SafeguardingVulnerable Groups Act (2006) [Updated April 2008]
Background
After the tragic events in Soham, the Government appointed Sir Michael Bichard to head an inquiry into the failings of the vetting procedures that allowed Ian Huntley to take a role in a school, despite having been brought to the attention of the authorities on a number of previous occasions concerning incidents with minors.
The resulting document, The Bichard Report, made wide-reaching recommendations for improvements to the Disclosure service and the various data sources the service relies upon. The Government accepted the report's recommendations and introduced legislation to enable them to be implimented. This became the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 which received the Royal Assent becoming law on November 8th 2006. There is no commencement date (when the law becomes active) set as yet.
Independent Safeguarding Authority
A key aspect of the Act is the formation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority - ISA (originally referred to in the legislation as the Independent Barring Board - IBB).
The following points reflect our understanding of the role and associated processes of the ISA as at 17th September 2007 following attendance at one of their "roadshow" presentations. The points apply to paid or unpaid roles.
- Anybody working in a regulated activity will need to be registered with the ISA.
- Regulated activities include :-
- Any activity which includes contact with children or vulnerable adults and is of a specified nature e.g. teaching, training, coaching, care, supervision, advice, treatment or transport .....frequently*, intensively* or overnight
- Any activity allowing contact with children or vulnerable adults in a specified place, e.g. schools, carehomes, hospitals ...., frequently* or intensively*
- Fostering and childcare
- Certain defined positions of responsibility, e.g. school governor, director of social services, trustees of certain charities (i.e. those aimed to benefit children or vulnerable adults)
* Frequently is yet to be fully defined but it is anticipated that this will be more than once a month
* Intensively is taking place on 3 or more days in a 30 day period
- The registration process will include applying for the equivalent of an Enhanced Disclosure through the CRB (though the ISA application form is likely to be a little different to the current CRB form) who will pass any content to the ISA.
- As with Enhanced Disclosures, applications can only be made through Registered Bodies and must be supported by proof of identity & proof of address documentation.
- Based on the input from the CRB (and potentially other sources as yet unspecified) the ISA will decide whether the applicant is suitable to work with children and/or vulnerable adults
- Where there is no recorded information or the ISA are satisfied that the individual poses no threat to children or vulnerable adults they will issue the applicant with an ISA registration number.
- Where the ISA are of the opinion that the applicant is unsuitable to work with children or vulnerable adults they will decline to issue a registration number and include the applicant's name on the "barred lists". The legislation dictates that there will be two separate lists; one for working with children and another for working with vulnerable adults.
- There will be 3 levels of inclusion on the barred lists :-
- Automatic barring - no right of appeal
- Automatic inclusion - barred immediately, but with the right to appeal to be removed from the list & a registration number issued.
- Discretionary bar - consideration for barring, but with the right to make representations prior to a final decision
- Barred individuals will be committing a criminal offence if they undertake any regulated activity
- Organisations placing people in regulated roles will be committing a criminal offence if they do so without checking that the person is registered with the ISA.
- Registration checks can be made freee of charge by accessing a new ISA web site (to be developed) and inputting the person's details (including their ISA registration number)
- Registration checks will also be possible by private individuals who wish to receive personal services that qualify as a regulated activity e.g. nannies, tutors, carers etc., though there will be no legal requirement for them to do so and the scheme will not cover informal or private arrangements within families.
Once an individual is registered with the ISA they will be monitored and should their barred status change the ISA will notify those organisations who have chacked their registration via the web site. Hence ISA registration will be like having a licence as opposed to the current CRB Disclosure which is simply a check against the records at a moment in time.
Still to be Determined
Introducing ISA registration for an estimated (by the ISA) 11 million people is not going to happen overnight and without some problems. Hopefully the lessons learned from the introduction of CRB Disclosures will avoid the same problems reocurring, but this is the biggest scheme of its kind in the world and there are still process decisions to be made.
The roadshow did cover the points below, although for most the details are not yet known :-
Checking ISA registration vs. obtaining a Disclosure
Although the application process to register with the ISA is very similar to that for a Disclosure, our understanding (currently being checked) is that a Disclosure document will not be issued, only an ISA registration number.
Checking the ISA registration against their database will only confirm that an individual is not barred from undertaking regulated activities. It will not confirm an individual's response to the question "Do you have any criminal convictions?" To do this an employer will still need to obtain a Disclosure in the same way that they do today.
When the ISA (IBB) was first announced it was anticipated that the ability to monitor registered persons should, over time, significantly reduce the number of Enhanced Disclosure applications. However over recent months we have detected a change in the stance of the ISA and employers may still need to obtain a Disclosure as well for their own purposes.
We suspect that the ISA is finding it difficult to decide where to "set the bar" for dictating that people are unsuitable to work with children or vulnerable adults. Setting the standard too high could affect many people currently in roles that are included in the legislation, but give minimal direct access to vulnerable groups; whilst setting it too low could put the same vulnerable groups at risk.
Trying to create a "one size fits all" standard for such diverse roles as foster caring and fixing a window in a school is not easy, and we could see a hybrid solution where the bar is set high for those definitely barred, with marginal cases being left to individual employers to decide in the context of the role they are offering. To do this they will need input which will require a Dislcosure, although combination of a Basic Disclosure and a check of ISA registration should cover everything most employers need to make an employment decision.
Perhaps this will prompt the CRB to intoduce Basic Disclosures at last.
Costs
On April 1st 2008 the ISA announced that the cost to register will be £28.00 in addition to the Enhanced Disclosure fee, currently £36. It should be noted that an individual is generally only required to register with the ISA once, whereas the CRB fee is paid every 3 years or each time they take up a role with an organisation.
It has been confirmed that no registration fee will apply to volunteers (as per the current CRB definition), though should somebody register with the ISA as a volunteer they would be required to pay the fee if they subsequently applied for a paid role. (Whether they would also have to pay the CRB fee and how the money would be collected is not clear at this time)
Transition
The ISA well recognises that they will not cope if everybody (potentially 11 million people) tries to register on day 1. Their aim is to phase the introduction of registration starting on 12th October 2009 with those who have not previously had a Disclosure.
However, who applies for registration and when is not within the ISA's control so inevitably there will be a bottleneck at the beginning, if only due to the settling in of new processes and staff. At the moment the transition plans are not known, but it is anticipated that it will take 2-3 years to register those that are currently eligible.
Undoubtedly the ISA will publicise the need to register and many people who are currently not eligible to apply for a Disclosure i.e. the self-employed, will feel a commercial imperative to register immediately. We will be watching closely and as soon as the ISA makes any announcement on the transition we will formulate and make a recommendation to client organisations.
Reporting of Inappropriate Behaviour
Under the SVG Act there will be a responsibility on employers who place people in controlled roles to report any incidents involving children or vulnerable adults where disciplinary action is taken (or would have been taken had the individual concerned not resigned) against an employee. Employers who are currently regulated i.e. by the ICSC have a statutory duty to report such incidents and other organisations are strongly encouraged to do so.
Information referred in this way will be considered by the ISA when deciding if an individual should be barred.
ISA notification of a change of status
When an organisation checks the ISA registration of an individual, the fact that they have done so will register their interest in that individual so that they can be notified if the registered status changes; either by the ISA deciding to bar the individual or the individual voluntarily suspending their registration e.g retiring.
How the ISA intends to notify the organisation is not yet known, nor is how they intend to maintain the accuracy of their contact data.
Even with the law being passed in November 2006 there are still many unanswered questions at this stage, which probably explains why the launch has slipped to October 2009. We will keep this section updated as we learn more.
In the meanwhile it is "business as usual" with the existing Disclosure service.
Last Updated 4th April 2008