Data Protection (Hansard, 22 October 1991)

§ Mr. Cohen
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the grant aid provided to the Data Protection Registrar's office to enable him to deal with the data protection implications of new technology, new government initiatives that require the use of personal data, and data protection developments in Europe without adversely affecting his efforts to inform the public of their rights and data users of their obligations; and if he will make a statement.

§ Mrs. Rumbold
Funding of the registrar's office will continue to be determined in the light of expenditure bids and overall public spending constraints. It is for the registrar to decide how best to allocate grant-in-aid in order to fulfil his duties under the Data Protection Act 1984.

§ Mr. Cohen
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects the report on the scrutiny of criminal records to be published; whether the proposals for wider vetting forms part of his contribution to the citizens charter; and whether he will make a statement.

§ Mr. Peter Lloyd
The report will be available from the Home Office Library shortly.
The Government welcome the report and accept the need to improve the maintenance and use of the national collection of criminal records so that it can serve the criminal justice system more effectively.
Many of the report's recommendations raise substantial issues of policy and practice which will need further detailed consideration. As the report recognises, many of the changes that it recommends cannot be introduced until the criminal record collections, which are now held on microfiche at the national identification bureau—NIB—and within forces, have been computerised into a single system which can be available, on-line, to police forces, the courts and other criminal justice agencies. This is a major undertaking and, although work on it has already begun, it is unlikely to be completed until the mid 1990s.
In order to eliminate the need for local record systems, the national computerised records system will have to hold information on a wider range of offences than those which are presently held in the records of the NIB. In particular, the Government accept the report's recommendation that cautions should be recorded on the national system. It has not yet reached a view on the treatment of bind-overs.
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The Government accept that the new national criminal record system should be run by a central organisation and managed for the benefit of the criminal justice system as a whole. A good deal more work is necessary before final decisions can be taken on the precise shape and status of such an organisation. This work is now in hand.
The Government acknowledge the weaknesses, which the report identifies, in the present arrangements for disclosing information from the criminal record for the purpose of assisting employers, licensing authorities, and so on, to judge the suitability of people for particular posts or positions. It is the Government's intention to publish a consultation paper in about 12 months' time outlining their proposals for new disclosure arrangements. By that time, the arrangements for managing the new national criminal records system and the content of the national record should be clearer.
Because the recommendations on disclosure have substantial implications for exceptions made under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, the consultation paper will also contain proposals relating to exceptions under that Act.