Storing and Managing conviction data
MAPPA lead
If the customer has a conviction that is spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, the Work Coach has no responsibility to record the conviction as the individual does not legally have to disclose the conviction to anyone.
If a customer does disclose a criminal conviction to the work coach, the information that needs to be recorded is the barriers the customer has due to the conviction. Details about the conviction itself do not need to be recorded or queried as this is not relevant to the work coach as the DWP is not an investigating or policing body.
Information about convictions should not be shared to anyone unless it is on a need-to-know basis. All Data retention around convictions of customers will be in line with policy for universal credit and GDPR regulations.
If an individual is MAPPA, this information will be kept by management in a locked room. The details are not recorded on the claim other than a note pinned which will indicate employment and training restrictions apply. Contact details for your MAPPA lead should be readily available in every Job Centre.
MAPPA
Who are they are?
They are set up for Multi-Agency Public Protection arrangements. This means that various organisations like the probation service, the police service and the prison service can work together to protect the public from sexual, violent or repeat offenders. This means that all these organisations can liaise and share their data to assess what risk and individual poses to the general public.
What do they do?
MAPPA set up a management plan to maintain any elements of risk that may be posed to the public.
This management plan is set up to both benefit the pubic and the individual with the criminal conviction. The management plan will be specific to the individual in question but there are a few common things that might be in a management plan. MAPPA will look at accommodation options for the individual so they can ensure that a stable living environment is sustained. They also will have to look at geographically what areas the customer can live in. The customer may not be allowed to live beside children, near a school or within the vicinity of a victim.
The management plan will also outline rehabilitation programmes that the customer can take part in upon their release from custody and re-integration back into the community. These rehabilitative efforts are extremely important for those customers that may be battling addiction or other mental health issues.
How does this effect employment?
A customer being under MAPPA will most probably make the search for employment more difficult.
An individual under MAPPA will be aware that they are under this management plan as they will have been contacted by an associated representative regarding their management plan. It is important that a Work Coach is aware of this so they can look at the various restrictions.
There can be various restrictions given to an individual under MAPPA such as not being allowed to be within a certain distance of children or be unsupervised in the presence of a child. The individual as previously mentioned may have to be always a certain distance from schools. These restrictions and even more specific restrictions under the MAPPA management plan will mean that dictate where an individual can work or who they can work with.
Under the management plan, it may also be decided that the conviction regardless of what the Rehabilitation of Offenders 1974 Act says, must be disclosed to the employer. This is in the interest of the public and the employer being aware of what restrictions are in place.
For Work Coaches, within every job centre and individual will be the designated MAPPA lead. If a work coach is working with a customer who has been identified to the MAPPA lead as being an individual under MAPPA supervision the Work Coach should endeavour to get a clear understanding of what the plan outlines for their customer and how they can move forward in identifying appropriate employment opportunities.