Three Wills Hall tutors from the academic year 2008/2009 told Epigram they had never been asked to complete a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check.
Barry Taylor, University Director of Communications and Marketing, commented, “I understand that staff at the halls which accommodate minors undergo such checks,” however, last academic year Wills Hall permitted the intake of one student who was not 18 at the time she took up residence.
“I think it’s disgusting that it’s happened,” said hall secretary Tammy Bartrip, “checks should definitely be more stringent and the University ought to do more about it.”
Ms Bartrip was ‘shocked’ when she was not asked to submit to CRB checks prior to beginning work at Wills this term.
According to the University’s safeguarding policy, “the University...will ensure that any member of staff or any student who will have substantial one-to-one contact with children, young people or vulnerable adults will be checked for relevant criminal convictions”.
Vulnerable adults are defined as “a person aged 18 years or over, who is in receipt of, or may be in need of, community care services by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness and who is or may be unable to take care of him or herself, or unable to protect him or herself against significant harm or exploitation”.
Mental disability would include eating disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), depression, anxiety, and panic attacks, while dyslexia – suffered by many students – is also considered a disability.
Higher education institutions are not specifically named in their duty to safeguard and protect (unlike schools and further education institutions), however, they are subject to common law duties to ensure any reasonably foreseeable harm does not befall their charges through careless acts or omissions by the institution.
CRB checks will be overhauled from 12th October 2009 when the Vetting and Barring Scheme, a new set of criteria for carrying out enhanced checks, comes into force.
The new scheme will affect all individuals who come into contact with children or vulnerable adults whilst engaged in ‘regulated activity’ (contact such as teaching, care, or supervision of minors or vulnerable adults in a specified place such as schools and care homes), and replaces the previous protocol for enhanced CRB checks.
Security is additionally increased through continual updating of the information held about an individual, which will allow the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) to inform employers if an individual becomes barred from working with children or vulnerable adults due to a change of circumstances.
This will be made possible using a second voluntary registration and monitoring scheme which is due to become a legal requirement in November 2010, an improvement on the former system under which CRB checks were valid until their expiration date regardless of changed circumstances.
Registration with the ISA for everyone seeking employment, or currently employed in work with children or vulnerable adults, becomes a legal requirement as of 25th October 2010, although those already employed in such positions will be inducted into the scheme over a five year phased roll-out.
Introducing such checks brings the University of Bristol in line with practices at neighbouring universities and closer to those carried out overseas.
UWE requests all applicants to new staffing positions working with children and vulnerable adults to complete a CRB check, whilst the University of Leeds states that “no-one may take up appointment as warden, sub-warden, hall manager or equivalent in a hall of residence designated for accommodating children, young persons or vulnerable adults without enhanced CRB clearance, and only people with enhanced CRB clearance may clean the rooms of children, young persons or vulnerable adults.”
Security checks are far stricter in American universities; Berkely requires all new staff to undergo checks by the University of California Police Department, a Department of Justice check conducted by the Attorney General’s office, and checks by the Human Resources office.
A current Wills Hall student observed, “CRB checks are annoying, but they are important.”
Jenny Smith
19/10/09
