May suspends launch of vetting and barring scheme, pending wholesale review

The Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that the government will suspend the introduction of the vetting and barring scheme – which was set to begin next month – and launch a review of the programme with the aim of scaling back the “draconian” regime.

The scheme was developed by the previous government in response to the the murders of two schoolgirls in Soham and would have required up to nine million adults working with children and vulnerable adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to register. Registration was due to begin on 26 July.

The government's review is set to significantly reduce the scope of the scheme to what May described as “common sense” levels.

May told the BBC: "You were assumed to be guilty until you were proven innocent, and told you were able to work with children. All sorts of groups out there were deeply concerned about this and how it was going to affect them. There were schools where they were very concerned that foreign exchanges could be finished as a result of this, parents were worried about looking after other people's children after school."

The Independent Safeguarding Authority, which was set to run the vetting and barring scheme, will continue to maintain existing lists of people barred from working with children and vulnerable adults and make decisions about barring inappropriate people from jobs, while the existing requirements for criminal record checks will still apply. The measures to expand the scope of checks on people working with children and vulnerable adults introduced in October last year, remain in place.

It remains a criminal offence for barred individuals to apply to work with children or vulnerable adults in the wider range of posts introduced in October 2009. Employers also face criminal sanctions for knowingly employing a barred individual across a wider range of work and the two new barred lists administered by the ISA (which replaced the three previous barring lists: POVA, POCA and List 99) will remain. Checks of these two lists can be made as part of an Enhanced CRB check.

Additional jobs and voluntary positions are covered by the barring arrangements introduced in October 2009, including moderators of children's internet chat rooms, and a large number of NHS staff. Employers, local authorities, professional regulators and inspection bodies have a duty to refer to the ISA any information on an individual working with the vulnerable where they consider them to have caused harm or pose a risk.5.  The latest information on the VBS can be found at www.direct.gov.uk/vetting or www.businesslink.gov.uk/vbs.

Dai Durbridge, a safeguarding expert at Browne Jacobson solicitors said that whilst the review is a major step, it was questionable whether it goes far enough.

He said: “There is little doubt that the registration requirements impacted upon too many people, but the management of the information held by the ISA and its role in barring individuals also requires review.

“A failure to automatically tell employers when their staff are barred and an extremely low threshold for when employers are under a legal obligation to refer conduct to the ISA are of serious concern to employers.”

Durbridge added: “If a review of the process is to be undertaken at all, then a full and thorough review of all aspects of the ISA’s role is in order.”