The Home Office has issued a tender for a company to run the outsourced ‘disclosure and barring services’.  This will  replace the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).  The new service will merge their functions together as part of the implementation of the Protection of Freedoms Bill.    

The tender notice in the Official Journal of the European Union says the contract will last for eight years and is valued at between £250m and £350m.  As yet there is no firm date for the new service to come into effect. A Home Office briefing on the protection and freedoms bill says that timescales will be finalised when the bill receives royal assent, which is now expected to be in mid-2012.

Meanwhile The Criminal Records Bureau has requested that the Capita Group Plc continues providing its Disclosure Service under a PPP agreement for a further 12 months from the end of March 2012 until March 2013.

THe new Disclosure and Barring Service will undertake the following roles :

• receipt and processing of referrals for a barring decision,
• handling applications for disclosure,
• workflow management,
• customer and registration services,
• the issuing of certificates,
• payment services
• running a call centre.

All of the services will have to be accessible through the Home Office’s desktops and infrastructure platform.