Ex-prisoners shouldn’t have to declare their criminal convictions on initial job application forms, Cardinal Vincent Nichols has said.
The cardinal told delegates at a conference on prison chaplaincy that employers should wait until a later stage of the interview process to disclose past convictions. He said this move would give ex-convicts the chance to “put their past in context and show who they really are”.
"Of course convictions have to be disclosed and where necessary DBS checks undertaken,” he said. “But people should not be written off without a hearing for actions in the past which may no longer have a bearing on their future."
