Hello everyone
An organisation that works with children that I am involved with in a
voluntary capacity is now jumping through the latest set of hoops on child
protection. I am forwarding part of the text of a recent email as they and I
would like to know how far any of you Gemmers out there (particularly those
of you who are self employed because this will cost you extra money) are
aware of what is going on and what actions your own organisations are
taking. It seems to me that the implications of this are huge (likely to
affect 11million people!) and neither is it clear cut about voluntary staff
either. It may even affect whether or not parents are allowed to stay to
sessions when other children are unaccompanied. I don't want people to panic
but just wonder how far down the food chain this is being thought about and
actioned .....
Towse Harrison
Message reads:
I'm e-mailing to let you know about a new body that
> will begin operating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in October
> 2009; Scotland is currently setting up its own similar service.
>
> You may think that October 2009 is a long way away and why on earth am
I
> bothering you about it now?! Well, potentially there could be some
> changes for the way volunteering (and paid employment for those in
> certain roles) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland works (and
> Scotland later on) and I felt it was important to give you an idea
about
> things as early on as possible.
>
> The new service is called the Independent Safeguarding Authority, or
ISA
> for short. They have a website which can be found at:
> http://www.isa-gov.org.uk/ The service is a result of the Bichard
> Enquiry which was set up after the Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman
> tragedy. The ISA have a legal remit set down in 'The Safeguarding
> Vulnerable Groups Act 2006' and the scheme will have new legal
> implications for all those working with children or vulnerable adults.
>
> As the scheme is still at the formulation/setting up stage, many of
the
> in-depth details of how the scheme will work etc are still being
ironed
> out. However, we are likely to be defined by them as a 'regulated
> activity' which will mean that people will need to be registered with
> the ISA in order to volunteer with young people. Registrations for
> volunteers will be free and applying for
> registration with ISA will be done through the Criminal Records Bureau
> (CRB) form; they're currently designing a new form! The scheme is
going
> to be administered by the CRB but ISA registration, unlike Disclosure
> checks, will be portable and will also not need to be renewed once you
> have signed up. CRB checks will continue to be done alongside the
> registration scheme. It is anticipated that it will take five years
for
> the ISA scheme to be fully operational and it will cover at least 11
> million people.
>
> At the moment I don't want to burden people with details but it is
> important that people recognise that ISA registration is going to be a
> legal requirement with which we must comply. We are currently looking
> at all the details - and waiting for more in-depth details from the
ISA
> - and we will of course keep you up-to-date with what is going on. At
> the moment I would be really interested to know how many people have
> heard of the ISA scheme and how many people have been told that they
> will need to be registered due to their paid employment or other
> voluntary roles that they do. If you've heard nothing then don't
worry,
> it's just so we can gauge what other organisations have told people so
> far.
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