The obsession with vetting has gone too far

A survey by BBC Radio 5 Live has discovered that ‘68% of health trusts in the UK do not routinely run checks on staff who began work before the Criminal Records Bureau was set up’ – including staff who work with children.

But Josie Appleton, author of the Manifesto Club report 'The Case Against Vetting', argues:

· “The obsession with CRB checking has gone too far. The Radio 5 survey is talking about people – many of them women – who have worked in their positions for many years, and earned the trust of their colleagues. That trust counts for more than regular checks from a state bureaucracy.”

She continues:

· “The demand that retrospective checks be carried out on NHS staff is yet another ludicrous burden upon a cash-strapped NHS. Perhaps NHS trusts have failed to engage with the CRB bureaucracy because they were too busy with their actual responsibility – the provision of healthcare.”

Simon Wessely, Professor of Psychiatry at King's College London, and signatory to the Manifesto Club petition against the expansion of vetting, argues:

· “Vetting is a remarkably slow and cumbersome process – extending it will only make it worse. It is routine to appoint nurses, and they sit at home on full pay because their check hasn’t come through. People are blasé about vetting and regard it as a joke, and as a result they are much less likely to spot somebody who really is a danger. Vetting isn’t based on any risk assessment – we have to do it for secretaries. It is all part of a fear of things that are largely illusory, forgetting fears that are more real.”

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, which will bring in compulsory vetting of all those who work or volunteer with children, was introduced in response to the Soham murders. Yet vetting would not even have detected Soham murderer Ian Huntley – as Appleton points out:

· “Huntley did not come into contact with the girls he went on to murder through his work. As a result, a CRB check at work would have done nothing to prevent his meeting the girls. The way to safeguard children is to rely more on commonsense judgement – and to realise that the vast majority of adults are not a threat to children at all.”

Notes to Editors:

1. The Manifesto Club campaign, The Case Against Vetting, was launched in October 2006. Details of the campaign, the public petition and previous reports can be found at http://www.manifestoclub.com/hubs/vetting

2. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 will phase in from autumn 2008, and will make it a crime for an adult to work or volunteer with children without being CRB checked.

3. For information, or to arrange an interview, contact James Panton, Manifesto Club Press officer on 0779 279 5462 or press@manifestoclub.com