Dear Colleagues,
Given how seriously those of us working in the cultural sector are taking
our responsibilities to children and vulnerable people, I found the
following posting (from another List I am on) rather disturbing. Not that
any failings on the part of government agencies or other sectors should
affect our own aims to achieve best practice.
Towse Harrison


Message reads:
For those of you who missed it, an interesting piece in last week's Observer
[NHS workers to escape criminal record checks]
www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,953518,00.html

Tens of thousands of people working with children in the NHS will not be
checked by police, in an attempt to ease the growing chaos at the Criminal
Records Bureau. At the same time, Ministers are preparing a
multi-million-pound bail-out of the agency and the controversial
private-sector contractor Capita that runs the CRB, The Observer has
discovered.
The Department for Education has already been forced to drop plans to vet
volunteer classroom helpers to ease a total backlog of 35,000 checks. Now
the Government has quietly introduced plans to ease into legislation on
foundation hospitals the obligation to run checks on new staff.
Paediatricians, specialist children's nurses, health visitors, midwives and
child psychologists working in the health service will all be affected.
NHS managers will now be able to employ staff without running checks, if
they have come from an agency or a previous employer where they believe
checks were in place.
Last November, the Home Office was forced to abandon checks on nursing home
and care home staff as the CRB proved unable to handle the demand.
'Enhanced' checks on people working closely with the most vulnerable in
society have proved more complicated than expected. The CRB has been forced
to concentrate on teachers' checks to avoid a repeat of last year's fiasco,
when schools across the country were forced to abandon the start of the
school year because the CRB had failed to deliver on time.
The CRB makes no money from 'enhanced' checks, which involve researching the
full background of potential employees, including the use of police
intelligence reports. Originally it was hoped that profits would be made
from 'basic' checks on the millions of people who change jobs every year.
These were due to be introduced this summer, but the Home Office has now
admitted that it has shelved basic checks indefinitely.
Ministers are now renegotiating the £450 million contract with Capita, which
stands to lose heavily on the CRB. Insiders say there is every chance that
the company will pull out altogether, leaving civil servants to pick up the
pieces.
Lord Falconer, the Home Office Minister responsible, is faced with two
options: asking Chancellor Gordon Brown to extend the five-year pay-back
period during which the CRB is expected to break even, or increasing the
fees for each check.
Given that the Treasury is believed to be furious about the chaos at the
CRB, it is likely that customers will be left to foot the bill. The Home
Office confirmed that the fees were being reviewed, but would not confirm
claims that they would have to rise from £12 to £35.
The Liberal Democrat MP Paul Burstow, who published a report on the CRB last
month, said: 'The CRB was set up as one of the pillars of our system for
safeguarding vulnerable people. Because of incompetence in setting it up...
it is letting down thousands of vulnerable people.'
Harry Fletcher of the probation union Napo said: 'I predicted four years ago
that the CRB would turn out to be a re-run of the Child Support Agency
fiasco and I am sad to say I been proved right.
'The Government has three options: a bail-out, a huge rise in fees for
organisations that can little afford it, or a further reduction in the
number of checks. Any way you look at it this is a disaster.'

Posted by Towse Harrison
SUN JESTER
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HISTORICAL INTERPRETERS
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