Parishes are individual legal entities and are therefore responsible for their safe, legally compliant recruitment. Advertising and selection must follow anti-discriminatory regulations and safe recruitment, especially with reference to child protection and the protection of vulnerable adults.
You must follow diocesan policies and procedures including:
- offer letters "subject to satisfactory DBS clearance, right to work checks and references"
- You should not start a new employee until right to work, references and satisfactory DBS clearance have been received
- specific safeguarding awareness training appropriate to the role.
All parish recruitment processes should follow the national Church Safer Recruitment guidance.
The Acas guide to hiring staff sets out the issues and guidance on advertising, interviews and discrimination. To help PCCs when recruiting staff please refer to the free download and use the Recruitment Checklist template.
Jump to: Safer recruitment | Job descriptions and person specifications | Genuine Occupational Requirement | Advertising | Selection process | Offering | Right to Work
Safer recruitment
Please see the Safeguarding section of the diocesan website for useful information on safeguarding, including:
- The safeguarding handbook
- Parish safeguarding
- Safeguarding training
- Templates and resources
- Policies
- DBS
In addition, see the Church of England guidance below:
- Safer Recruitment and People Management
- Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
- Guide to roles requiring a DBS check
- Safeguarding e-manual
Job Descriptions and Person Specifications
Job description
The job description will focus on the tasks and content of the job, while the person specification focuses on the attributes needed to perform those tasks effectively. Overall job purpose – why it exists and its contribution to the PCC, including:
- Job title
- Main duties and responsibilities
- Reporting lines
- Location
- Key tasks
Person specification
A person specification will often be broken down into two categories: Essential ‘must-haves’ and desirable ‘nice-to-haves’, including:
- Qualifications and education
- Experience
- Technical skills – software proficiency, specific to job related tasks
- Soft skills – i.e. communication, problem solving, adaptability
- Personal attributes and qualities
- Any special requirements – language skills, travel
Genuine Occupational Requirement
In some circumstances, an employer can specify that an applicant must have, or not have, a particular protected characteristic. This is known as a genuine occupational requirement. For it to be a legitimate occupational requirement, both of the following must apply;
- The protected characteristic is essential for and relates to the main tasks of the job
- There is an ‘objective justification’
There can be an objective justification if the employer can prove both of the following;
- There is a ‘legitimate aim’ – for example, a genuine business need or a health and safety need
- The discrimination is ‘proportionate, appropriate and necessary’ – this means the legitimate aim is more important than any discriminatory effect
In some cases, it may be felt that there is a genuine occupational requirement for the person within the role to be a practising Christian. Please consider all possibilities and feel confident that you can demonstrate this requirement. If it is deemed appropriate, you should include in your job description and advert that there is a genuine occupational requirement under the 2010 Equality Act.
Please review the relevant ACAS guidance for further information.
Advertising
Many roles in parishes are filled by those who are part of the church community. In some cases therefore, low-key advertising via noticeboards, word of mouth, etc may be sufficient to attract candidates.
Before recruiting you should establish your budget for the post, in particular, what salary and benefits you are going to offer. Ensure that you budget for all ‘on costs’ including Employer’s NI and pension. As of April 2025, the standard National Contribution for employers is 15% of any earnings above £5,000 per annum. For pensions, the minimum total contribution of employee and employer is 8% which is to be made up of a minimum of 3% from the employer. You will also need to ensure you have the budget for materials such as a computer or desk.
You do need to be careful, however, that you are advertising widely enough to not exclude anyone who might be interested. This could lead to claims of discrimination, and you could miss out on the perfect candidate.
You can share a vacancy on the diocesan website and diocesan eNews for free by sending it to the Communications team via communications@oxford.anglican.org. You can also place it for free on the government's Find a Job website. Generally, you can advertise a role for as long as you wish, although the recommended timeframe is no less than two weeks.
Parishes can reasonably expect their staff to keep to its values and culture and therefore the ethos of the parish, without actually belonging to its particular religion or belief. It is possible therefore to state in the advert that the job holder must be ‘in sympathy with the aims and ethos of the Church’. This does not mean the same as asking them to be a Christian.
The ACAS guide has useful advice on advertising.
- Does our advert include all of the necessary information - job type, qualifications and experience required, salary and summary of benefits, contact information, deadline for applications?
- Are all skills and/or qualifications listed on the advert really essential?
- Have you chosen a job title which meets the expectations of the role?
- How long do you want the job advert open for?
- What is your budget in terms of recruitment costs?
Selection process
Shortlisting
Once the closing date has passed you will then need to review applications and create a shortlist of applicants. Each CV or application form should be reviewed by the selection panel and then scored to see if they meet the essential and desirable criteria included in the job description.
It is important that you document this process to ensure that you can demonstrate if needed, why applications were not successful.
Once you have completed the shortlisting, you will have a list of individuals who can then be taken forward to interview stage. The number of applicants you take through to interview will be dependent on the role.
Interviews
- Review the job description - what are the key responsibilities and tasks that the successful candidate will be involved with?
- Person Specification - what are the essential and desirable criteria that you set out?
- Gather your interview panel. Wherever possible, do not interview on your own. It's always good to have someone else on the panel to compare observations and opinions with
- Familiarise yourself with the applicants CV or application form ahead of time. Identify any key areas that you would like to explore during the interview. This can include discussing any employment gaps
- Gather together your interview questions - be sure that these are consistent for all applicants
- How are you going to score applicants to ensure a fair process?
- Introductions - start by each member of the panel introducing themselves and their role
- Set out the structure - What are the stages? How long do you expect each to be? Any housekeeping?
- Follow the interview questions are best as possible - expand on the questions as needed
- Always conclude the interview by allowing the candidate chance to ask any questions that they may have and informing them when/how they can expect to receive the outcome
Offering
Contracts of employment
Employment Contracts are different to ‘contracts for services’, which would be used for those who provide a service, but who are not employees (self-employed or casual workers). Employment Contracts can be made verbally or in writing and should be received by the employee before or on their first day of employment. This confirms rights and responsibilities, entitlements and records employment details. These are often expanded on in a staff handbook which sets out various policies and procedures. This usually does not form part of the contract.
A written statement of particulars is the minimum legal standard, however a contract of employment can include more information around terms and conditions.
Types of employment contract
- Permanent contracts: an open-ended, ongoing agreement between an employer and an employee without a fixed end date. The employee works continuously until either they resign, or the employer lawfully terminates the contract for reasons such as redundancy or dismissal. These contracts can be full or part time.
- Fixed-term contracts: a fixed-term contract (FTC) is an employment agreement lasting for a specific, predetermined length of time, a set project, or until a specific event occurs. Fixed-term employees should not be treated any less favourably than comparable permanent employees and are entitled to the same or equivalent benefits. Like permanent contracts, fixed-term contracts can be both full or part-time.
It is important that fixed-term contracts explain whether notice to end the contract is required or not and whether it can be ended because of a specific event, for example, because of a withdrawal of funding from an outside party. When a fixed-term contract ends on the agreed end date, whilst the employer will normally not need to give notice of the termination of employment, for employment law purposes it is still considered a dismissal. Therefore, if the employee has been continuously employed for two years or more, they may have the right to statutory redundancy pay (at the same level as permanent employees) unless different treatment is objectively justified.
If a fixed-term employee is dismissed and they have two years of continuous service (or 6 months of service from January 2027), they may also have the right to claim unfair dismissal. Where an employee has been continuously employed on successive fixed-term contracts for four years or more, they will automatically achieve permanent status, unless there is an objective reason that justifies a further renewal for a fixed term (e.g. funding or the fixed-term nature of the project). - Zero-hours contracts – zero hours contracts are good when services are required on an ad-hoc and casual basis. There is no obligation (whether express or implied) on the part of the organisation to provide an individual with work, and the individual is not under any obligation to accept any work offered. The individual would usually be an employee. ACAS has issued guidance on using zero-hours contracts.
- Express terms - those that are actually stated in writing and which must meet minimum legal standards in many areas, such as the right to paid holiday and the right to rest breaks.
- Implied terms - those that are not necessarily written down but still apply. For example, a duty of mutual trust and confidence between the employer and employee.
- Name
- Address
- Commencement of employment date
- Continuous employment date - the date that employment started with the organisation
- Job title
- Place (or places) of work
- Pay - including how often they will be paid and when
- Hours and days of work
- Any probationary period
- Annual leave entitlement
- Sickness absence pay and provision
- Any other contractual benefits
- The notice period - both for termination from the employer and the employee
- The end date of the contract (if it is for a fixed term)
- Any other paid leave
- Pension arrangements
- Disciplinary and grievance information - this can be directing employees to where they can find the relevant policies
ACAS has a guidance on contracts and a template for written terms and conditions.
Right to work
You must ensure that every new employee has the right to work in the UK and must check an applicant’s original documents before you can employ them.
To verify the candidates identity, the Home Office has produced a list of suitable documents, along with guidance on which copies to retain and for how long.
If you employ an illegal worker and have not carried out the correct right-to-work check, you may face a civil penalty (fine). As of 13 February 2024, the fines employers can receive if found to have employed an illegal worker tripled from £15,000 to £45,00 per illegal worker for a first breach and from £20,000 to £60,000 per illegal worker for a subsequent breach.
For employees from overseas, you can no longer accept biometric residence cards or permits as proof of eligibility to work in the UK. Instead, you can ask them to generate a share code. You can then use this share code to check their right to work details. Links to the pages on the HMRC website can be found below.
The gov.uk website has a very useful right to work checklist for employers. This checklist explains the types of documents that are acceptable for checking an employee's right to work and how long the check is valid for.
Useful templates
Next: Onboarding