Legal, Ethical and Health and Safety Requirements (CRB); PV LO2.2

Learning Objective 2

2.2 Ensure compliance with relevant legal, ethical and health and safety requirements.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) was formed by merging together the functions of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. It started functioning on 1 December 2012.

It is non-departmental public body of the Home Office and operates from Liverpool and Darlington. The DBS provides wider access to criminal record information through its Disclosure service for England and Wales. The equivalent agency in Scotland is Disclosure Scotland and in Northern Ireland is Access Northern Ireland. It also makes independent barring decisions on people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who have harmed or where there was a risk of harm to a child or vulnerable adult within the workplace or volunteer setting. It is a legal requirement for regulated activity employers to refer safeguarding concerns to the DBS. It is illegal for anyone barred by the DBS to work, or apply to work with the sector (children or adults) from which they are barred. It is also illegal for an employer to knowingly employ a barred person in the sector from which they are barred.

The Criminal Records Bureau was established under Part V of the Police Act 1997 and was launched in March 2002, following public concern about the safety of children, young people and vulnerable adults. It was found that the British police forces did not have adequate capability or resources to routinely process and fulfill the large number of criminal record checks requested in a timely fashion, so a dedicated agency was set up to administer this function.

One of the main reasons for the formation of the Criminal Records Bureau was to reduce the risk of organisations being sued for employing convicted criminals who went on to abuse vulnerable people while in the course of their duty.

We are aware that everyone that works for Dynamic Eclipse Arts are CRB checked however myself and the director are not, so therefore we got one of the founders of the company to film the footage of the children as we didn’t deem it appropriate to film them during rehearsals, and as stated before we are aware that they have release forms from the parents to use the footage.