Schools vet parents for Christmas festivities
Daniel Foggo and Jack Grimston write in the Sunday Times:
Parents who want to accompany their children to Christmas carol services and other festive activities are being officially vetted for criminal records in case they are paedophiles.
In the latest expansion of the government’s child protection agenda, parents are checked against a database of people banned from working with children for sex offences and for other reasons.
Among those affected are parents at a village primary school who have been told they must be vetted before they can accompany pupils on a 10-minute walk to a morning carol service at the local church.
Meanwhile, Julie Henry writes in the Daily Telegraph:
Every teenager is likely to face a criminal record check under plans for all young people to take part in compulsory community service.
The Government has pledged that all 16 to 18 year olds will complete 50 hours of community work as part of its move to raise the school leaving age.
In the speech announcing the plan, which will be a Labour manifesto pledge, Gordon Brown specifically mentioned that teenagers would make a difference by “helping in an old people’s home or tutoring younger pupils”.
But under the Government’s strict new vetting regime, anyone over the age of 16 working with children or vulnerable adults will have to start registering with the new Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) from November next year.
November 29th, 2009 at 07:54
Don’t know whether it is slapdashed reporting or yet again more stupidity on the part of the government, but how can ‘voluntary work’ be compulsory? Also, it would appear that refusing to be CRB checked would be an easy way of getting out of it.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:13
When I was a teenager, I was pretty obstreperous. Nothing changes, eh? Refusing to be CRB checked is exactly what I would have done if I had faced this situation. A mass refusal is what is needed here and the scheme becomes unworkable.