Clause 42
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Parmjit Dhanda (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Gloucester, Labour)
I am in quite a helpful mood today, Mr. Martlew. It is extremely important that appropriate measures are in place to correct any mistakes that are made under the new scheme. If an individual is included in a barred list as a result of an error such as mistaken identity, the IBB will be able to remove them from the list, much as I described tothe hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole the other day. In cases in which the error is the responsibility of the CRB, it will, as now, consider providing ex gratia consolatory financial redress, based on the Treasury’s guidelines that the individual must be put back into the position in which they could reasonably have expected to be but for the error or maladministration.
With IBB decisions, a distinction must be made between the different types of cases that might arise. In cases in which the IBB’s decision to include the individual in a barred list is later overturned in an appeal, the appeal process will rectify the situation, and the case will be reconsidered as appropriate.
The IBB will also be able to initiate a review of its own accord—for example, where a conviction which led to a person’s inclusion on the barred list is quashed. Proceedings before the IBB are of a quasi-judicial nature, so it would be inappropriate to allow claims for damages. However, there may be cases in which individuals were included on the barred list as a result of maladministration by the IBB in which some form of compensatory payment might be warranted. Any new scheme of financial redress would need to comply with Government accounting requirements that underpin such arrangements under this and previous Administrations.