Greater Use of DBS
IICSA · The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · Issued 20 October 2022 · Addressed to: UK Government
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, K.4
The Inquiry recommends that the UK government enables any person engaging an individual to work or volunteer with children on a frequent basis to check whether or not they have been barred by the Disclosure and Barring Service from working with children. These arrangements should also apply where the role is undertaken on a supervised basis.
IICSA, The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · 20 Oct 2022 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- No published legislation enabling barred list checks for all individuals working or volunteering with children has been identified to March 2026.
Response — verbatim from government
●UK Government
We accept subject to further assessment of feasibility and impact, taking into account the findings of the Bailey Review of Disclosure and Barring Regime published in April 2023.
UK Government · 22 May 2023 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 31 Jan 2026 Crime and Policing Bill includes provisions to remove supervision exemption from regulated activity definition. Bill passed Commons committee stage May 2025 and is currently in Lords Committee stage (January 2026). Royal Assent expected later in 2026. Source →
- 8 Apr 2025 Crime and Policing Bill includes provisions to remove supervision exemption from regulated activity definition, extending access to barred list checks. Source →
- 21 Jan 2025 · Home Affairs Select Committee Professor Alexis Jay told Home Affairs Committee that £187m was spent on IICSA and "to date none of its final recommendations had been implemented." Called for "full implementation" saying "get it done." View source → No Meaningful Progress
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.