Disclosure and Barring Service

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I am pleased to have secured this debate on the Disclosure and Barring Service. It is my hope that I can shine a light on some of the shortcomings of the current system and that the Minister will consider my proposed improvements so we can help families protect their loved ones, reduce the burden on voluntary groups, and speed up employment processes. Tonight, I want to make the case that the DBS system as it currently operates is not fit for purpose. Its loopholes cost lives, undermine trust and leave families exposed. In its current form, the DBS introduced enhanced checks that include not only a search of an individual’s criminal record, but checks against barred lists, providing a more comprehensive assessment of an individual’s suitability for specific roles, especially those involving vulnerable groups. The system is an integral part of employment in appropriate sectors, and should offer assurance to families as well as employers and voluntary organisations.

When a parent drives away from a dance class, a scout group or a swimming lesson, they assume that the organisation has established that the employee or volunteer has no criminal record, and does not present a risk to their child. At the heart of the problem, however, is the fact that thousands of roles involving unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults are eligible for DBS checks, but are not required to have them. Eligibility in itself is not protection, and families assume that protections exist where they simply do not.

I want to start by sharing the tragic story of Lauren, a promising performer who lost her life in 2020 after an accidental drugs overdose. In November 2019, two separate safeguarding allegations were made about someone relating to the supply of class A drugs to Lauren and her friend. That person was eligible for—and in my view should have been required to undergo—enhanced DBS clearance, but it seems the relevant information never made it to the Disclosure and Barring Service. The teacher continued to work with the children and allegations of other inappropriate activities were later made. Sadly, Lauren had by then been exposed to drugs and became involved with someone who continued to supply her with them. By August 2020, she had died.

When I made inquiries, the DBS could find no record of the organisation, so I could not establish whether the teacher was registered, or even whether the organisation had obtained checks on any of its other staff. The Disclosure and Barring Service told me that it has no jurisdiction over whether an employer or safeguarding lead should take action; its role is only to record whether the legal duty to refer an incident has been met. It told me that any failure to investigate lay with the employer and whoever regulates the employer, but as there is no regulator for dance schools, I met another dead end.

That raises two issues. First, is it appropriate for someone to provide hands-on, unsupervised sport or dance activities without the expectation of an enhanced DBS check? Secondly, do parents not have the right to know whether someone undertaking such work has clearance to work with children and vulnerable people?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate; I spoke to her beforehand about the incredibly important issues that she is raising. Does she agree that child safety must be paramount? The Government need to clarify paid and voluntary sector rules—for example, how often should screening be done and how often should mandatory child protection training be carried out? Too much is left to best practice, which differs across all the regions, and not enough is clear and unequivocal. The time has come to make obligations crystal clear.

[Vikki Slade]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right: assumptions are being made around the country. As the mother of four children, I assumed, as I dropped off my children, that everybody had to be DBS checked. The idea that that is not strictly the case fills me with dread. When I talked to the people from the Campaign for Gigi this afternoon about nursery safety, I shared this issue with them, and they were horrified. Clearly, people working in an early years setting are required to have an enhanced DBS check, but they were concerned about other sectors, too.

As I am sure the Minister can understand, Lauren’s grandfather Paul, who brought this case to my attention, and Lauren’s parents remain concerned that if the coach had been reported to the DBS at the time of the original allegations and potentially withdrawn from working with children, Lauren, who was described as

“a talented singer and dancer with the world at her feet”

may not have been introduced to illegal drugs and could well have been continuing to enjoy a very bright future. Additionally, there does not seem to be a route for the public to report concerns. If the employer has not registered a member of staff, or an organisation has not been deemed to be undertaking a “regulated activity”, as the council told me the dance school was not, there is no one to document the concerns and no register to check.

I welcome the DBS’s new video, which was launched before Christmas, to support faith organisations with the legal duty to refer. The legal duty to refer requires organisations to notify the DBS when they remove a person from a regulated activity because they have harmed or may pose a risk of harm, but it does not protect those in the care of an individual who has not been registered by their employer in the first place. I welcome the changes made in the Crime and Policing Bill, which will close the loophole for supervised staff, ensuring that they will be eligible for checks against the children’s barred list. I also welcome the Minister’s work to ensure that that happened earlier last year.

Those are positive steps, but I have two questions. First, will the Government consider requiring employers and organisations to register their staff, rather than just making them eligible, and will they require the police, local authority or regulator to record allegations made against the organisation where an individual is not registered? Secondly, have the Government considered a simpler system? For example, there could be a system in which an individual applies for a card that could be searched by an employer, a parent or a service user to confirm that an individual has been cleared to work with children or vulnerable people. The card could include a “date of most recent update” section—that way, details of past convictions do not necessarily need to be shared, but a timeline of when people have been deemed safe to be around vulnerable people could be.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

My hon. Friend raises very good points on this matter. There are two issues that I have always seen with the DBS check. First, like an MOT, it is only as good as the date when it is issued, and people do not have to subscribe to the update service. Does she agree that updates should be mandatory? Secondly, a DBS check cannot be passed from one organisation to another—people need a fresh one every time—which seems to be an unnecessary waste of time. Does my hon. Friend agree that her card idea would probably solve that?

[Vikki Slade]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People have to pay extra to be part of the update system. Why would anyone pay extra to put themselves under additional scrutiny? Why is that not automatic?

The other option, which has been suggested by some, is that the Government could consider a right to ask/right to know process for family members. That would ensure that the public could not have free and easy access to information that could be risky, but if they had a concern, there would be a route for them to find out. We were simply stonewalled every time that we tried to find out whether this teacher had been registered and whether those allegations had been made.

Let me turn to another situation, which has come up on a number of occasions, relating to people who are caring for family members. DBS checks currently have to be undertaken by an employer, a registered organisation or an umbrella organisation. That increases costs, adds delays and makes it more complex for families using direct payments for the care of disabled children and for those starting the journey of caring for an elderly relative.

Laura contacted me about the direct payments that she receives to fund the care of her son, noting that she cannot directly access DBS checks. She said that

“my very vulnerable son, quadriplegic with cerebral palsy and profound multiple learning disabilities has a team of 15 carers none of whom have DBS checks.”

She asks why the law does not allow parents to carry out DBS checks on carers, who are

“working often alone in our home”.

Another constituent, Sandra, is in a similar position. She said:

“We had a carer a few years ago, who had been lone working with our daughter at night for over a year, with a current DBS check. We had a call from Child Protective Services—the carer had tried to smother her own child”.

They later discovered that the reason why the carer’s other child lived with grandparents was because she had tried to smother the older child, and they had been removed from her care. The man from the child protection services said, “It probably should have been on her DBS,” but it was not. As a result, Sandra said, “What is the point? There is no reason for me to get a DBS check—it would not have protected my child.”

I have also been contacted by Louise, from another part of Dorset, who approached me due to my dementia champion work. After her husband Richard was diagnosed with dementia, she decided to try to care for him at home. Her job meant that she went away for a few days at a time, and she felt that the best option was to find a carer to stay in her home with Richard. My colleagues in Somerset may remember this story, as it was in the local paper.

Louise’s experience led to her starting a campaign for Richard’s law, which I said that I would take up. The law has three simple pillars—so simple that I was shocked they were not already in place. Those three pillars are mandatory registration of all care workers; mandatory enhanced DBS checks, with all carers required to join the update service; and mandatory, nationally recognised training for care staff in first aid, medication compliance, manual handling, dementia awareness and safeguarding. I find it hard to believe that a person can be a carer without all of those things being in place.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

What my hon. Friend has said puts me in mind of another case in a village not far from where I live, where a cleaner was systematically thieving from elderly and vulnerable residents. This went on for years, and every time the person nearly got caught or was interviewed by the police, they just left their job and moved on. This is exactly why we need to do something to make the system far better, because elderly and vulnerable people have no way to be absolutely certain that when they give somebody their card to get some money so that they can pay the carer, something will not go desperately wrong and the rest of their money will not disappear.

[Vikki Slade]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Today, the headline in the Bournemouth Echo is about another case involving a carer, who stole £125,000 from an elderly person. The case I am describing is not a one-off.

Louise told me about a carer who was coming into her home and who she had trusted. The basic DBS check was all she had, but after the carer stole jewellery and cash from her home, it came to light that this woman had three previous convictions for theft and obtaining property by deception, including a suspended sentence for an almost identical offence. In her victim statement, Louise said:

“I welcomed her into our home, believing she was there to help us through one of the hardest chapters of our lives. Instead, she exploited our vulnerability in the most callous way imaginable. The worst thing she stole was my trust. Her betrayal destroyed my ability to believe in the carers who were supposed to support us. I reached a breaking point where I could no longer allow outside help, and as a direct result, I had to make the heartbreaking decision to place my husband in residential care. This was never what I wanted for him, and it has changed both of our lives immeasurably, for the worse. The weight of that decision, forced upon me by her selfishness, is something I carry every day.”

Sadly, Richard Woollam died on Boxing day—Louise contacted me a few days later to tell me that I had not managed to have this debate while he was still with us. However, it seems shocking that family carers who are already sacrificing so much are unable to access DBS checks for those who are coming into their homes, and that someone who is providing such personal care is not automatically required to have such checks and training. Provision of personal registration would allow those who are working directly for their employers—be they carers, cleaners, tutors, babysitters, drivers or personal trainers—to provide security for families, particularly families who are home educating their children, and to work across multiple employers with ease.

Finally, over the past few months, we in this place have spoken on numerous occasions about improving the service provided by Government agencies. From two-year waits for shotgun licences to nine-month delays in responses to MPs’ letters to the Department for Work and Pensions—if the Minister is listening, I have been waiting since February for an answer to a simple request—and a Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency that does not bother to chase doctors’ letters at all, I have been shocked by the poor service experienced by my residents in times of need.

Where an enhanced DBS check is needed for an employee to take up their position, it is so important that it is processed swiftly. In theory, such checks should be completed within a fortnight, but in Dorset, the police are advising that delays can be up to 100 days. Daniel from Wareham has explained that this problem is impacting his ability to move forward with professional opportunities. He said that when he worked abroad, background checks often came back within a few hours, and that the

“current manual processes just feel so outdated and inefficient, especially when so many people—students and employees alike—need these certificates to do their jobs or continue their studies.”

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the speed of DBS checks. My constituent Marcia had a DBS check, but needed an enhanced DBS check to move into a child’s residential home for work, and was at risk of losing that job opportunity if the DBS check did not come back. Given that it had taken seven months to get the original DBS check, Marcia had very little faith that the enhanced one was going to arrive on time. Does my hon. Friend agree that when people are looking for job opportunities, they need to be able to respond quickly?

[Vikki Slade]

My hon. Friend makes a great point, and it is exactly the situation that Tabitha from Wimborne told me about. She said:

“I am desperate to work…this is a big problem for not only my life and finances but also for others who are surely out there…who are like me, waiting for more than three months… I have been a TA (teaching assistant) previously and all my prior DBSs came back within a month.”

She said it is absolutely ridiculous. Dorset is not alone in this. Across the country, families, volunteers and employers face similar failures, with delays, loopholes and an opaque system that simply does not keep pace with modern care and employment.

The Disclosure and Barring Service exists to make recruitment safer and to protect vulnerable people from those who may present a risk. Those are both worthy aims, but the system is not working. We need: mandatory registration of anyone working with children or vulnerable adults; mandatory enhanced DBS checks and use of the update service; a central, individual-held clearance card; a public mechanism to report concerns; the ability for families directly employing people to access DBS checks themselves; faster processing times via a digital system; and a review of the definition of regulated activity. These failures are not administrative inconveniences; they are risks to life and safety, and they reduce productivity too. The people I have spoken about tonight have paid the price for a system that is too complex, too slow and too optional. We owe it to them, and to every family in this country, to build a DBS system worthy of the trust that people place in it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I will come on to that when I pick up some of the issues of portability from one person to another. However, from Wednesday those hiring personal carers, or families engaging private tutors, will have access to the same high level of check, with the same level of information, including information about whether a person is barred by the DBS.

Thirdly, we have enabled the disclosure of an individual’s barred-list status on the international child protection certificate.

[Vikki Slade]

Will people have to go through some of the umbrella agencies, which can charge a lot of money? Will there be a cost differential for those individuals?

[Jess Phillips]

That is a very good question. There does seem to be a bit of a discrepancy. I know that when the hon. Lady was looking through different regulated systems to get people checked in her own area, they were found wanting. Individuals, families or those who want to employ a tutor or a carer on a self-employed basis, whether or not that involves direct payments, will have access to the enhanced check.

I pay tribute to Richard and the campaign of his brilliant wife Louise: she is absolutely on the money. The right to ask is a fundamental part of the system, and from Wednesday—give me 48 hours—parents will have that power. If I were sending my child to a tutor—which I have done, like many other people across the country—I would be able to ask whether that tutor had had an enhanced check. It may not be possible to access all the information, but it will be possible to question and scrutinise employers as well, to ensure that that is done. Parents will have that power.

As I have said, we understand that child protection is international. The ICPC, issued by the ACRO Criminal Records Office, is used for individuals who intend to work with children overseas. We changed the relevant legislation on 18 December, reducing the risk that an overseas employer could unknowingly hire a barred person to work with children and thereby meeting the third of the inquiry’s recommendations relating to the disclosure of criminal records.

Overall, our approach is underpinned by an unwavering commitment to safeguarding through the proportionate disclosure of criminal records and other relevant information. It is of course important that we listen to, and when necessary act on, any concerns raised by individuals, including Members of Parliament, and the sectors that interact with the regime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. When I woke up this morning, I did not think that this debate would start until 10 pm, so any more time is a bonus. I apologise. The last time I replied in an Adjournment debate, I ran wildly over time, and somebody had to shut me up. I did not want anyone to be put in that position again.

The portability of checks was raised. I think people do not understand quite how many DBS checks are done a year—7.3 million. It gives me some comfort that quite a lot of the workforce in our country are undertaking checks. Incidentally, we do not have to undergo checks as Members of Parliament.

[Vikki Slade]

There are 7.2 million checks done a year, and I am sure that means multiple checks for individuals. I used to foster, and I obviously had very enhanced DBS checks for my fostering, but I then had to get a separate DBS check to undertake my work as a school governor. Frankly, that seems crazy. As a foster carer, I was being checked in far more detail. We could reduce the burden on the DBS by having a system of single portable checks, because I do not think that 7.2 million people a year are having checks.

[Jess Phillips]

We recognise that people may want to use their existing DBS check when moving from one role to another, where the new role requires a check. That is exactly the point that the hon. Lady raised. It is possible for employers to accept an existing criminal record certificate, but it must be for the same type of check in the same workforce—in the instance she has given, that would be working with children—such as enhanced with barred lists checks for the children’s workforce. This is to ensure that the appropriate level of information is available. We do not want a random DBS to have been done, and for someone to just say, “Look, I’ve got a DBS”. Over the years, I too have had more DBS checks than I can count.

On the delays, the DBS has a key performance indicator of getting 80% turnaround within 14 days, and it currently reaches 75%. It has been progressively working on that and ensuring that things are done more quickly. The enhanced check relies on police forces undertaking the work, and seven months seems like a very long time, but there can be a variety of reasons why delays may arise. However, the vast majority of checks are done within 14 days. My son had an enhanced DBS the other day, and it came back in three days. I do not think the DBS knew that he was my son.