LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian
March 5, 2019
By Melissa Davey
A bishop has written to the director of a Catholic Schools Office that oversees 24 schools asking that principals be directed to stop asking priests for their working-with-children checks.
The bishop of Armidale, Michael Kennedy, wrote: “It has been brought to my attention that some schools may be requiring that the priests who are ex officio members of the School Advisory Council provide their working-with-children check details.”
He wrote that the diocese verified and recorded these checks and that schools should accept that all priests were required by the diocese to have a working-with-children check and therefore did not need to ask the priests for those details.
He asked the director of the Catholic Schools Office, Christopher Smyth, to “notify the schools not to ask the priests to provide their working-with-children check and if they have, they are not to register as the priest’s employer for the purposes of verifying the working-with-children check”.
Armidale is a city in the northern tablelands of New South Wales. The Catholic Schools Office Diocese of Armidale administers 24 schools, including 19 primary, two central and three secondary schools. The working-with-children check is a requirement for anyone who works or volunteers in child-related sectors, and involves a criminal history record check and a review of reportable workplace misconduct.
Schools must register with the Office of the Children’s Guardian and must verify all workers have a valid check, including those working in positions like school cleaners, who may be employed by an external company, or school volunteers.
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