DBS checks on States of Jersey employees (FOI)

​Request

A
I wish to find out the extent to which DBS checks are made in respect of States employees who act in a position of trust. 

By ‘Position of trust’, I am not just referring to the best known examples involving child care etc. but those who in other departments one would expect a strong element of ‘trust’ to apply such as, for example, in Treasury Operations where large amounts of money can be allocated, spent or received.

By ‘States employees’, I refer not just to persons directly employed by the States but also those entrusted with managing States money and assets. An example would be senior employees of a wholly owned States company who are in effect indirect employees of the States. Other ‘States employees’ would be the Consultants brought into the Island who have recently assumed positions of executive responsibility in the Civil Service but who may not be directly employed by the States.

B
In addition I should like to know whether there are presently or were, in the last ten years, any States Employees with DBS records containing criminal records and whether they continue or continued to work for the States despite this revelation.

Response

A
Criminal Record Checks are carried out on all States of Jersey employees. These controls are described in the UK’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard and apply not only to direct employees of the States of Jersey, but third party individuals who have access to States of Jersey property or systems. 

The UK’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard can be located through the following link:

HMG Baseline Personnel Security Standard
B
A central database to record those employees with criminal record checks showing a disclosure was set up in March 2018 to date, previously data was held locally in departments. As such, Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 precludes the provision of this information prior to this date as the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations. 

Information collected since March 2018 shows the numbers of criminal record checks with disclosures on those employees still working for the States of Jersey:

Where there is a DBS disclosure, a Risk Assessment must be completed to determine the level of risk posed by appointing/employing the individual in the role and detail the risk management plan which will be put in place. Any response to disclosure must be proportionate and measured which is why risk assessments are used.

Article applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.