Dear Sir or Madam,

Can you please tell me how many employees of Sefton Borough Council have unspent criminal convictions?

Yours faithfully,

Jamie Lowry

Dear Mr Lowry

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

I refer to your request for information received on 14 April 2008, and
now write to provide a response to you.

The Council cannot supply the information requested as we don't hold
central records of unspent convictions for legal reasons. Convictions
are investigated for those who apply for posts which are exempt from the
provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. The information is
handled by a CRB Co-ordinator who will contact the Criminal Record
Bureau to request that a check be carried out and, given the results of
the check, will determine whether the employee is suitable for the role.
By law, CRB forms are destroyed after 6 months and the only result kept
on file is if the CRB check gave satisfactory or unsatisfactory
results.

Unspent convictions may also be declared during the application process
for roles not covered by exemptions and would be considered in relation
to the role as part of the application process. If an applicant is
deemed unsuitable for the role, due to their unspent conviction, then
they will not be employed by the Council. Again there are no central
records as the applicant is either suitable or unsuitable for the role

If you have any queries or concerns or if you are dissatisfied with the
handling of your request, please contact me at the above address.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Geraldine Evans
Personnel Officer

Personnel Department
Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council
First Floor Merton House
Stanley Road
Bootle
Liverpool
L20 3DL

Tel:0151 934 3379
Fax: 0151 934 3396

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Dear Geraldine Evans,

Thank you for your reply. However, I feel that I need to clarify my request. Candidates are asked during the application process whether they have a conviction, can you please tell me how many employees decalred a conviction or convictions during the application process. Surely you would have details of this, as I'm sure you keep employees applications on file.

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Lowry

I am out of the office from today until Wednesday 23rd April, but I
shall attend to your message as soon as I return.

Any important Freedom of Information related requests or queries should
be resent to one of the following:

[email address] (HSC)
[email address] (Childrens Services)
[email address] (Corporate)

Any important Data Protection Act related queries should be resent to
[email address]

Yours sincerely,
Richard Roscoe.
Data Protection and Information Security Officer, Sefton Council.accept any responsibility in this regard."

Dear Mr Lowry

The information requested would take over 18 manhours to collate and
is, therefore, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Application forms are kept on each employee's personal file which are
held in within Departments. As stated in my previous e-mail we do not
hold a central record of convictions, so to comply with your request HR
staff would have to pull out each individual file and take the
information from the application form. As we have over 11,000 staff and
it could take up to 10 minutes to search through a file, this would be a
time consuming process.

If you wish to modify your request or require further information,
please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Geraldine Evans
Personnel Officer

Personnel Department
Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council
First Floor Merton House
Stanley Road
Bootle
Liverpool
L20 3DL

Tel:0151 934 3379
Fax: 0151 934 3396

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