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…

I just received this email from a model flying enthusiast, showing how the vetting database is dissuading people from forming new clubs: ‘A local model flying club, due to reasons of its own lacklustre, has declined in membership to the point where it can no longer afford to pay the rent on both of its two flying fields. Accordingly it seems as if it will give up one of it’s fields come the years end. I and a few others were asked if we would be prepared to establish a new club at the field when it becomes vacant. Following discussions we…