Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to amend legislation to improve the appeals process for people on the Children and Adults barred list for exposing children to abuse whose domestic abuse perpetrator is not on the register.

The purpose of the children’s and adults’ barred lists maintained by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is to prevent individuals from applying to work or from working in regulated activity with children and/or vulnerable adults, if they are considered to pose a risk to those groups. The DBS adds individuals to the list(s) if: they have committed a serious violence or sexual offence; or if police information or an employer referral indicates that they may have harmed a child or vulnerable adult or put a child or vulnerable adult at risk of harm.

When considering harm or risk of harm, the DBS will consider a range of evidence on a case-by-case basis. Where domestic abuse is perpetrated by one partner on another and a child is exposed to that behaviour, both the person who is the target of the abuse and the child who is exposed to that behaviour would be considered by the DBS as victims. The DBS would not consider a victim of domestic abuse for barring unless harm had also been caused separately through behaviour demonstrated by that individual.

Where the DBS is considering someone for barring due to actions which have led to harm or pose a risk of harm to a child or a vulnerable adult, the DBS is required by statute to provide them with an opportunity to make representations which are given full consideration before a final barring decision is made.

Once a final barring decision has been made by the DBS, a barred person can appeal that decision to the Administrative Appeals Chamber of the Upper Tribunal in England or Wales. If the Tribunal upholds DBS’s decision, the barred person has the right to request a review of the DBS decision after a minimum barred period has elapsed. There are no plans to change the appeals process.