Great Western Coffee Shop

Question: "Are Customer facing staff such as conductors of trains CRB checked?   If so, does that apply to new recruits or also to staff who were on board before the current vetting systems were in place, retrospectively"

The background to this question ... I do NOT have any suggestions of any problems at all, but it was asked and I don't know the answer.  And it strikes me that on certain services there are unaccompanied minors.

No they are not.

Just to add the train company has no special responsibility to unaccompanied minors.  When parents think that their child is ready to travel alone then they do so at thier own risk.  No different to letting your child go down to the shop on their own.  Only people who work for schools and after school clubs etc need the check as they are responsible for that child whilst they are in their care.

Many thanks for that ... and the explanation following has helped me see much better than I did before where 'the boundary' lies.

CRB checks only need to be carried out if you have regular and unsupervised access to young or vulnerable people, the "regular" means the same young or vulnerable people and not where train crew deal with different young or vulnerable people all the time.  It is not quite correct to say that train crew do not need to be CRB checked because they do not have supervisory duties of young or vulnerable people it is more to do with the irregular contact they have with young or vulnerable people, bus and taxi drivers of school transport are required to be CRB checked as they can have regular contact.

I am sure the TOC's have checked the legal requirement for CRB checks and would have them done if it was required.

Oh - I have no doubt they have looked into it.   Yet from what you say ... if, somewhere in the country there's a crew who run the same train every day, they WOULD need to be checked.  The "early" from Pwthelli ... picking up schoolkids for Harlech, with Driver Jones, Fireman Evans and Guard Roberts every day as they live in Nefyn.

Hi

In this instance quoted CRB checks would still not be needed (IMHO), as the staff of the operating Company are doing their job are not acting specifically and/or in the legal term of "in loco parentis". (Handy legal term though  ::)  It is those individuals acting under those terms that the checks are carried out on - ie those acting "in place of parents".

HTH

Fecks (not a Lawyer)

Some TOC certainly do CRB check on NEW staff at least !

I'm sure in my daily trawl through railway job adverts I've seen some South East based tocs who carry out checks but I think that's mainly to prevent fraud and dishonesty.

This is interesting as some heritage railways do seem to require a CRB check (enhanced in some cases) if you want to volunteer.  It seems strange that the standards would be stricter for a heritage railway.

The requirements on heritage railways are different they will often have volunteers under 18 or possibly vulnerable adults working for them, heritage railways may well run educational days for schools (schools usually require all adults that come into contact with their pupils to be CRB checked)

What difference does it make - Little Teds has CRB checked staff

All the CRB does is check you havent been caught!