Safeguarding Children:

Safer Recruitment

Safer Recruitment

Safeguarding children and young people requires staff and volunteers who work with children and their families to be committed to the highest possible standards of openness, integrity and accountability.

All statutory and public organisations that employ staff and / or volunteers to work with or provide services for children have a duty to safeguard and promote the children's welfare. This includes ensuring that safe recruitment and selection procedures are adopted which deter, reject or identify people who might abuse children or are otherwise unsuitable to work with them.

Children’s Safeguarding Assurance Partnership have developed a Pan Lancashire Policy and Procedures for Safeguarding Children Manual - the manual contains guidance about safe recruitment, selection and supervision of staff. This can be found here.

Disclosure and Barring Service

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) helps employers make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children. It replaces the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).

The disclosure and Baring Service are responsible for:

  • Processing requests for criminal records checks;
  • Deciding whether it is appropriate for a person to be placed on or removed from a barred list;
  • Placing or removing people from the DBS children’s barred list and adults’ barred list for England.

The DBS work with:

  • Police, who provide information that is held locally or on the police national computer;
  • Department for Education - owns the safeguarding policy for children;
  • Department of Health - owns the safeguarding policy for vulnerable groups
  • TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) - private sector partner that operates an administration infrastructure and call centre for our disclosure service;
  • Registered bodies - organisations that have registered with the DBS checking service, and are the primary point of contact for:
    • Checking disclosure applications and validating information provided by the applicant;
    • Establishing the identity of the applicant;
    • Submitting fully completed application forms;
    • Countersigning application forms to confirm entitlement.

Information on the work of the DBS can be found at: DBS website (external link)