Amy Skipp: September 2024
A recent BBC investigation highlighted that not all adults working with children are “checked” or regulated. Whereas teachers and registered childcare providers have to have all staff DBS checked and their premises and processes inspected, those offering ‘out of school’ provision (such as football clubs, after school clubs, ballet classes, guitar lessons, the Scouts and Brownies, or private tutoring) do not face the same scrutiny.
They do not have to register with anyone, such as the Local Authority, to say they work with children. They do not have to have DBS checks. No one has jurisdiction over them or can require access to any premises they use, or details of activities or lessons run with children. Some umbrella organisations have basic requirements for their members and conduct some checks ‘in house’ but the majority of people who run clubs or teach or instruct children and young people out of school are “unchecked”.
We worked with 16 Local Authorities and national stakeholders to understand what is known about out of school settings (OOSS), and like the Children’s Commissioner many found the current system “shocking”. Parents have no way to know if the adults they leave their children with are safe.
Dame de Souza suggested ‘the government could quickly move to close the loophole and require checks‘. In our research we made recommendations on how this could be addressed.
- Make all OOSS providers register with the LA or an appropriate agency with oversight responsibilities, as is the case with childcare providers and others who work closely with children, such as chaperones. This could be a resource intensive system, but necessary in order to keep children safe. The register would be held within the LA, and the LA would be responsible for knowing who was providing OOSS and would be able to ensure basic safeguarding procedures, such as DBS checks, were in place.
- Make all OOSS comply with basic (and repeated) safeguarding checks – DBS, first aid, health & safety, safeguarding policies, etc.
- Increase capacity in LAs and designate them as responsible for supporting and overseeing that OOSS are safe. This could either be through increased LADO capacity or with a designated role for OOSS responsibility within LAs.
- Clarify guidance and applicability of ‘Working together to safeguard children’ to make regulations apply to OOSS. Review further legislation to enforce compliance with safeguarding practice, to record individuals in breach of this (for example through the DBS system, which may then prevent them operating) and to close down OOSS who are not compliant.
- Set up clear routes to enable the notification of issues of concern in OOSS, identifying them as such (for monitoring purposes) and escalating them effectively – from LADO level to local MASH teams and through to senior LA Departments
Having spoken to LAs who were really committed to making children in their area as safe in clubs and classes out of school as they are in school, we now need to see the same commitment from our leaders. It would be great to see the Mayor’s take a lead in this and as a first step set up local systems to oversee everyone who provides tuition to children across their regions.
Read our report here