Editor’s Comment: Can a leopard change its spots?

Annie Hayes

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Editor’s Comment: Can a leopard change its spots?

By Annie Hayes

Clean sheets are rather hard to come by in a society that pivots around prejudice and discrimination; Editor’s Comment looks at whether we can ever turn a blind eye to spent convictions and skeletons in the closet.

Michael Buerk, the veteran BBC newsreader recently commented on the position of women in society, controversially remarking that men have become little more than sperm donors.

Whatever he meant, it is true to say that we operate in a world that is failing to get to grips with equality.

If we cannot even establish a respectful rapport between the sexes, what hope is there for employees with spent convictions and can the dream of rehabilitation ever be realised?

We’re constantly reminded of the skills shortage facing Britain and as a tight labour market puts an inflationary squeeze on pay packages bosses need to get ever more inventful.

One way of meeting the shortfall would be to tap into alternative resources: ageing and foreign workers, those with past convictions.

Commenting on the issue of employing ex-offenders, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s Dianah Worman said:

“One in three adult males under the age of 30 has some form of criminal conviction, but in the majority of cases these are for relatively minor offences, and are not followed by re-offending. The Home Office Offenders Index contains 7.3 million names – 20% of the working age population. With unemployment low, and a growing war for talent, it makes good business sense to consider employing ex-offenders, with proper checks and balances in place.”

Caveating the debate, Worman goes onto say that some employers do have a legal duty to make sure they don’t employ people who have committed certain offences which might endanger children or vulnerable adults. Others have legitimate concerns about the risks involved in employing ex-offenders.

“However, once risks have been assessed and legal duties complied with, CIPD research finds most employers that have employed ex-offenders have found it a positive experience. Only 6% of the 144 HR professionals who have had experience of employing ex-offenders found it to be a negative experience and only eight of these had seen any case of reoffending.”

Sounds good but finding any evidence of the so-called organisations with a spring in their step from their wider acceptance of those with a criminal past was hard to come by.

Last year the BBC and Channel 4 paid James Raven £40,000 a year to conduct some surveillance work; this was despite him having served a 14 month prison sentence for violence.

Raven was then convicted as the ringleader of a masked gang who killed a drugs smuggler in a farmhouse in Tabley, near Knutsford, Cheshire.

At the time the Corporation protested that when the offences were committed James Raven was no longer working for the BBC.

While this is an extreme example and one that doesn’t merit the term ‘spent’ nor deserving of a clean sheet, it does demonstrate the potential PR fallout from hiring the wrong people.

But sorting the wheat from the chaff is becoming even harder. There are those that genuinely are rehabilitated and would like to earn an honest crust – people deserving of a second chance but how can employers tell the ‘bad’ from the plain ‘ugly’?

Candidates are only required to confess to any spent convictions if it is relevant to the line of work. In a recent HR tip by HRD & Payroll Solutions we looked at how to deal with a member of staff whose spent conviction recently came to light. The advice given suggested that nothing at all should be done. Possession of a criminal record it seems is insufficient grounds for a full scale sacking.

And so it should be. But legislation leaves recruiters in a difficult situation, we need candidates that can fill the skills gap but we’re not allowed to discriminate against those with spent convictions by asking them about their past in an interview situation. Unless of course, the line of work merits it. If any unexplained gaps in career history arise, jumping to conclusions is not allowed.

Employers are literally left walking a tight rope. A balancing act that requires some astute detective work and a respect for the law, an undertaking deserving of an acrobat not an HR professional with two left feet.

I’d like to hear your views. Please send in your comments – has your organisation been successful in hiring an ex-offender? Have you had a bad experience? Share your thoughts by posting in the box below.

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