Safe Recruitment, Selection and Supervision of Staff

A range of individual organisations and agencies working with children and families have specific statutory duties to promote the welfare of children and ensure they are protected from harm. These duties, as applied to individual organisations and agencies, are set out in this chapter. Section 11 of the Children's Act 2004 places duties on a range of organisations, agencies and individuals to ensure their functions, and any services that they contract out to others, are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

In addition to this, it is vital that schools and colleges create a culture of safe recruitment and, as part of that, adopt recruitment procedures that help deter, reject or identify people who might abuse children as set out in statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education. This guidance states safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is defined for the purposes of this guidance as:

• Providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge;
• Protecting children from maltreatment, whether that is within or outside the home, including online;
• Preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development;
• Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care;
• Promoting the upbringing of children with their birth parents, or otherwise their family network through a kinship care arrangement, whenever possible and where this is in the best interests of the children;
• Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes in line with the outcomes set out in the Children’s Social Care National Framework.

For the purpose of this procedure these standards should apply to staff and volunteers in all partner organisations, not just educational establishments.

The term 'children' will denote all children and young people under the age of 18 years old.

Chapter 2 of Working Together to Safeguard Children states that organisations providing services to children and/or their parents / carers, should have in place a number of arrangements as part of their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. In relation to safer recruitment, these arrangements include:

• A culture of listening to children and taking account of their wishes and feelings, both in individual decisions and the development of services;
• Safe recruitment practices and ongoing safe working practices for individuals whom the organisation or agency permit to work regularly with children, including policies on when to obtain a criminal record check;
• Appropriate supervision and support for staff, including undertaking safeguarding training; 
• Creating a culture of safety, equality and protection within the services they provide;
• Employers are responsible for ensuring that their staff are competent to carry out their responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and creating an environment where staff feel able to raise concerns and feel supported in their safeguarding role; 
• Staff should be given a mandatory induction, which includes familiarisation with child protection responsibilities and the procedures to be followed if anyone has any concerns about a child's safety or welfare;
• Organisations and agencies working with children and families should have clear policies for dealing with allegations against people who work with children. Such policies should make a clear distinction between an allegation, a concern about the quality of care or practice or a complaint.

Part 3 of Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance describes in detail those checks that are, or may be, required for any individual working in any capacity at, or visiting, the school or college. Governing bodies and proprietors must act reasonably in making decisions about the suitability of the prospective employee based on checks and evidence, including: validation of applicant's identity, criminal record checks (Disclosure and Barring Service DBS checks), barred list checks and prohibition checks, together with references and interview information.

Note on Overseas Applicants: The same checks should be made on overseas staff as for all other staff, and include a 'right to work in the UK' check.

Note: although it is not possible to conduct overseas Disclosure and Barring Service checks, a 'Certificate of Good Conduct' or equivalent should be obtained.

Where an applicant has worked or been resident overseas in the previous 5 years, the employer should obtain a check of the applicant's criminal record from the relevant authority in that country and seek additional information about an applicant's conduct. Not all countries provide this service and advice can be sought from the Disclosure and Barring Service. The application process for criminal records checks or 'Certificates of Good Character' for someone from overseas varies from country to country. 

For further information, see GOV.UK - Criminal records checks for overseas applicants. Employers are responsible for ensuring that their staff are competent to carry out their responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and creating an environment where staff feel able to raise concerns and feel supported in their safeguarding role.

Safer practice in recruitment involves giving consideration to child protection and safeguarding issues and promoting the welfare of children at every stage of the process. It starts with the process of planning the recruitment exercise; how and where the post is advertised; ensuring that the advertisement makes clear the organisation's commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. It also requires a consistent and thorough process of obtaining, collating, analysing, and evaluating information from and about applicants. Note that Keeping Children Safe in Education provides that schools and colleges should only accept copies of a curriculum vitae alongside an application form. A curriculum vitae on its own will not provide adequate information.

Governing bodies of maintained schools are required to ensure that at least one of the persons who conducts an interview has completed safer recruitment training. This is also expected practice in all academies, free schools and independent schools. See GOV.UK, Staffing and employment advice for schools.

Any offer of appointment made to a successful candidate, including one who has lived or worked abroad, must be conditional on satisfactory completion of the necessary pre-employment checks.

When appointing new staff, schools and colleges must (subject to paragraph 232 in Keeping Children Safe in Education, Part three: Safer recruitment):

• Verify a candidate’s identity, it is important to be sure that the person is who they claim to be, this includes being aware of the potential for individuals changing their name. Best practice is checking the name on their birth certificate, where this is available. Further identification checking guidelines can be found on the GOV.UK website;
• Obtain (via the applicant) an enhanced DBS check (including children’s barred list information, for those who will be engaging in regulated activity with children). Note that when using the DBS update service, you still need to obtain the original physical certificate (see paragraphs 249-252);
• Obtain a separate children’s barred list check if an individual will start work in regulated activity with children before the DBS certificate is available; See paragraph 261-262 on how to obtain a separate children’s barred list check. This does not apply to 16-19 Academies, Special Post-16 institutions and Independent Training Providers;
• Verify the candidate’s mental and physical fitness to carry out their work responsibilities. A job applicant can be asked relevant questions about disability and health in order to establish whether they have the physical and mental capacity for the specific role;
• Verify the person’s right to work in the UK, including EU nationals. If there is uncertainty about whether an individual needs permission to work in the UK, then schools and colleges should follow advice on the GOV.UK website;
• If the person has lived or worked outside the UK, make any further checks the school or college consider appropriate (see 280-285); and
• Verify professional qualifications, as appropriate. The Teaching Regulation Agency’s (TRA) Employer Access Service should be used to verify any award of qualified teacher status (QTS), and the completion of teacher induction or probation.

In addition:

• Independent schools, including academies and free schools, must check that a person taking up a management position as described at paragraph 256 is not subject to a section 128 direction made by the Secretary of State;
• All schools must ensure that an applicant to be employed to carry out teaching work is not subject to a prohibition order issued by the Secretary of State (see paragraph 253) for prohibition checks or any sanction or restriction imposed (that remains current) by the GTCE (see paragraph 255), before its abolition in March 2012;
• Before employing a person to carry out teaching work in relation to children, colleges must take reasonable steps to establish whether that person is subject to a prohibition order issued by the Secretary of State;
• All schools and colleges providing childcare must ensure that appropriate checks are carried out to ensure that individuals employed to work in reception classes, or in wraparound care for children up to the age of 8, are not disqualified from working in these settings under the 2018 Childcare Disqualification Regulations. Further details about the application of these arrangements are provided at paragraphs 263-267.

Note that Keeping Children Safe in Education states:

‘In addition, as part of the shortlisting process schools and colleges should consider carrying out an online search as part of their due diligence on the shortlisted candidates. This may help identify any incidents or issues that have happened, and are publicly available online, which the school or college might want to explore with the applicant at interview. Schools and colleges should inform shortlisted candidates that online searches may be done as part of due diligence checks.’

HR/legal advice should be sought as appropriate in relation to use of online searches as part of recruitment processes.

Schools should undertake a risk assessment and use their professional judgement and experience to decide whether volunteers require an enhanced DBS check.

Keeping Children Safe in Education is clear that schools and colleges should only provide substantiated safeguarding concerns/allegations that meet the harm threshold in references. Low-level concerns should not be included in references unless they relate to issues which would normally be included in a reference, for example, misconduct or poor performance. It follows that a low-level concern which relates exclusively to safeguarding (and not to misconduct or poor performance) should not be referred to in a reference. However, where a low-level concern (or group of concerns) meets the harm threshold for referral to the LADO and found to be substantiated, it should be referred to in a reference.

Staff should be given a mandatory induction, which covers a number of key safeguarding issues including familiarisation with child protection responsibilities, the procedures to be followed if anyone has any concerns about a child's safety or welfare and the staff code of conduct.

In considering asking a person to apply for a standard or enhanced DBS check, an employer is legally responsible for making sure the job role is eligible. This should be done before countersigning each DBS application form.

To determine which level of check a role is eligible for, refer to the DBS Eligibility Guidance.

Statutory Guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education sets out detailed provisions on checks and levels of supervision for staff, volunteers, contractors and visitors in educational establishments.

Three types of DBS checks are referred to in this guidance (see Keeping Children Safe in Education):

• Standard: this provides information about convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings held on the Police National Computer (PNC), regardless or not of whether they are spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. The law allows for certain old and minor matters to be filtered out;
• Enhanced: this provides the same information as a standard check, plus any approved information held by the police which a chief officer reasonably believes to be relevant and considers ought to be disclosed; and
• Enhanced with barred list check: where people are working or seeking to work in regulated activity with children, this allows an additional check to be made as to whether the person appears on the children's barred list.

A more detailed description of the three types of DBS checks is provided on the DBS website.

If a person subscribes to the DBS update service, employers/prospective employers must also check the original DBS certificate. This is because the update service will not show the information found during the original check.

Guidance - Disclosure and Barring Service: Guidance for Children's Social Care Providers and Managers

All professionals working in the area of child protection should receive advice and support from peers, managers or named and designated professionals, as appropriate to role and responsibility.

For many practitioners involved in day to day work with children and families formal supervision with an identified manager is important to promoting good standards of practice and to supporting individual staff members.

The purpose of the practitioner-supervisor relationship should be to:

• Support those professionals working directly with children and families;
• Ensure that plans are followed or amended as appropriate;
• Ensure that LSCP policy and procedures and the organisation's own policies and procedures are adhered to;
• Ensure that action in line with planning, policy and procedures is consistent with agreed timescales;
• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the practitioner, and assist in the development of practice skills either personally or by ensuring that appropriate training is made available, and attended as appropriate by practitioner and supervisor;
• Be available to provide advice and endorse decisions as appropriate in the child protection process;
• The supervision of staff working directly with children must include the supervisor reading, reviewing and signing the case file at regular intervals, as agreed within the organisation's policy;
• When allocating work to a practitioner, the supervisor must ensure that the practitioner has the necessary training, experience and time to deal with the case properly and is clear what action is required and how that action will be reviewed and supervised.