This email from a junior golf coordinator puts the case for informal club vetting of volunteers, rather than relying on CRBs and other box-ticking. It should be adults’ responsibility to look out for children in their club. It’s a good case, very well made… ‘My arguments have always been about the effect the current CRB-checking and the proposed Vetting and Barring (V & B) schemes are having on the retention of experienced Club-based volunteers, and the recruitment of suitable new volunteers. Most sport is Club-based in this and, indeed, most countries. Within those Clubs there have always been people who levitate towards…

A survey today showed that many private tutors will refuse to register on the vetting database. Three quarters of the tutors interviewed by the website thetutorpages.com said that they wouldn’t register: many said that they didn’t think it would stop paedophiles, and resented the implication that they were ‘assumed guilty until proven innocent’. Henry Fagg, director of www.thetutorpages.com, made the excellent point that tutors have close relationships with the parent of the child; they often go into the family home to give their lessons. ‘This scheme is in danger of undermining that bond of trust as it breeds the suspicion that every…

This is an outrageous case: a woman disciplined for helping a young boy down from a tree. Apparently she went against the school’s (Ofsted-approved) child protection guidelines, which recommended that teachers observe children when they are stuck in trees. This shows that child protection rules are all about ticking boxes, observing rules, and nothing to do with actually caring for children and helping when they are in trouble. In fact – these policies are actually about the re-education of adults’ decent and caring instincts, into something quite cold and distant. (Incidentally this woman was disciplined by a CSO, who clearly have the…

I just received this email from a Scout leader, who was asked to CRB a serving police officer. A worrying story for the times, showing how old forms of authority (police, politicians) are being replaced with new (child protection coordinators, health and safety advisers). ‘I have just been asked to do a CRB check on a serving police officer so that he can help in his son’s cub scout pack. I thought this had to be an over enthusiastic misinterpretation of the rules, so I queried it with the Scout Association. Amazingly, they have confirmed that indeed they do NOT trust the…

The Independent Safeguarding Authority requires the registration of anybody who works in a school for four days a month – even if they are fixing the radiators or installing wind turbines on the roof. Businesses are rightly angry about what they see as a hidden tax. The fact that they have no contact with children cuts no ice, as this email we just received from a renewable energy business outlines: ‘We install renewable energy systems for example wind turbines and solar photovoltaic (electricity generation) systems to both residential and commercial customers. Many of our larger customers are schools and they are starting…

I’ve just received this email from Richard Ellam, a popular science presenter, who makes the important point about the lack of evidence for the efficacy of the CRB system. Indeed, I’ve repeatedly asked officials what evidence they have that this vetting database does any good – but they steadfastly ignored the question. ‘As a strong supporter of civil liberties of all sorts I have been following your campaign against the Child Protection Mafia with interest for some time. This issue affects me directly, as I am a freelance writer and presenter of science shows who regularly visits schools and other places to…

Media Release: EMBARGO: 00.01 MONDAY 14 DECEMBER 2009 New data released under a Freedom of Information request to the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) reveals a huge increase in the number of children undergoing vetting, before being licensed to volunteer with other children. CRB checks are routinely being carried out on children who are 13-years old or younger. · Over 3,000 children who were 13 or under have undergone CRB checks since 2002. 433 children 13 and under were CRB checked in the year 2007/8. · Since 2002, a total of 43,000 under-16s have undergone CRB checks. By law, under-16s are considered to…

This piece from the Bookseller shows that children’s authors are still against the vetting database, even though they themselves are largely exempted. The piece includes a wonderful quote from Anne Fine: “This is still a deeply pernicious and misguided business that is already damaging relations between adults and children, discouraging the varied social contacts that are so necessary in a child’s life, and creating a deeply unpleasant and suspicious society in which most of us no longer feel comfortable. If nine million citizens are still on the list, I think it goes almost without saying that list needs pruning radically yet again.”…

This article from the Telegraph is an interesting case study of how child protection rules work. Some schools are demanding CRB checks for parent visitors, because they believe this is necessary for Ofsted. Ofsted denies this, and says that there is no such rule. Over-cautious teachers, you could say. And yet this situation is emblematic of a new kind of political authority, where there is a rule for everything and you are encouraged to pre-empt – to always ask the question, ‘are we allowed to do this?: shouldn’t we have procedures in place?’ These head-teachers are not being paranoid, they are only…