Children's 'step-ups' at exhibitions - advice please

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

This possibly isn’t quite the same thing. In England and Wales you can equally be a volunteer with an enhanced check (I was once, again volunteering in schools) or a ‘professional’/paid employee with a basic check.

Not much point debating the difference between UK and Australian laws. They are written by entirely different groups of people. It's a long time since Australia copied British law and had it approved by the Privy Council, or whatever it's called.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

3 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

On the other hand, it’s all a bit “a bloke down the pub told me” isn’t it.?
 

Supposing the “member of the public” just had a grudge against the person? Not impossible is it? 
 

Keep worrying guys, and when you get your jobs on the gates of the forthcoming concentration camps for those that just don’t understand groupspeak, for Christ’s sake make sure the hinges are oiled and that all the razor wire meets current safety standards.

 

Completely barking!!

 

Hope you've done the correct paperwork re-oil used for the hinges... Also what about a COSS (Controller of Site Safety) assessment?

 

Thankfully the days of taking my class of 7/8 year olds on visits around Central London museums (using the train/ tube/bus) have long ended. 

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, fulton said:

I once sat as a Juror, following that, seeing how easily things can get out of hand, the alleged incident was in public view, I would never be alone with a child unless they were one of mine.

Since I've never had any, I'm sure that taking things to a conclusion that you're suggesting, is a good way of ensuring that I simply become a grumpy old man - but perhaps I already am?

[kevinlms]

19 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

 

Thankfully the days of taking my class of 7/8 year olds on visits around Central London museums (using the train/ tube/bus) have long ended. 

I still remember going to the Science Museum and Madame Tussauds at about that age, on school trips. Wonderful days out.

[Hroth]

21 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

I still remember going to the Science Museum and Madame Tussauds at about that age, on school trips. Wonderful days out.

 

I bet that was before the Science Museum was made "relevant", and all the favourite/interesting exhibits started to be "disappeared"...

 

[kevinlms]

31 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I bet that was before the Science Museum was made "relevant", and all the favourite/interesting exhibits started to be "disappeared"...

 

Most likely, it was before 1968 I went! But since I haven't been there since, I wouldn't know.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

 

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

I still remember going to the Science Museum and Madame Tussauds at about that age, on school trips. Wonderful days out.

Somehow, many of the trips I took my classes on had a transport theme. I recall taking my Y3s on the Woolwich Ferry and visiting the North Woolwich Railway Museum. Well I enjoyed it...

At another school, I took my class to the National Tramway Museum; not sure if my parent-helpers enjoyed riding on the trams all day though...

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Peter Kazmierczak

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Not much point debating the difference between UK and Australian laws. They are written by entirely different groups of people. It's a long time since Australia copied British law and had it approved by the Privy Council, or whatever it's called.

No, and I’m not debating that, just pointing out that whether someone is paid or a volunteer isn’t particularly relevant when deciding what level of check they would need. It’s more to do with the type and frequency of contact with children that their role involves.

[Nick C]

22 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

This possibly isn’t quite the same thing. In England and Wales you can equally be a volunteer with an enhanced check (I was once, again volunteering in schools) or a ‘professional’/paid employee with a basic check. Not all roles will require or be eligible for an enhanced check, depending how much and what sort of contact you have with children in your job or voluntary role. The main difference under the UK DBS system seems to be that it’s cheaper to get a check (of any level) for a volunteer, which is fair enough and makes sense.

Have they fixed the need for multiple checks? I remember not long after it was all introduced, someone I know was volunteering with the local Girl Guides (IIRC) in a role that also meant going into a couple of local schools - and she had to do a separate DBS check for each organisation, at a cost to each one. That seemed very silly to me, why they couldn't just do one check and allow all the relevant organisations to access the result - which was obviously the same for each check!

[009 micro modeller]

3 hours ago, Nick C said:

Have they fixed the need for multiple checks? I remember not long after it was all introduced, someone I know was volunteering with the local Girl Guides (IIRC) in a role that also meant going into a couple of local schools - and she had to do a separate DBS check for each organisation, at a cost to each one. That seemed very silly to me, why they couldn't just do one check and allow all the relevant organisations to access the result - which was obviously the same for each check!

You can pay to register them with the update service and obviously this is significantly cheaper and quicker than paying separately each time (though I suppose it may not make as much difference to the cost if only paying the volunteer rate). It also means that, rather than being a point in time check, the ‘employer’ will actually be kept updated (e.g. if an offence is committed after the check).

 

I think the point is supposed to be that an organisation can’t necessarily accept a check that was done for someone else because they didn’t countersign and it (although it seems that some organisations sometimes do, if the check is recent enough and for a sufficiently similar role, although I’m not sure if this is technically good practice). There’s also an element of who pays for the checks.

 

However, reading your post again, if the volunteering they did in schools was actually part of their Girl Guides volunteering then that seems incredibly silly, and I’m not sure what I’ve written above is quite as relevant. For example, I did some volunteering at university that involved going into local schools and the organisation I volunteered with did its own checks (I didn’t register with the update service then as I wasn’t aware of how it worked at the time). The schools didn’t then ask me to obtain other ones, because they trusted our organisation to do the checks correctly and we took the certificates with us to the schools. It seems very odd that a similar approach wasn’t applied in the case you mention. I suppose we could theoretically have required all our volunteers to register with the update service and then given the ‘share code’ (or whatever it’s called) to the schools, which probably gives an extra level of safeguarding protection but wasn’t ever thought necessary.

[Nick C]

17 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

However, reading your post again, if the volunteering they did in schools was actually part of their Girl Guides volunteering then that seems incredibly silly, and I’m not sure what I’ve written above is quite as relevant

That was certainly how I understood it - IIRC it was due to joint events taking place. As I say it was a long time ago, back when all this first came in!

 

Sounds like it may have been more about the organisations not fully understanding it though.

[RedgateModels]

5 hours ago, Nick C said:

Have they fixed the need for multiple checks? I remember not long after it was all introduced, someone I know was volunteering with the local Girl Guides (IIRC) in a role that also meant going into a couple of local schools - and she had to do a separate DBS check for each organisation, at a cost to each one. That seemed very silly to me, why they couldn't just do one check and allow all the relevant organisations to access the result - which was obviously the same for each check!

 

I can only comment for my last employer, but if someone had an enhanced check from previous employment and had their check references etc we would just add them to our list of checked staff etc. 

[009 micro modeller]

On 20/07/2023 at 14:03, Nick C said:

That was certainly how I understood it - IIRC it was due to joint events taking place. As I say it was a long time ago, back when all this first came in!

 

Sounds like it may have been more about the organisations not fully understanding it though.

I think a lot of issues with this sort of thing are to do with organisations not fully understanding it. I don’t know how similar the previous CRB system was.

 

That said, there are some quirks to the system that just seem unnecessarily complicated and expensive. I found out recently (while getting a new DBS for my second job that involves working in a school) about the concept of umbrella organisations. As far as I understand it, if you do more than a certain number of DBS checks per year you apparently don’t need one, and just register with DBS directly, but for smaller organisations this is not the case. For the volunteering I did at university the university seems to have acted as the umbrella organisation (for volunteering organised either through the students’ union or the university’s careers service). Presumably with the combination of these volunteers, university staff who have checks so they can do outreach work in local schools, PGCE students and similar, and possibly a small number of pastoral staff who might need some kind of check, they are doing enough check per year to avoid needing an umbrella organisation. Thanks to administrative oversight/inefficiency/incompetence (delete as appropriate 😜) they still managed to get me to apply for two certificates for two very similar roles, both with the same named employer, but I digress… Anyway, it was mostly very straightforward because you could just go into an office, meet with a staff member and they could inspect the ID documents in person, help you fill in the form, countersign it and immediately send it off.

 

In other contexts I think the umbrella organisation might be someone logical like a local authority or a larger charity, but otherwise there seem to be a vast number of private companies that exist solely to act as umbrella organisations for small companies or charities who need one (taking an admin fee for each check, naturally…). For my most recent DBS check I had to use such a service, but I’m not sure what difference it really makes as it still requires some input from the employer, even though the umbrella company provides the countersignatory.