As an event organiser what do you need to know when it comes to DBS and background checks of the people you have onsite at your event to ensure you perform your duty of care when it comes to safeguarding?
Criminal record checks and barred lists are not simply a tick box exercise. There are many people in the event world that still talk about CRB checks and there is a great deal of confusion around what is valid where and what isn’t and how enhanced these checks need to be. So we thought a little clarification was in order!
The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check was replaced by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check back in 2012. To all intents and purposes, they are one and the same thing – a way to check if employees can work with vulnerable adults and children.
There are two levels of DBS – standard or enhanced. For the event world, the check needs to be enhanced for everyone who will come into regular contact with children, even volunteers. An enhanced DBS includes a routine check of either the Children’s or Adult’s Barred lists (depending on which you’ve asked for) to ensure the applicant, employee or volunteer's name does not appear.
The Protection of Children Act (POCA) list and the Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) list have now been replaced by the Children's and Adult’s Barred lists, both of which are managed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority. People do still use the abbreviations but the correct terminology is Children’s and Adult’s Barred List. As outlined above, an enhanced DBS will check that the applicant, employee or volunteer's name is not on one of these lists, depending which check you ask for. To be checked on both lists (which I would recommend) you need to specifically ask for this to be done, explaining that you work with adults at risk as well as children. In the event world, you are likely to be dealing with both in emergency situations.
While a DBS check covers work in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, Scotland has a separate criminal records check called a Disclosure Scotland. This is often also referred to as a PVG (Protecting Vulnerable Groups) although they are different. The PVG scheme includes ongoing updates with employers informed if any considerations are being made to suspend them –therefore PVG is really the preferred form. In Ireland it is known as Access NI. Scotland will usually accept a DBS but Ireland require everyone to have Access NI checks as well.
Similarly across Europe, countries have their own equivalent to the British checks.
A DBS might be requested in Europe to support the European equivalent, because ,if you are an offender and live in the UK, the Spanish check won’t find anything . Likewise if you are employing someone who has only been in the UK a few months, you would need to ask for a check from their own country, as well as doing a DBS check.
The DBS in England has a similar system to the PVG known as the Update Service. An individual can apply to be on the Update Service up to 28 days after a DBS check. It currently costs £13 a year and is an indication of how seriously an individual takes their duty of care. Being on the DBS Update Service means that anyone checking in another country can check in real time, which is quicker.
As with the PVG, it enables an employer to check the status of the DBS at any point and is a much more robust system – let’s face it, a DBS check without the Update Service is only really relevant on the date it was initially completed.
Any person working with children at your event, be that as a chaperone, in a creche, on an entertainment feature or anywhere else needs to have the relevant up-to-date checks in place. If they have child-specific training such as safeguarding, lost child and language training even better!
It would be best practice to have someone on the event team with an enhanced DBS in case a found child comes under the event team’s care. Security staff should always have a few checked personnel for the same reason.
A vulnerable adult is now known as an “Adult at Risk” when it comes to events. This is because someone who is not usually classified as vulnerable might become ‘at risk’ from things at an event such as the dark, the crowds, alcohol or substance abuse. Any adult who may be ‘at risk’ for any reason, needs to be included in your event safeguarding plan because, as with children at events, ‘at-risk’ adults also fall under your duty of care.
What mystifies you when it comes to Children at Events as an organiser? I’m planning to continue writing this ‘Do you know’ series of posts and I’d love to know what else you want to know!
Also, if you haven’t already, check out Nipperbout’s range of childcare training for the event world – available as face-to-face training sessions, webinars and online to be completed at a time to suit you – we go in-depth on everything you need to know about children at events.
