Now even Sunday-school parents must be vetted
Patrick Sawer writes in the Sunday Telegraph:
Launched on October 12, the ISA vets every individual who applies to work with children or vulnerable adults – either in a paid or voluntary capacity. Its rules state that any member of staff or volunteer who has regular or intensive contact with children – defined as being as little as once a month – has to be vetted.
According to official estimates, as many as 11.5 million adults – 20 per cent of the population – will be registered with the scheme by the time it is fully rolled out over the next five years. Home Office officials estimate that the number of people currently barred from working with children because of “hard evidence” against them – such as a criminal record – will double to 40,000 once “soft evidence” – such as unproven allegations – are included.
What was previously a matter of self-policing, with communities and organisations making their own common-sense arrangements to oversee the relationship between adults and children at events such as Sunday school, Scouts and Guides, has become a major branch of the state extending into the lives of millions of families.
Jenni Russell writes in the Sunday Times:
[The ISA] sounds like a monster, and it is. But anyone who imagines that its provisions are too ridiculous to be enforced is in for a shock. A few weeks ago there was an outcry when the question of parents giving lifts came up. Ed Balls, the children’s secretary, wanted to defuse the issue swiftly, and asked Sir Roger Singleton, the ISA chairman, to look again at the rules. It was widely assumed that they would be rethought. Singleton has yet to report, but last week he was on the Today programme and was asked how far he thought the work of the ISA might spread.
Singleton didn’t pull back. He said that rotas for driving children to activities were likely to remain within the scheme. “In that context, it is reasonable to expect of the person who is doing that driving that there’s no known reason why he shouldn’t work with children.” Indeed, he took the view that ISA registration would and should spread far beyond the people who would be obliged to seek it.
It is Singleton’s use of the word “reasonable” that chills the blood. He thinks it reasonable that adults who know one another should no longer be free to decide who should and shouldn’t be entrusted with their children. Instead of trusting the instincts that humans have evolved over millennia to make decisions about one another, the state is telling us that it’s better to have 200 quangocrats in Darlington sifting through documents on a computer screen and making the decisions for us.
