Islington Council's arrangements for safe recuitment of staff in schools came under fire in an official report.

The investigation was commissioned after secret reports were leaked to the press.  It outlines serious failings that led to unsafe recruitment in Canonbury School as police and background checks were not carried out properly.

A failure by the Council to take responsibility for ensuring proper checks were carried out contributed to the breakdown.

The report, along with a council action plan, will be examined at the Overview Committee on Monday.

The report found that:

Excerpts from report -[Download the entire report here]

The recruitment arrangement did not comply with safe practice, nor did they comply with national or local guidance. There was no advertisement no application form, no interview, no checks instigated by the school and no written references sought from either a past or present employer.
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The examples quoted were not isolated incidents of non-compliance with complex procedures but symptomatic of a general failure to put safeguarding at the core of the school’s concerns.
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A recommendation was made to the effect that “[council education contractor] CEA should further support schools in their recruitment process to ensure that the council meets all its obligations in relations to safe recruitment to posts involving access to children.” There is no record of remedial action being proposed. No written report was given to the schools in question.
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In March 2007 staff from CE personnel visited Canonbury and other schools that had been involved in the LBI audit to discuss the audit findings and to urge compliance with safer recruitment requirements. This meeting was not minuted, neither was it reported to the governing body.

Since 2007, schools have been required to submit monthly returns to CE updating their Single Central Record. None were supplied by Canonbury School during the period under discussion, nor does the school have any record of requests for them to be supplied. Moreover, CE has no means of checking on the veracity of such updates in the case of schools that have outsourced their HR functions. This is therefore an inherently weak monitoring arrangement.
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Where the LBI audits of 2006 were concerned, the relationship between LBI & CE was not good and there was a degree of mutual suspicion and territoriality. Key aspects of what was to be done, recorded and reported on were not agreed between the partners of with the schools. Hence the lack of arrangements for formal feedback or follow up action.
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There is a correlation between the extent to which staff and governors in a school have undergone training and embedding of good safer recruitment practice in schools.”

However, safer recruitment training is not currently obligatory for new head teachers, nor does it form part of their induction

The recruitment arrangement did not comply with safe practice, nor did they comply with national or local guidance. There was no advertisement no application form, no interview, no checks instigated by the school and no written references sought from either a past or present employer.

The responsibility of elected members for ensuring that safeguarding arrangements operated by social care in their local authority are comprehensive and effective is clear

The existing framework of external checks and balances is not strong or clear enough