CRB checks for all parents

[KIMItheThreadSlayer]

The world HAS gone mad, Fair enough, DH is a cubs helper and has been checked, and I do think all helpers with children should be checked, but if my friend picks up my child from school one day a week every week, is that going to be seen as needing a CRB check, .....

Parents who regularly drive children for sports or social clubs will have to be vetted or face fines of up to £5,000 under new rules.

Along with parents who host foreign exchange students, they will fall under the scope of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, the Home Office has confirmed.

The measures to stop paedophiles are being introduced from next month in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Critics have branded them "insulting" and say they could deter volunteers.

A separate but aligned scheme is being set up in Scotland, to be introduced next year.

Also, anyone barred in any part of the UK will be barred from working with children and vulnerable adults anywhere else.

'Frequent, intensive'

Informal arrangements between parents will not be covered, but anyone taking part in activities involving "frequent" or "intensive" contact with children or vulnerable adults three times in a month, every month, or once overnight, must register, it has emerged.

"The government's Vetting and Barring Scheme is a child of moral panic "

Mark Easton

BBC's home editor

Read Mark's thoughts in full

Q&A: Vetting and barring scheme

Mark Easton

All 300,000 school governors, as well as every doctor, nurse, teacher, dentist and prison officer will also have to sign up.

It is thought that 11.3 million people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - close to one in four of all adults - may register with the Home Office's Independent Safeguarding Authority [ISA].

According to BBC home affairs editor Mark Easton it is thought out of that 11.3 million, "something will come up", such as a conviction, for about one million.

"Of those million, they reckon 40,000 will be told they are unsuitable to work in those regulated areas," he said.

After November 2010 failure to register could lead to criminal prosecution and fine. The clubs themselves also face a £5,000 penalty for using non-vetted volunteers.

Children's minister Delyth Morgan said: "It is about ensuring that people in a position of trust that work frequently and intensively with children are safe to do so.

"Ultimately safeguarding children is the government's priority."

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "This new regime has the potential to be a real disaster for activities involving young people.

"We are going to drive away volunteers, we'll see clubs and activities close down and we'll end up with more bored young people on our streets."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the government was "in danger of creating a world in which we think every adult who approaches children means to do them harm".

But John O'Brien, programme director of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, said it would be a "once-only, simple step". He denied it was a "presumption of guilt".

He told the BBC's Today programme: "We want to make sure we have got appropriate safeguards in place so that people with backgrounds we don't want to work with children and vulnerable adults are not entering the workplace."

HAVE YOUR SAY

"Our children need protection but this is going too far"

Fran Banks, Essex

Send us your comments

Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of the Children's Society, said the new safeguards were the result of many years of research into abuse.

"What we have to understand is there's a great amount of learning that has been taking place over the years in looking at how people are abused and we have to apply that learning."

'Soft intelligence'

The scheme was recommended by the Bichard report into the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by college caretaker Ian Huntley.

Huntley had been given the job despite previous allegations of sex with under-age girls, which were not passed on.

Two hundred case workers at the ISA's Darlington base will collect information from police, professional bodies and employers, before ruling who is barred.

Ian Huntley

Even those like Huntley, without a criminal record, could be barred if officials are convinced by other "soft intelligence" against them.

Estimates suggest the number of people facing a ban will double to 40,000 once the scheme is up and running.

Those registered will face continuing scrutiny, with existing registrations reconsidered if new evidence is disclosed.

However, Soham report author Sir Michael Bichard suggested the scheme could be revised.

He told the Independent newspaper last month: "If you visit one school in January, and then don't visit that school again, but visit another school in February and another in March, is that frequent or intensive?"

He was speaking after a number of authors, including Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo, complained the requirement was "insulting" and pledged to quit school visits.

Mr Pullman described the scheme as "rather dispiriting and sinister".

"It's so ludicrous that it's almost funny," he said.

Registration will cost £64 in England and Wales, but unpaid volunteers will be exempt from the charge.

Oh it does for me (I always lose the key )

Seriously though, I do see it as part of a very important process: I accept my viewpoint is from someone who did take moral and practical repsonsibility for introducing people into homes so absolutely I needed to satisfy myself about people because if there were problems, the trust initially ahd been palced in ME (and I have no way of knowing any more than anyne else beyong the checks)and I wanted to be able to say I tried my ahrdest if something had happened. I don't think anything ever did but it is impossible to know for certain.

A lot of the comments I've seen on TV etc have related to reading / school trips and my experiences at school has always been that these are needed if you are to be alone with a child who is not your own in that sort of environment- it took me ages to get my Own umpteenth CRB last year as we had moved from England to wales and Wales wouldn't accept the copy birth certificate issued when I was months old (I don't have a passport). We had the same policy when I was a Guider: if you wre there and not CRB checked you could not be alone with a child..... that was 5 - 6 years ago. I would imagine that it was often hard to police that (if you have only one helpedr tunred up who is not CRB becuase someone else ahsnt shown up, how do yu manage?) and that at least part of the thinking is to remedy those problems.

I'm not sure how I feel about parents with transport. It seems to me that there is some logic- if it is organised by the club then it needs to be followed,if it is organsied by the aprents then not. The volunteers at a club are taking repsonsibilty as I mentioned above, personally I'dwant that reassurance if it were me. PArent organsied transport is another thing entirely IMO and should be beyond the regulation.

As for teh exchange trips- to be VV honest I was quite shocked its not done as a routine before palcing a child who is away from her own family and quite posibly her own language into a situation.

"It seems to me that there is some logic- if it is organised by the club then it needs to be followed,if it is organsied by the aprents then not. The volunteers at a club are taking repsonsibilty as I mentioned above, personally I'dwant that reassurance if it were me. PArent organsied transport is another thing entirely IMO and should be beyond the regulation."

By that's what makes a mockery of this legislation. If a club tries to be helpful and co-ordinate transport to (for example) away games, then the parents involved have to go through this new checking process. However, if it is thrown open to the parents for them to sort themselves out and exactly the same parents do the transporting, then that is OK without checking

I just don't see the logic.

I think it's an accountability thing.

I am accou8ntable if I ask Mrs Y to pick the boys up, I amde the choice of driver.

If however ds's come home from a club saying 'A driver oraganised by the club will collect you at 9am' then I haven't ahd the chance to asess risk etc myself, I am placing my faith in the club to do that, and I can understand why they would want a papertrail.

I would rather I made the choice about the mount of accountability that I feel comfortable, than the state dictate hwo much is requiered.

"amount I am comfortable with"

I get that, but you see I owuldn't be so happy (for various personal reasons including a child who can't talk well so can't tell me if things do go awry)..... it'sgot to be one rule for all, surely? I an't se how a middle road would work.

"One rule for all": but such kids (or vunlerable adult) are vulnerable in any circumstance, organised or not. So we really should be ensuring that everyone who has contact with them, in whatever capacity - friends, family, parent - should be CRB checked because such kids/adults can't let us know if something amiss happens.

I really hate this constant extension of state interference in our lives.

Sorry - forgot to put in "That is the logical extension of "one rule for all".

I appreciate your points BethNoire but I think it smacks of control freakery, not just by "the state", whatever, but by the parents.

I cannot have control over every single person my child comes into contact with. And why should I have? It's like an extension of over-protectiveness. It IS overprotectiveness. I don't want it. I don't want my fellow parents to have to prove they are not paedophiles before they give my child a lift. I'm a normal adult, with normal human judgement. My goodness, I don't want to have to prove I'm not a paedophile before I give another child a lift.

Guilty before proven innocent, that's what this is, and I think you know it.

This is mad. This is like wanting to go to every single swimming lesson in case they drown. Or hold their hand across every road they cross in case they are hit by a car. Or be present at every party they go to, or cut up their food for them into approved pieces in case they choke, or never letting them go shopping in case they buy cigarettes, or never letting them walk home alone.

PB- the thing is though that yeshe is vulnerable in eery situatio0n so I wouldn't place him in the care of soemonre I didnt trust- that includes clubs- and I do trust clubs that use the crb more.

The logical example on paper might be thast- but it's not in practice becuase that's not what I do I do liketo know where they're going and who with though, yes... I don't know, maybe because I have worked in the field of CP (sort of anyway) before... who knows?

I don't think everyne who comes into contact with them is a potential abuser though, it wouldn't even cross my mind, but at the same time I do know that the organisations I trust them with use the procedure and it does make me feel the boys are more secure. I know the mums they go to play with, but if I didn't they wouldn't go there until I did. Not know in depth IYSWIM, but a good gut feeling, wheras I don't know all the aprents at clubs etc at all. I ahven't had the chance to develop that sense of trust I would with someone I would meet at school or whatever.

And yes I know my trust might be mispalced becuase there are abusers out there and CRB doesn't pick them up, but I want to know i've done my best.

I also know I am in a minority on here, nevertheless I do feel it quite strongly.

'Guilty before proven innocent, that's what this is, and I think you know it.'

Look,am happy to kepputtimng my opinion depsite a massive minority but please don't tell me what I know. I don't know that, I know I don't feel that.

I appreciate your concerns Bethnoire - but it is still bad law to put in place something that "in practice" won't change much - but still inserts a major level of unnecessary bureaucracy - epscailly one that thorugh its very nature, encourages a sense of distrust of other adults.

As I've said, it's also crazy that there is such an easy way of sidestepping the legisaltion - and one that, if anything, leave kids more vulnerable, as it would be more difficult to identify any pattern, if something were to happen.

Yes, it is.

Your actions are restricted until you are proven innocent.

You aren't in a minority, on here at least, that's what I find worrying.

Well- I disagree. . That's life, hey?

BethNoire the point about being CRB checked if you have an exchange student is a good one but shows what a mad system we have.

DD1 had an exchange student here this year and the school insisted on a CRB check being done on either me or dh. I think that was mad - it's pretty obvious that if dh was in any way dodgy he'd have got me to have it done.

So to me the CRB system has been half cocked (and I process a good few checks each year for various staff members) and the ISA vetting and barring system will be yet another layer of madness.

It's like when I went on training for the Common Assessment Framework and we were all told in the room that there would be robust multi-agency working from now on and there would never be another Victoria Climbie. I scoffed at the time and said that the sysem would only be as good as the people working it. I got shouted down for that comment but having CAF in place didn't help Khyra Ishaq or Baby P did it? (I take no pleasure in this at all ).

Trusting our instincts, checking references and teaching our kids about appropriate behaviour are tools that we use as well as CRB checks. ISA registration will, I fear, be the get out clause for anyone having to think for themselves.

You can't disagree with a fact.

You can disagree with an opinion, for example you are disagreeing with my opinion that "guilty until proven innocent" is definitely not ok. But you can't disagree with the fact.

That was what I was disagreeing with- the interpretation that it was an assumption of guilt. I don't see it as that, I see it as a routine check and no more.

But however clearly you see me as a target for your wrath, I would suggest perhaps writing to your MP would be better? I however don't have anything else to say- I've given my take on all this and I stand by it.

But it is a fact: you are having to prove you are "innocent". Our law is (or was ) supposed to be on the basis that guilt was something to be proven. Now we are getting close to the situation of "thought crime", where you are checked in advance to see if you Might have doen seomthing.

But I do agree with you on the fact that it is our legislators we should be complaining to And perhaps our media who also contribute by lathering the public up into a frenzy of fear that there are paedophiles on every corner so that the legislators feel that they need to be seen to do something

I am appalled by the whole thing. I will not offer lifts-if a parent thinks there is any possibility that I am a child abuser they shouldn't be allowing a child in my car in the first place.

Re the argument that lifts might become harder to provide because of the new checks could put would-be drivers off:
Actually, that's one thing that could well change for the BETTER. Because currently many groups operate a 2 adult system; for lifts to an event, there have to be 2 adults in the car, because neither has been CRB checked but it's especially unlikely that they would collude in abuse.

Under new vetting scheme, in theory, it should be more defensible for a group to have only one adult in the car; so they may only need less than half the adults that they need presently to ferry kids to events.

Doesn't mean kids will be any safer, of course.

The whole idea stinks to as a knee jerk "we must do something" type idea.

It doesnt make kids safer, whats the point?

They would probably still want 2 adults because all the CRB check means is that they haven't been convicted-not that they haven't committed any offences in the first place. I think it is sensible to have 2 adults in case you break down on the motorway for example. I just can't get my head around the fact that a parent is saying 'can my child have a lift?-but you must prove you aren't going to molest them'! I would never ask if I thought there was the remotest danger.

But isn't it the point in part that you're not doing that?

If I ask for a lift then there is no need for the eprson to be checked; it's only if the club organises it that there is a check.

So if I ask a friend for alift, fair enough. If I am told a bus will be at the house at 6am to collect, then they are checked.

Ds3 goes to school each day in a taxi,and the drivers there have to be checked and always have been.

Well at the moment I'm CRB checked for my job, my PTA involvement at one school and my committee involvement at a pre school but I still have far more unsupervised access to children by just being a parent. We have kids here all the time, sleeping over and for play sessions.

CRB's aren't worth anything on their own and the new ISA's will be exactly the same. We require far more education for children and we need to listen to children more often.

If I am giving any child a lift in a volunteer capacity, whoever askes me, I am not willing if they are wanting me to prove that I am not a child abuser-they have no business to ask me in the first place if they have doubts.