Apologise

The Criminal Records Bureau, part of the Home Office in the UK, has come under attack for many reasons over the past few months. Now another "mistake" has been uncovered. Many employers, from education authorities to banks, from retail organisations to the civil service, ask for a check to be made on your past criminal history. An extremely good idea. If you wanted to work in a bank but had a record of fraud, would it be in the bank's interest to employ you? If you were a shoplifter applying for a position in a shop would that be putting temptation in your way?Perhaps not a good idea to have a job in that area. Would it be in your interests to put you in a position where you could be tempted to offend again? Or would it be safer to advise you to try for a position where temptation is not put in your path? To get a job as a teacher, child carer, or almost anything outside the mundane and ordinary, the Criminal Records Bureau is consulted. It would not be a good idea to employ a paedophile as a teacher or child carer. However much the candidate had reformed there would always be the temptation to err again. All very commendable. Protect our children, our commerce from those who may be tempted to take advantage of a privileged position. If it works . . .
However, it has been discovered that there is an error rate in the dissemination of these reports from the Criminal Records Bureau. If your name coincides with that of a genuine criminal you may be reported as being anything from a shoplifter to a sex maniac. It seems this has happened some 2,700 times (and that is only the cases which were appealed and successfully changed - God knows how many others there may have been who didn't realise that you could get the records changed if they were incorrect!). That is 2,700-plus lost opportunities for careers - for innocent people. The Home Office claims that this is "just 0.03%" of all reports made. Yes, that is a low error rate but when people's livelihoods depend on these reports that is still 0.03% too much. The person reported on is sent a report at the same time as the prospective employer but it takes at least 3 weeks to check and amend such erroneous reports. In that time the prospective employer has discarded what may be the best person for the job because they can't wait. Careers can be, and have been, ruined. It must be corrected and compensation must be paid by the Government for lost earnings and lost reputation. At the present time the Home Office has even refused to issue apologies to those 2,700 people who have had this slur cast on their characters. The new Home Secretary, or the Prime Minister, or both, should personally apologise to each and every one of these wronged people.