High Peak Liberal DemocratsHigh Peak Liberal Democrats have received the following letter from Fair Play for Children
Dear Reader
I am writing to you on a matter I know will concern you, ensuring that people who want to work or volunteer with children are not going to harm them.
Currently, those who have committed specified criminal offences involving children and young people are prevented by law from seeking to work with them and from working with them. This is a long-established principle.
The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 created a Barring List onto which such convicted offenders were placed automatically as a result of being convicted employers would then have to check the Barring List before offering a job and could not employ the person if barred.
That seemed to us sensible and based on hard lessons learned. However, the Coalition Government has introduced the Protection of Freedoms Bill and one part of it seeks to scale back the vetting and barring scheme set up in the 2006 Act to allegedly common senselevels.
A major component of this is Clause 66 of the Bill which would, if enacted, change that above procedure being placed on the Barring List on conviction to a proposal that the convicted offender would only be placed on the Barring List if s/he applied for a job working with children and young people. This, it is argued, will keep the vetting list to proportionate levels.
Frankly, we have told Parliament as the Bill is scrutinsed that this proposal is not based on evidence, that childrens rights include child protection and that we believe a majority of people will be very alarmed, for good reason, at such a proposal. Our view is that, if there are X number of such offenders, then X of them should be barred immediately they are convicted, so that it is crystal clear to employers at the outset who is barred rather than having to wait whilst a barring is considered. Convicted offenders will know, too, there is no loophole where they can wheedle their way past the law.
To back our concern, we have advised Parliament that although abusers in professional and voluntary situations form just 6.2% of offenders, they may well account for over half of all child victims.
We are so concerned that we have put a short Poll on our website home page which asks your views on this issue.
You are invited and urged to visit our Home Page at www.fairplayforchildren.org and to take the Poll.
We will ensure the Government and Parliament are made aware of the result.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Children's safety will depend on us getting this issue right.
Yours sincerely
Jan Cosgrove Mr
National Secretary
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