What is the Disclosure and Barring Service?
February 13th, 2013 by Matt Tuckey
In January 2009 the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) became operational for England and Wales taking over responsibility for creating and maintaining a list of people barred from working with children, and another for people barred from working with vulnerable adults. Anybody on the previous Department of Health list, Department of Education list or on the Sex Offenders register were included in the ISA barred lists. The ISA also has the power to bar people about whom they have received reports from other official sources such as employers, social services, the Police, Care Quality Commission etc.
In 2012 the Protection of Freedoms Bill was passed by Parliament. This had a number of clauses relating to the issuing of Disclosures, one of which was to merge the previously independent bodies of the CRB and ISA into a single non-departmental Government body to be known as the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
