UK: Government Proposes Time Reduction For Disclosure Of Certain Spent Convictions

As part of its continuing efforts to review the fairness of the criminal records disclosure regime, the Government is proposing to reduce the time before certain convictions become spent.

Proposed Reform

The proposals are set out in the Government's White Paper, A Smarter Approach to Sentencing (White Paper). The White Paper follows draft legislation on the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) filtering rules set out in July 2020, on which we have previously reported. (Draft Legislation).

Disclosure of Spent Convictions

The White Paper states that a key element in reducing reoffending is access to employment. Having unspent convictions can act as a barrier to employment, hence the Government's desire to strike the right balance between telling prospective employers what they need to know, and supporting the rehabilitation of offenders.

Currently, sentences between one and four years become spent after a further four to seven years respectively and sentences of more than seven years are never spent. The new proposals would mean that adult custodial sentences of up to one year would become spent after 12 months from the end of the sentence (six months where the person was under 18 at the time of the sentence). Adult custodial sentences of between one and four years would become spent after four years from the end of the sentence (two years where the person was under 18 at the time of the sentence). Adult custodial sentences of more than four years would become spent after seven years from the end of the sentence (three-and-a-half years where the person was under 18 at the time of the sentence).

What Does This Reform Mean?

Once an offence becomes spent it will no longer show on a basic DBS disclosure certificate. It will also no longer be disclosable by a job applicant on an application form or in response to a question during interview. However, spent convictions will still show in standard and enhanced DBS checks unless they have been filtered in accordance with the DBS filtering rules. Therefore, employers in regulated professions, such as those who work with children or vulnerable adults, can still ask applicants to disclose spent offences and will still be able to see information about spent convictions in the DBS disclosure, unless those convictions have been filtered. In addition, serious sexual, violent and terrorist offences will be excluded from the proposed changes set out in the White Paper so that they will never be spent or filtered.

This change will therefore particularly benefit those with childhood cautions and those with convictions for minor offences who have moved away from their past, and who are seeking employment in unregulated professions.

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