DBS and Safeguarding Requirements for Contractors Working in Schools

Safeguarding is the responsibility of everyone who works with or around children and young people. This includes contractors working on school sites. The legal framework is set out in the Children Act 1989 and 2004, the Education Act 2002, and the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE), which is updated annually by the Department for Education.

Schools have a duty to ensure that all adults who have access to pupils — or who are on the school site — have been subject to appropriate checks. For contractors, this means DBS Enhanced clearance as a minimum, and in some cases additional checks where the contractor will have unsupervised contact with pupils.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is the government body responsible for helping employers make safer recruitment decisions. A DBS check reveals information from police records and, in some cases, from barred lists maintained by the DBS.

There are four levels of DBS check:

Basic: Shows unspent convictions and conditional cautions. Standard: Shows spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands, and warnings. Enhanced: Shows the same as Standard, plus any information held by local police that is considered relevant. Enhanced with Barred List check: Shows the same as Enhanced, plus whether the person is on the DBS Children's Barred List or Adults' Barred List.

For contractors working on school sites, Enhanced clearance is the standard requirement. Where a contractor will have unsupervised access to pupils, an Enhanced check with Barred List check may be required.

Every person who will enter the school site as part of the contractor's team must hold current DBS Enhanced clearance. This includes:

Direct employees of the main contractor. Self-employed tradespeople working under the main contractor. Subcontractors and their operatives. Delivery drivers who need to access the site beyond the reception area.

The requirement applies regardless of whether the person will be working in areas used by pupils. The DBS check is a condition of site access, not a reflection of the individual's role.

Contractors should maintain a live register of DBS clearances for all personnel and be able to provide evidence to the school on request.

Schools should not simply accept a contractor's assurance that their team holds DBS clearance. Best practice is to request a copy of the DBS certificate or a letter from the contractor confirming the clearance level and date of issue for each person on site.

DBS certificates do not expire, but the information they contain becomes out of date over time. Many schools and contractors use the DBS Update Service, which allows employers to check whether a certificate is still current. Contractors enrolled in the Update Service can provide their certificate number and date of birth, and the school can check the current status online.

For larger programmes, it is good practice to include DBS compliance as a contractual requirement and to audit compliance during the works.

DBS clearance is the baseline, but effective safeguarding on a school site requires more than a certificate. Key site management measures include:

Physical segregation: The construction zone must be physically separated from occupied school areas using hoarding, fencing, and controlled access points. There should be no opportunity for unsupervised contact between operatives and pupils.

Site induction: All operatives must receive a site induction that covers the school's safeguarding policy, the location of the designated safeguarding lead, and the procedure for reporting concerns.

Conduct: Operatives must understand that their conduct on a school site is subject to additional scrutiny. Use of mobile phones in areas where pupils are present, for example, is typically prohibited.

Reporting: Any safeguarding concern must be reported immediately to the site manager, who must escalate it to the school's designated safeguarding lead.