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Local authorities are sometimes unclear about their responsibilities to ensure that agency staff working with children have undergone criminal records checks, Community Care has found.

Haringey Council recently admitted that it had failed to ensure that a minibus driver for children with learning difficulties had been properly checked by the agency that supplied him.

Only when he was stopped by the police for a motoring offence did it emerge that the driver, Dennis Bell, had nine convictions for sex offences against children and adults.


Although recruitment agencies have the legal duty to carry out CRB checks, the Commission for Social Care Inspection also requires councils to obtain proof that checks have been done on agency staff.

"Councils have a duty to make sure that the agencies they use have properly vetted their staff," says a CSCI spokesperson. "They are supposed to a get a copy of the CRB check. When we inspect children's services we inspect employee files - for the council's own staff and for agency staff - to ensure that proper checks have been carried out and there are copies of the appropriate documents."

But, one prominent social services director Community Care spoke to did not believe that it was necessary for councils to hold copies of CRB checks for agency staff, believing that the council's contracting relationship with the agency was sufficient to ensure that it complied with the law.

Others were unsure whether a copy of the CRB check was necessary or whether an agency letter confirming that a check had been done was sufficient.

Even Haringey had to clarify whether the Bell incident was a breakdown of normal procedure or a practice problem it has now fixed. Its original press statement says: "To ensure that agencies carry out checks we now insist on documentary evidence."

But a Haringey spokesperson insists: "It was our procedure, prior to this incident, to get documentary evidence - it didn't happen in that instance, there was a lapse.

"Though technically the agency is the one required to do CRB checks, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that checks have been done," she adds. "Following that incident the council reinforced its policy with further guidance to managers."


The ultimate responsibility for ensuring that agencies do run CRB checks rests with the Department of Trade and Industry. But the DTI has never prosecuted an agency in the care sector. "Our investigators are extremely good about dealing with complaints without the need for prosecution," says a spokesperson.

Charities that use agency staff must rely on good practice. Children's charity NCH, for instance, uses a system that would satisfy the CSCI, although the commission has no remit over charities.

"It's the absolute responsibility of NCH to make sure that any person working with children and young people in an unsupervised capacity are properly vetted," says Janice Cook, director of human resources at NCH.

"We have a preferred supplier list of agencies and they have to make a commitment that everybody is vetted or they would be in breach of contract. Then when people are sent by an agency you do another check that they have complied. We ask for documentary proof to be brought with their paperwork."

NCH has recently added a third safeguard - contract monitoring - to ensure compliance, she adds.

When NCH occasionally has to find staff from agencies outside its preferred supplier list, their procedures are first checked, says Cook.

"Some agencies have said they don't do CRB checks - they are not phoned again. It's a very small number, and we have never come across anyone who is claiming that they are CRB checking when they are not."

Haringey's investigation found that no harm was done by Bell while working in proximity to children, but the incident shows it cannot be taken for granted that commercial agencies will properly vet their staff.