Offender Rehabilitation Reforms

The Government has recently announced changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. In short, these changes shorten the period of time during which previous convictions need to be disclosed to prospective employers.

The changes come into force shortly on 10 March 2014 and are intended to get people back to work sooner to reduce rehabilitation rates. Government research has shown that employed ex-offenders are less likely to reoffend after they have found new employment.

By way of reminder, previous convictions that become ‘spent’ do not have to be disclosed to a prospective employer. Similarly, a failure to disclose a spent offence to an existing employer, will not usually give the employer fair grounds on which to dismiss the employee.

However, exceptions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act exist to this general proposition, such as where an applicant is applying for a role to work with children or vulnerable adults, or where the applicant is applying to work in a school, with social services, in the health or care professions, or at other such related institutions.

In these cases, applicants have to disclose both spent and unspent criminal convictions. A failure to disclose such an offence, regardless of whether it is spent or not, may sometimes give an existing employer fair grounds on which to dismiss.

At present, a custodial sentence over 6 months in length would remain ‘unspent’ and therefore disclosable, for a period of 10 years. However, the changes in March will see the conviction become spent after the sum of (i) the length of the actual sentence, and (ii) a ‘buffer period’ of 4 years.

As such, someone who has served a 1 year custodial sentence, which at present would remain ‘unspent’ for 10 years, will now see the conviction become spent after a period of just 5 years (1 year plus the buffer period of 4 years).

Similar changes will take place in relation to fines, community orders and discharges, to differing extents.

In summary, specific advice should be taken if you are unsure about investigating an applicant or employee’s criminal conviction record, or are unsure whether a previous conviction is spent and should therefore be disregarded.