What are Private Arrangements?
The ISA, like the CRB, was created to ensure people undertaking roles that gave them access to children or vulnerable adults have no known (to official bodies) history that makes them unsuitable for that role.
It was not created to be a barrier against people making non-commercial arrangents between themselves or occasionally doing favours for parents or carers through “private arrangements”.
So what is a private arrangement?
The best way to explain this is probably through examples :-
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If a parent asks their neighbour to take their children to school, that is a private arrangement between the two and the neighbour does not have to be ISA registered
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If the school asks the neighbour to take the same children to school as their mother is ill, then as a one-off event the neighbour does not have to be ISA registered.
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If the school asks the neighbour to take the children to school band practice on Saturday mornings, then the neighbour would have to be ISA registered as that would give them access to the children frequently, i.e. 4 or more times a month
So in this example the obvious solution is for the travel arrangements to be made as a private arrangement between the parent and the neighbour. The school can act to put parties together, but should make it clear they are not endorsing the neighbour as a suitable person for the role, leaving the parent to decide if they are happy to put their children in the neighbour's care for the duration of the journey.
Of course if the neighbour is offering a public service of transporting children to school, paid or unpaid, then they must be ISA registered if they do so frequently or intensively (irrespective of whetthere they are transporting the same children each time)
Another sort of service is the village doctor/hospital run. Many villages have a group of car-owners who between them will ensure that those with no transport can get to the doctors or a hospital appointment in the local town. More often than not the person accepting the lift qualifies as “vulnerable” in that they are receiving medication, the purpose of the journey is related to that treatment and the driver is aware that they have a condition. Whether the drivers need to be ISA registered is a bit more tricky in this example, as it depends on who is organising the service. If there is an organisation with its own legal status, such as the Parish Council or Village Hall Committee, that runs the scheme and appoints the divers to the role, then that organisation should check that those drivers are ISA registered. However, if it is a private individual with no other status (such as a sole trader, partner) who is simply telling the vulnerable adult that Jim Brown is offering to take people to town on Tuesday, then it becomes a private arrangement between the vulnerable adult and Jim Brown, so Jim doesn't need to be ISA registered.
Of course, as in the previous example, if Jim is a taxi driver and offers a service then he will be registered through the local authority taxi licensing scheme.
Dance schools often put on concerts and enlist the help of parents to help out. This is another tricky one that may need some organising, but essentially if the parents are attending to their own children then they don't have to be ISA registered. If they are looking after other people's children at the request of the parents of those children, that is a private arrangement between the parents and they don't need to be ISA registered. However if they are looking after other people's children on behalf of the school then they become a chaperone and do need to be ISA registered if they undertake that role for a period of 4 or more days in any 30 day period (= intensively) or more than once a week on an ongoing basis (= frequently) or overnight. Likewise if the parent helper is doing a specific task, say makeup, with all/any children then they need to be ISA registered, subject to the aforementioned timescales applying.
This may be a bit of a dilemma for large productions as it would be mayhem backstage if every child had a parent with them, so it may be preferable for the school to ask a small number of parent helpers to act as chaperones, in which case they would need to be ISA registered if they undertook the role frequently or intensively (as defined above).
Scouts, Guides, Cubs and the like will all be affected and leaders will need to be ISA registered, as will regular helpers. Guest helpers who teach a specific skill now and then will not need to be ISA registered provided they do not attend more than twice a month.
Events that involve an overnight stay require some thought. Many junior sports clubs have annual tours or away games and parents are often enlisted to help out. If the club is organising the trip, parents who have access to children (other than their own) overnight will need to be ISA registered, but if they stay in separate accommodation (different building) that will not be necessary. Transport arrangements have already been covered.
Clubs that are concerned about parent helpers having to be ISA registered may decide to only arrange the fixtures and tell parents that it is their responsibility to arrange for their children to be at the meeting point (which could coincidentally be a hotel). Parents would make private arrangements with other parents over transport and overnight care so that each attending parent was responsible for specific children in their care and only the coach(es) would have access to all children, assuming they were staying in the same place.
In short, if an organisation or other legal entity places an individual in a role where they will have frequent, intensive or overnight access to children or vulnerable adults as part of that role, the Act requires that the organisation takes steps to ensure that the individual doesn't have a known history of abusing such positions. Those steps are to ensure that the individual is registered with the ISA.
Where a parent, guardian or carer is asking another individual to do something for them relating to their children or ward, that is a private arrangement between the two and the individual does not need to be ISA registered.