern Ireland is a full cost recovery service. Instead of placing the burden on the general taxpayer, the cost of the service is charged to those who avail of it. However, for those who volunteer for organisations it is free. Consequently, a person who volunteers for a church organisation still can have an enhanced check but there is no cost to him or her. The only exceptions to this rule are if people are volunteering for statutory organisations or if they volunteer for voluntary organisations delivering statutory services. These are the only two exceptions.
The creation of Access Northern Ireland future-proofs the system of providing criminal history information. New legislation is forthcoming on safeguarding vulnerable groups and the establishment of what we call the independent safeguarding authority, which will introduce a system of continuous monitoring of those who wish to work with children and vulnerable adults. Access Northern Ireland will be the gateway to that authority and its role will be to get people from their present position to being registered with the new independent safeguarding authority. However, we will continue to provide for criminal history disclosures to those who need them.