An Investigation of Individual Recruitment Decision−making following Criminal Records Bureau Checks: The Implications for the Protection of Vulnerable Adults.

In 2004 it was reported that up to half a million elderly people may be victims of abuse at any one time. Studies have shown that elder abuse can have devastating effects upon service users and can often lead to long-term health problems. It is vital that health care service providers acknowledge the importance of recruitment decision-making when employing carers for work involving vulnerable adults.

In 2002 the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) was established in the UK to ensure safer recruitment decisions could be made. The CRB check is utilised to facilitate safer recruitment decisions by providing employers with wider access to an applicant’s criminal record information through a Disclosure service. However, how these changes are impacting upon recruitment decisions and its implications for the protection of vulnerable adults is yet to be examined.

Therefore, the research presented here, sets out to explore how recruitment decisions are being made by individual decision-makers using CRB Disclosure information. The implications of these decisions for the protection of vulnerable adults and the ex-offender are examined. Organisations from the National Health Service, Social Services, Higher Education, Further Education and Care Home sectors whose employees have contact with vulnerable persons were recruited to take part in this research. A mixed methods approach was utilised to investigate research objectives.
The research objectives were as follows:
1. To analyse exactly who is responsible for making recruitment decisions in an organisation
2. To discover whether or not recruitment decisions are informed by any guidance
3. To assess what impact the knowledge of convictions has upon perceived suitability for employment of individuals working with vulnerable persons
4. To examine how trade off decisions for employment are made
5. To identify how easy or difficult recruitment decisions are to make
6. To examine the implications for the protection of vulnerable persons and
7. To evaluate the implications for human rights, civil liberties, discrimination and social exclusion.

The findings indicate that recruitment decisions are being made inconsistently both within and between organisations. Both the actual recruitment decision made and the reasons for these decisions varied. In addition, results suggested that the organisation to which an ex-offender applies to for a post could determine the success of their application based on the recruitment decision-maker/s involved in the process. Moreover, there was no general consensus on what constituted a problematic offending profile.

In order to aid data collection, a software package named Survey Software was created. This allowed the administration of a series of vignettes, whilst recording and sorting the inputted information.