LIST 99 AND CONSULTANCY INDEX
1. DfEE's List 99 records people who have been statutorily barred, either wholly or in part, from teaching and other employment in the education service involving regular contact with children and young people under the age of 19. Barring is made automatically where the person is convicted of a sexual offence involving a child and may be made in other cases of misconduct or on medical grounds. Where a person is barred, it is illegal for a maintained or independent school, or a LEA or FE institution, to employ them in any way which contravenes the terms of the barring order.
2. Independent boarding schools have employees vetted against police checks, List 99 and the Consultancy Index. They are also required to report to DfEE (and the Welsh Office in Wales) cases where employees are dismissed or resign on grounds of misconduct (whether or not convicted of a criminal offence), so that barring action may be considered. Welfare inspections under Section 87, and inspections by OFSTED (and by OHMCI in Wales), check that these responsibilities are being discharged. DfEE (and Welsh Office in Wales) take action with schools found not to be doing so. Maintained boarding schools and employing LEAs as appropriate must undertake comparable vetting and reporting of employees, but they do not currently have the same access as independent boarding schools to the Consultancy Index or welfare inspections under Section 87 of the Children Act 1989.
3. The Department of Health Consultancy Service Index enables local authorities and private and voluntary child care organisations in England and Wales to check on the suitability of those they propose to employ. It is a list of child care workers or former child care workers about whom concerns exist around their suitability to work in the child care field.
4. It is used by child care employers when considering the employment of people to posts involving substantial, unsupervised access to children. Although there is no requirement for employers to check names against it, checks have doubled over the last 18 months and are now in the order of 140,000 a year.
5. Information is supplied by employers when staff are dismissed or resign in certain circumstances, or when they have been moved within the organisation to work away from children. Inclusion on the Index does not automatically prohibit the person from working with children, that decision rests with the potential employer after considering references and other information.
6. The service also maintains a list of child care workers whose names have been notified to the Department by the Police following certain convictions and cautions. A check against the consultancy service triggers a check against this list, and the DfEE's List 99.
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