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NEWS RELEASE FROM THE Issued 3rd December 2003 CRIMINAL RECORDS BUREAU FEE HIKE CONDEMNED: The Criminal Records Bureau’s (CRB) latest increase in fees for carrying out checks on care home staff puts it in the South American league of hyper-inflation, the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) has claimed. In the past twelve months the CRB has put up the fee charged from £12 to £33. This is totally unacceptable, says the RNHA, pointing out that the figures are not negotiated with the CRB’s users but simply imposed. It means that an average size nursing home will now have to spend around an extra £750 a year for the CRB to check the credentials of existing staff and new ones being recruited. Commented RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: “Where are nursing homes expected to find this money? Our fee increases from local authorities are kept well down into single figures. Curiously, the CRB appears to be exempt from the laws of economics that apply to other organisations.” He added: “The CRB proved in its early days to be an unmitigated disaster. Whilst, to a degree, it has smartened up its act, there are still problems. We fail to see how a body which has caused so much trouble could possibly justify putting up fees even by the rate of inflation, let alone a figure plucked out of the stratosphere.” The RNHA says it will object formally to the planned increase and will be calling for a CRB user body to be established to give care homes and other organisations a say in the way the organisation is run. “Enough is enough,” said Mr Ursell. “The CRB is acting as a law unto itself. We need to bring it into the real world that the rest of us have to operate in. The fact that checks need to be carried out on those who care for older and other vulnerable people should not be used as an excuse by the CRB to name its own price.” END For further information and comment, please contact: Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, RNHA |
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