Report 1: 2020-21

Working with Children Checks – Managing Compliance

Recommendations and response from audited entities

Recommendations

All public sector entities who work with children, including those not sampled in this audit, should consider the findings in this report and implement the recommendations where appropriate, by 31 December 2020. To ensure they manage their working with children obligations, all entities should:

  1. review their policies and procedures and communicate these to staff
  2. ensure their Card records:
    1. identify all positions that require a Card and ensure that all individuals in those positions have a Card
    2. capture sufficient information to track and monitor the Card status of all individuals, including Card number, surname, expiry date and where necessary, date of birth.
    3. are complete and accurate
  3. ensure all Cards are valid by:
    1. checking the Cards of all individuals against the Communities database, before they start working with children
    2. registering new employees with Communities
    3. re-checking all Cards, at least once per year
  4. monitor how they manage Card obligations through regular, detailed reporting on entity compliance to executive.

Response from audited entities

The 3 entities we audited generally accepted our recommendations and confirmed where relevant they would amend their policies, procedures and systems to improve Working with Children controls.

Page last updated: July 15, 2020

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