The Case Against Vetting: How the child protection industry is poisoning adult-child relations

PRESS RELEASE: 16 October 2006

On 16 October 2006 The Manifesto Club will publish its report:

The Case Against Vetting: How the child protection industry is poisoning adult-child relations

Since 2002, The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has carried out ten million checks on adults working with children, including everybody from parents helping out on school trips to football coaches; teenagers teaching younger kids to read or working as lifeguards.

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, currently going through parliament, will require a further 9.5 million adults (a third of all adults of working age) to be vetted.

People who work with children are now subject to more stringent criminal tests than those who sell explosives, or practice law.

This report is the first major attempt to scrutinise the impact of new child protection measures. It argues that the expansion in vetting does little to protect children, encourages mistrust amongst adults, and has led to a shortage of volunteers in sports clubs, after-school activities, school trips, and boy scouts and girl guide clubs up and down the country. A range of social work experts, academics, teachers, nursery workers, and high profile social commentators, have contributed to The Case Against Vetting.

The report publication will coincide with the publication of a letter in The Times (UK) outlining the problems with the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, and rejecting the proposed expansion of vetting. Signatories to the letter include:
Johnny Ball – children’s TV presenter and mathematician
Ed Straw – Vice President, Relate and government advisor on families
Dr Eileen Munro – social policy academic and expert on child welfare, LSE
Fay Weldon, writer
The Scottish Parent Teacher Council
Professor Simon Wesley – Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London
Kate Copstick, former Playschool presenter and journalist

Notes to Editors:
Details of the report are embargoed until 16 October 2006.
The Manifesto Club was initiated in January 2006 in London, with the aim of challenging cultural trends that restrain and stifle people’s freedom and trust. See www.manifestoclub.com
The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill will return to Parliament for a third reading during the week of 16 October 2006.
A full list of supporters will write a letter to The Times newspaper on 16 October 2006.
For information, advance copies of the report, or to arrange an interview with report authors, contributors or supporters, contact James Panton, Manifesto Club Press officer on 07811 955 739 or james.panton@politics.ox.ac.uk