New vetting rules
We're going to be discussing this on the programme tonight. The government and children's charities have been defending the controversial extension of a vetting scheme designed to protect children and vulnerable adults. Under the measures, people who regularly drive children at the request of sports or social clubs will have to undergo criminal record checks.
What we'd love, is to hear any questions you may have about the scheme. Then we can put them to an "expert" .
Any questions?
Listen to PM
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I've had four enhanced CRB checks in the last twelve months (as a supply teacher, IT trainer, foster carer, trainer for adoptive parents) at a cost of £36 a time.
I believe I'll have to be barred and vetted by the ISA as well - at £64 a go. £400 a year ... with regular updates required ... what some people would call a nice little earner. I don't have to pay myself - but that means local authorities/charities contributing significant sums to central government.
The ISA says you'll only have to register once - but there's no sign of any joined up thinking with the CRB - a separate check is required for each position. Will another government agency be any more sensible?
The critical question to me is: would this have stopped Ian Huntley (who appears to have started the whole thing off)? I think the answer is no - the police had the information, they didn't use it. Will the ISA provide a guarantee against human incompetence?
Which leads to a further point - are we lulling ourselves into a false sense of security? Can we really construct a risk-free society?
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I saw a query somewhere about having your children's friends for sleepovers; I think one of the few things that has been clarified so far is that the new rules do NOT apply to arrangements like this between families. They apply to organisations which use volunteers.
(Having said which, paedophiles have families too, so perhaps they ought to look at this again* ... )
* no, no, no - tongue in cheek!
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I don't understand why everyone is making such a self-righteous fuss over having criminal record checks. We are much more aware nowadays that there are a few people who would use an opportunity such as driving children to football matches to get close to children and trusted by their parents, as a preliminary to abusing them. This has happened with priests, residential social workers, etc - remember! We object that the church, local government, whoever, did not do all it could to prevent this.
What would you say to the football club who suggested you put your child in the car of someone who did have a record of offences against children? You would rightly wonder why they had not checked him out. You would want to punch someone's face or sue them for every penny they had got.
Please get a sense of proportion about all this. If you are not an abuser why do you mind having your record checked? Loads of us have them done at present, a separate one for each organisation we work for/volunteer for which is involved with children or vulnerable adults, which are renewed for three years. This new system as I understand it is going to simplify that. Why would volunteers would be prepared to have a check done, if the system was simple and reasonably efficient?
If as a parent you don't mind letting your children spend time with adults you personally don't know on the say so of other people you don't personally know, you must be in the minority. If you make a private arrangement with friends, that is not going to be subject to any checks, I believe, and you just have to trust your judgment, as you do about when your child is old enough to cross the road, for example.
Which would you rather, trying to prevent a child abuser being able to abuse another child, or not?
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thanks to the CRB checks schools are a lot safer for everyone ;not just the kids .however; where does it end ?. over the recent years we have see child abuse in the home e.g. baby p etc . are we going towards the point where people will psycological profiles and vetted to see if they will be good parents? .
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I still cannot understand why there seems to be duplicate vetting. As far as I can gather from this seemingly muddled approach, why if one has an up to date CRB check does another check need to be made. And while I'm asking I still would like to know why more than one CRB check has to be made on a person. Is the system so unsophisticated that it can't cross check? Some organisation must be doing very nicely financially out of all this.
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bicyclingbridget @ 3
There are two issues here. One is the old 'those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear', commonly used in favour od ID cards; the issue being just how far you think the state should go in accumulating data about us citizens.
The other is that this sort of exercise gives a false sense of security. What will you do the day someone who has been vetted and approved turns out to be a bit cleverer than we thought, and molests a child? Will you say 'Well, we did everything we could'? The sort of person we are concerned about is likely to be manipulative and devious (it's what they do for a living), and having a giant database full of non-offenders is no defence.
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I related earlier that in the late 1970s I was instrumental in setting up a community initiative that involved kids. This initiative was driven by the local community, and was not part of some existing organization, although a loose federation of similar groups from other cities formed over the year, which became the National Federation of City Farms.
The localities that these group arose in were often some of the more deprived areas of their respective cities. In our particular the area there was a 40% unemployment rate and all the social problems that went with that. The residents were highly suspicious of the police and it is unlikely that many would have agreed to CRB checks. Others were anti-police, and anti-government.
As an organization we would never have had the money to pay for checks, and neither would our volunteers. It is a pity that the current Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families who was involved in that early movement has forgotten what it was like.
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1) Why can't electronic tagging and other electronic devices be used on the few?
2) Why can't long term probation orders be used on the few with a requirement to account for their movements on a weekly basis, and verified against information captured electronically?
Surely it is easier, cheaper, and more effective to monitor the activities of a few thousand people than it is to monitor the activities of eleven million people?
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Questions: how many volunteers will be deterred by the new rules? What will be the effect on the millions of kids consequently restricted? How many very innocent volunteers will be blacklisted through spite, for reasons quite unrelated to child abuse? And what appeal process will they have? And just how risk adverse is the average parent? And how does that compare with the fear generated by the media??? And how many parents, like me, reckon we're better than is a register at spotting (and protecting our kids from) a wrong'un ?
Too many questions maybe......
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Sorry to be thick, but don't we live in a society where one is 'innocent until proven guilty' ? Just because British politicians are too feckless to enact a version of 'Megan's Law' is no reason to punish everyone !
And even in the USA, this law didn't prevent Jaycee Lee Dugard from being abducted by a sex offender. What is the world coming to ? The question I would like answered is this.
'How long before my volunteering for a charity which works with visually impaired adults become impossible, because our common-sense view that they are NOT 'vulnerable adults' [they are intelligent, self-reliant and live independent lives] is overturned by some government Quango, and we have to 'eat the poison' like Schrodinger's cat and no longer exist as an organisation ??
A ship in port is safe, but that is NOT what ships are made for. Bonkers.
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Sorry, I would also point out that any sex offender with half a brain would just go out and have a 'CRB check' done on themselves before they get caught and use the fatuous "It's just one check for life !" marketing by the spin doctors THEN go on a spree of sexual predation and murder.
These 'certificates' will be out of date as soon as they are printed, and will be even more worthless than the paper on which they are printed. How on earth did such ridiculously stupid and ill-informed legislation get this far ?? If the Government cannot even enforce the legislation it has already passed [using mobiles in cars, anyone ?] why on earth is it introducing more ??
What makes me absolutely furious about this is that Ed Balls has the gall and audacity to gurn his way through a YouTube video promising more 'sunshine and lollipops' for the National Year of Music, while at the same time another arm of government is doing their level best to make helping to teach kids music informally next to impossible.
It makes my blood boil !!!!!
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And one can just imagine a child whose football practice has been curtailed and is walking the mean streets to find a few friends to have a kick about in the street with thinking, as he or she is either run over or stabbed to death thinking, as the last few breaths of life slip from their body...
"I don't want to die this young, but at least I was never 'touched up' by a perv !"
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I have heard that the phrase "frequent or intensive contact with children" is key to the new vetting rules. What exactly does this phrase mean?
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newlach - I strongly suggest you listen to the Kafkaesque interview from the Today programme with Delyth Morgan. It will not really answer your question, but will confirm that we are now inhabiting cloudcuckooland..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8250000/8250001.stm
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Will the vetting scheme affect work experience? If my firm has to have everyone who comes into contact with trainees vetted I can well see our withdrawing from such schemes.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The simple fact remains that this Government does not trust the UK population.
CCTV-We do not trust you
Identity cards-You are all terrorists and we do not trust you.
National DNA data base- We want to know all about your body and we still do not trust you.
Want a Bank account? Fill in a form as you are a drug dealer-We do not trust you.
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This whole thing is a farce with no real assessment of risk at all. Does no one in Government understand risk at all? One very unfortunate murder at Soham, caused in part by a dysfunctional justice system and police communications. Cost to fix, not that much. Risk to anyone else, minimal as most other events are as Esther Rantzen stated, family based, or on the past frequently based in religious settings. Governement answer is to spend a fortune on ineffective checks paid for by the public to deflect criticism of the abject dysfunctionlaity of its own departments
Result, shotgun CRB checks generating a fortune for Disclosure Scotland and "umbrella" organisations. at £36 a shot, this will cost just under 400 million pounds. what will it achieve ? Very little and in fact is likely to be negative, as it takes a failure of rate of only 0.01% to create over 100,000 potential problems, which I think is somewhat large.
The danger is that someone waving this piece of paper will lull others into a false sense of security and we will have events happening even after the checks have been done.
As to the check, what on earth is the value in a one off life time check ? I pity teachers where the whole system is dysfunctional and costing supply teachers etc a fortune. As to freelance tutors and similar , the administrators and Government are being as stupid as possible. As in other areas such as aviation security, totally ignoring the reality of work for those who are not cocooned in some kind of Government Department or service.
Anyway where is the evidence to support this draconian approach that makes Stalin's Russia seem liberal the creeping nature of this whole intrusion is worrying.
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Yet another device to divert attention from the parlous situation this country is in. Economy, education, health, security (home and away), all in a desperate state. Why doesn't the PM just accept what everyone else knows? - time is up. Get meddling ministers to clear their desks and shut the door behind them. Is their no end to this government's arrogance, incompetence and perfidy?
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Remember the Dangerous Dogs Act?
Politicians are lazy, stupid and er... what was the third thing? Ah yes, corrupt.
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This measure is introduced to protect our children, whose safety is paramount. And, if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about. Who could argue against such logic?
What worries me is that this argument can be used to justify almost anything. The same logic is used to justify a nationwide DNA database.
Think about it.
The technology already exists not only to combat and deter crime, but actually prevent it. All we have to do is tag every man, woman and child and keep track on where they are and when - hey presto! No more crime (other than embezzlement, but that’s OK).
In time, it will no doubt be possible to monitor people’s behaviour, their indulgences – alcohol intake, for example. So, you have one too many, you climb into your car and the system is alerted and your car is locked out of use. Fantastic! No more drink drive related deaths. Who could possibly object?
The system could monitor your eating habits, spending, ultimately your thoughts! But don’t worry, because if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear!
Sounds wonderful – but is that really the kind of society we want?
My point is that once we allow this argument of protection and nothing to hide to prevail then we have a very dangerous thin end of a wedge. Alarmist, perhaps, but we must be vigilant and there must come a time when we say enough is enough.
At the moment we are, as a society, rolling over and allowing our hard fought and won liberties and freedoms to be taken away. Once lost they’re gone for good.
Wake up!
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In 1939 some two million children were taken from their homes in cities and vulnerable towns and transported to ‘safe’ areas. There they were billeted on whoever had spare rooms. A single man living in a house which had two unoccupied bedrooms ‘had’ to take (by law) two children and support them. Checks?? You’re joking.
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Discussion of this topic today tried to make a clear distinction between private and public but I don't believe it is that simple. What if the son of a family friend who coached my son's team a couple of years back was to ask me to give a lift to 2 other boys? Is he making a request on the part of an organisation? I suspect so.
We need to think about what is really important and remember that many children are abused (neglect/verbal/sexual/physical including murder in rare cases) by family members. Stranger danger is a small risk and I believe children can spot someone who is (or could be) a pervert.
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What is all the fuss about now?
For several years my daughter as a teacher has not been allowed to have any parent assist on school trips ect unless they had police clearance.
Anyone who at anytime might be left alone with a child had to have clearance.
My husband teaches an evening class with adults but he has to have police clearance. He may have a vulnerable 'learner'.
It will not prevent abusers who are not on police records.
It will not prevent a person who is cleared and then goes on to be an abuser.
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Sorry to wtite again about this but there was something that Carolyn said that has had me thinking. Did I hear her say something about foreign exchange students? And if so does this mean that if a child's school participates in say an exchange with a school in France then the parents on the British side will have to undergo the vetting? More and more details keep slipping out and I'm trying to keep up!
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I agree with the view that this is more about covering the states back rather than covering the backs of children,whilst at the same time destroying natural trust in societal relationships.
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What worries me is that a piece of paper is just that! The idea of a check for life is ludicrous: far from protecting children in the long-term, it could endanger them.
We are also putting children at risk if too much emphassis is placed on paper rather than person. Things are not always what they seem! If someone displays an enhanced disclosure CRB document, that does not mean they're not a peodophile. The document might be forged (easy these days using IT I would imagine).
We must always be vigalent and this proposed legislation might lead to those in authority making more innocent mistakes like never before.
Personally, I'm all for greater checks but for God's sake do it in a way that makes sense!
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Sex offenders compete for jobs working with children on exactly the same basis as everybody else. So in the UK schools employ teachers who would not be short-listed for a job as a police officer.
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