Sir, We believe that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill is a misguided response to a small number of tragic, but fortunately rare, incidents involving the abuse of children. The Bill will mean that up to a third of the adult working population — those who come into contact with children through their work or volunteering — will be subject to continuous criminal-records vetting. This could include babysitters and private tutors, as well as those who merely have access to information about children. The massive expansion of vetting is driven by suspicion and paranoia. The Criminal Records Bureau has already carried out ten million checks since 2002, and it is now common practice to vet anybody from 16-year-olds teaching younger kids to read, to parents helping out in school, to the visitors to foster carers’ homes.

Such child protection procedures do little to protect children from the small number of individuals who would do them harm. Instead, they damage adult-child relations and undermine the capacity of adults to contribute to children’s welfare. Vetting calls into question the informal ways adults in a community collaborate in rearing children: from the local enthusiast running a football team, to the volunteer who helps out at school. Adults become more concerned with covering their backs than passing on their insights to the next generation.

Children become a “no-go” area: local sports teams and youth groups are struggling to find volunteers; some teachers are scared to put a plaster on a child’s knee; and there are worrying cases of adults passing by injured or endangered children. We call for a more rational approach to adult-child interactions.

JOSIE APPLETON,
co-ordinator of the Manifesto Club and author of The Case against Vetting

JOHNNY BALL,
children’s television presenter and mathematician

FAY WELDON,
author

EILEEN MUNRO,
Reader in Social Policy,
London School of Economics

HEATHER PIPER,
educational researcher,
Manchester Metropolitan University

ED STRAW,
former chairman of Relate

PROFESSOR SIMON WESSELY,
Institute of Psychiatry,
King’s College London

PROFESSOR BILL JORDAN,
School of Applied Psychosocial Studies,
University of Plymouth

JOHN FITZPATRICK,
lawyer and academic

DR BRIAN SHELDON,
Emeritus Professor of Applied Social Research,
University of Exeter

FRANK FUREDI,
Professor of Sociology,
University of Kent

JIM CAMPBELL,
Lord Mayor of Oxford

STUART WAITON,
director, Generation Youth Issues

PETER WILD,
head of Behaviour Support Service,
Birmingham

ROBERT HANN,
coach, Sligo Olympic Handball Association

DAVID GREEN,
director, Civitas

CLAIRE FOX,
director, Institute of Ideas

MARY KENNY,
writer and journalist

KATE COPSTICK,
former Playschool presenter

JUDITH GILLESPIE,
Scottish Parent Teacher Council

PROFESSOR RAYMOND TALLIS,
physician and writer

COUNCILLOR RUSSELL EAGLING,
London Borough of Camden

BARB JUNGR,
singer

BILL DURODIE,
Senior Lecturer in Risk and Security,
Cranfield University

CHRIS WOODHEAD,
former Chief Inspector of Schools.

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