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…

The Home Office official, John O’Brien, gives a telling outline on Radio 4’s The Report (13 August) of who should be vetted. Someone should be vetted, he says, if ‘you get the opportunity to become familiar to them [children]’, and he says that ‘there is lots of evidence that the ability to build the relationship [with children] can lead to things like grooming’. He says that people who meet a group of children once should not be vetted, on the basis of ‘one-off contact not giving ability to form a relationship’ – but that organisations should be careful that non-vetted adults don’t…

Sir Michael Bichard, the man whose report into the Soham murders started the vetting database, is now having his doubts. In an interview in the Independent, he says that the regulations ‘need to be looked at again’ and that ‘there will always be situations where you could argue that the line has been drawn in the wrong place’. This shows the tide of opinion has shifted. It also reflects the fact that the government copied the database out of the report’s recommendations, almost without thinking about it. The desire to take ‘expert advice’ meant a social policy that was effectively copied up…

The sight and sound of children playing could be delightful or irritating, depending on your point of view. Yet now a school has blocked a planning application for new flats in Hornsey, north London, on the basis that the flats’ balconies will overlook a children’s playground. Chairman of the school governors said that these properties overlooking the playground could be bait to paeodphiles. ‘We’ve all read of cases where there have been examples of parents, families, fathers who are involved with child pornography regardless of whether they have got their own children or not. It’s not acceptable’, he said. The chairman conjured…

Being a children’s author was once a charming career, building mysterious worlds of fantasy trees and secret adventures. Yet children’s authors do meet a lot of children: they do readings with children, they get letters from children; they are admired by children. And this, according to Ofsted, makes them a potential risk. Before, Ofsted decided that children’s authors did not need a CRB check, but that they should not be left alone with children when they visited schools. Now the organisation has decided that they do need to be checked, even if they are supervised, ‘because there is a chance for authors…

This email from John Kirkby shows the murky dealings with the Criminal Records Bureau bureaucracy… ‘Last year, the London borough of Kensington & Chelsea discovered a “problem” with my CRB disclosure evidence. Around the same time my credit card had been fraudulently used and I’ve always assumed there was some connection between the two events. On contacting the CRB department, my enquiries were set aside by claims that my questions could not be answered for data protection reasons…in the meantime the police had contacted me requesting fingerprints & photos. ’The long & short of the matter was that my “problem case” was…

On the light side, this is a funny take on the tooth fairy. It would be funny, were it not so close to the bone… ‘Children losing teeth will find no money under their pillows for many weeks as the government has ordered the tooth fairy to undergo police background checks before she can continue working with children. “Employees of all government funded organisations have to undergo CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks before they can work with vulnerable members of society,” explained police chief Sir Ian Blair before reminding us that the tooth fairy in funded with tax payers money. Although the…

Eric Tweedie reports back on a meeting of the British Aikido Board: ‘I attended a meeting in Warwickshire to discuss “the way forward” as regards the BAB future policy on Safeguarding. Several things have become clear:- a/ Everyone is now completely fed up with regulation and governmental interference and there is now great resistance to anything further in this direction. b/ Everyone now agrees that adults have become estranged from children evidenced by the fact that no-one is willing to touch a child in any way even to comfort them after a fall or injury. c/ Everyone is terrified of the possibility…

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…

News comes of more professions taking on vetting – even though they are not required to do so by law. First, the Driving Standards Authority proposed that checks for driving instructors should be made compulsory. The organisation’s chief executive explained his reasoning: ‘Many parents put their trust in instructors to teach their children how to drive, and believe they are in a safe environment. Teachers in schools and playgroups are required to have such checks. I would like to see these checks incorporated as soon as possible so we can protect teenagers and young adults learning to drive.’ This despite the fact…