🛟 Safeguarding, DBS & qualifications

Who is DBS checked, who is first-aid trained, who holds a coaching qualification — with the dates, so a lapsed check is caught before the county asks rather than after.

What this replaces

The member record has carried ticks for coach, first-aid trained, key holder and so on for years. A tick has no date on it. A DBS check is treated as good for about three years, a first-aid certificate for three, a coaching licence for one — and a tick cannot say when any of them ran out. This register can, and it keeps the ticks up to date from what it knows, so every screen that already reads them stays right.

Certificate numbers are recorded. Certificates are not kept.

There is deliberately no way to upload a DBS certificate, and that is the most important design decision on this screen. A club that photographs certificates and keeps them has created a file of criminal-record data it now has to protect, justify and eventually destroy. Pavilion records the certificate number, the date, and who saw the original — which is what the club actually needs to be able to say. The evidence box is a line of text: “original seen, minuted 12 March”.

Numbers are shown as the last four digits on screen, left out of the ordinary export, and never appear in an email or a notification.

Who is covered

The screen a county affiliation return is filled in from: the roles the club has decided need a credential, who holds a current one, whose has lapsed, and the gaps. Somebody whose licence lapsed this morning still shows as a coach — the alternative is a screen that is most reassuring on precisely the morning it is most wrong.

Juniors

Which members are under 18 (worked out from date of birth), whether parental consent is recorded, and who the responsible adult is. Pavilion presents what the club holds; it does not tell you what the law requires of you.

Who can see it

Administrators only, at both ends — unlike every other register in Pavilion. A steward has no business knowing who has been DBS checked, and a register half the club can read is one no safeguarding officer will put anything real into.

Common questions

Does a DBS check expire?

Not in law — a certificate has no expiry date. In practice governing bodies and umbrella organisations commonly ask for a fresh one every three years, so the register treats it as a review date rather than an expiry, and says so in different words and a different colour. Ask your county association what they expect.

Who needs a DBS check at a bowls club?

It depends entirely on what the person does, and eligibility is a legal test rather than a club preference — applying for one for a role that is not eligible gets the application refused. No role ships pre-set as requiring one, deliberately. Take advice from your county association or Bowls England.

Will this wipe the ticks we have already set by hand?

No. A live credential sets the tick; an all-expired set clears it; no credential at all leaves your tick exactly as it is. Clearing two hundred ticks because a new table happens to be empty would be the software deleting the club’s data.