Recommendation 9:
By 1 January 2024, chief fire officers should:
immediately review their current background checks arrangements, and make sure that suitable and sufficient background checks are in place to safeguard their staff and communities they serve; and
make sure that appropriate DBS check requests have been submitted for all existing, new staff, and volunteers, according to their roles as identified by the Fire Standards Board.
KFRS action
We have Baseline Personnel Security Standard checks (BPSS) for all colleagues, which have been in place since we launched our Employment Checks Policy in 2021.
Non Police Personnel Vetting (NPPV) are undertaken for all employees who work on a regular basis or need emergency access to a Police premise
National Security Vetting checks are undertaken for all employees who have access to sensitive assets (physical and/or information). These are typically at Security Clearance level but may also include Counter Terrorism Checks and Developed Vetting depending on the requirements for the role.
We enshrined the national code of ethics in our Code of Conduct and created an Ethical Code of Conduct. We sent this to the home of every colleague with a letter, so we didn’t miss anyone and asked them to sign it. We ran workshops in every team to go through all the issues and chased till every person had understood and signed the Code. This along with many other actions is about creating a base so everyone understands what is and is not acceptable behaviour.
We also have a very robust approach to ‘Safer recruitment’ concept as used in Education and Social Care in that we won’t give a good reference to someone to go to another service if we have direct evidence or grave suspicion of wrongdoing.
Kent Police good at alerting us to any issues with our people under the Common Law disclosure. When issues arise in misconduct or gross misconduct we always report to the Police if there is any potential criminal wrongdoing.
We receive electronic notifications of the outcomes for all DBS checks. If a disclosure appears on a certificate, we contact the colleague / applicant and ask them to provide us with a copy of the certificate so that a risk assessment can be undertaken. If a risk is identified as part of the assessment process this will be escalated with further action taken as required, this process is followed with both new colleagues joining the Service and also as part of the 3-year renewal process for existing colleagues. All potential employees are also checked to ensure they have the right to work in the UK before offers of employment are made.All new colleagues must undergo as a minimum a basic DBS check.
Customer Service colleagues who are predominantly office based with little or no direct contact with our customers are checked at Basic level and those in Operational Roles or in roles with regular direct contact with our customers (e.g Community Safety, Control) are checked at an Enhanced level. We work closely with our partners SECAMB to providing co-responding and as part of the governance that is in place with SECAMB we are required to undertake enhanced DBS checks for our Operational colleagues.
DBS checks are renewed for all colleagues every three (3) years. Our HR system sends a notification to colleagues and their line managers to remind them of the renewal three months before expiry, this is then monitored for progress by the HR team. Enhanced DBS checks apply to certain roles. The other vetting processes apply dependent on role. NPPV will apply to a variety of roles.