The Demise of the Criminal Records Bureau

AuthorChris Baldwin
Published date01 June 2019
Date01 June 2019
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0022018319829290
Subject MatterArticles
CLJ829290 229..242 Article
The Journal of Criminal Law
2019, Vol. 83(3) 229–242
The Demise of the Criminal
ª The Author(s) 2019
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sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0022018319829290
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Chris Baldwin
University of Sunderland, UK
Abstract
This article critically analyses the operations of the Criminal Records Bureau (‘the CRB’) and
seeks to determine why the Bureau closed abruptly in December 2012. It questions whether
the decision to open in March 2002 was expedient, in light of the apparent flaws in the
operational assumptions made by Capita Plc, the successful bidder for the CRB contract, and
the long-standing problems with the criminal records data. The article then identifies three key
failings in the administration of the criminal records checks which it is submitted quickly and
decisively eroded public and political confidence in the Bureau. The article concludes by
considering who, if anyone, is responsible for the apparent failure of the CRB, and what lessons
might be learned by the organisation which replaced it.
Keywords
Criminal Records Bureau, vetting, CRB checks, criminal records
Introduction
The high-profile child abduction and murder of Sarah Payne in 2000, coupled with the Soham murders in
2002, saw a marked rise in public fear of ‘stranger-danger’.1 This caused a paedophile panic2 to set in
which legitimised an exponential rise in the number of citizens subjected to criminal record checks; the
figure had risen from 701,692 checks3 to 3.3 million between 1993 and 2008.4 All of this was administered
by a newly created public–private body, the Criminal Records Bureau (‘The CRB’), which opened in 2002.5
1. T. Thomas, ‘The One Stop Shop’ (2 March 2001) 151 NLJ 298.
2. A. Williams and B. Thompson, ‘Vigilance or Vigilantes: The Paulsgrove Riots and Policing Paedophiles in the Community:
Part 1: The Long, Slow Fuse’ (2004) 77(3) Pol J 99–117.
3. Home Office, Disclosure of Criminal Records for Employment Vetting purposes, Cm2319 (Home Office, 1993) 7.
4. CRB, Annual reports and accounts for the period 1 April 2012–1 December 2012 HC66 (20 May 2013) 14.
5. Home Office, Government announces new measures to improve the Criminal Records Bureau, Press Release (Home Office,
2003).
Corresponding author:
Chris Baldwin, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK.
E-mail: chris.baldwin@sunderland.ac.uk

230
The Journal of Criminal Law 83(3)
Employers,6 voluntary groups7 and public figures8 roundly declared their support for the extension of
criminal checking and proudly reported the depth and scale of their own vetting processes. The Court of
Appeal overturned the common law presumption against the disclosure of non-conviction data9 and instead
created a threshold test that non-conviction data should be disclosed ‘if it might be true’10; a decision which
further facilitated the proliferation of vetting. The tide in favour of ‘vetting everyone, everywhere’ seemed to
be inexorable—by 2007 the phrase ‘CRB check’ had entered ordinary lexicography11 and a ‘vetting epi-
demic’ had set in.12
All of which makes the last few years quite remarkable so far as criminal records in England and
Wales are concerned. A backlash13 against the vetting epidemic seems to have developed. Politicians
have rowed back from their previous ebullient support for the vetting epidemic; the rhetoric has become
more nuanced and there has been explicit executive support for the scaling back of the vetting regime.14
Public attitudes seem to have hardened in the face of some of the more high-profile examples of
pernicious checking, likely influenced by media reports of children’s authors being prevented from
speaking in schools15 and elderly flower arrangers being barred from church,16 unless they undertook an
enhanced CRB check. Simultaneously, the judicial position has markedly shifted, with new tests estab-
lished and new, more critical approaches to interpretation of the vetting framework adopted.17
The most conspicuous example of this paradigm shift was the dissolution in December 2012 of the
CRB. The decision to do so was taken without warning, was never fully explained by the Government
and has attracted scant academic attention. This article aims to extrapolate a rationale behind that
decision. It will do so by critically evaluating the operations of the Bureau with a particular focus on
the mistakes made in its conception and administration and the public and political reaction to those
decisions. Key failings in the operational execution of the CRB’s functions will be identified, along with
the detrimental impact these caused on the public and executive perception of the Bureau and it’s
workings. The author concludes by seeking to ascertain what lessons, if any, can be learned from the
failure of the CRB for the organisation which immediately preceded it.
Conception and Teething Problems
On 14 December 1998, then Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced plans to open a new ‘Criminal
Records Bureau’ to be solely responsible for the administration of the new criminal record checks
instituted by recent legislation. Clarke told Parliament that ‘dangerous people need to be stopped from
working with children and young people. The creation of the CRB is an important step towards achiev-
ing that’.18 The Labour administration invited bids to run the Bureau as a public–private partnership with
6. S. McCormack, ‘Councils tell heads to have all teachers checked’ The Guardian (28 February 2006).
7. Fair Play for Children, making progress on for the child’s right to play, Annual Report (2004–5) 2.
8. Home Office, (n 5).
9. R v Chief Constable of North Wales Police ex part Thorpe [1999] QB 396.
10. R (on the application of X) v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police [2004] EWCA Civ 1068 per Lord Woolf at [47].
11. T. Thomas, ‘CRB Checks’ (2012) 176 JPN 167.
12. T. Pitt-Payne, ‘Employment – The Shadow of the Past’ (2009) 159 NLJ 1530; C Baldwin, ‘The Vetting Epidemic in England
and Wales’ (2017) 81(6), J Crim L 478–96.
13. T. Thomas, ‘Old Criminal Records Playing a Familiar Tune’ (2012) 176 JPN 539.
14. Theresa May, then Home Secretary, pledged in October 2010 to scale back vetting to ‘common sense levels’ (see Hansard,
House of Commons debate 2 October 2010, column 77WS to 78WS).
15. School safety ‘insult’ to Pullman (16 July 2009) The BBC.
16. D Harrison, ‘Cathedral Flower Ladies Quitting Over Criminal Record Checks’ The Telegraph (12 December 2010).
17. R (on the application of L) (FC) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2009] UKSC 3 and R (on the application of P) v
Sec. of State for the Home Dept. [2017] EWCA Civ 321.
18. Home Office, Criminal Records Bureau to Strengthen Child Protection Safeguards Press Release 494/1998. (Home Office,
1998).

Baldwin
231
the Home Office19 and on 20 July 2000, it was announced that Capita had won the right to sell criminal
records20 and a 10-year contract to do so was signed on 3 August 2000.21
The problems mounted before the Bureau had opened for business. The principal concern lay with the
raw criminal records data, which had been in an inadequate state for decades.22 It was originally intended
that the CRB would open in July 2001, but a Parliamentary Select Committee was so concerned with the
quality of the raw data that the start date was deferred until further investigations were made.23
In July 2000, HM Inspector of Constabulary published a report on his review of the PHOENIX police
database which contained the criminal records data24 and found incorrect recording, missing records,
incorrect classification and an overall error rate of between 15 per cent and 65 per cent on inspected
files.25 Such was the general concern that the Home Secretary addressed the issue in Parliament, telling
the Commons that ‘the Home Office certainly does not have a defence against the charge that the police
records system is seriously inadequate . . . This has been the case consistently for a very long period of
time . . . It is a very bad state of affairs’.26
Another grievous example of the problems occurred in June 2000 when the Home Secretary ordered
an inquiry into the removal of 140,000 caution records from the Police National Computer.27 Indeed,
such was the parlous state of the criminal record collection that Terry Thomas claimed there to be a real
possibility of Enforcement Notices being served on the police by the Information Commissioner.28 The
overall data concerns were effectively twofold: ‘many of those with past cautions may be able to obtain a
clean bill of health while others may initially incriminate the innocent who must then seek to clear their
names through a protracted administrative procedure’.29
Delays and Backlogs
Against this backdrop, the CRB finally opened on 11 March 2002.30 It was overwhelmed almost
immediately. The number of applications for checks far outstripped the capacity of the fledgling orga-
nisation’s ability to process them and by July 2002 there was a minimum six-week turnaround time for
certificate requests.31 There seemed to be an enormous backlog of applications: one report claimed that
206,153 requests for enhanced disclosures had been received between March and August 2002 but only
58,000 certificates had been issued.32
Against this chaotic opening, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were abducted near their home in
Soham on 4 August 2002. On 17 August 2002, the caretaker of the local college, Ian Huntley, was
arrested and ultimately charged with their murder.33 Amid the subsequent frenzied media...

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