Oxfordshire County Council criminal record checks 'inaccurate'

Oxfordshire County Council said its human resources team was now checking all records

An Oxfordshire authority has failed to properly record criminal record checks on its staff, according to an official audit.

The report says the problem at Oxfordshire County Council is down to IT issues that it has been trying to fix over the past year.

In the cases scrutinised, 67% of staff did not have up-to-date Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.

The council said its human resources team was now checking all records.

It said there were now "robust systems" in place to check the criminal records of all new employees in relevant posts.

'Significant inaccuracies'

The council aims to carry out DBS checks every three years on employees in its children's services, adult social care, the fire and rescue service, and libraries.

However, the safer recruitment internal audit carried out in February described "significant inaccuracies" and said the council had been "unable to effectively monitor whether staff have up-to-date DBS checks or not".

It said the three-yearly DBS checks had not been routinely undertaken by all managers and blamed a fault in the IT system that initially failed on a "very ad-hoc basis" but "became more widespread and was properly diagnosed in November 2017".

It said the fault was fixed in March and its records were being updated.

Some managers will undergo training on recruitment vetting, it added.