A check too far?

As a right-minded member of society, I am as keen as anyone to protect the welfare of the nation’s children. Likewise, since spending on schools, colleges and other learning centres is currently the UK construction industry’s largest source of income, I am equally keen that the construction industry and the education sector should continue to work hand in glove to the mutual benefit of both.

However, I am deeply concerned at the potential impact of the legislation applied where these two sectors collide.

An increasing number of building and construction companies are being asked (or forced) to have their workforce undergo Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks to ensure that they have no previous convictions that might prevent them from working in close proximity to children and other vulnerable people.
On the face of it, this is a valid request; no-one wants convicted paedophiles working in schools or nurseries. However, this is also a concept that is fundamentally flawed when applied to a sector like construction.

For one thing, all forms of building, construction and demolition carry with them certain health and safety risks. As a result, such work is normally carried out in isolation to ensure that pedestrians, local people and (most of all) children do not come into contact with any such risks. Therefore, if current health and safety rules are applied, construction workers and children in educational institutions will be segregated, negating the need for CRB checks.

But it doesn’t end there.

Construction is a nomadic business with many employees working in each location for a matter of weeks or even a few days at a time. To follow the letter of the law, these individuals would require a new CRB check – which can take several weeks to process – each and every time they work in an environment where they might come into contact with children. That’s fine for a company that only works in schools occasionally; but it represents a logistical nightmare for any company aiming to specialise in the education sector. And what if your client needs someone on site immediately to carry out an emergency function?

Another area for concern, of course, is the workforce’s right to privacy. It is possible that even your most conscientious and reliable employees might have a previous conviction for, say, cannabis possession in their past, and this would show in a CRB check. For one thing, they almost certainly don’t want you – their employer – knowing about that conviction. And for another, if you did discover a skeleton lurking in their closet, would you then treat them differently or, worse, sack them?

And then, of course, there is the cost.

A standard CRB check costs £26 while an enhanced check is £36. That is £26 for each employee each time they are required on a school contract; a huge financial burden, particularly for smaller companies.
There is no doubt that we should protect our children. But we must also work to protect the privacy of our workforce and the profitability of our chosen business sector.

And, speaking as someone who has worked in this industry for many years, I believe that this use of CRB checks is an unnecessary layer of red tape perpetrated not to protect children but to protect the backsides of an office administrator with a tick-box mentality.

I will be discussing this subject in greater depth during 2010 as I firmly believe that we need to find an alternative to CRB checks that were specifically introduced for people working with children and vulnerable persons.

But I would like to leave you with one final question: When a school receives food, stationary or any other delivery, are they certain that the delivery driver – who will most likely be unsupervised for most of his time on school premises – holds a current CRB check for that school?

Advertisement