The Act Commentary on Sections Part 5: Safeguarding vulnerable groups, criminal records etc. Section 75: Professional bodies
307.This section amends the duties on professional bodies by combining the effects of sections 43 and 44 of the SVGA.
308.Section 41 of the SVGA places an obligation upon professional bodies (also known as keepers of registers), for example the General Medical Council, to provide the ISA with information (of a prescribed sort) about a person whom it may be appropriate to include in a barred list, if certain conditions are met. Subsection (1) replaces the obligation to provide this information with a power to do so and removes the requirement that the information must be of a prescribed sort. This means that the professional body can provide any relevant information to the ISA, if the referral criteria are met.
309.The changes made by subsection (3) ensure that the ISA is under an obligation to inform a professional body that someone on their register is on a barred list. The ISA must also provide the keeper of a register with any information upon which it relied in coming to that decision and which the ISA considers both to be relevant to the functions of the professional body and appropriate to disclose to that body. The amendments to the SVGA also enable a professional body to apply to the ISA for barred list information on an ad hoc basis. The ISA may provide to the professional body any information that is relevant to them; this does not have to be in relation to a barred person. The amendments further provide for a professional body to apply to the Secretary of State to be proactively notified if anyone on their register becomes barred.
310.The provisions ensure that neither the ISA nor the Secretary of State is under any obligation to provide information if the ISA (or the Secretary of State, as the case may be) is satisfied that the professional body already has that information.