Fears non-crime hate incident records could hamper job prospects
Police Scotland’s controversial policy of logging hate incidents that are not crimes has been branded “deeply concerning” after it emerged it could prevent people securing key employment.
Reports of a hate incident that do not meet any criminal threshold are still logged by Police Scotland, despite a legal challenge south of the Border forcing the abandonment of a similar policy in England and Wales.
Butithasnowbeenrevealed that the information of someone having a non-crime hate incident logged against them could be included in enhanced checks by Disclosure Scotland for certain jobs like teaching.
Disclosure Scotland confirmed that enhanced checks “may include reference to non-convictionmatters”such as non-crime hate incidents while The Scotsman understands information within hate incidents would fall under other relevant information in enhanced checks handed over by Police Scotland. Police Scotland has suggested, however, it would be unlikely to show up in advanced disclosures as officers attempt to keep the information in a hate incident anonymised where possible.
Despite no comprehensive list of jobs available, it is thought that jobs that involve working with vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly or disabled as well as those that require access to sensitive information like financial or medical records, usually require an enhanced disclosure check.
Scottish Conservative MSP, Murdo Fraser, said: “This revelation from Disclosure Scotland is deeply concerning. It’s wrong that people who have not committed a hate crime could still have an ‘incident’ recorded against them by the police, which shows up later through a disclosure check.
“There’s the very real possibility of people missing out on a new job, despite having committed no crime. And, if their experience is anything like mine, they may not even know why, because they had no knowledge of the police ‘incident’ showing up against their name.”
A Disclosure Scotland spokesperson said: “Enhanced checks include conviction information and may include other relevant information (ORI).”