SCIE Guide 12: Making referrals to the POVA list
Please note: The information contained in this guide is now out of date and it should be used for reference purposes only. For current information about the Vetting and Barring scheme please visit the Independent Safeguarding Authority website.
Understanding the POVA list - Introduction
In this section:
- Understanding POVA definitions
- How decisions to list individuals are made for those referred to the POVA scheme before 20th January 2009
- What it means when someone is POVA listed
- What it means when someone is barred by the ISA
The Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) scheme relates to a list of people who are banned from working with vulnerable adults in registered care services in England and Wales. These people have been dismissed from care work because they have been found guilty of harming or risking harm to a vulnerable adult and are judged to be unsuitable to work with any other social care users.
It is an offence for people confirmed on the list knowingly to apply for, offer to do, accept or do any work in a paid or unpaid caring position covered by the scheme. Anyone employing them will be in breach of regulations relating to fitness of staff. The list covers care workers, including volunteers and adult placement carers, who are working with vulnerable people aged 18 years or over in:
- registered care homes
- registered domiciliary care agencies
- registered adult placement schemes.
The list does not cover NHS or other independent services or direct payments service users unless they employ carers through an agency.
From April 2008, the ISA has been advising the Secretary of State for Health on whether care workers should be placed on or removed from the POVA list. Until 20 January 2009, decisions will continue to be made by senior officials on behalf of the Secretary of Sate for Health. The ISA will continue to provide advice to the Secretary of State for all referrals received prior to 20 January.
Any person who is provisionally listed at 20 January will remain on the provisional list until a decision has been made on whether to confirm or remove them from the list.
From 20th January 2009, all referrals made to the POVA scheme will be considered by the ISA who will make a decision whether or not to bar them from working with vulnerable adults. They will use procedures laid down under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. The duties of employers to make referrals to the POVA list and the circumstances under which referrals are made will remain the same. See section 4d, p33 on how referrals will be made.
Employers and managers must make a POVA referral through the ISA whenever they reasonably consider that a worker is guilty of misconduct that has harmed a vulnerable adult or placed them at risk of harm and the individual has been dismissed, transferred to a non-care position or suspended on grounds of such misconduct (or where the worker has resigned, retired or been made redundant in circumstances in which he or she would have been dismissed/employer would have considered dismissal).
A referral is usually made only when the employer’s own disciplinary procedures have been concluded. However a referral should be made when a care worker has been suspended where the misconduct has harmed a vulnerable adult or placed them at risk of harm, or where the suspension is pending consideration of dismissal or transfer after a finding of misconduct.
POVA referrals are quite separate from the employer’s own disciplinary procedures; they flow from the process but do not influence it.
There are some differences for adult placement services because scheme managers are not the employers of the carers. In cases of misconduct when vulnerable adults have been harmed, the managers are - after appropriate investigations - responsible for withdrawing approval of the adult placement carers and making POVA referrals.
See POVA referral for adult placement for good practice for these sorts of referrals.
The POVA/ISA team are available to support anyone wishing to make or to discuss making a referral. They can be contacted via the POVA email helpline (email: POVA.mail@dfes.gsi.gov.uk) and by telephone on the advice line: 01325 953757 or and 01325 953794.
The ISA team can be contacted through the helpline number on the ISA website.
