Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iran and Sex Offenders/Education
Iran
Asked what sort of measures against Iran Britain would be pushing for at the UN Security Council, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that first and foremost we should reflect on what had actually taken place. We had been arguing for a referral to the UN for some time now. It was significant that others were joining us now in supporting that.
However at this stage he did not think it was right to jump the fences to early and say what the outcome of a referral should be, before we actually we actually got that referral. As he had said yesterday, the important thing at this stage was that the voice of the international community should be loud and clear. The good news out of Berlin yesterday was that that voice had been loud and clear and the message to Iran was simple. The message was that what it was doing was not acceptable and would not be accepted. That was where we were and we should not get ahead of that.
Put to him that Iran had said that they would cease to allow snap UN inspections if there was a referral to the security council, the PMOS said that we should be in no doubt that Iran was not obeying its obligations. Iran may be defiant about that but that was the reality. What we had to face and what the Prime Minister had been saying, to go back no further than the Hampton Court press conference, was that we had to face the reality of that defiance. For their part Iran would have to face the reality of censure by the international community. Of course no one expected Iran to change its mind overnight, but Iran would have to face the reality that international community not only took a dim view, but was prepared to act on what Iran was doing. That was the process we were engaged in.
Sex Offenders/Education
Put to him that Norfolk police had said today that it was not possible for anyone on the sex offender’s register to have unintentionally viewed child pornography, and asked to reconcile that claim with the reasons given by ministers for allowing someone on the register to gain employment at a school, the PMOS said that he would not get into the details of an individual case because he was not the one who had to make the assessment. What was right and proper was to take a step back and recognise that there had been borderline cases for decades.
There had been cases therefore where ministers of successive governments have had to make such decisions. What was important was that when concern was expressed about that, we looked back at those cases to see whether there were any grounds for real concern in terms of people’s behaviour. It was right that we looked again, and asked the question whether ministers should take decisions or whether should it perhaps be a professional. Alternatively should people go on List 99 automatically and therefore lose their job, not just for one or two years, but for life? In each of these questions we had to consider the full reality of the situation.
That reality was that if ministers did not take the decision then someone else had to, and how would they be more accountable. If you said that there should be an automatic process of someone going on to List 99 and losing their job would that mean that people would not accept cautions because they knew they would lose their job in any case. This in turn might lead to fewer convictions because the burden of evidence was higher for a court case then a caution. Ultimately therefore you might have less people on the sex offenders register.
These were the factors which had to be considered and that was what the review would do. Ministers made their decision based on the analysis, evidence and advice given to them. Nobody should pretend that this was a black and white issue. That was simply not the case. There were difficult judgments to be made. Some people might say that those decisions should be made by a panel of experts, but where was the accountability in that? Some people suggest that this shouldn’t be judgement it should be automatic in which case you might actually have knowledge about fewer people committing this kind of offence than we do at the moment.
Asked if Ruth Kelly would announce significant changes in the system after the review, the PMOS said that the department was currently looking back through relevant cases in this administration and beyond. There have been decisions taken by successive governments over decades. The department was doing this to reassure the public that there was not a cause for concern elsewhere. Ruth Kelly would say after this review what her view was about whether the system needed to be changed, who should take these decisions, and whether people should automatically be put on List 99, and what the implications of these changes would be. It was not a simple issue, if it was somebody would have come up with a solution beforehand.
Asked how this particular case could possibly have been borderline given the clear evidence, the PMOS said that he would not get involved on commenting on individual cases. All he could say was that, as he had said in his statement, Kim Howells had, quite rightly, looked at the evidence as a whole. The evidence was not as black and white as some suggested. He had acted on the advice as a whole on whether he thought the individual was a risk.
Ministers had done exactly the same thing down through the decades. In terms of cases in general, it was not unusual for there to be conflicting advice. Put to him that many people felt that the village idiot could have made a better recommendation, the PMOS said that he thought that that sort of language did not do justice to the seriousness of the issue. Frankly we had to be more serious about this issue. We had to look at each individual case, see whether there were grounds for concern and keep in mind that no one was suggesting that in this particular case any child had come to harm as a result of this individual being employed. For decades it had been recognised that there were borderline cases. We could argue about whether a case was borderline or not. That was the process that went on before the case comes to the minister. The minister then had to make a decision based on the balance of the evidence, as had been the case for decades.
Asked if the Government was concerned about the inconsistency of practice when employing people with criminal records, the PMOS said that it was the duty of all schools to consult the Criminal Records Bureau. Part of the Bichard proposals, which we had accepted, was that we had a single source of information which anybody could consult, be it a school or someone employing a nanny or whatever so that that was correct.
As he had said yesterday, part of what we had to consider was whether there was a consistency and uniformity of approach to how cautions were given. In other words it might be that in one part of the country a caution was given for one level of an offence and in another part of the country for a different kind of offence. These were all important issues, and that was part of the reason why it was not as simple as it sounded. He was not saying that you did not have to seriously consider whether the process needed to be changed and act on that. However we should consider this in the round rather than in a simplistic way.
Asked if Kim Howells had made a mistake and if the Prime Minister still had full confidence in him, the PMOS said that Kim Howells had made a judgement based on the evidence before him, which he had checked was the only evidence which was available to him, and the advice given to him. The Prime Minister recognised that and had full confidence in Kim Howells. Asked to explain why people on the sex offenders register should not automatically go on List 99, the PMOS said that the sex offenders register contained names of people who had committed crimes of a sexual nature, some of which were related to children, some of which were not.
It was a much wider net than just those related to children. In terms of children, you were faced with the question of whether someone who had received a caution should automatically go on List 99 and therefore automatically lose their job for life. That was a valid question but as he had said earlier it presented the problem of deterring people from accepting a caution in the first place and leading to there actually being fewer people on the sex offenders register and thus schools knowing about fewer people. That was the dilemma and that was something the review would have to consider.
Asked how far back the review would go, the PMOS said that the department were looking back through cases, not just to 1997 but beyond to see whether there were any concern or grounds for concern in relation so previous cases. So the review would go back as far as it needed to go. The PMOS made it clear that we believed it to be a very small number of cases and we should not get away from that. Asked if we would have to get permission from ministers from the previous administration to look at how they made their decisions, the PMOS said that this was not about why decisions were made but rather whether there was any concern about those about whom the decisions were taken.
Asked what sanctions might be available if the review discovered cases where there had been serious mistakes, the PMOS said that we should not get into hypothetical questions. We should find out what the reality was and then deal with that.
Asked how many people were working in schools who had any kind of criminal record, the PMOS said that he couldn’t answer that question. He would emphasize, however, that the schools should be fully aware if any of their employees has a criminal record because they had a duty to consult the Criminal Records Bureau. As in this case, any school was not going in with their eyes shut.
Put to him that in this particular case the school had known that this individual was on the sex offenders register because he had told them himself, but he was carrying a letter from the department which trumped any objection the school might have, the PMOS said that he would not get into the individual case, but in general schools had an obligation, no matter what somebody tells them, to independently check the Criminal Records Bureau. Also to be clear, any letter from the department of Education and Skills would not say that the school should employ somebody but that they could employ them if their judgment was that they wanted to. So the responsibility for taking the decision to employ someone rests with the school, not the department.
Put to him that Ruth Kelly had already said that she would tighten up legislation which would prevent someone with a caution for sex offences working at a school, the PMOS said that what she had actually said was that under existing legislation she could not do that. She was explaining that if people wanted that to be the position she couldn’t legally do that.
Asked to clarify how the decision on whether someone was a borderline case or not was made, the PMOS said that different professionals offered different opinions from their perspective. The key question at the end was whether the professional advice as a whole did not just say that an individual had received a caution but whether that person was therefore presented a risk. At the end of the day, somebody had to make that final decision based on advice, at the moment it is the minister. We have to ask whether it should be the minister and if not the minister than who? Or did we say that it should be automatic and look at the implications of that which might prove to be self-defeating.
Asked how much detail would be given about the individuals where decisions had had to have been made once the review took place, the PMOS said that there was always a conflict between the desire for public knowledge and the need to protect individuals as we had seen in different spheres. Ruth Kelly would give an indication of whether, in these other cases, there had been cause for concern.
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