‘If school teachers, school bus drivers, police officers, prison officers, doctors, nurses, traffic wardens, taxi drivers, community volunteers and many thousands of other public service professionals are required to have criminal checks (DBS checks) then why not our locally elected representatives?
Councillor Sharen Davies, Labour County Councillor for Llywnhendy and Pemberton has been campaigning for this for quite some time. She has presented a motion to Carmarthenshire County Council which has been referred to the executive. The ‘Representation of the People (Candidate’s Disclosure)’ Act was presented to Parliament by a Labour MP would have covered this but unfortunately, whilst unopposed, fell for want of time.
Consequently, the Llanelli Constituency Labour party has started both a paper and online petition to gain support from the public for Carmarthenshire County Council to introduce Criminal (DBS) checks for all County and Community Councillors.
Councillor Sharen Davies welcomed this positive action and support. She commented ‘Not only is it important for safeguarding of Children and vulnerable adults, but also important for checking of history for fraud or financial irregularity. To ensure a safer community we need to make sure that those, elected to represent us in an ‘excepted’ position are required to have these checks’.
The online petition can be found here:
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