A letter to the editor of The Times - Monday 16th October

Sir, We believe that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill is a
misguided response to a small number of tragic, but fortunately rare,
incidents involving the abuse of children. The Bill will mean that up
to a third of the adult working population — those who come into
contact with children through their work or volunteering — will be
subject to continuous criminal-records vetting. This could include
babysitters and private tutors, as well as those who merely have access
to information about children. The massive expansion of vetting is
driven by suspicion and paranoia. The Criminal Records Bureau has
already carried out ten million checks since 2002, and it is now common
practice to vet anybody from 16-year-olds teaching younger kids to
read, to parents helping out in school, to the visitors to foster
carers’ homes.

Such child protection procedures do little to protect children
from the small number of individuals who would do them harm. Instead,
they damage adult-child relations and undermine the capacity of adults
to contribute to children’s welfare. Vetting calls into question the
informal ways adults in a community collaborate in rearing children:
from the local enthusiast running a football team, to the volunteer who
helps out at school. Adults become more concerned with covering their
backs than passing on their insights to the next generation.

JOSIE APPLETON,
co-ordinator of the Manifesto Club and author of The Case against Vetting

JOHNNY BALL, children’s television presenter and mathematician, FAY WELDON, author, EILEEN MUNRO, Reader in Social Policy, London School of Economics, HEATHER PIPER, educational researcher, Manchester Metropolitan University, ED STRAW, former chairman of Relate, PROFESSOR SIMON WESSELY, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, PROFESSOR BILL JORDAN, School of Applied Psychosocial Studies, University of Plymouth, JOHN FITZPATRICK, lawyer and academic, DR BRIAN SHELDON, Emeritus Professor of Applied Social Research, University of Exeter, FRANK FUREDI, Professor of Sociology, University of Kent, JIM CAMPBELL, Lord Mayor of Oxford, STUART WAITON, director, Generation Youth Issues, PETER WILD, head of Behaviour Support Service, Birmingham, ROBERT HANN, coach, Sligo Olympic Handball Association, DAVID GREEN, director, Civitas, CLAIRE FOX, director, Institute of Ideas, MARY KENNY, writer and journalist, KATE COPSTICK, former Playschool presenter, JUDITH GILLESPIE, Scottish Parent Teacher Council, PROFESSOR RAYMOND TALLIS, physician and writer, COUNCILLOR RUSSELL EAGLING, London Borough of Camden, BARB JUNGR, singer, BILL DURODIE, Senior Lecturer in Risk and Security, Cranfield University, CHRIS WOODHEAD, former Chief Inspector of Schools