The system of CRB checks is still silly, but at least they've made it a little less silly. It now only affects people who work with kids at least once a week.
And, importantly for visiting authors, it has to be the same kids once per week. If each visit involves a different school and thus different children, you don't need to register, even if you visit schools several times a week.
Yay, progress! It is, of course, still silly. I don't work with kids, but I'm one of a number of black belts in a martial arts club - even though we're not instructors, we're figures of authority and we see the same kids twice a week. (Let alone all the other adults who train in the club...) Do all of us have to get CRB checked? Do we need to split the classes, and ne'er the twain shall meet? WTF? The system doesn't effectively protect children (the vast majority of abuse still happens within the family) and it makes it a lot more difficult to provide services which benefit children. ARGH! (Sorry - pet rant.)
I'm thinking of starting up classes for traditional English dance next year. I guess that means I'll have to pay the money to get checked - before I even know if any kids will be interested in learning...
It's probably only a matter of time - of course the whole thing is a big revenue-raising scam, essentially an innocence tax, where you have to pay your £64 or whatever to prove you're not a paedophile.
You'd think logically it has to end with the tax being applied to every on their 18th birthday...
There's no way it's a revenue-raising scheme, it's much too cheap for that, especially given that it's free for unpaid volunteers. I'd suspect they're making a loss on it, not raising revenue.
OTOH, some schools are goin the other way - such as Manor Community College in Cambridge, who reportedly are moving over to insist that *all* visitors be CRB checked- parents, decorators, delivery people...
Unfortunately once a week still will require most people who run socities, clubs, football games etc (or even help kids with tuition!) which are done on a regular basis, so it only helps occasional visitors eg authors.
Worst of all, the checks still allow the use of "soft information", ie gossip, malicious rumours, accusations (even when proven to be false) etc etc, so this is by no means a real fix for a piece of nonsense "something must be done" knee-jerk legislation from a government which has completely lost the plot.
You know, it may sound daft, but becasue I'm only tutoring on a free basis now, I'd totally failed to realise that I'm affected by this. I only see one kid, and I've known him for years.
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I'm thinking of starting up classes for traditional English dance next year. I guess that means I'll have to pay the money to get checked - before I even know if any kids will be interested in learning...
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(Anonymous) 2009-12-13 11:33 am (UTC)(link)Agreed it's a paperwork make work with no actual benefits and massive downsides - but that's never stopped bureaucracies before.
Don't worry about the rant, I suspect that we all have them - just try not to inflict them on others too often! (no I'm not counting!)
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You'd think logically it has to end with the tax being applied to every on their 18th birthday...
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Worst of all, the checks still allow the use of "soft information", ie gossip, malicious rumours, accusations (even when proven to be false) etc etc, so this is by no means a real fix for a piece of nonsense "something must be done" knee-jerk legislation from a government which has completely lost the plot.
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