The Independent Safeguarding Authority – Whatever the Cost?
Posted: September 12th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: Editorial, human rights | Tags: child protection, Independent Safeguarding Authority, ISA, The Children's Society, VBS, Vetting and Barring Scheme | 1 Comment »The Children’s Society believes that the potential benefits of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) outweigh its costs:
It is not a knee-jerk reaction provoked by media hype and moral panic. Nor do I agree that it would produce more social evil than it is seeking to prevent. This is about preventing unsuitable people from working with children and vulnerable adults.
After the horrendous Soham case, we should all see this practical and down-to-earth scheme as a positive development, as it is designed to improve significantly the flow of valuable information. We have learned over many years now that there are adults, albeit a small proportion, who deliberately seek ways of gaining access to children in order to abuse them.
This is not a wild surmise. The figures back it up. For example, in January 2009, the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) took over responsibility for receiving referrals from employers who had been alerted to concerns about the behaviour of people working with children and vulnerable adults. There have been 500-600 referrals every month. Surely, in the light of those figures, any parent would want to know that the person who is taking their child to a football match, the Girl Guides or Cubs had been checked out?
Bob Reitemeier’s argument doesn’t make sense. It most certainly is a knee-jerk reaction provoked by moral panic. It’s already been determined that if the relevant (and pre-CRB) checks had been done, that Ian Huntley would never have come into contact with Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. To set up a super-bureaucracy to prevent ‘unsuitable people’ from working with children and vulnerable adults is then just an exercise in futility. As I’ve argued before it will have limited, if any, success, it will make genuine abuse much more difficult to detect, and because the ISA is allowed to make barring decisions based on heresay, it will undermine the rule of law. Reitemeier suggests the ISA is already a success because there have been 500-600 referrals a month. So what? When those referrals could all be malicious, bogus or not even covered by the ISA’s remit, how can he claim there really are hundreds of paedophiles out there, trying to access children? It’s an appalling, irresponsible position to take. Are those 500-600 people then automatically barred from working with children and vulnerable adults? Should it be alright to bar someone from the workplace based on evidence which wouldn’t be admissible in court, or is it really worth sacrificing hundreds or even thousands of people’s careers to the altar of child ‘protection’?
His final line: ‘what would I want for my child’ raises the stakes. I personally would want my child to be taught how to risk assess for themselves, to acknowledge that all risk in public and private can never be prevented (and certainly not by a bureaucracy) and for workplaces I allowed my child (or elderly parent or autistic elder brother) near to have their own child protection policies, and make fair, measured decisions based on individuals and situations they know. An employer with a employee doing work they have been ‘barred’ from faces a fine of £5000, even if the ISA’s decision is wrong or unfair. I wouldn’t want my child to live under the illusion of protection, and certainly not at the cost of a single innocent adult’s life.
The Independent Safeguarding Authority should be abolished.
Tags: child protection, Independent Safeguarding Authority, ISA, The Children's Society, VBS, Vetting and Barring Scheme
Related posts:
- Supreme Court Attacks Independent Safeguarding Authority The UK Supreme Court has spoken out against the Independent...
- Independent Safeguarding Authority Head Patronises His Opponents Sir Roger Singleton, the government-appointed head of the Independent Safeguarding...
- The Independent Safeguarding Authority ‘Puts Children at Risk’ Childline founder Esther Rantzen has attacked the Independent Safeguarding...
- The ISA Grows in Scope Already People have said there was no problem with the Independent...
- The ISA Fails Before It Starts The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) was set up following...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Ooooooh….. I’m shaking with anger at this one! Apologies for repetition of the sentiments of ‘admin’ above.
“There have been 500-600 referrals every month. Surely, in the light of those figures, any parent would want to know that the person who is taking their child to a football match, the Girl Guides or Cubs had been checked out?”
Fair enough… and what they are very careful to conceal from the general public is whether the 500-600 referrals per month are the result of a relevant conviction or caution that carries automatic barring; or whether they are because the referred person has been discharged from their employer/volunteer body. It also doesn’t specify the number of people that are actually barred from working with children as a result of those referrals – merely those whose names were put forward for consideration.
It also fails to mention that the reasons for referral to the ISA are not clear and vary wildly between individual organisations. Effectively, (and from my personal experience) what is acceptable in one organisation (even if only marginally permissable) could be an out-and-out sin in another organisation, even though they both have very similar remits.
Also, there STILL seems to be far too much spin on the “…horrendous Soham case…” – it’s been shown again, and again, and again that the systems in place way back in 2002 *COULD* have stopped Ian Huntley had they been effectively implemented by various groups of people.
I stress the word COULD because that still would not have prevented the *actual* situation that arose and allowed Ian Huntley access to those poor children whom he subsequently killed… they had gone to visit their teaching assistant Maxine Carr (Ian Huntley’s girlfriend)… but she was not at home.
OK – I accept that Ian Huntley was known to the police prior to him committing that awful crime… the nub of my point is that the only effective preventative measure would have been to bar Maxine Carr from working with kids, as well as Ian Huntley… is that really possible? Bar someone’s employment solely on the basis of who they choose to associate themselves with? Come on… surely not!?
And another thing “…see this practical and down-to-earth scheme as a positive development, as it is designed to improve significantly the flow of valuable information.”
Oh my God… are they really going to get away with that lie? Read on, please…
Is it really practical and down to earth that I have been waiting for over TWELVE MONTHS to find out whether they are going to bar my employment…. after I’ve already been cleared of all wrongdoing by the police?
Is it practical and down to earth that there is no real evidential basis to the scheme… that other people’s supposition and hearsay is apparently enough the get you slapped on a barred list?
Is it practical and down to earth, that whilst the ISA are considering my case (which (I am told), is highly unlikely to result in a bar on my employment) there is no restriction on my working with children? What about in the case of those who DO pose a REAL risk?
Is it practical and down to earth that the strength of evidence required to destroy someone’s life by being placed on a barred list is lower than that required to secure a criminal conviction?
I could go on and on and on; but I’d be repeating what I’ve posted elsewhere.
It would seem that the real reason behind the inception of the ISA is to furnish the government and other official bodies with a get-out-of-jail-free card, and prevent harm from coming their reputations, when the next preventable case of child abuse/murder is reported.
What they fail to see, is that their actions follow in the footsteps (albeit at a corporate level) of many sociology experiements which show that people will protect themselves from *harm* regardless of the consequences to others (in this sense, I take harm to mean the degradation of their reputation through barring by the ISA).
So… translate this to a larger scale and it’s not hard to see that if the numbers of people who are barred starts to increase in a manner that seems neither logical nor just, it will massively impact on the number of people willing to volunteer… the more people who are unreasonably barred, the more likely it is that it could be you who finds yourself in that position… it’s simple logic that people will not put themselves into a position where there is an increasing chance that this could happen; especially when referrals to the ISA are virtually unchallengable.
Therefore, I disagree completely with those who say that this scheme will not have a negative impact on the numbers of volunteers. In fact, I counter that argument and say that it almost certainly will. Especially since those in the voluntary sector enjoy little, if any support and protection of their position either by statute (other than ECHR) or by trade union representation.
Not only that, those who may choose what I would consider noble, yet ailing and ”vulnerable’ professions as their vocation (e.g nurses, social workers, teachers etc.) will certainly see this increaseing paedo-paranoia as another risk to entering that profession, and thus look elsewhere for easier, more rewarding (and often, better paid) employment.
The words of the parliamentary under-secretary for the DCSF, when interviewed in 2007 about the (then) proposed ISA are ringing in my ears: “the changes we are introducing will ensure we have the toughest ever system to protect the most vulnerable in our society. But alongside that we also need to make sure we introduce a system that is both fair and just”
Without me going into any more detail than I already have; how wrong did he get it?