Is Whitehall really looking at an ‘instant’ ‘online’ service to check if a prospective employee is barred from working with children or vulnerable adults? That’s certainly what’s being promised by the Department for Education and Skills in its Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill.
(Disclosure: yes, I’m currently doing work for DfES – but nothing to do with this. Not yet anyway.)
An integrated vetting and barring system, bringing together all the various lists and giving ownership to an independent body, can’t be a bad thing. And it’s encouraging from an e-government perspective to see explicit plans for ‘a ‘real-time’ instant check of whether a prospective employee is barred with secure online access rather than the current paper-based process.’
But it’s a very big step if the resulting list of barred individuals is to be made widely accessible. ‘Domestic employers such as parents (will be able) to check whether private tutors, nannies, music teachers and care workers are barred,’ the Department explains. I’m intrigued by the practicalities of this – surely the potential audience, by that definition, is so big that it may as well be a completely open system?
Privacy advocates will have plenty to say about that; but I think it’s pretty clear from recent history that rational discussion goes out the window when it comes to discussing child welfare. Perhaps a completely open vetting system is inevitable. Perhaps this is effectively it.