This email from Mr M Parker is interesting, and very worrying. It shows how the refusal to comply with the child protection bureaucracy is taken as implied guilt. It also shows how ‘access to children’ is being taken in the broadest way possible, and including people who have no actual contact with, let alone responsibility for, children. The mere suggestion of a possibility of meeting a child is deemed enough…

‘I’m having to move out of my flat because I refused to fill in an Enhanced (CM2) Disclosure form sent by Ofsted because the landlord is a registered child carer. When I moved here I agreed to fill in a short form to register my tenancy at this address. Two weeks later I had to do it all over again for the landlord’s wife. This disclosed quite a lot of personal and sensitive information about me which should have been enough to satisfy Ofsted or anyone in authority that I am not, or have ever been, a threat to children.

‘Three weeks later, Ofsted sent me a CM2 form to fill in, which I refused. The questions on the CM2 are offensive to me and irrelevant; what has my Mother’s maiden name got to do with renting a flat in East Finchley? My mother has been dead 17 years and I’m not prepared to have any of her details put onto a form such as this. I’m also not giving up my most personal and private information to any British authority because none of them can keep it safe.

‘Note also the CM2 form was sent to me because “Our records show that we have not yet been able to make a decision about your suitability to provide childcare for children under eight”. I am a tenant, with no access to any children. They are downstairs in the landlord’s private home and I am upstairs and never anywhere near them. All this information was sent twice to Ofsted, to a Ms S.Kenyon, Divisional Business Manager, National Business Unit, Royal Exchange Buildings, St. Ann’s Square, Manchester M2 9QX, but she just sent me another CM2 to fill in. She has also had every opportunity to speak to me about this matter, but so far has declined my invitation. Two weeks ago my landlord was told by Ofsted that I am an “unsuitable tenant”, so he gave me notice to quit. He said he had to do it because he wouldn’t be allowed to care for children, and lose that income, if I stayed.’