What is the Single Central Record?

The single central record, or register, is a store of information where institutions record details of staff pre-employment checks in order to comply with safer recruitment standards.

It is up to governing bodies and proprietors to ensure that people who pose a risk of harm are prevented from working with children.

Governing bodies must adhere to statutory regulations and take the necessary decisions on whether to ask for checks that are beyond those required.

Governing bodies must act reasonably in reaching decisions on the suitability of the prospective staff member based on checks carried out and the evidence produced, as well as interview information and references. Which checks are required is based on the staff role and duties involved.

What is the Keeping Children Safe in Education document?

(KCSiE)

The Department for Education outlines details of which checks are necessary in their document, Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE), which normally gets updated once a year.

During these updates, they add new checks, change guidance or edit existing wording, in order to ensure better clarity for school managers in charge of the pre-employment checks.

The KCSiE document informs us all of what checks are statutory, and also suggests processes that are non-statutory (but advised for good school practice).

What is this guide for?

This guide will cover these checks, and outline what is statutory to include on the Single Central Record (SCR).

It is important to stress that whilst something might not be statutory to keep on the SCR, it might still be statutory to keep separately to the SCR.

This guide will try to clearly explain instances where this happens, but we must stress it is mainly relevant to what you must keep on your Single Central Record.

We urge you to read the entirety of the DfE’s KCSiE, with particular focus on Parts I-III, and stress that this guide is our attempt to help you make sense of the relevant regulations – and not meant to act as a replacement for the KCSiE.

This guide sets out to help explain why pre-appointment checks are carried out, to help you achieve effective safeguarding. We understand that if you’re in a hurry, you’ll need a shortened version – look out for “Your checklist” which condenses what you need to carry out within each section.

Please also refer to the School Staffing Regulations and other legal frameworks that underpin the guidance and further illuminate what is written in the KCSiE.

If you disagree with any part of this guide, please refer back to the KCSiE, and please do get in touch with us to suggest any changes.