This is utterly crazy and will do no good at all. It is turning society into a lunatic asylum and may destroy it altogether
It is dangerous to our liberties for the state will have yet more information about us and frankly I don’t trust the state not to misuse it.
It will do no good to children for the vast majority of child abuse is in what passes for a home where the culprit tends to be the temporary partner of an unmarried mother. This situation has been brought about by the state destroying family life for so many, by undermining marriage. It claims that it has created 3 million new jobs to support the family but forgets to mention that over 85% of those new jobs have gone to immigrants, leaving the British poor to rely on welfare. It is in these so-called homes that the chief danger to children lies, along with the very social szervices paid to protect them.
Some years ago I was interested in helping the Victims Support Scheme for those affected by a crime. I did not pursue this attempt to fill in for the failures of the Police because it was required that I should be vetted by - er - the Police.
I am not the enthusiast for ‘the state’ that Matthew Parris is but most of his article hits the nail squarely on the head.
I hope all thew members of these quangoes have themselves been vetted. ! And were the terrorist family properly vetted before the Council allowed them to foster children ?
Christina
THE TIMES
12.9.09
This stupid child protection law will turn us into outlaws
The new quango teaches us a lesson. The more the State bosses us around, the less we abide by its rules
Matthew Parris
Only two sane responses are possible to the Government’s new vetting and barring scheme for adults who volunteer to come into contact with children. One is rage, and the other despair. I incline to despair. But permit me a moment’s rage before I do.
You will be familiar with the scheme in question, administered by the Independent Safeguarding Authority, and setting up a list of adults permitted to help children. For no particular reason the plan has hit the news this week.
In fact the enabling legislation (the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act) became law in 2006. The vetting scheme itself starts to “roll out” from next month, and will eventually cover more than 11 million people, though if public anger continues to grow then Gordon Brown will probably panic and — unable to make up his mind one way or the other — either suspend the plan pending further consultation, or try to counterbalance the ISA with an ISHVISAA: Independent Safeguarding of Harmless Volunteers from the Independent Safeguarding Authority Authority.
The whole initiative is an ideal candidate for investigation by the RRAC (Risk and Responsibility Advisory Council), the nanny to nanny the nannies that Mr Brown set up a couple of years ago to act (it was fatuously claimed) as a counterweight to the Health and Safety Executive and other horrors of the meddling State.
When an authority fails too dismally in modern Britain, another authority is established to keep it up to scratch. When an authority succeeds too aggressively, another authority is established to keep it in check. When too many of these new supervisory authorities begin treading on each other’s toes, a new umbrella authority is set up to co-ordinate their activities.
. . . So, yes, despair. Despair that arrangements that bring children into contact with grown-ups who’ve volunteered help will force those adults, on pain of prosecution, to undergo vetting and be placed on an approved list. As Philip Pullman (the children’s author who used to give talks at schools) has said, the whole idea is “corrosive to healthy social interaction”.
The other day a friend concerned about her daughter’s progress with reading asked me if we could make an arrangement for me to visit regularly and read with her. It strikes me that were I to do so, I might have to register; and that if my friend paid my taxi fare I might count as being remunerated, and have to pay £64 for my licence. In no circumstances could I see myself complying with any of this. No sane adult with any shred of self-respect would.
“Independent” Safeguarding Authority indeed! Independent of whom? Paedophile networks? One would hope so. Rather like the Independent Electoral Commission in Afghanistan (its boss appointed by President Karzai), “independent” seems to have become the adjective of choice for politicians anxious to slap a patina of objectivity on to their latest acronym.
I’ve racked my brains for sinister vested interests from which the ISA might be independent: certainly not the Home Office, which appoints its chairman. What’s the betting that when the authority stumbles, as all authorities do, and ministers seek shelter from the media storm by appointing an inquiry, it will be called the Independent Inquiry into the Independent Safeguarding Authority?
The ISA scheme and its enabling legislation were a response to the Soham murders. Those murders would almost certainly never have happened were it not for the incompetence of the police, social services and education authorities. The result is that in consequence of the failure of three state authorities, a fourth state authority has been set up.
The new authority will add quite significantly to the burdens of administrative compliance placed on citizens who have not sought the help or advice of the authorities but wish only to get on with their everyday and personal lives. They will now require some kind of permission to do so.
This consequence will spawn two consequences of its own. First, it will add (I would guess very substantially) to the numbers of people who think of themselves as law-abiding but who opt in this case to operate outside the law. It expands the grey zone where it’s acceptable, or at least unremarkable, to take no notice of the rules. An informal dimension to popular culture, beneath the radar of the State, develops: a process of respectable subversion that reached absurd proportions in Soviet Russia.
Second, it will add (if marginally) to the size of the public sector; to the cost to all of us of these bodies; and to the burden of unproductive extra work on the shoulders of those volunteers who do choose to play by the rules and submit themselves to vetting.
So there’s a subterranean triple whammy going on. The State’s reach is widening, its cost is mounting, but its grip is loosening. So much of the legislation that has disfigured recent years — the ineffectual ASBOs, the faith-hate and gay-hate laws, legislation to make child poverty “illegal”, the naming and shaming, and the itch to fiddle around with procedure and structure and uniforms and names — has been touted as “sending out a message”. Government by illustration. The gap with real lives grows.
The antidote is less, and better, law.
Let me, a lifelong Tory, spell it out.
I believe in the State.
I believe in a strong State.
I believe in the State’s core purpose: to regulate and arbitrate.
I believe in the State’s power to do good; to bring justice, security and order; to defend and protect its citizens; and to make their lives better.
I believe in the State’s duty to care for the needy; to ensure that the rich help the poor, and that the weak are helped by the strong.
And I believe finally in the State’s nobility as an idea; the inspiring power of the national ideal; the tremendous possibilities unleashed by collective action; and the love and duty owed by citizens to the State.
But the incontinent expansion of the State’s reach degrades its grip. It undermines legitimacy, lowers confidence and breeds disregard. Twelve years of new Labour’s flabby-minded growth in the public sector, and the bloating of its claims on individuals’ lives, have begun to rot the whole idea of something the Left ought to believe in, and the Right do: society, and the public good.
INDEPENDENT 12.9.09
Child protection scheme 'draconian'
Tories promise to rein in 'nonsensical' plan for checking of parents
By Chris Green
The government was under increasing pressure last night to reduce the scale of its controversial child-protection register, after the realisation that full implementation of the scheme will force one in four adults to undergo criminal record checks.
Widespread public anger over the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS), which will eventually hold the details of 11.3 million people, prompted the shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, to say: "This scheme cannot be allowed to go ahead in this way. We would review the whole safeguarding process and scale it back so that common sense applies. Of course we have to check out those people who have jobs working with children, but the idea that we would vet 11 million parents is complete nonsense."
Opposition to the scheme was first highlighted by The Independent in July, when a group of respected children's authors announced they would no longer be visiting schools in protest. Since then, the true scale of the scheme's vast remit has slowly emerged. The checks will not only apply to people whose job involves contact with children, but also to parents who referee football matches or help at social clubs.
Even those who drive groups of children for a sports club will have to be vetted, or risk being fined up to £5,000. The tighter rules have caused consternation among volunteering organisations, who fear they may discourage people from offering help.
Sue Gwaspari, director of part-time volunteering at Community Service Volunteers, said "vigilance and supervision" were more important than vetting. "We must do everything we can to protect children from the attentions of criminals, but we must be careful not to add additional barriers that will discourage volunteers from giving their time, creating a world of distrust and apathy."
The Football Association, which relies heavily on volunteers to organise and referee matches for young players, is also understood to be worried about the effect the draconian regulations will have. "Anyone working or volunteering on behalf of a third-party organisation, for example a football club, who has frequent or intensive access to children or vulnerable adults, will have to be registered," an FA spokesman said.
Simon Carter, of the Scout Association, admitted that having to undergo checks and register on a database would "put some people off" volunteering, but pointed out present membership was very healthy. "As an organisation, we started using a vetting scheme long before CRB checks, so any adult that works within the Scouts would already be being checked anyway," he said. [That excellently shows rthe proper way to deal with this. The organisations involved should be responsible -cs]
Yesterday, The Independent revealed that the VBS has already cost the Government £84m. But the total cost to the taxpayer is likely to be at least £170m, adding the expense to public services.
The scheme carries a mandatory one-off registration fee of £64, waived only in the case of unpaid volunteers. This means public services such as the NHS and the Prison Service will be forced to register their employees. Almost all of the NHS's 1.3 million workers will have to join, leaving the organisation facing a total bill of about £83m. And because prisoners are classed as vulnerable adults, the 40,000 registered prison officers will also need to register, costing the Prison Service more than £2.5m. [This is bureaucracy purely for the sake of bureaucracy - It’s mad! -cs]
The VBS, which launches next month and will be the largest of its kind in the world, was created after the Bichard report into the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham by the school caretaker, Ian Huntley.
The tighter rules mean that the number of people barred from working with vulnerable groups in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will double from 20,000 to 40,000. A separate but aligned scheme is being set up in Scotland and will be introduced next year.
A spokesman for the Home Office said said: "The VBS does not cover personal or family relationships, so parents making informal arrangements to give lifts to children will not have to be vetted. But anyone working or volunteering on behalf of a third-party organisation – for example, a sports club or a charity – who has frequent or intensive access to children or vulnerable adults will have to be registered."
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