Schools have a duty to ensure that the supply agencies that they use carry out the same safeguarding checks on supply staff as the school is required to carry out on its own staff.
Keeping Children Safe in Education (2016) is statutory guidance issued by the Department for Education. The guidance states that schools and colleges must ensure that they obtain written confirmation from supply agencies and third parties that the same checks have been carried out for staff who they supply to schools as the school would carry out on its own staff.
CHECKS THAT AGENCIES AND SCHOOLS MUST CARRY OUT
- Verify a candidate’s identity, preferably from current photographic ID and proof of address except where, for exceptional reasons, none is available.
- Obtain a certificate for an enhanced DBS check with a barred list check where the person will be engaging in regulated activity.
- Obtain a separate barred list check if an individual will start work in regulated activity before the DBS certificate is available.
- Ensure that a potential candidate is not on a prohibited list. Such checks are undertaken via a system called the Employer Access Online Service.
- Verify the person’s right to work in the UK following Home Office 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 relevant sections to follow).
- Verify professional qualifications, as appropriate. And additionally – where relevant, check whether the person is disqualified under the childcare provisions.