Safeguarding review announced

The Government announced, on 15 June 2010, that "registration with the Vetting and Barring Scheme will be halted to allow the Government to remodel the scheme back to proportionate, common sense levels”.

Click here to read the Home Office press release.

Sport England welcomes the review.

We believe it is essential that children and young people get a good and safe start in sport. That’s how together we can build life long participation in sport. Equally, essential is the need for a simple, robust, fit for purpose approach to vetting which safeguards young people but keeps the administrative and financial burdens to a minimum. In particular, we are keen to see an end to multiple checks where an individual, coach or volunteer, works across a number of environments.

Although registration with the Vetting and Barring Scheme (due to begin from July 2010) will not now go ahead, the Independent Safeguarding Authority will continue to make barring decisions on individuals and to maintain the barring lists. The new safeguarding regulations introduced in October 2009 continue to apply. The Independent Safeguarding Authority advises that:

• Aperson who is barred from working with children or vulnerable adults will be breaking the law if they work or volunteer, or try to work or volunteer with those groups
  
• An organisation which knowingly employs someone who is barred to work with those groups will also be breaking the law
  
• If an organisation works with children or vulnerable adults and they dismiss a member of staff or a volunteer because they have harmed a child or vulnerable adult, or would have done so if they had not left, they must tell the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

So their advice, and that of the Child Protection in Sport Unit, is that organisations should continue to implement their existing safe recruitment processes, which should include CRB checks for relevant individuals and posts.