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Work placements : To CRB or not to CRB
16th February 2009
In their various guises, work placements are now an integral part
of the 14-19 education and skills agenda. They are viewed by most
as an essential activity for young people enabling them to enrich
their education and achieve a greater understanding of the world of
work that awaits them. From curriculum-linked visits to industry
days, mentoring schemes to long term work placements, work-related
learning activities have expanded significantly since the days of
students spending a week in a nondescript office environment.
According to reports from the Confederation of British Industry
(CBI), the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA)
and a study of 15,000 young people carried out by the National
Educational Business Partnership Network the evidence of their
success is overwhelming. But as with everything else in the
education and child protection sphere, work related learning
activities are subject to law and guidance that governs the how,
when, why, where and, most importantly, who. The (three part)
question is does this regulation encourage businesses to offer
placements whilst at the same time offering adequate protection as
well as valuable training for students?
The answer to the first part of the question seems clear:
550,000 placements are offered on average every year by around
300,000 employers and both numbers continue to rise. Employers
report benefits to their businesses including profile-raising, a
reduction in cost of future recruitment needs and providing them
with the opportunity to stay ahead of their competitors. So a lack
of interested employers would seem to be a thing of the past.
The feedback from the students shows that this relationship is
mutually beneficial. The CBI report ‘Time Well Spent’ referred to a
2006 survey of 14-16 year olds who had recently been on work
experience. Over two-thirds of the respondents agreed or strongly
agreed that work experience had helped them understand how learning
in school is important in getting a job and that almost 80% agreed
it had given them an invaluable insight into the world of work. So
the disinterested student may also be a thing of the past.
Which leaves the final part of the question: What of child
protection in the work related learning arena? There is little need
in this article to wax lyrical about the reasons why numerous child
protection measures such as CRB disclosures feature in every part
of the children’s services sector. Suffice it to say that with the
heavily publicised failings of various public bodies over the past
10 years coupled with the rise in professional negligence claims
against local authorities and education providers constantly
ringing in our ears, we are no longer surprised by the extensive
and potentially expensive steps required before a particular
situation is deemed safe for a child. With that in mind, it is
somewhat surprising that whilst work related learning is of course
subject to law and guidance, it is not as robust as one would
expect, particularly with regard to the issue of CRB disclosure
which are not compulsory by law in this area.
There are 3 key documents to consider when thinking about child
protection in work placements:
- Work experience and how employers can get involved, July
2008
- The Work-related Learning Guide – First edition, September
2008
- Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education (2
pages in Annex A and 9 pages in Appendix 14), January 2007
The first document, whilst little more than an advertising piece
selling the suggested benefits of work placements for the employer,
does include some useful commentary of what a CRB disclosure checks
are required. In summary, it says:
CRB checks must be considered in all of the following cases:
- Vulnerable students
- Students on placements lasting more than 15 days over an
extended time-frame, especially where these involve:
- Regular lone
working with an employer over long periods
- Placement is
in an isolated environment
- Placement
involves a high degree of travelling
- Placement has a residential element
It should be noted that all you are asked to do is ‘consider’ a
CRB check. It does not say that a CRB check is automatically
triggered in these circumstances. Having set the parameters, the
document goes on to say that even if a placement falls into one of
the above categories, it does not necessarily mean that a CRB check
will be required. ‘Such a decision will depend on an assessment of
the overall potential risks posed to a young person and will take
into account the systems in place to minimise these risks’.
This is unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated. Having set out
the circumstances in which one should consider whether a CRB check
is required, it would have been better if the advice ended there.
There is a certain clarity to the advice that is lost as a result
of the addition of the rather vague suggestion that having given
due consideration to the need for a CRB check, you can then base
your decision entirely on the outcome of an unspecified ‘assessment
of the overall potential risks’. This will lead to an inconsistent
approach by practitioners.
The Work-related Learning Guide – First edition offers a little
more in the way of guidance. This guide is intended to provide
people with a good understanding of work related learning. It is
aimed at young people, parents, employers, schools and colleges,
and Education Business Partnership Organisations (EBPO). With such
a varied audience, perhaps it is understandable that the advice is
little diluted and prefaced with a disclaimer from the DCSF
stressing that the guide is not a complete statement of the law and
no substitute for specialist advice. Having protected itself
suitably, the guide does then set out another summary of the
current CRB check position (see pages 24 & 25 of the guide) and
refers the reader to the more substantive guidance in Safeguarding
Children and Safer Recruitment in Education.
According to The Work-related Learning Guide (September 2008),
this is the current position regarding CRB checks in work
placements:
Additional safeguards and, where applicable, CRB checks are
required where one of more of the following conditions is met:
- The placement is for more than one day per week
- Longer than one term in any academic year
- Aimed at vulnerable children
- Where the workplace supervisor or a colleague will have
substantial unsupervised access to a child
- Where there is a residential component
The wording for this guidance is lifted directly from Annex A to
Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education, but it
does not seem to be consistent with that contained within the
document published by the DCSF 2 months earlier. For example, the
July 2008 document advised us to ‘consider’ CRB checks; whereas the
September document tells us they are required. In July, placements
over 15 days should be considered for CRB purposes; in September
they were required for placements of more than one day per week.
And so it goes on.
It may be that each document is talking about different types of
placements for which different rules apply. If that is the case, it
should be made abundantly clear. Unfortunately what we are left
with is, on the face of it, conflicting advice offering no real
assistance to the practitioner on the ground that has to make the
CRB decision. Perhaps this potential confusion helps explain why
just 1% of those who supervise students at work placements have
been CRB checked, leaving around half a million that have not. It
seems unlikely that only one work place supervisor in every
one-hundred meets the CRB eligibility criteria and thus it is more
likely that CRB checks are not being carried out in circumstances
where, with the benefit clear and consistent guidance, they
would.
With that in mind, let us consider the CRB position set out in
the more substantive guidance entitled Safeguarding Children and
Safer Recruitment in Education, which has been in force for just
over two years and offers a total of 11 pages of advice on work
placements.
The CRB guidance is contained within four paragraphs of Appendix
14 and is aimed specifically at extended work experience
placements. In reality, they add very little by way of definitive
guidance, the four paragraphs doing little more than expressing
what level of contact a workplace supervisor needs to have before
he is eligible for a CRB check. As this is defined by law as ‘a
person in a position the normal duties of which include regularly
caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of a
child’, the guidance is of little practical use. Appendix 14 also
offers two flow charts, one covering placements of more than 10/15
days and the other covering placements of less than 10/15 days.
However, in each case, the flow chart illustrates the ambiguity of
the guidance in this area by simply asking the question ‘is a CRB
check advisable?’ and referring you back to the guidance that
mirrors that contained within Annex A of the Safeguarding
guidance.
Having considered the three different DCSF documents that
purport to offer guidance for practitioners dealing with work
placements, the current advice offered regarding CRB checks is at
best vague and at worst contradictory. It is difficult to conclude
that the guidance is being followed when faced with the statistic
that only 1% of placements supervisors are being checked, yet the
guidance tells us that for placements of more than one day per
week, additional safeguards including CRB checks are required for
eligible supervisors. Can it really be the case that 99 of every
100 supervisors are not ‘in a position the normal duties of which
include regularly caring for, training, supervising or being in
sole charge of a child’, or is it more likely the case that the
confusion surrounding CRB checks coupled with the possible
reluctance of an employer to go through the process leads the
practitioner to decide that one is not required?
With the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) going live
later this year, new guidance is expected. No doubt the DSCF will
take that opportunity to clarify the position and produce one piece
of definitive guidance document covering work-related learning.
In the meantime, to ensure your school/college is not at risk,
the safest approach is to look at the CRB eligibility criteria and
consider whether, in each case, the work place supervisor meets
those criteria. If he does, obtain a CRB check. There seems little
to be gained from trying to avoid the need for a CRB check by
assessing the overall potential risk posed to the student as
against the systems in place to minimise these risks, as advised in
the July 2008 document. It has to be remembered that the duty of
care owed to a student remains with the school. If a student is
injured or abused on a placement and alleges that the school
breached its duty of care towards him, a court will have little
sympathy for the education provider that opted not to get a CRB
check where the eligibility criteria was met. If the DCSF produces
clear, robust guidance in advance of the ISA taking over
responsibilities for vetting and barring later this year, perhaps
this approach can be relaxed.
This article was first published in Protecting Children
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