A new report by the Manifesto Club shows how Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are undermining teenage volunteers.

The report reveals that over seven hundred and thirty thousand (730,164) under 18-year olds have been CRB checked since 2002:

Teenagers who volunteered to help children to read in their local school were placed under suspicion, and required to undergo CRB checks.

Other under 18s were checked when volunteering to work as lifeguards, or to offer coaching support to younger children in sport.

Teenagers interviewed for the report, Vetting under-18s - An education in Mistrust, found CRB checks perplexing and insulting.

One young person whose mother works as a childminder and was vetted just before he turned 16, said:

'It was baffling. Why when we were 15 was it ok to be in the house, but as soon as we turned 16, it was not? There was a shift from trust to no trust.'

A former sixth form volunteer, who was vetted in order to help out at a local primary school, said:

'The students thought it was ridiculous that they had to be checked before going back to a school - especially since they'd been a school pupil themselves only a couple of months earlier.'

The report, by Manifesto Club convenor Josie Appleton, asks:

'What signal does it send young people when their first adult act is to be checked to see that they are not a paedophile? At the cusp of adulthood they are declared a potential risk to others, and in need of monitoring by the state.'

As a result of these CRB check requirements, many schools may be forced to cut volunteering programmes for sixth formers.

The Manifesto Club calls for a halt in vetting of under-18s, and for a review of vetting policy as a whole.

Josie Appleton argues:

'It is a sick society that CRB checks a young person at 16. But the vetting of under-18s only reveals even more starkly the mistrustful assumptions on which the Independent Safeguarding Authority and the new Vetting Database are premised - the equation of 'adult' with 'potential abuser' until proven otherwise. The vetting database needs to be scrapped.'

Ends.

Notes to editors:

1. The report, Vetting under-18s - An education in Mistrust, is published on Tuesday 8 December. For a preview copy of the report, contact Josie Appleton by email or call +44 (0)779 1032740.

2. The Manifesto Club has been campaigning against the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act since October 2006, when it launched a petition signed by individuals including Fay Weldon, Johnny Ball and Alan Sillitoe, and hundreds of volunteers, parents and concerned adults.

3. The Manifesto Club campaigns against the Hyperregulation of Everyday Life.