Legal Issues

By law, anyone who intends to work with, or do research which brings them into unsupervised contact with, children or vulnerable adults (such as adults with learning or other disabilities) must first be checked by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB). This includes service users who are working as researchers, including those with disabilities. We describe here how to go about instigating a CRB check.

Here we also give information about payments for service users who want to do research. Many potential research partners may get state benefits (such as Disability Living Allowance) which will affect whether they can be paid for doing research.

We also outline here some of the legislation and policy relevant to the employment, and other rights, of service users in the services they receive. This is not an exhaustive discussion of all of the legal/political issues facing service users and service providers, but provides an introduction to the area.

CRB Checks
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Some Key Pieces of Legislation

Benefits and Payments
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