How do you do criminal record/health checks if recruiting yourself?

[happynappy]

Hi, does any other mumsnetter know how to do criminal record checks in Germany or other EU country? It looks as though I may be nearing an agreement with German au pair who is already in UK. Also is there a way of getting a CRB check, the website says only agencies, not parent employers, can get CRBs done which seems really unfair. Happy to pay if any knows a way. Thanks.

If you go on the Ofsted website, there should be a link that you can follow to a website that lists all the companies that do CRB's for anyone.

You just need to pay for one to get done, or phone Ofsted on 08456 404040 and they should be able to advise you. They should also know about getting one done for someone who is foreign.

Thank you, thank you...I'm dialling as we speak...

You can't get a CRB check done directly via the CRB yourself as a parent employing a nanny or au-pair. However, there are some Umbrella Bodies around now who claim to do it for employers - so they could be worth approaching. www.crbcheck.info comes to mind, though not sure they will do it for employers of domestics - could be worth getting in touch with them. www.sona.org.uk is another one though not sure how it works. A while back I was chatting with someone at the CRB about the situation of parents getting checks done on nannies, and the CRB may work on ways of doing that, but it will be some time (years probably) away.

Found some info from the CRB - Overseas Applicants There is a specific page for Germany
Your au-pair needs to contact The Federal Central Register (FCR) who can issue Certificate of Good Conduct. However, How good is your German? When getting a check from another country, it will often be in that countries language!

Thanks Nannynick for the tips, will pass on to au pair as we're a bit stumped at present on how to proceed

Our au pairs were required (under Belgian law) to provide a certificate of good conduct from the police (in theory just a letter from the local police station saying that they had no criminal record). It then had to be translated by an official translator (in country of origin) into French and notarised by a notary public. Can you just state this as a condition of employment? That's what we did.