Two in five face job vetting in drive to detect offenders 'The new Criminal Records Bureau predicts that within three years it will be making more than 11 million checks on past offenders, out of a working-age population of 29 million [in the UK]. The police previously made about one million criminal record checks a year ... The government drive means that a Criminal Record Certificate could soon become as essential for a job interview as a curriculum vitae and a suit ... Of the 11,627,595 checks predicted to be made each year from 2005, only 3.2 million will be on those who work with children. The other eight million or so certificates will be requested by people seeking to apply for work in a wide variety of other roles and professions. To reach these targets - which the bureau must hit if it is to become a self-funding body - employers will have to be encouraged to demand the £12 certificates from applicants' ( Independent ) The CRB has received a great deal of coverage in the UK media over the last two weeks, after it failed to clear a huge backlog of checks on school staff in time for the start of term. As the CRB is nominally a Home Office agency, the public has been given the impression that this was a civil service cock-up. In fact, the work of the CRB is performed by Capita, a private firm with a long record of botching government contracts See also this Telegraph article, and this Guardian article LINKS? http://www.hullocentral.demon.co.uk/site/anfin.htm Funny attempt to smear your friendly professor...Professor rat,to many people he is a businessman, funnyman, philanthropist, entrepreneur and patron of the arts,but to one anonymous coward... http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=33154&group=webcast The devil went down to Kyneton.