Protect our children – Tutors must face background checks

Everyone who works with children in a school or institution has to go through an enhanced screening process. This is a known fact and is expected to ensure the safety of our children.

However, the lack of screening process for tutors has been in the news over the past week and has caused a level of concern across the nation. Although tutors are on a one-to-one basis with children every week, there is an incredible oversight in the law for the screening process of these individuals. In this blog, we explain what you need to know.

Obviously, most tutors will be innocent and be operating under the best intentions. However, you should not ignore the possibility that some individuals may be using the position of a tutor to their advantage in order to exploit the people that they are meant to be helping. An alteration to screening legislation is important for the protection of children and anyone who requires tutoring and we believe it is 100% necessary.

Research shows that 25% of school pupils in England and Wales had some form of tuition in the last year – that’s a staggering one in four children. Yet a recent statement from the NSPCC highlights that self-employed tutors do not have to go through a vigorous screening process, meaning that even convicted paedophiles can slip through a screening loophole. This means around 1.5million private tutors are operating everyday without any background screening process in place. Any of these tutors could potentially be a teacher who has been banned from working with children making them blatantly unsuitable for the role.  This is a terrifying prospect and the NSPCC has highlighted a real problem which many might never have previously considered but as a parent you need to be aware of and need to be asking these questions. Essentially, you are letting a stranger into your home to teach your children – you wouldn’t allow your children to be taught by strangers at school, so why do it at home?

It’s not only self-employed tutors who can escape these checks. Although a large volume of tutoring agencies insist on an up-to-date check it’s not a legal requirement and there are still some agencies which don’t ask for it, which unfortunately means they are potentially putting children at risk. Technically speaking they’re not doing anything wrong, but as a parent this is particularly concerning and, as screening experts, we believe this cannot continue and there should be legislation in place to deal with this.

Intense background checks can also prevent crimes from happening. In one incident in 2012 a private tutor named Robert Mitchell was jailed for possessing thousands of indecent images, with some including his own 17 year-old-pupil. This should not have been allowed to happen and events such as this need to be stopped.

The main issue with this loophole is that individuals themselves cannot request an Enhanced DBS check, the same check which teachers undergo, as it has to come from employers or institutions. This means that these individuals cannot be checked against the DBS Children and Adult list which gives exclusive details of individuals who are not legally allowed to work with vulnerable adults or children. This is crucial information that parents are missing out on and considering at least one paedophile is arrested everyday in Scotland alone, this screening process should be more accessible. What individuals can apply for is a Basic Disclosure check which will list criminal convictions, but not if they are regarded as spent. Unless parents or tutoring agencies request this, it’s unlikely that candidates will simply offer up this information because it’s not essentially regarded as necessary.

What should you do before hiring a tutor?

• Only employ tutors from credible agencies unless you are personally linked with an individual who can perform the tutorship role.
• Always ask for references.
• Request a basic disclosure check wherever possible.
• Always ensure your child is aware of the boundaries which should be established between student and tutor.

If you would like some advice about employment screening or if you would like to speak to a member of our team, you can call us on: 01443 799 900 or email us at: info@cbscreening.co.uk.