Safeguarding experts from The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and Better Hiring Institute have joined forces to launch a best practice recruitment resource for the local authority sector.

The Local Authority Better Hiring Toolkit provides an essential guide for local authority employers to make informed, safer recruitment decisions.

The toolkit provides accessible guidance to support employers with both obtaining and providing effective references, supporting information to navigate effective pre-employment vetting, and simplified guidance around legal responsibilities.

In collaboration with Better Hiring Institute, the Local Government Association, Cifas and Reed Screening, the Better Hiring Toolkit aims to attract skilled and talented professionals to public sector roles, while promoting processes to keep dishonest people out of local authorities.

Local authorities provide support and services to a range of vulnerable people across their region, and the toolkit will support employers recruit effectively, efficiently and focus on delivering the best service possible for the communities that they work with.

Keith Rosser, chair of the Better Hiring Institute & Director of Reed Screening, said: “The toolkit has the potential to be really transformative to local authority recruitment, and the more organisations that benefit, the faster the UK as a whole moves forward. We want to make UK hiring the fastest and fairest in the world, with a live local, work anywhere philosophy.”

Ian Johnston, executive director of disclosure for the Disclosure and Barring Service, said: “We are delighted to support the development of a simplified and supportive toolkit, free of charge, supporting those in local authority recruitment to make safer, informed decisions that will help to safeguard local vulnerable people.”

Objectives

Among the key ambitions of the Better Hiring Toolkit are:

• consolidate industry best practice guidance to local authorities and establish best practice where it does not currently exist
• help embed a culture that applies a 360° approach to safeguarding in employment
• support local authorities to offer safer, more transparent recruitment

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