Home Office to Make £277m From ISA
Home Office minister Meg Hillier has revealed how much revenue will be raised by applications to the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA):
Home Office minister Meg Hillier said that the £277m of revenue expected in the scheme’s first three years is intended to cover the estimated costs of both the Vetting and Barring Scheme and the Criminal Records Bureau. She was responding to written parliamentary questions from James Brokenshire, her Conservative shadow counterpart.
The cost for each application will reflect the anticipated average cost of £64 for each application, she said. Some £28 of this will be the cost of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), which is responsible for running the scheme, and £36 for the services of the Criminal Records Bureau.
The fee is charged to people who apply for clearance to be allowed to work with organisations for children and vulnerable adults. Since 12 October last year people have been checked on a voluntary basis, but from June this year it will be compulsory.
Brokenshire also asked for an estimate of the number of people who are likely to be referred to the ISA because of fears that they pose a risk. The minister said that in the first year of operation this is estimated at 28,000.
So the biggest and most unnecessary bureaucracy in modern times has found a way to manage to pay for itself. What a shock. It’s fascinating that the only questions which are being asked of it in parliament are technical and budgetary. What about the immoral nature of the ISA? What about its surefire inability to detect genuine abuse of children and ‘vulnerable’ groups? What about the freedom the ISA has to bar people from specified work based on supposition and guesswork? What about the outrageous presumption the organisation makes, that everyone is a paedophile unless they can prove otherwise? What about the fact that no need has been demonstrated for this organisation even to exist? Alarm bells should be ringint that even now those aren’t the questions being asked by parliament.
The ISA must be abolished.
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Well well well… 28,000 people in the first year. Where on Earth has that number come from?
Assuming 249 working days per year (365-(weekends+public holidays)) = approximately 112 referrals – per day!
Now… the House of Lords have commented (January 2009) that referrals were “…running at about 200 per month…”
It’s beyond me to speculate… but; either someone’s got their numbers wrong, or they’re telling fibs.
Either way, it’s a complete nonsense!
This quango needs to go – NOW!