Exceptions to the ROA

The ROA is often criticised for the many and wide exceptions to the general principle of protection in respect of spend convictions. If you fall within any of the exceptions, the you will be required to disclose all your convictions, both spent and unspent. Your spent convictions, or your failure to disclose your spent convictions, may be lawful grounds to refuse to employ you, or to dismiss you or restrict your employment.

However, when you apply for an exempted job you should be told specifically that the job is exempt from the ROA and that therefore you are required to disclose both spent and unspent convictions.

The exceptions are listed in Orders made by a relevant government minister under the ROA. They relate in particular to matters of national security, the care of those who are considered to be vulnerable and to the administration of justice.

The following is a list of many, but not all, excepted professions, occupations and offices:

Accountants

Actuaries

Chartered psychologists

Court officers, justices’ clerks and their assistants

Dealers in securities

Dentists, dental hygienists and dental therapists

Directors, controllers or managers of insurance companies

Firearms dealers

Home inspectors

Judicial appointments

Lawyers and legal executives

Managers or trustees under a unit trust scheme

Medical practitioners

Members of boards of prison visitors

Nurses and Midwives

Occupations regulated by the Gaming Board for Great Britain

Officers and employees of:

• Prisons
  
• remand centres
  
• removal centres
  
• short-term holding facilities
  
• young-offender institutions
  

Officers and Employees of:

• the Crown Prosecution Service
  
• the Serious Fraud Office
  
• the Serious Organized Crime Agency
  
• Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue
  

Optometrists and dispensing opticians

Pharmaceutical chemists and registered pharmacists and pharmacy technicians

Police constables, cadets and police force employees and assistants

Registered chiropractors

Registered osteopaths

Registered, dieticians, paramedics, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiographers, speech and language therapists and clinical scientists

The employees of certain children’s charities

Traffic Officers

Traffic wardens

Veterinary surgeons

Other occupations are exempted from the protections under the ROA because of what the work involves. In these circumstances, you can also usually be required to disclose even your spent convictions. These exempted categories of work include:

• Employees of the RSPCA whose duties extend to the humane killing of animals
  
• Any employment or other work normally carried out in bail hostels or probation hostels
  
• Any office or employment concerned with providing care services to vulnerable adults which would normally enable access to such vulnerable adults
  
• Any position whose normal duties include work in a school, children’s home or children’s hospital.
  
• Certain officials and employees from government and public authorities with access to sensitive or personal information or official databases about children or vulnerable adults
  
• Any office or employment concerned with providing health services which would normally enable access to recipients of those health services.
  
• Any occupation concerned with the management of abortion clinics
  
• Any occupation concerned with the management of registered nursing homes
  
• Officers and other persons who execute various court orders
  
• Anyone who as part of their occupation occupies premises where explosives are kept under a police certificate
  
• Contractors who carry out various kinds of work in tribunal and court buildings
  

As well as excluding particular professions, and occupations involving certain kinds of work, the ROA exceptions also say that you can be required to disclose your spent convictions when questions are asked for particular purposes. Examples include any questions asked:

• to assess a person’s suitability to work with children.
  
• to assess a person’s suitability to adopt children, or a particular child, or a question about anyone over the age of 18 living with such a person
  
• for the purpose of safeguarding national security, if you wish to be employed by certain bodies such as the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Financial Services Authority or as an officer of the Crown.
  
• by or on behalf the Football Association, Football League or Premier League to assess someone’s suitability to work as, or supervise or manage, a steward at football matches.
  
• by the Financial Services Authority and certain other bodies involved in finance, when asked to assess the suitability of a person to hold a particular status in the financial and monetary sectors.
  

Again, where you are asked an exempt question, you must be told that the question is exempt and that therefore you are required to disclose spent and unspent convictions.

It can seen from the nature of the exceptions that that, in practice, professions such as teaching will fall outside the general protection against disclosing spent convictions.

Finally, applications for certain certificates or licences require that your spent convictions must be disclosed, and the licensing authority may take them into account. These included licences or certificates for driving taxis, for firearms, or where you have responsibility for someone under the age of 18 earning money (for themselves or for others) abroad by entertaining, playing sport, or working as a model. In these cases, failure to disclose a spent conviction could lead to the refusal or loss of your certificate or licence, and even to prosecution.