THE REHABILITATION OF OFFENDERS ACT 1974
The Act
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA) sets out to improve the rehabilitation prospects of people who have been convicted of a criminal offence, served their sentence and have since lived on the right side of the law. The ROA provides that anyone who has been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to less than two and a half years in prison can be regarded as rehabilitated after a specified period with no further convictions. After the specified period the original conviction is considered to be spent. The specified period varies between 6 months and 10 years depending on the length of sentence. Convictions involving sentences of over 2.5 years are never spent.
The general rule is that, once a conviction is spent the convicted person does not have to reveal it and cannot be prejudiced by it. This means that if an ex-offender whose convictions are all spent is asked on a job application form, or at a job interview, whether they have a criminal record they do not have to reveal or admit its existence. Moreover, an employer cannot refuse to employ someone or dismiss someone because of a "spent" conviction.
The Exceptions Order
However, there are some categories of employment to which the Act does not apply and for the purposes of which convictions otherwise defined as spent have still to be disclosed. These categories of employment are defined as "exceptions" and there is an order making power in ROA which allows the list of exceptions to be added to by secondary legislation. The current provision for Scotland is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Scotland) Order 2003 and The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2006.
The type of employment where questions about spent convictions can be asked include work in the financial sector, in child care positions, care services, and health professions. There are also specified types of proceedings for which selected provisions of the Act are "excluded" and where details of spent convictions can be disclosed.
The Act and Exceptions Orders are available from HMSO.
Other relevant sites are as follows:-
Disclosure Scotland
http://www.disclosurescotland.co.uk/
Apex Scotland
http://www.apexscotland.org.uk/
Home Office
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/