§ Baroness Blatchasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to Written Answers by Lord Falconer of Thoroton on 6 November (WA 111), whether:
- (a) no Minister or official from the Home Office formally agreed the specification for the contract with Capita to process criminal record checks, or
- (b) no Minister or official from the Home Office was responsible for the actual procurement of the contract with Capita to process criminal record checks. [HL211]
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton)Bernard Herdan, chief executive of the Criminal Records Bureau, (CRB) was the senior Home Office official responsible for the specification and for the actual award of the contract to Capita to process criminal record checks. Mr Herdan was, and remains, the senior accountable officer for the CRB.
The Minister approved the user requirement for the CRB and the business case for public private partnerships outsourcing and agreed that a contract should be awarded on this basis.
§ Baroness Blatchasked Her Majesty's Government:
Who is authorised to see personal bank and building society details which appear on an application form for a criminal record check; and what guarantee there is for the applicant that such information cannot be used or abused. [HL213]
90WA
§ Lord Falconer of ThorotonAll Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) staff are authorised to see applicants' personal information supplied on the disclosure application form. All civil servants and Capita staff must be cleared to government security standards, undertaken by the Home Office Security Unit. In addition all civil servant CRB staff who are responsible for seeing and handling sensitive disclosure information are checked to the same level as enhanced disclosures. Only civil servants have access to the sensitive information held by the police and other data sources. The CRB carries out security checks on the employees of the data processing companies contracted to it. Contractors are also under a legal requirement to ensure their staff respect the confidential nature of the information released to them by an applicant.
The scope of personal information available within and to the CRB is limited, precisely to prevent information being used inappropriately. All information on applicants is held confidentially in secure computer files, and we have taken steps to ensure that our systems and procedures prevent authorised access and unlawful disclosure. The CRB has taken advice from the Information Commissioner during the time when the disclosure application forms and our procedures were being drafted, and all personal information applications provide with their disclosure application will be protected under the Data Protection Act 1998.
§ Baroness Blatchasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether any penalty clauses were built into the contract with Capita to process criminal record checks; whether any such clauses have been invoked; and to what effect. [HL216]
§ Lord Falconer of ThorotonThe contract contains a series of "Milestones" schedule dates, which, in turn have liquidated damage (financial remedies) regimes attached to them. The contract also defines contracted service levels, failure to achieve these results in financial remedies being applied by the agency. Both categories of financial remedy have been applied.