News from Siân Berry: Caring professions in London need priority for security checks

Green Assembly Member Sian Berry is calling on the Mayor to ensure the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), which checks for criminal records before people can work in sensitive jobs, prioritises workers in caring professions such as youth work and mental health support.

New workers in caring professions are waiting more than two months after being offered a job for the ability to work. Priority cases must be specified by the DBS service, and in a written answer to Berry, the Mayor has said the Met cannot escalate the cases of these workers without a change in policy by the service.[1]

Over 81,000 people in London are now waiting for police checks before they can start work, an increase from 68,000 at the end of 2015, and despite the Met Police adding more staff to the team that handles inquiries from the service.[2]

Berry is now calling on the Mayor to get this change made at a national level to help these workers who are sorely needed by London’s local authorities and charities.

Psychology graduate Lorraine, had to wait seven months last year for her DBS to clear before she could volunteer to work with vulnerable adults that suffered from drug and alcohol abuse.

“I waited so long for the police checks to clear that I became extremely demotivated and thought about looking for another job countless times. I wanted to volunteer my time to help desperately vulnerable adults but the charity could not use my skills to help overworked and under resourced staff for over six months. During that time so many more people could have had the support that they needed.

Ebinehita, a youth worker, experienced similar problems:

“Even calling up was a waste of time as they said the same thing over and over again. Then I found out the delay was caused by someone misspelling my name. This delay really affected me personally as it started to make me feel as if I was being held back.”

“Government cuts have left massive gaps in local and voluntary sector services and caring professions are being stressed to their limit. The Mayor needs to be doing all that he can to ensure these key workers are not being delayed for vast amounts of time without work. This delay in police checks could be losing keen people who want to work in the caring profession but need to pay bills and eat rather than wait for DBS certificates.

“Adding more staff to the Met’s enquiry unit will clearly not solve the problem without giving priority to London’s most needed professions. The Mayor needs to take action to remedy this situation and make sure the DBS starts to prioritise applicants wanting to work in caring professions.”

The government website claims checks are completed within 60 days but as of February 2016 the Metropolitan police were only responding to 31% of checks within this time limit.[3]