The Independent Review Team was appointed to look into the problems at the Bureau and make recommendations for change

5.3 In September 2002, the Home Secretary appointed an Independent Review Team, to review the strategy and operations of the Bureau and to produce recommendations to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. The Review Team presented ten recommendations (Figure 15) to ministers, most of which have been accepted and progressed or on which the Home Office has sought wider consultation.

Public Service Standards for the Bureau

Public Service Standards
Disclosure turnaround times:	Targets 2002-03	Targets 2003-04	Current Performance (unaudited)
Enhanced 90% in	3 weeks	4 weeks	92.2% in 4 weeks
Standard 90% in [95% in 2002/03]	1 week	2 weeks	93.8% in 2 weeks
Basic 95% in	1 week	N/A	N/A
Registration of Registered Bodies 90% within	3 weeks	4 weeks	49%

Correspondence response times for:
Written	1 week	2 weeks	93% in 2 weeks
Email 24 hours	24 hrs	24 hrs	91% in 24 hours
Response to disputes over contents of Disclosure	1 week	3 weeks	93% in 3 weeks
Percentage of calls answered within 20 seconds	90%	90%	92%
Source: Criminal Records Bureau

5.4 One of the recommendations was that the Capita contract should be renegotiated to align the contract to the changed circumstances that had occurred since the original contract was signed in August 2000. Following a thorough and constructive period of negotiation, the Criminal Records Bureau and Capita signed a revised contract on 22 December 2003. The revised contract now provides for:

■ as a result of recent and planned efficiency savings, from October 2004, a significant reduction in the price paid to Capita for processing each disclosure application;

■ the ability to achieve year-on-year operational cost reductions with further incentives to reduce operational costs over the lifetime of the contact; any such cost savings would be reflected in further price reductions;

■ pricing levels matched to guaranteed volumes, agreed on a bi-annual basis;

■ additional contractual performance measures including both qualitative and quantitative standards to enhance further the Disclosure service;

■ greater clarity of roles and responsibilities within the partnership;

■ incentives to allow Capita to further enhance the IT and other technical systems to meet evolving process and output requirements;

■ the implementation of recommendations made by independent consultants on the IT system;

■ an improved agreement in respect of financial penalties for failing to meet agreed performance standards which have been revised to meet the evolving circumstances that had occurred since the original contract was signed back in August 2000;

■ a one off payment to Capita of £3.6 million in final settlement of the earlier agreed contract change which provided for the introduction of the blank application form. The payment covered the additional cost of processing the blank application forms in the period February to September 2003.

5.5 Through the revised contract, the Bureau will now have greater flexibility to improve and develop the Disclosure service over the coming years.

5.6 With the agreement of Ministers, the Home Office Group Executive Board decided in April 2003 to establish a Strategic Delivery Board under the chairmanship of the Permanent Secretary for Crime, Policing, Counter Terrorism and Delivery.

5.7 One role of the Board, which is made up of senior individuals with considerable experience of large scale delivery in both the public and private sectors, is to review major new delivery projects for which the Home Office is responsible before their introduction. The aim of such reviews is to be able to advise Ministers on whether the introduction of such projects can safely proceed and on whether the risks to their successful introduction have, as far as reasonably practical, been reduced to a minimum.

Independent Review Team's recommendations for change

		Independent Review Team Recommendation	Current Position
		1 Make the end-to-end process more efficient, by reviewing and rationalising the management responsibilities and respective roles of the Registered Bodies, the Agency, Capita and local police forces.	Progress has been made on a short term service improvement plan to enable the Bureau to meet turnaround time service standards and to provide increased capacity to handle increased volumes. The intelligent customer function is being strengthened within the Agency. There is a stronger focus on setting standards across the whole operation and ensuring that they are met.
		2 Give clear responsibility to Registered Bodies for validating the identity of applicants and ensuring the quality and completeness of applications. The number of Registered Bodies should be optimised to establish sensible economies of scale and improve proficiency.	This was subject to consultation with Registered Bodies and was well supported, apart from proposal for compulsory deregistration of small Registered Bodies. The Government has taken powers in the Criminal Justice Bill to attach conditions to a registration and to revoke a registration where such conditions are breached. Amongst other things, these conditions will make Registered Bodies unambiguously responsible for identity validation.
		3 There should be a progressive move to mandate electronic submission of applications by Registered Bodies.	Results of consultation showed strong support for an electronic channel but not for making it the sole access channel. The Bureau is evaluating the introduction of an electronic application channel. The government has taken a reserve power to mandate use of the channel should the case for doing so on efficiency grounds be proven.
		4 The Agency should set priorities based on risk, on which applications should get Enhanced and which should be limited to Standard Disclosures.	Accepted in principle, but with the criteria being set by Ministers, in consultation with stakeholders, on the basis of a risk assessment. The Bureau will rely on educating Registered Bodies, but the government has taken a reserve power to enable the Bureau to issue a Standard Disclosure where an Enhanced Disclosure has been inappropriately applied for.
		5 Flag Police National Computer files to denote where there is information on any individual at local force level which is not included on the Police National Computer.	An initial feasibility study concluded that it would be more cost effective to establish a separate database, rather than introduce flags onto the Police National Computer. The Bureau is currently piloting this approach.
		6 Postpone the launch of Basic Disclosures until systems have been developed to provide a substantially greater capacity. It is also recommended that Basic Disclosure applications should be routed through Registered Bodies, with identity validation undertaken by these Bodies.	The government has agreed that Basic Disclosures should be postponed until the demand for higher level disclosures is fully and efficiently met. The options for introducing the Basics service are currently being evaluated and have been subject to consultation and further ongoing work.
		7 A further programme of significant enhancement to the IT system is required. Additionally, almost all the team's recommendations require system change and therefore would have contractual consequences. The team recommended that the contract with Capita is renegotiated to align the contract to the changed and evolving circumstances.	A review of the IT system by consultants in summer 2003 confirmed that the system is now able to meet current demand for higher level disclosures. The review further concluded that, in general, the Capita team are now conducting current design and build projects and support and maintenance functions in accordance with good industry practice. A revised contract was signed on 22 December 2003.
		8 Undertake an investigation into the possibility of requiring fingerprints to be submitted by applicants for Disclosures where the sensitivity of the employment role makes this appropriate.	The Home Office propose to consult stakeholders. A decision whether to proceed will be taken in the light of the results of the consultation exercise.
		9 An independent Executive Agency is created within the Home Office to carry forward the Bureau's changing and increasingly demanding functions.	The Bureau was established as a separate Agency on 1 September 2003.
		10 In order to implement a number of the recommendations, urgent changes to the legislative framework under which the Bureau operates (Part V of the Police Act 1997) are required.	The Government has included provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill to support the implementation of recommendations 1 to 4.
		Source: National Audit Office analysis