4.1.29 Safe Recruitment |
Contents
Preparing the job or role description and person specification
Advertisements and information for applicants
Information to prospective applicants
Offer of appointment to successful candidate
Induction and supervision of newly appointed staff
Introduction
All organisations employing staff or volunteers to work with children have a duty to safeguard and promote their welfare. This includes ensuring that the organisation adopts safe recruitment and selection procedures, which prevent unsuitable persons from gaining access to children.
These procedures provide organisations with minimum good practice considerations but do not cover all issues relating to safe recruitment and selection. It is the responsibility of each agency or organisation to consult with their personnel or HR advisor, review or develop their own procedures and to ensure the practice satisfies the requirements of employment law.
Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places a duty on all partnership organisations to have in place “robust recruitment and vetting arrangements in place to prevent unsuitable people from working with the children.”
These procedures comply with the safe recruitment recommendations of the Bichard Inquiry published in 2004 and the DfES Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education guidance published in 2006.
The Coventry Safeguarding Board has a key function to establish “effective policies and procedures, based on national guidance, for checking the suitability of people applying to work with children”.
Scope
These procedures should apply to all adults who have contact with children through their work, whether in a paid or voluntary capacity. They also apply to those persons who may not have direct contact with children, but because of their presence, will still be seen as safe and trustworthy or have access to sensitive information.
Reference to “ staff” or “volunteers” refer to any adult who is employed, commissioned or contracted to work with or on behalf of children, in either a paid or unpaid capacity.
The principles of safe recruitment should, therefore, be included in the terms of any contract or service level agreement drawn up between the organisation and contractors or agencies who provide services for, or adults to work with, children for whom the organisation is responsible. Any service level agreement or contract should therefore contain a safeguarding statement, which makes the standards expected, explicit.
The agency or organisation should monitor compliance with the contract, which should also include a requirement that the provider will not sub-contract to any personnel who have not been part of a safe recruitment process.
Volunteers
Volunteers are seen by children as safe and trustworthy adults and if any organisation is actively seeking volunteers the same recruitment measures should be adopted as for paid staff.
It is important for the organisation to develop role descriptions, selection processes and references that gauge the person’s aptitude and suitability for working with children ensuring that relevant checks are undertaken.
Rigorous Scrutiny
This is the key to safe recruitment. All information gathered during the recruitment process must be rigorously checked at all stages of the process. It is important that the need to safeguard children is also considered at every stage of the recruitment process. Particular care should be given to checking dates of birth, names and identifying any gaps in employment details.
Incomplete applications should not be accepted and should be returned to the candidate for completion.
Training
All organisations involved in the selection of adults to work with children should ensure that designated staff undertake safe recruitment training as offered by the employer and other training specific to their organisation where available e.g. National College of School Leadership training for local authority designated staff, head teachers and governors.
The LSCB will monitor such training to ensure that all organisations have appropriately trained staff involved in their recruitment processes.
The Recruitment Process
Organisations should demonstrate their commitment to safeguarding and protecting children by ensuring that all recruitment advertising material contains a policy statement to this effect.
It is important that the need to safeguard children is considered at every stage of the recruitment process. All organisations should therefore adopt a statement reflecting their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, which is incorporated in all recruitment, application forms and documents relating to recruitment and selection.
Preparing the job or role description and person specification
Once a post becomes vacant, or a new post is created, the job/role description and person specification need to be reviewed/agreed to ensure compliance with safer recruitment guidance.
Both the job/role description and person specification need to reflect the applicant’s responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
The Job/Role Description should:
- Be an accurate reflection of the job/role a person is expected to do
- Should not list every task undertaken.
- Clearly set out the extent of the relationship with, and the degree of responsibility for, children with whom the person will have contact.
The Person Specification should include:
- The qualifications and experience needed for the role
- The competence and qualities that the applicant should be able to demonstrate
- How these will be tested and assessed during the selection process.
- Specific reference to suitability to work for children.
Both the job/role description and person specification should be completed at the same time and before the job is advertised.
The person specification should not be completed or revised after the selection panel has had access to the applications
Advertisements and information for applicants
The advertisement should stress the organisations commitment to safeguarding children and should therefore include a statement to this effect.
The advertisement needs to be clear and concise and include:
- Post title
- Salary
- Type of contract, i.e. Permanent, Fixed Term, Temporary etc
- Post location
- Hours of work
- Brief description of organisation
- Brief description of the post
- Closing date for application
- Interview date
- How to apply and to whom to apply
- Equal opportunities process
- Contact number for further information
- Reference to the need for CRB check
Information to prospective applicants
The level of the post will influence the amount of information to be sent to applicants. All information given to the interested applicant should highlight the importance placed by the organisation on the rigorous selection process and the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. All candidates should be asked to bring proof of identity (see Short Listing).
The information should stress that the identity of the candidate, if successful, will need to be checked thoroughly, and that where a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check is appropriate, the person will be required to complete an application for a CRB Disclosure straight away.
Application form
All organisations should have a standard application form, which is used for all staff vacancies.
The application form should ask for:
- Full personal information, including any former names by which the person has been known in the past
- A full employment history, both paid and voluntary since leaving school in chronological order plus reasons for leaving
- Details of any academic and/or vocational qualifications
- A declaration that the person has no convictions, cautions, or having been bound-over.
- Details of references
Word of mouth appointments and CVs should not be accepted under any circumstances.
References
The application form should request both professional and character references, one of which should be from the applicant’s current or most recent employer. Additional references may be asked for where appropriate. For example, where the applicant is not currently working with children, but has done so in the past, a reference from that employer should be asked for in addition to that from the current or most recent employer, if this is different.
Careful consideration needs to be given to applicants who have been working as a locum or with an agency on a series of temporary contracts. The need to ask for additional references i.e. last permanent employer should be considered. Any issues of concern raised by the reference should be explored further with the referee and taken up with the candidate.
References should contain objective verifiable information and in order to achieve this, a reference pro-forma with questions relating to the candidate’s suitability to work with children should be provided.
The referee should be asked to confirm whether the applicant has been the subject of any disciplinary sanctions and whether the applicant has had any allegations made against him/her or concerns raised, which relate to either the safety or welfare of children and young people, or about the applicant’s behaviour towards children or young people. Details about the outcome of any concerns or allegations should be sought. The references should be checked carefully with the application form to identify any possible discrepancies.
If the applicant claims to have specific qualifications or experience relevant to working with children that may not be verified by a reference, the facts should be verified by making contact with the relevant body or previous employer and any discrepancy explored during the interview.
The Selection Process
Selection Panel
It is essential that the same selection panel should both short list, and interview candidates. Members of the panel should not stand to gain from the appointment or have a personal relationship with any of the applicants. At least one member of the panel should have undertaken safe R&S training.
Shortlisting
There are standard procedures for short listing to ensure that the best candidates are selected fairly. In drawing up a shortlist of applicants for interview there should be a systematic and consistent approach.
All candidates should be assessed equally against the criteria contained in the person specification without exception or variation
All candidates should be instructed to bring with them documentary evidence of their identity, either a full birth certificate, passport or photo card driving licence (some form of photograph identification) and additionally a document such as a utility bill that verifies the candidates name and address. Where appropriate, change of name documentation must also be brought to the interview.
Candidates should also be asked to bring original or certified copies of documents confirming any necessary or relevant educational and professional qualifications. If the successful candidate cannot produce original documents or certified copies, written confirmation of his/her relevant qualifications should be obtained from the awarding body.
Safe recruitment means that all applications should additionally by:
- Checked to ensure that they are fully and property completed. Incomplete applications should not be accepted and should be returned to the candidate for completion.
- Scrutinised for any anomalies or discrepancies in the information provided.
- Considered with regard to any history of gaps, or repeated changes, in employment, or moves to supply work, without clear and verifiable reasons.
Interviewing short-listed candidates
The selection interview is a matching process: the apparent attributes of the candidate against the declared requirements of the job as listed on the person specification. All questions must be prepared in advance and must not be discriminatory with regards to sex, marital status, race or ethnic origin, disability, religion, age, sexual orientation or political belief.
The candidate’s attitude toward children and young people in general should be tested and also their commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in particular. The following areas should be explored with applicants in the interview.
- Their motivation and reasons for working with children
- Their attitudes and behaviour about control and punishment
- Their perceptions about the boundaries of acceptable behaviour towards children
- Their ability to form and maintain professional relationships
- Their personal belief systems, including attitudes to perception of, and sensitivity to, sexual images of children
- Their understanding of safeguarding children
At least one member of the interview panel should be trained in how best this can be done.
Any gaps and changes in employment history should be fully explored during the interview, as should any discrepancies arising from information supplied by the candidate or by the referee.
After the interview
Panel members should separately score the candidates. They should then share their scores and discuss their reasons for reaching this score. This discussion should result in a joint agreed score for each candidate.
Offer of appointment to successful candidate
An offer of appointment should be conditional upon pre-employment checks being satisfactorily completed, including:
- A CRB check appropriate to the role
- A check of DES List 99 and/or the DoH Protection of Children Act (POCA) List
- Verification of the candidate’s medical fitness
- Verification of any relevant professional status and whether any restrictions have been imposed by a regulatory body such as the General Teaching Council (GTC) and the General Medical Council (GMC).
- Evidence of permission to work for those who are not nationals of a European Economic Area country
- Receipt of two satisfactory written references
Criminal Records
Employers should make a judgement about suitability to work with children, taking into account only those offences, which may be relevant to the post in question. In deciding the relevance the following should be considered:
- The nature of the appointment
- The nature of the offence
- The age at which the offence took place
- The frequency of the offence
Anyone who is barred from working with children in a regulated position, as set out in Section 36 of the Criminal Justice and Court Act 2000, is committing an offence if they apply for offers to do so or accept any work in any of the regulated positions as set out in the Act.
It is also an offence for an employer knowingly to offer work in a regulated position, or to produce work in a regulated position for an individual who is disqualified from working with children, or fail to remove such an individual from such work.
Checks on Overseas Staff
The same checks should be made for overseas staff as all other staff, including CRB checks.
Where an applicant has worked or been resident overseas in the previous 5 years, the employer should, where possible, obtain a check of the applicant’s criminal record from the relevant authority in that country. Not all countries provide this service and advice can be sought from the CRB Overseas Information service.
Recording
All documentation relating to the recruitment of staff must be retained on file. Any check completed should be confirmed in writing and retained on the candidate’s personnel file, together with photocopies and documents used to verify his/her identity and qualifications. Under CRB regulations, CRB disclosures can usually only be kept for 6 months, but a record should be kept of the date the disclosure was obtained and by whom, the level of the disclosure and the unique reference number.
A record should be kept of evidence to show that such checks have been carried out in respect of supply staff and volunteers whether recruited directly or through an agency.
Satisfactory references must be kept on the candidates personnel file or, in the case of supply staff or volunteers not recruited through an agency, on a central record within the organisation.
Where information gained by the employer from either references or other checks calls into question the candidate’s suitability to work with children, or where the candidate has provided false information in support of the application, the facts should be reported to the DfES Safeguarding Unit and or police who have a responsibility to refer to the DSCF Safeguarding Operations Unit (formerly the Teachers Misconduct Team)
It is recommended that staff should not commence work with children until the CRB check has been returned. In specific circumstances, senior managers may undertake a full written risk assessment to enable staff to work until such checks have been returned. The documentation and process for such risk assessments should be undertaken with the support and agreement of HR advisors.
Induction and supervision of newly appointed staff
The induction of all newly appointed staff should include an introduction to the organisation’s child protection policies and procedures. This should include being made aware of the identity and specific responsibilities of those staff with designated safeguarding responsibilities.
New staff members should be provided with information about safe practice and given a full explanation of their role and responsibilities and the standard of conduct and behaviour expected.
They should also be made aware of the organisation’s personnel procedures relating to disciplinary issues and the relevant whistle blowing policy.
The programme of induction should also include attendance at child protection training at a level appropriate to the member of staff’s work with children.
Senior managers should ensure that their staff are adequately and appropriately supervised/supported and that they have ready access to advice, expertise and management support in all matters relating to safeguarding and child protection.
Monitoring
On a regular basis all agencies and organisations should monitor both the recruitment process and induction arrangements to ensure compliance with the procedures and any new legislation in order to review and improve future practice.
Any concerns that arise through the process of continued supervision, which calls into the question the persons suitability to work with children should be managed according to the procedures for the management of allegations against staff.
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