As an MP, there are some pieces of casework that affect you so deeply that you can’t move on. Lauren was a talented dancer with the world at her feet, but having been introduced to drugs by someone she should have been able to trust, her life changed and age just 16, she died of an accidental overdose.
After her grandfather contacted me, I established Lauren was a classmate of my own children. I realised I had watched her dance in a school production, and, how a system that we assume is there to protect our children can fail when it is needed the most.
In seeking to help the grieving family, I discovered systemic blind-spots – allegations that didn’t proceed because of confusion around eligibility, a lack of enforcement levers for non-statutory services, how Lauren and other children like her remain at risk.
With 7.2 million certificates being issued each year the DBS service is an integral part of how we protect the vulnerable. But, if a system can’t protect someone like Lauren, we have to ask what purpose it serves.
The core issue is the fact that roles supporting vulnerable people become ‘eligible’ for a DBS check, rather than being mandated to have one. The onus is on the employer or organisation with no access to this information for parents or services users – no register to check or means to provide assurance.
This matters more today where people often work for multiple employers, with more direct-to-family care and an increasing number of children being educated outside of the school system. However, the current service delivers false reassurance and families shoulder the risk.
As I was working to support Lauren’s family I met Louise. Louise told me about her beloved husband Richard and their despair as they tried to navigate their changed future after his dementia diagnosis. She was desperate for Richard to remain living at home in familiar surroundings so she could spend as much time with him as possible. Yet, she encountered a system that left her bewildered: no central register of carers to choose from, no mandated training, no guaranteed enhanced DBS for carers entering their home.
Whilst Richard seemed to like his carer, behind Louise’s back and with Richard unable to understand, she was stealing from their home. This betrayal led Louise to move Richard into a nursing home, something she had always wanted to avoid. Her trust was broken, the lack of rigour in the DBS partly responsible.
Louise told me she wanted to create Richard’s Law – setting clear expectations of vetting, registration and training of care workers, something I wholeheartedly support.
If families do all they can and still can’t get the support they need, the system is to blame.
I identified four necessary changes inspired by Lauren and Louise.
We need:
*A Clear requirement for enhanced checks in unsupervised roles with children/vulnerable adults — including self employed tutors/carers.
*Digital, up to date statuses (mandatory update service) so a check isn’t “as good as the day it’s printed.”
*Right to ask — simple and universal for parents and families.
*Straightforward access for families employing carers directly; no costly workarounds just to run a check.
The debate offered a chance to raise my proposals directly with the Minister. I was delighted to hear that changes in the Crime and Policing Bill will improve safeguarding by enabling individual families to apply for DBS checks and introduce the right to ask that is so desperately needed.
But more needs to be done to ensure confidence in the system and to bring the system into the digital age. We must do away with analogue certificates and move to a digital card which is automatically uploaded with allegations, convictions and barring information and we must make updating the card mandatory.
We can’t know whether Lauren could have been protected if the required checks took place, but their absence will always leave her family wondering. The carer who denied Richard and Louise the chance to stay living at home together, continues to work, while Louise mourns her beloved husband.
The DBS system needs to work, in a changing world, for the families that put their trust in it. I welcome the Minister’s willingness to work with me to this end.
The DBS system isn’t working, it has to change
