http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/leicester/10558648.stm Will the next exhibition or competition need to have all attendees CRB checked - come to that - maybe I should be CRB checked as I am arranging MAP Meets for people ranging in ages of 13 upwards (I am actually already CRB checked if you wanna know ) Why was the Father singled - women are as capable of doing the wrong thing. Do you think we are taking this a little too far now?
This is nearly as bad as that story about parents not being able to take their children onto a public park because they didn't have crb checks. This country is a machine for lunacy and idiocy. What is even funnier is that it is highly educated (supposedly; I haven't seen these shadowy figures of parliament or their credentials) and well qualified individuals that come up with these lunatic clauses. Me and my girlfriend are expecting a child (near christmas wooo!) and I can't help but wonder if this sort of irrational thinking is going to get worse. I may never be able to experience all the great things a father should with his child because I'm automatically branded a criminal unless I get a check to say I'm not. It is a sad time we live in.
Hehe, guess I got carried away. You have to ask yourself though, why did the school make such a decision? Current policy within government influences places, especially schools or other places where there are known vulnerable parties. It may be that everyone attending martial arts events for children (competitions and such like) will need crb checks in future.
It's not so unthinkable that schools, being confused about their responsibilities, given the ever-shifting policies being fed down to them, will err on the side of caution and continue to do such stupid things.
I have just been to a school to price up some work and was told by the site manager there are plans ahead to not allow anyone on site unless they have been crb checked. It is only going to get worse.
Crb checks are only required for people left in sole charge of children and (this is often overlooked) vulnerable adults. There never has and , as far as i'm aware , never will be any legislation requiring a crb to watch an activity , many schools and groups do forbid filming or photography at venues where children are present , however this is not something that's legislated. This story to me smacks of the "political correctness gone mad" or "broken Britain" stories that seem to circulate every so often and , i suspect , has been blown somewhat out of proportion.
There's a justification for ensuring that people who work in a school, whether on school staff/construction workers etc are all CRB checked. There's even a justification for people making regular deliveries to the school needing to be CRB checked, but I seriously doubt we will ever get to a situation where parents need to be CRB checked. It's not an arduous process and it is important to ensure that we do not give certain people unfettered access either to children or to information pertaining to children.
It's also required for people with access to personal information about children and vulnerable adults. You're right, which is why the school's behaviour is so baffling.
Cannot argue with you there. You are right and it is a good idea as long as we don't end up being silly about it and start getting too pc.
I think things do sometimes get taken too far where CRB's are concerned. I used to be the chairman of the parents' committee which ran an after-school club for children from my son's primary school. I had to have a CRB check done, despite the fact that I had no dealings with any of the children in my capacity as chairman - only with the other committee members and the members of staff. CRB's were introduced for a good reason, but they really should be used with a bit of common sense.
But presumably in that role there was the potential for you to have contact either with the children or with the personal information of the children, which requires a CRB.
There was no more reason for me to have contact with the children in my role as chairman than there was in my role as a parent - e.g. when I went to collect my son from the scheme. I suppose in theory I could have had access to the children's records, that's true. In practise I had no reason to, but in theory I suppose I could have.
A fair point which i'd overlooked. The bottom line in all this is that crb's are a good idea , though with almost every kind of non physical check , ultimately pointless as it only picks up the people who've been caught. So the press jump on every case like this one as "political correctness gone mad" , but , when it all goes wrong (Soham and the the nursery worker last year have been cited to us as the driving force behind the newer rules) they then wail how could this happen ? why doesn't someone do something ? Damned if you do , damned if you don't.
And this is exactly the point. The school's reaction is nonsense. It doesn't respond to law, policy or anything else, it responds to media coverage. They are not required to do this. There would be no problems if they didn't do it. But they act in a febrile climate where they feel they have to err on the side of caution. Febrile caution is way beyond common sense. Mitch
That's a very good point. It always seems to be the same type of people and newspapers complaining about overregulation and so forth who also complain that not enough is being done when some tragedy like that happens.
The more I think about it, the more I think the school tried to justify its 'no parents at sports day' policy by highlighting CRB checks rather than the CRB checks leading to the 'no parents at sports day' policy. I can't believe a school's management team would have misread the requirements so badly.
