Firms to access criminal files

Employers will be given access to a job applicant's criminal record under far-reaching plans to be unveiled in a White Paper by Michael Howard, the Home Secretary.

The White Paper will also propose giving individual members of the public the right to their own criminal record to show prospective employers that they have a "clean sheet".

There is also likely to be an outcry from the civil liberties lobby over the proposal to set up an agency to deal with the criminal records. Access to criminal records will be limited to certain firms, such as security companies, where the Home Office believes it could help to combat crime.

The records will be a brief summary of the files held on people, and will not give details of the crimes committed. But ministers believe the summary will be helpful to employers in ensuring that they do not put criminals into positions of trust where the public or other firms would be risk. The move follows concern about security firms, but it falls short of demands led by Ian McCartney, a Labour spokes- man on employment, who has faced personal threats for his calls for a tough regulatory framework to be introduced.