There's no price too high for safeguarding our children, or You know your policy is wrong when...

As a general rule, the Daily Mail sits somewhere north of Adolf Hitler on the Political Compass, exhibiting an appalling authoritarian streak. As a corrollary of that general rule, if the Daily Mail thinks you have gone too far, you have gone far too far. Yet the Daily Mail is squarely among those decrying the implementation of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.

That Act establishes procedures for monitoring people carrying out “prescribed activities” in connection with children and vulnerable adults, and procedures for barring certain people from doing so. The problem is that this scheme – like so much New Labour legislation – involves a redundant layering on top of existing safeguards, causes an exponential expansion of the number of people and types of activities involved, and is fundamentally and blatantly flawed.

The driver behind the Act was the murder of two school children by the caretaker of their school, Ian Huntley. After the event, question were rightly asked about how Huntley, an individual “known to police”, specifically to Humberside Police, in connection with a number of alleged sexual offences. The case exposed serious weaknesses in the ways police forces shared information, and also problems – largely relating to data protection, or more accurately the way it was interpreted by the police – with the ways police forces provided information to other interested parties, such as schools.

There was of course already a body which existed to provide such safeguards – the Criminal Records Bureau. Any person applying for certain types of role (including teachers) had to pass an enhanced criminal records check. Yet in the case of Ian Huntley no adverse information had come up.

You might assume the solution was to simply change the CRB system, but not if you are a New Labour government enamoured of gestures.

The government’s solution was to create the Independent Safeguard Authority, and to require any person engaged in specified activities to be vetted. The devil, as ever, is in the detail.

Here’s a list of “regulated activities” in connection with children:

(a) any form of teaching, training or instruction of children, unless the teaching, training or instruction is merely incidental to teaching, training or instruction of persons who are not children;
(b) any form of care for or supervision of children, unless the care or supervision is merely incidental to care for or supervision of persons who are not children;
(c) any form of advice or guidance provided wholly or mainly for children, if the advice or guidance relates to their physical, emotional or educational well-being;
(d) any form of treatment or therapy provided for a child;
(e) moderating a public electronic interactive communication service which is likely to be used wholly or mainly by children;
(f) driving a vehicle which is being used only for the purpose of conveying children and any person supervising or caring for the children pursuant to arrangements made in prescribed circumstances.

Much of the media attention to date has focused on the fact that any parent taking part in an organised scheme to provide transport – taking the primary school’s football team to a match for example – is likely to fall within the requirement of the act.

The reality is much more draconian. Point (b) – any form or care or supervision for children – covers any situation in which one adult temporarily looks after another’s children. Moreover, because the act is concerned with periodicity (how frequently an activity takes place) it catches a range of activities which do not happen often, but do happen regularly.

The Act will cover informal babysitting, people giving lifts to school, just about every type of voluntary activity involving children, and every Butlin’s Redcoat.

No doubt to prevent the most absurd consequences of this Act – grandparents hosting their grandchildren over night once having to register for monitoring – there is a saving provision.

58 Family and personal relationships

(1) This Act does not apply to any activity which is carried out in the course of a family relationship.
(2) This Act does not apply to any activity which is carried out–

(a) in the course of a personal relationship, and
(b) for no commercial consideration.

(3) A family relationship includes a relationship between two persons who–

(a) live in the same household, and
(b) treat each other as though they were members of the same family.

(4) A personal relationship is a relationship between or among friends.
(5) A friend of a person (A) includes a person who is a friend of a member of A’s family.
(6) The Secretary of State may by order provide that an activity carried out in specified circumstances either is or is not–

(a) carried out in the course of a family relationship;
(b) carried out in the course of a personal relationship.

This saving provision – saving in the sense of saving the Government’s blushes – in fact turns the act into a truly absurd gesture. The vast majority of physical and sexual abuse of children is not committed by strangers, or people in internet chatrooms, or even school caretakers. It is committed by family members and friends. Yet those family members and friends are exempted from monitoring by the Independent Safeguard Authority.

And even with this saving-the-blushes provision, it has been estimated that 25% of the adult population may theoretically be required to register and be monitored. The reality is most will never even consider the possibility, and it will be interesting to see whether the police give any priority to prosecuting technica
l breaches of the Act. I suspect a wave of cautions is more likely.

As with so many things the current government has done, this is a wonderful example of hysterical politicians saying “Something MUST be done! This is SOMETHING! We must do THIS!”

George Orwell – who would surely have died of more amused hysteria if confronted with some of today’s politics – famously noted that the names used by governments often invert the truth. The Independent Safeguard Authority is not in the league of the Ministry of Love, since whilst it is not providing a safeguard, it is excessively authoritarian, but it does fit nicely into an Orwellian view of government, in which everyone is monitored, watched, observed, and controlled.

Somebody needs to tell the Broon Eminence that 1984 wasn’t an instructional manual.