Summary
Mr C complained that the council had unreasonably failed to provide their school transport drivers with child protection awareness training. Mr C reported an incident involving his daughter and the school bus driver to the council and, following an investigation, questioned why the bus driver had not received any training regarding child protection. The council confirmed that their policy states child protection awareness training is only a requirement for bus drivers who transport children with additional needs.
We took independent advice from a social worker. The adviser referred to the relevant national guidance and identified that training should be provided to all adults, including school bus drivers, who have regular contact with children as part of their job. We therefore upheld Mr C's complaint. Before our investigation reached a conclusion, the council acknowledged that they failed to take into account the guidance and confirmed that they have already taken steps to remedy the situation. We recommended the council apologise to Mr C and to provide our office with an update on the progress of their improvements.
Recommendations
What we asked the organisation to do in this case: Apologise to Mr C for failing to identify that the training was a requirement and for not upholding his complaint. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at: https://www.spso.org.uk/leaflets-and-guidance.
We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201702621 as a PDF (12.34 KB) Updated: November 15, 2018