Charges for checks are criminal

摘要

The news from the Home Office that the standard rate for running a check through the Criminal Records Bureau is to double to ￡24 could bring to mind for many councils the words salt and wound. Councils could be forgiven for asking what they will be getting for their money following the events of the last two years, and some cynics are quietly predicting a repeat performance, but at twice the price. Enormous backlogs, innocent people being branded as criminals and schools being brought to a halt have all been part of the problems of the CRB, and all this for a service which councils thought would be free as part of a statutory requirement.