Child abuse vetting scheme cancelled as 'draconian'

[#1]

[quote="Child abuse vetting scheme cancelled as 'draconian'"]
The vetting scheme for nine million people working with children and vulnerable adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has been halted.
Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that registration, due to begin next month, has been put on hold.
There will be a review of the entire vetting and barring scheme, with a scaling back to "common-sense levels".
Shadow Home Secretary Meg Hillier says the cancellation is a "knee-jerk reaction".
The government says the vetting scheme would have been "disproportionate and overly burdensome".

[#2]

Completely agree - it was all part of the "you are all paedophiles unless you prove otherwise"  culture
As a side issue - I wish people would stop using the description "draconian"  

Quote from: Plutarch

It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones.

[#3]

Quote from: Midnight

Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that registration, due to begin next month, has been put on hold. There will be a review of the entire vetting and barring scheme, with a scaling back to "common-sense levels". Shadow Home Secretary Meg Hillier says the cancellation is a "knee-jerk reaction".

The move by Theresa May is a good move.  As for the comment from Meg Hillier that seems like a case of the pot calling the kettle black

[#4]

It certainly does, artmo!

[#5]

[quote="How could these hysterical jobsworths assume my 80-year-old assistant was a danger to children"]
As soon as I walked into my office and found Jenny filling in a Criminal Records Bureau form, I knew we had a problem.
Jenny is nearly 80 years old. She had a distinguished academic career and has served the church blamelessly and conscientiously for all her adult life. Long retired, she sometimes helps out with the small Sunday school in the church next door.
Now, the rules require that she present herself at my office with her passport (in case of identity fraud), so that my chaplain can, on my behalf, authorise her CRB form.

[quote="Authors welcome halting of paedophile database"]
Philip Pullman, the children's author, has accused the Labour government of using the murders of two Soham schoolgirls in 2002 as a "scare story" to persuade the public that it was necessary to create a database of adults who work with minors.
Speaking to The Independent yesterday, Pullman said the vetting and barring scheme – which was developed in response to the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by the caretaker Ian Huntley – was a direct result of the former government's desperation to calm public hysteria whipped up by red-top newspapers.

[#6]

[quote="How could these hysterical jobsworths assume my 80-year-old assistant was a danger to children"]
As soon as I walked into my office and found Jenny filling in a Criminal Records Bureau form, I knew we had a problem.

I think the existing CRB checks are separate from the proposed vetting and recording scheme being discussed and are likely to continue. To be honest the CRB checks aren't necessarily such a bad thing as we do need some kind of vetting procedure on people working with minors, just not to the level that was being proposed.

[#7]

Yes CRB checks are different and will continue to be used.

[#8]

what about todays news is that OK?  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford_and_west_yorkshire/10323906.stm

[#9]

[quote="CRB checks 'deterring school volunteers'"]
Parents are refusing to work as volunteers in schools after being ordered to undergo criminal record checks, new figures suggest.
The number of adults volunteering to help out in nurseries and school reception classes has fallen by more than a third in just five years, it was disclosed.
Many parents have traditionally volunteered in schools to help read with young children, prepare snacks and tidy classrooms.
Teachers said the drop was prompted by the demands of parents' jobs coupled with the introduction of rules in 2002 forcing all adults to register with the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) before working with children.

[quote="Charities' £350m bill for criminal record checks on helpers and volunteers "]
Charities and voluntary groups have spent £350million carrying out criminal records checks on their helpers, it was revealed yesterday.
The money has gone on fees, form-filling and staff time as organisations devoted to tasks ranging from helping the elderly to arranging flowers in churches have struggled to comply with the growing demands of vetting law.
The price of bureaucratic checks on the backgrounds of four million people who volunteered to help others was set out for the first time in a report yesterday.
It found a growing revolt against criminal checks among helpers who say they have been put at the mercy of officialdom and made to feel like criminals themselves.
The study was compiled by the Manifesto Club which campaigns against what it calls the hyper-regulation of everyday life.
Spokesman Josie Appleton said: 'The regulation pressed on volunteers is completely out of proportion with the everyday nature of their activities  -  after all, they are just listening to children read or doing the crosswords with elderly people.