The Protection of Children Act 1999
Posted on Sunday, November 29th, 2009 in: Misc., Writing
I have always tried to be as non-political as I can when writing this blog, and on this matter in particular, will try and step as carefully as possible, since this is one of those cases where not only can I see both sides of the argument, but I don’t yet know enough about it, and the subject matter is entirely emotive.
I’ve been invited back to give a talk at my old school, which I left about 5 years ago, to a group of children attending as an arts festival thingy. I’ve given talks at dozens – possibly verging towards the hundreds – of schools in the UK and elsewhere, and naturally agreed because, you know, it’s my old school. The talk is scheduled to last 45 minutes on a day like any other in February, and my plan, as it stands, is to arrive, go in, say hello to the art teacher who taught me AS-Level Drama, and the mathematics teacher who I drew with when playing chess every Wednesday for 7 years. (Except for those rare and largely wiped-from-memory Wednesdays when he utterly trounced me.) I will then, under the beady eye of my old English teacher and, I suspect, a few others, give my talk to the children, and leave.
Now…
… for the first time in my life, I have been sent documentation to fill out under the Protection of Children Act 1999. I must go into my school and under the beady watchful eye of an employee, give over my passport, birth certificate (which is in my parent’s possession, not mine, owing to a domestic bureaucractic hiccup), P60 from my present employer (I have none) and a recent utility bill showing my current address. Furthermore, in the form I am requested to supply marital status, bank details, employment status, occupancy status, mother’s maiden name, and a referee to testify to my character. The school will then pay £31 to a company called Capita who will, on behalf of the criminal records bureau, do a background check on me to ensure that I don’t have any criminal convictions, and after 4 weeks, I will be cleared to give my 45 minute lecture. This disclosure, according to the government websites I’ve been skim-reading (and I apologise if I have any details wrong here, it has been one of those browsing-the-internet-while-burning-disks weeks) will only apply once, to this one event, on the basis that the next time I’m invited to talk at a school, I may have acquired new convictions. (I have none, I hasten to add.)
Now…
… I have to step so carefully here, because in principal, I am all in favour of this law. It is the ultimate, ultimate horror, one so horrifying that we hardly dare speak or write or think of it, the thought that children can be put at risk by the adults that surround them. No parent would hesitate to take any measures necessary to protect their children, no one with a whit of humanity would expect anything less.
But if I am to deliver my passport, birth certificate etc. in person to every single school I visit, is this not the end of my ever visiting any school outside zones 1-4 in London? Is this not the end of trips to Dundee and Wrexham, of Bristol and Reading? How does this affect the Edinburgh Children’s Book Festival, or the festival in Bath? I have been lecturing at and visiting schools since I was 15 years old; had this law come into force five years earlier, would I have been bound by it when still legally a child and yet also a visiting author? For 45 minutes of supervised attendance at the school where I studied for 7 years, I must slog to the other side of town with documents I don’t even have to be vetted and cleared of crimes I have not committed and yes, I applaud the protection of children, but I also applaud reason in the execution of law, and I begin to wonder whether we are not teetering on that fine line of a law that could shut down through its sheer complexity and red tape a whole culture of bringing the world the school, as well as the school to the world.
Let me repeat; I lack sufficient information on this subject to make a final judgment, an absolute statement of too-much, too-little. The protection of children is an unspoken law, the ultimate unspoken law – that children must not be harmed and it is the duty of the old to protect those too young to protect themselves – but I question whether this particular law may not do some damage, in its effort to do good.
I welcome all comments and debate on the subject!
7 Comments so far - click here to join in
I agree with you that the protection of children is of paramount importance, in any culture. And not having really experienced any CRB check grief (except one instance in which I was asked repeatedly whether I was sure I had not been previously married, seen as I had indicated myself as “Ms”), I tend to think that said protection of children is essential, no matter at what cost.
But then I start to hear about bureaucratic nightmares that are really more worth of my country’s fame than yours. Paul applied to do some teaching assistant work both in London and in the North, around the same time, and he will have to apply for two separate CRB checks, not because it is two separate instances (his London CRB check will do for more than one school / youth club) but because it is two separate constituencies. Surely a background check that takes six weeks to come through can guarantee a little bit of collaboration between different local authorities?
I’m generally quite content with a nanny state and I don’t object to a centralised storage of criminal records. But CRB checks are another instance that makes me wonder about the British tendency to over-regulate as soon as soon as a deficiency has been pointed out. Especially in the case of children protection, when really, past record isn’t a guarantee of future behaviour at all.
I do hope that children all over the UK can keep benefiting from having you pop round for a visit – and you never know, if they’re lucky you might talk to them about Satan 
NikiNovember 29, 2009
I agree with you Cat about the paramount importance of the principle. I’ve been checked more times than I can remember (they have all come back clear I hassen to add!) both because professionally I have to have a clear check also because I’ve worked with children on residential courses and in schools. I agree that the forms are a nightmare to complete, and tedious beyond belief – I have had similar experiences to Ele in having to “prove” that calling myself Ms does not mean I’m divorced – but I think the importance of the principle outweighs the inconvenience.
However, I do have the following concerns:
* the system does not guarantee that the results are 100% accurate.
* even if they are accurate, the checks are only as good as they are up to date so there is an inevitable compromise/judgement call in deciding how often to re-check. (I think this is meant to be better under the new ISA system?).
* I have concerns about any public sector organisation keeping my personal data secure!
Ultimately though I think these are all practical problems to which there has to be a solution in improving the system; the bureaucratic inconvenience is less important than the reasons for having the system in the first place.
Just my tuppence-worth.
SkaldiDecember 2, 2009
In Australia to work with kids you need a working with children card. I’m not sure how long it’s valid for, certainly more than just a once off, but it’s a similar sort of concept.
Unfortunately people still do slip through though.
AdrianHDecember 2, 2009
While I totally agree that protecting children is of absolute importance, this sort of micromanaged, beaurocratic nonsense does nothing to protect the vulnerable, but only serves to protect the backs of the beaurocrats. The most recent high-profile examples prove that all these checks serve no purpose; the two little girls murdered in Soham were killed by someone who they knew through another person who had undergone checks, and both girls were close to. The very recent case of a nursery teacher taking pornographic pictures of children in her charge for the gratification of herself and others shows again that the checks are useless as she had a ‘clean’ background. If checks on people like Kate have to be carried out, then why on earth can’t it be ‘global’, applying to all authorities in the country? It’s not difficult to have a national database, accessable online and secure password protected, or swipe-card accessed, so that a school can check a visitor’s background. It’s just micromanagement, and an excuse for minor civil servants to wield power over ordinary people, and make them pay unnessessary sums of money for the privilege. Plus, yet again, the ultimate losers are the children, who won’t get to meet a wonderful writer who could easily encourage others to go out and achieve what Kate has done. I thought that’s what education was supposed to be about, not stifling and smothering children’s developement.
Or is that perhaps the idea? Can’t have a generation of children who might actually *question* what’s going on around them, can we?
KateGDecember 11, 2009
Another twist to the tale…
AdrianHDecember 13, 2009
Hi Kate, just heard the 2am BBC News, (been listening to Bob Harris), and Ed Balls has said that the scheme is being looked at again. One particular area highlighted for criticism was that of children’s authors having to register…
KateGFebruary 15, 2010
The law has been ‘clarified’.
Note… not changed, because that would imply that there was a failure in the law to begin with…
… but ‘clarified’ in such as way as now makes my previous entry pretty much invalid! For better or for worse.
November 29, 2009