Councils must learn lessons of Camden school transport case: LGO
Local authorities must set out clearly their expectations of contractors who provide school transport and monitor those arrangements to ensure they are working properly, the Local Government Ombudsman has said.
Jane Martin’s comments came after she described the London Borough of Camden’s arrangements for contracting out its school transport services as “inadequate”.
The Camden investigation involved a complaint by the mother of a vulnerable child who was transported to school by the council’s contractors. The child was sexually abused by one of the drivers, who has since been sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence with a recommendation that he serve a minimum sentence of two and a quarter years.
The driver had a number of criminal convictions outside the UK for offences against children. However, he managed to obtain an enhanced certificate from the Criminal Records Bureau (which is the subject of a separate complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission).
Publishing a report on her investigation, the LGO said: “This case has illustrated the importance of proper safeguards being in place when children are being transported to and from school. Councils must set out clearly their expectations of contractors and monitor those arrangements to make sure they are working properly.”
Martin said the investigation highlighted a number of learning points for councils and their contractors. The main points were:
- Councils should ensure that they and their contractors fully understand the need for all their staff in safeguarding posts to be recruited in line with the council’s own safeguarding in recruitment and employment policy
- Contractors should keep clear records of every employed driver or escort, including their employment histories, medical clearance, an enhanced CRB disclosure, notes of face to face meetings with applicants, and checking of references and identity
- Where relevant, contractors should check the TfL website prior to appointment and periodically thereafter to ensure that the driver has a current licence
- Councils should audit and monitor on a regular basis their contractors’ actions to ensure that recruitment practices meet the required standards.
The LGO said Camden accepted that improvements should be made to its procedures for contracting out transport services and had “clearly learnt from this complaint”. Specific changes made by the local authority include:
- requiring contractors to appoint staff using recruitment and appointment procedures “that equal or exceed the council’s policies”
- requiring all safeguarding roles to be advertised as such
- expecting a contractor to obtain references covering the five-year period prior to commencement of work and an enhanced CRB certificate
- auditing compliance
- making its own staff undertake safeguarding training, and
- offering contractors training in specialist interviewing techniques.
The LGO said the council’s inadequate procedures constituted maladministration, although she added that it was “difficult to say whether proper procedures, such as the new procedures and monitoring referred to, would have a difference to the events of this complaint, but they might well have increased the chances of Mr Y’s past history coming to light”.
“The complainant will always be left with some doubt that the council could have done more to protect her child,” Martin said.
The Ombudsman welcomed Camden’s procedural improvements but ruled that the council should pay the child’s mother £1,200 for her distress and the time and trouble taken in pursuing her complaint.
