Minor spent convictions to be wiped from employer checks

THOUSANDS of people with criminal records will no longer have to declare minor offences to employers under new laws that wipe “spent” convictions and cautions from their records.

The Government is to scrap a rule where anyone with more than one conviction, no matter how minor, is required to disclose them to a prospective employer for the rest of their lives.

Ministers are also ditching a similar requirement for youth cautions, reprimands and warnings for assaults, thefts or criminal damage that have had to be declared for jobs.

The plan would mean thefts, drug offences and some assaults would not automatically be disclosed to employers through the Government’s disclosure and barring service (DBS).

Campaigners welcomed the move as offering juveniles the chance to escape criminality and be given a second chance, while victims’ groups expressed concern that employers should be free to decide based on full disclosure.

Victoria Atkins, Home Office minister, said: “By making these adjustments we will ensure that vulnerable people are protected from dangerous offenders while those who have turned their lives around or live with the stigma of convictions from their youth are not held back.”

The change follows a supreme court judgment that the multiple conviction and youth caution rules were “disproportionate” and a breach of individuals’ human rights.

For people with criminal records, it will mean that offences like theft will no longer have to be disclosed through a DBS check once they become “spent,” which for adults is 11 years after the offence and 5.5 years for a youth caution.

More serious crimes involving violence, sex attacks and robbery are excluded from the rule change and will continue to be included on DBS checks through the offenders’ lifetime, as will any offence that involves a prison sentence, suspended or otherwise.

It means that someone who may have been a serial shoplifter would no longer have to declare convictions under an employer DBS check, provided they had not been jailed. More than four million jobs involve DBS checks, primarily those involving contact with children.