Digitising vetting practices in education is so powerful when you’re dealing with recruitment processes more complex and time-consuming than in most other sectors.
Since September 2021, digitized vetting practices have become even more invaluable since the Keeping Children Safe In Education (KCSIE 2021) safeguarding guidance was re-launched. The recent updates expect you to uphold the highest standards when you’re vetting teaching, support, and volunteer candidates.
Or, as the guidance puts it from the reverse angle, it’s requiring you to “…adopt robust recruitment procedures that deter and prevent people who are unsuitable to work with children from applying for or securing employment.”
What’s the Real-Time Impact of the KCSIE 2021 Updates on Educational Recruiters?
Talking about the real-time impact, we’re not referring to a clause-by-clause thrash-through. You’ll have done that some time ago.
We’re talking about an even higher volume of work than previously (if you can imagine that!) to ensure compliance.
It’s a tough call when you’re all over the guidelines in theory, but you’re struggling to put them into practice because your manual or legacy systems are holding you back.
It’s a case in point for thinking about digitising your vetting practices for the robust results you need in a more efficient and user-friendly way.
An Applicant Tracking System Makes Lighter Work of Advanced Background Checks
It’s a given in educational recruitment that you have to run additional advanced background checking that isn’t necessary for many other sectors.
Just this single stage of your recruitment process can be a job and a half in its own right. But it doesn’t have to be when you’ve got a great applicant tracking system to make work light work of it.
You should be looking at taking all the following pre-employment checks for all school appointments;
- Employment References
- Identity
- DBS and Barred List
- Disqualification under the Childcare Act 2006, where appropriate to the role
- Teacher Prohibition Order, for teaching appointments
- Health
- Right to work in the UK
- If the person has lived or worked outside the UK, further checks the school considers appropriate
Additionally, you will also need to ensure and qualify any breaks in your applicant’s Employment history:
- Career and Career Gap Checking – Integral to educational recruitment, were over-egging the pudding about qualifications and past roles isn’t an unusual occurrence (without wanting to scaremonger).
And you’ll also need:
- Standard Criminal Disclosure – e.g. cautions, reprimands, spent and unspent convictions, and warnings.
- An additional check against the DBS Children and Adult barred list and information provided by police forces in the area.
An applicant tracking system can improve your vetting practices on multiple levels, by enhancing:
- Cohesion – Automated Referencing, advanced background checks are requested from your applicant tracking system and stored back in your applicant tracking system when they’ve been received and used.
- Effectiveness – The risk of vital but disparate pieces of information slipping through the cracks is removed, especially in terms of Careers Gap analysis, where the system highlights any breaks in employment for you!
- Speed – It’s quick and simple to request references from your candidate and their referee’s, advanced background checks, right to work, and careers gap analysis can all be performed within the system in super-fast time.
- Compliance: As all references, background checks, right to work, and career gap analysis can be done within the HireRoad platform, your candidate data is safe, secure, and in one place. Your data can seamlessly be exported to your HRIS through our API integrations, saving time and reducing the need to do this manually.
At HireRoad, we have a unique partnership with Experian. Advanced background checking is inbuilt in our applicant tracking system, meaning you can request an advanced background check from Experian digitally at the push of a button. For Right to Work, we’ve teamed up with TrustID to provide this check-in rapid time. All of these great functions ensure our customers in education are always on the right side of KCSIE 2021 compliant recruitment.
Want to find out more about how we can help you provide a safe vetting process? Then why not arrange a Free Demo with us today?
Or call us today on 01509 236 434. We’d love a chat about why other Educational Recruiters choose our Applicant Tracking Software for getting improved results with less soul-destroying manual effort.
Source
Keeping children safe in education 2021, Department for Education
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1014057/KCSIE_2021_September.pdf