The DBS system hit the headlines again at the end of May 2018 when a report issued by the government’s Public Accounts Committee revealed that an upgrade to modernise the way in which the Disclosure and Barring Service works is running four years late and has exceeded its budget by £229 million.
New IT System
The decision was made in 2012 to start upgrading the way in which the DBS operated. The aim was to implement a new IT system which would help the organisation move away from paper records into a fully digital system. Tata Consultancy got the contract to manage the upgrade and were supposed to start work right away, but contractual difficulties with the previous IT provider, Capita, meant that Tata were unable to even start looking at the project until 2014. The initial timescale for completing the project was set at June 2014, and it was clear from the start that this deadline would not be met. The Tata contract with the DBS runs out in March 2019, and the report by the Public Accounts Committee raises the very real possibility that the upgrade project would not be ready by this stage. Senior managers in Tata have also admitted that they failed to understand just how complex the project was before agreeing to take it on.
4 Million Disclosures
The DBS service is currently handling around 4 million requests for checks each year, with around 6% flagging up information which could be potentially very important in the decision of whether or not to employ an individual working with vulnerable children. The sheer volume of disclosures being processed has led to severe delays in some parts of the country, in particular the area covered by the Metropolitan Police. The idea behind the IT upgrade was to lessen these delays and allow people to get to work with a new employer quicker. Tata was brought in to the Home Office to project manage the IT upgrade, and to provide an external perspective on the new systems.
Update Service
One of the aspects of the upgrade which was introduced early by Tata Consulting was the ability to register for the DBS Update service. The report showed that this service is having a much smaller uptake than has been hoped. The idea behind the update service was to give individuals the ability to log into their Disclosure records at any time online, and to share the information held about them with any new employer right away. There is an annual charge to subscribe to this service and whether it’s the fee or another reason, the accusation levelled at Tata is that they have failed to understand what people actually want from the DBS service. The Update service in its current form is also expensive not only for the individual, but also for the government. Could we therefore see a withdrawal of the Update service, or at least some real changes in the way it works?