Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been placed under a discretionary bar from working with (a) children and (b) adults in each of the last five years; and for what (i) reasons and (ii) harm type each person was so placed.

The following table sets out the number of people that have been placed under a discretionary bar from working with (a) children and (b) adults in each of the last five years. Information relating to the reasons and the harm type under which each person was so placed cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.

The Independent Safeguarding Authority did not have the power to automatically place individuals on the adults barred list where their convictions predated 20 January 2009, when automatic barring on the adults list became available. These cases were considered under the discretionary barring route. The ISA continued to receive notification of these convictions in 2009 and did not conclude all of these cases until 2010/11. This means that the figures for discretionary bars were higher in 2009 and 2010. After 2010, the number of such cases decreased and the number of discretionary bars reduced in line with that change.