RESTRICTED POLICE NATIONAL COMPUTER NAMES GROUP Minutes of the one hundred and forty second meeting held on Thursday 5th June 2014. At 09:30 at The Met Hotel, Leeds Persons Present Tina Watson TW Northumbria Police (Chair) Shaun Beresford SB ACRO (Secretary) Scott Gunn SG Leicestershire Police Vivien Jaymes VJ Merseyside Police Wendy Davies WD PNC Business Development Partner John Rice JR Home Office JOA SIS II Gavin Ireland GI Home Office Corporate Services Peter Smith PS PNC Services (SEG) Dave Low DL Metropolitan Police James Smart JS Police Scotland ************S40 BD PSNI Jess Maltby JM ACRO (Minute Taker) Apologies for absence David Senior DS HMIC Joanne Cawood JC College of Policing (ICTLP) Carolyn Leonard CL Avon & Somerset Police Raymond McIntyre RM Police Scotland Graham Parkes GO College of Policing (ICTLP) 1. Introduction TW welcomed all attendees and acknowledged apologies from DS, JC, CL, RM and GP. JS is representing Police Scotland in the absence of RM. TW advised that CL will no longer be attending PNG meetings due to her new role and that a new SW Region Representative will be identified in due course. On behalf of the group, TW thanked CL for her support to the PNG over years and the assistance she had provided in dealing with complex national issues. 2. Minutes of the previous meeting Minor spelling amendments were brought to attention. Page 4 – ‘met’ not ‘meet. Page 5 – should be ‘NPAs’ not ‘suppliers’ Page 7 – ‘e-borders’ not ‘e-boarders; Subject to amendment the minutes were agreed by the group and will be published on POLKA. Secretary’s Note: Minutes published on POLKA on 14th June 2014. RESTRICTED 1 RESTRICTED 3. Actions 133 5.1 - Not guilty by reason of insanity with guilty disposal DL confirmed that although all the disposal codes are available on the PNC there are some adjudication values that have not been assigned. DL to liaise with PS to address the deficiencies and to circulate a PNC LOL. Action: DL to liaise with PS and circulate PNC LOL. 137 5a - Update PNC processes for gender reassigned DL has completed the work required in respect to this action. The views of the PNG were fed back to the (old) National Policing Lead (NPL) for LGBT and to Everett Henry (College of Policing). Subject to approval of the new NPL for LGBT, the new guidelines will be circulated by LOL for use by forces. Updates for GR markers will be carried out by the Home Office Reconciliations Team. Action: Closed. 139 4a(2)(c) - CRQs which relate solely to third parties and PNG involvement This action relates to the group being unclear on whether the PNG were being asked to review and prioritise the work of PNCS/SEG in relation to decisions made in other PNC Working Groups (WG). DL has spoken with ************S40 and TW has sought clarity from ************S40 , Head of PNCS. The PNG is not being asked to prioritise CRQs raised by other PNC WG e.g. PIAP. Information about CRQs submitted by these groups is being shared by PNCS with the PNG for information purposes. Action: Closed. 139 4b(6) - Use of disposal code 2053 This will be addressed in agenda item 8e. 139 6c - Use of Disposal Code 3069 DL advised that the DBS has challenged some forces on the recording of text relating to the DBS in a PNC court disposal. This was also raised at the P4G by ************S40 This has been a long standing debate between the PNG and the MoJ Results Sub Group. SB stated that it is about how such information is recorded on PNC i.e. it’s not part of a sentence. If it’s recorded as part of the ‘sentence’ then it will appear on the criminal record certificates produced by the DBS. This matter has been discussed at a previous PNG meeting. JM to check the previous minutes from Meeting 139, August 2013 (see note below). Secretary’s Note: Extract from Minutes from meeting 139: The Courts under paragraph 25 of Schedule 3 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (SVGA) 2006 must inform the defendant upon their conviction for a relevant offence under the SVGA, that the person will or (as the case may be), may, be included in a Disclosure and Barring Service’s (DBS) list of people barred from working in regulated activity with children and/or list of people barred from working in regulated activity with adults. Consequently, as of 17th June 2013, Disqualification Orders (DOs) are no longer being issued by the courts. The court practice of adding text to the result “DBS adult barring may apply” was not deemed to be a result by the Results Sub Group. DL to raise the risk of not recording such text at the P4G. TW stated this is not a decision for the PNG and the DBS should take legal advice. Action: TW to write to ACC David Pryde. RESTRICTED 2 RESTRICTED 140 4a2(e) - Secure Dial WD advised that the PNC LOL has been circulated. Action: Closed. 140 4a7(b) - Additional offence added at court to go on DH page or generated via AS page This was discussed at a previous meeting (140). SG and DL briefly outlined the issue again. The B7 Solution currently adds additional offences via the DH page where it can and the asterix (*) is displayed. The solution will only be able to do this when the original offence(s) is still impending. The B7 Solution can not add an additional offence when it has been added following a previous hearing where an interim result was added to the original offence(s) as there is no longer an impending prosecution. Manual intervention is required to de-link and re-link accordingly in order to display the asterix. To prevent the lengthy manual intervention process of de-linking and re-linking on the DH page, additional offences can be added via the AS page however this does not display the asterix. If this method was adopted it would mean there would be a two tier approach in relation to recording additional offences on the PNC. Guidance was sought from the group regarding the necessity of displaying an (*) which indicates that there are additional offences on the DH page. VJ advised that she had raised this issue with her Region and they were in favour of displaying the (*) as this indicates there is court information. TW had an opposite response from her Region which was that displaying the (*) was deemed unnecessary. TW outlined the feedback and it was clear there was confusion towards the process. SG confirmed the NW Region’s understanding of the issue was incorrect. SB asked whether this was a conflict in guidance between the functional specification and the PNC Manual. SG advised that he adopts the approach from the PNC Manual but it is time consuming. TW asked what the benefits of displaying the (*) were. Who would know that the (*) indicates that the offence(s) was added at court. TW could not see any advantage in this. DL advised that it was a quick way of highlighting that additional offences had been added. SG stated that some change needs to happen to avoid inconsistency. The B7 consensus was that the (*) should be displayed as it shows the information came from court. DL suggested that a PNC LOL should be created by the B7 Group outlining that displaying the (*) offers small tangible benefits and there is a small issue with the data quality. The PNG are happy for forces to manage the process either way depending on available resources. TW said that she cannot see the tangible benefits and asked about the time and resources needed to make this happen. It’s not something that we can dictate and there is such a small difference in the quality of data. PS advised that complicated changes would need to be made to the B7/PNC interface. DL stated that this was a lot of work for little change. SB agreed but said that we should not discourage suggestions on how to bring about improvements that benefit the users of our systems. The group agreed that it was a ‘nice to have’. If a CRQ were to be submitted to PNC Customer Support it would attract a ‘Low’ priority meaning that work would only be done if the opportunity arises. Until then, it should be business as usual. Action: Closed. RESTRICTED 3 RESTRICTED 140 4a8 – PoFA DL provided the group with an update. The ‘Single Search’ guidance was published under PNC LOL 2014/017. Additional changes will take effect in September 2014. TW said there was a lack of guidance in relation to what was expected from forces. The PNC LOL from May 2014 advised that implementation into ‘Live’ was postponed until June 2014. However, timings have still not been confirmed by PNC Customer Support which prevents forces allocating resources to manage the change requirements. WD advised that the ‘Go Live’ was on Sunday 15th June. GI added that there maybe a valid reason why a time had not yet been confirmed. TW said that implanting the change on a Sunday had resource implications insofar as staff would have to come in to work on their day off? DL input that any updates on a record will be lost unless the work required is carried out. GI made a call and confirmed times to the group. It was agreed that these should be adjusted and the new date/time notified to forces. Action: WD to circulate revised dates and times via a PNC LOL.