Criminal Background Checks to be Carried out on All Westmorland and Furness Councillors

Criminal Background Checks to be Carried out on all Westmorland and Furness Councillors

Westmorland and Furness council cabinet has approved plans to introduce criminal background checks on all Westmorland and Furness councillors, the 65 members of the council meeting in Kendal on Thursday will be asked to also approve the plans.

Currently there is no legal requirement for disclosure and background checks (DBS checks) on Councillors or MP's, But Westmorland and Furness Council plans to require them as it said all “elected members occupy positions of public trust in the community”.

Westmorland and Furness Council’s cabinet members approved recommendations to introduction of Basic Disclosure and Barring Service Checks for all Councillors and Co opted Members at a meeting this week.

The cabinet agreed to adopt the DBS check protocol for inclusion within the Council’s Constitution that will require all councillors to undertake a basic DBS check, meaning a certificate will be issued that contains information about “convictions and conditional cautions that are considered to be unspent under the terms of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974” the council has not said a record will be kept of Members who have complied with this requirement but this will not be available for the public to view.

They also voted to require Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks for those Councillors and Co-opted Members in senior positions, such as leader of the council, certain cabinet members and those in contact with vulnerable children or adults, will be required to undergo an “enhanced DBS check”.

A basic DBS check by the Disclosure and Barring Service currently costs £21.50 and enhanced checks is £49.50. All elected and co-opted members of the council will be expected to complete a basic check within 7 days of being elected and then every 12 months whilst they remain an elected member of the council. Members of the council must then produce an original or certified copy of the DBS check to the council monitoring officer within 14 days of it being received by them.

If any offences are revealed by DBS, members are required to report to the monitoring officer, who then will then considered the severity of the offence with the standards committee.

The council said the rules removing members from office will remain the same. As such if any of the councillors refusal to comply with any DBS checks this will not result in their removal from office, however their roles within the council may be removed.