4.6 What are the minimum requirements for safer recruitment?

Show description|Hide description

Four groups of people involved in sports. Each group is drawn inside a speech bubble. Golfers. Officials. Referees. Coaches. In the middle of the speech bubbles are three sheets of documents or forms with a tick on them. Also on the graphic are some green ticks and some question marks.

As a minimum, safer recruitment should include:

• Providing a job description, which details all the tasks involved in the role, including any responsibility for children.
• Undertaking an interview, including questions to assess candidate suitability, previous work with, and attitudes towards children.
• Taking up references from previous employers or people who know the candidate well, including speaking to them directly to verify the reference.
• Obtaining a police or criminal records check (where this is available) and a ‘self-declaration’ – where you ask the candidate to state and sign whether they have been involved in any safeguarding incidents in the past.
• Induction when they start in the role to make sure they understand safeguarding policy and procedures.
• Having privacy notices in place for dealing with processing sensitive personal data, like criminal convictions, in an application.

Gather and assess all candidate information

All relevant information (from the application form, interview, references, and police checks) should be collated and assessed by someone with good safeguarding knowledge. This is what is meant by ‘screening’.

All information about the candidate and the interview should be recorded and stored safely until either a decision is made not to hire the candidate, or the employment is terminated.

Beyond recruitment, a further set of risks occurs online. In the next section, you will begin to identify the risks associated with the digital world.