If you run an institution with young people, such as a primary school or childcare centre, you must have a single central record and keep it up to date in order to comply with the law. The single central record contains information relating to your employees, their qualifications and criminal records, and members of any associated committees. Essentially, the single central record is a critical element of safeguarding children in their early years and ensuring safe recruitment.
In the not so distant past, maintaining a single central record was a time-consuming task that could require an entire department to keep up to date. Now, thanks to onlineSCR, keeping your single central record updated and accurate couldn’t be more straightforward.
In accordance with keeping children safe in education, every school must comply with the Department for Education Statutory Guidance, and one aspect of that includes maintaining a single central record.
In addition to containing data such as who works for your establishment, their qualifications and any previous criminal record history, the single central record provides information regarding recruitment checks and vetting processes that have been completed.
Checks that contribute to the single central record are included as part of the employment process, such as checking childcare qualifications and any disqualifications. Essentially, the single central record collates all the information required by law in one place so that Ofsted can check the data in one location during an inspection.
To understand the challenges concerning the maintenance of the single central record, it’s perhaps easiest to look at some common mistakes that people commonly overlook:
Because the teacher you’re thinking of hiring holds the required qualifications to work in your school, it’s often easy to forget to perform the Prohibition from Teaching Check, which is a legal requirement. You must also record the date when this check was completed.
It’s crucial to record the date of every check you carry out, and it’s easy to see where mistakes can be made in this area. Some schools mistakenly have one column on a spreadsheet that records the same date for all checks carried out, but the dates must be filled out accurately for when each individual check was performed.
As you might expect, it’s a legal requirement to make sure the individual you’re thinking of hiring holds genuine documents that prove their right to work in the UK. Unfortunately, forged or fake documents aren’t always easy to spot.
At onlineSCR, we know that running a school is challenging enough as it is without having to maintain your single central record in compliance with the law, which is why we’ve developed an innovative and straightforward system to remove the headache from the task. Working alongside, various consultants, schools and heads, we’ve built a state-of-the-art data storage facility that automates many tasks, removing the risk of human error. If you’d like to find out more about onlineSCR, call us on 0151 606 5101.
