Ed Balls
The excesses of proposed rules which would have forced many millions of adults to undergo Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks before they give lifts to their children’s friends or visited a school are dramatically revised after widespread protests.
The Government has apparently accepted all of the recommendations of an independent review of the scheme, which is to be published today. The turnaround is seen by most people as a victory for common sense over bureaucracy.
Changes to the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) are being made following a barrage of protests. Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, has promised the u-turn to address complaints from among many others, children’s author Philip Pullman who faced having to undergo a criminal records check before being allowed to make school visits.
Chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority and author of the report Sir Roger Singleton, is now recommending that adults, such as children’s author Philip Pullman, who go into different schools to work with different groups of children should be exempt from the CRB checks unless their contact with the same group of children is “frequent or intensive”.
Other changes include dropping the requirement for parents who give occasional lifts to children from other families to be registered – unless the arrangement is regular and frequent. Also dropped is the requirement for 16 to 18 year olds in education to be registered.
Overseas visitors who bring their own groups of children to the UK – such as School trips and visits to the Olympics will have a three-month exemption from the requirement to register effectively taking most of them out of scope. Also exchange visits which last less than 28 days, where the overseas parents accept the responsibility for the selection of the host family, will in future be regarded as private arrangements taking them completely outside the scope of the regulations regardless of the duration.
Mr Balls said that these changes would reduce the number required to register to 9 million, from 11 million under the previous rules. He ordered the review of the rules following a storm of complaints that volunteers were being deterred from working with children because of the scheme. The changes were welcomed by the Scout Association, teachers’ union NASUWT, children’s charity Barnardo’s and by author Philip Pullman. Mr Balls said that while there had been some “ludicrous over-reactions” to the legislation, it was important there were measures in place to protect children. “There are lots of myths here. A headteacher who is saying you should not come into school without a check, and you shouldn’t help with the school play – that is a ludicrous over-reaction. It is not an over-reaction to say that we should make our children safe, what we shouldn’t do is do that in a way that is unnecessarily burdensome or doesn’t quite get to the point,” he told the BBC.
The general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, John Dunford, said: “This is a victory for common sense. Sir Roger Singleton and the Secretary of State have recognised that the previous rules would have unintended consequences for schools and parents and have set out a system that is much more proportionate to risk.”
About time too! If the politicians had had an ounce of common sense this law would never had been passed in the first place. The present measure still does not go far enough, but at least it acknowledges that there is a problem, as there always is with knee-jerk legislation like this. Our French “twins” are appalled that we are under the cosh in this way.