CRB checks for hosts Options

[alan]

Sandy Twinning Association are to discuss this at their meeting tomorrow, Tuesday 22nd 7.pm at the Council Offices in Cambridge Road, Sandy

[alan]

When Jack Loader of the Hartford-Mornant Twinning Committee made his previous response i asked if he would be good enough to word a petition to No 10 Downing Street as I had tried previously but had had no response from Downing Street.

This is his reply received today:-

Dear Alan

Thanks for the reply.

The difficulty of wording is made more of a problem by the fact that a Mr Oliver Hodson has already started a petition "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abandon the proposed Vetting & Barring scheme, which will result in approximately 11m volunteers and professionals needing to be registered before they can help kids" and one wouldn't want to detract from that, but as we know it is much more than just kids and more than Twinning. Just one example, one of our Twinning Committee member couples have said it means that they will stop taking elderly people to church. Anne's 92-year-old aunt, who has been a very active member of her church, is now in a care home suffering from senile dementia and is taken to church by people she has known for many years at the church (although she probably doesn't know exactly who they are now) so I wouldn't be surprised if they declined to take her any longer. The government has no appreciation of the amount of contribution volunteers make to local community organisations which improve people's lives.

We are now retired and spend about half the year in France. Before that I spent a lot of my non-employed time doing civic and community things - school governor (just retired after nearly 30 years), district councillor, parish councillor, twinning committee chairman, youth club helper, amateur radio club committee member, founder of various community groups - and Anne joined me in many of them as well as doing her own things, such as clerk to the local Quaker meeting. Although I don't do anything which would fall under the legislation at the moment I wouldn't take anything on now which did as I am absolutely not going to apply to be vetted.

It isn't that I have the slightest concern about the outcome of being vetted but I am not prepared to be guilty until proved innocent and I am really fed up with ever-increasing interference by this government in the minutiae of peoples' lives. I won't start on my list of the things which really annoy me, or my theory that some of them are undercover taxation as they force you to get something done on which VAT is payable, or how once legislation for special purpose A is introduced for some apparently good reason it is mis-used for something else.

If a Twinning-only petition was set up I wouldn't put it past the government not to aggregate the total signatures relating to the legislation together and just quote the results from the one relating to the particular area under discussion - school walking buses, sports clubs, church transport etc.

What do you think? Are you getting much reaction?

Best wishes

Jack.

[alan]

In view of Jacks reply, above, the link to Mr Hodsons petition is here for anyone who would like to sign it, as Jack says, therre are not very names there yet, but if we also took part in this petition it would, although not specifically aimed at Twinning it may help to be yet another angle by which we could attack this ill thought out legislation. no stone should be left unturned or angle ignored.

Together we CAN make a difference

Also, please remember to inform your local press about the risks this proposal briings to our twinning activites, especially in attracting young people, and the benefiits they will lose from it.

I receive news reports from around the country regarding twinning matters and any I receive on this subject will be added to this discussion forum in addition to the normal "latest news" page of the website

Please ask your members to take action now.

thank you for your help

Alan

[alan]

From Sandy Twinning Association in Bedfordshire

Alan
I have only minuted that we discussed this. We had a very lengthy discussion and we all feel the same as you do.
Geoff agreed to contact Alistair Burt but he is away for a couple of days but will get on top of it when he returns. If I hear any more I'll let you know.

Jacky

[alan]

From Kenilworth Twinning Association:-

To Alan Wicks, The Portal
Your information release was passed to me by Dave Shurrock and I would like to respond.

I do not have any specialist knowledge in this area, nor do I necessarily agree with the increasing restrictions, although I have been CRB checked. However I was astounded at the alarmist flavour of this information release. I thought that The Portal would at least have its facts right before passing on this information to people who would largely take it as gospel.

The ISA is the Independant Safeguarding Authority ( not Agency) and a large volume of information is available on their website www.isa-gov.org.uk

The helpful change for we who are volunteers, is that registration is free, is applied for by individuals and is transferable between associations etc, so we don't need to make multiple applications at £64 a go.

The definition of a child in the ISA website is "a young person under the age of 18, exceptin employment situations whe it is 16"

To the question -

"Will UK families hosting foreign exchange pupils in their homes need to be ISA-registered?

the answer is

• Yes. If an organisation based in the UK, such as a school, arranges the visit including the host family, it will be mandatory for the person in the family hosting the pupil to be ISA-registered and the organisation arranging the visit must check that the person is ISA-registered".

This looks more of a problem for schools & Scout/Guide groups than it does for twinning associations, where we normally expect children to be accompanied by responsable adults.

I hope that this is helpful.

Bi Malcolm Trewick, Chairman Kenilworth Twinning Association

[alan]

From Tendring Twinning Association:-

Adult supervision of young people

I agree that one check should be necessary and valid for different groups, but the groups should have evidence that clearance has been gained. Regarding school children I know of at least one instance where a young teenage girl visited a French family where she was expected to share in the family watching together a porn film. Such things happen and as you say there are safeguards abroad.

I also know that many teenagers experience unhappiness and anxiety when placed in families where their own language is not spoken well.

To overcome these problems it is possible for a school group to live in a hotel or hostel but visit their host families for short periods, or an outing, and then reunite with their own friends.

I have had much experience with taking children abroad and I know that this can work quite well. Our own Twinning Association (Tendring Twinning) has facilitated school groups who have gone on this basis, as well as being hosted entirely in families.

As you say, this law proposal has not been thought through sufficiently and will kill much healthy activity and exchange, but at the same time supervision of young people should be tightened up. People are still slipping through the net, who should not have contact with youngsters. Overall opposition to this law is a mistake.

Revd Colin Knight
Retired headteacher, minister and school governor

Thank you Colin for your imput
Alan

[alan]

2 weeks ago the Daily Mail published an article on this subject, for those that did not read it the link is here

Alan

[alan]

A Geoff White,member of the Sandy Twinning Association and Mayor of Sandy has written to Alistair Burt, our local Member of Parliament and received the following reply:-

Please click on this link to see the letter here

[alan]

Following on from the previous post I am pleased to inform you that Alistair Burt MP will be speaking in the commons tonight in a debate on antisocial behaviour and will be using our letter to illustrate his remarks
Alan

[alan]

Following on from questions asked in Parliament re the Independent Safeguarding Authority and CRB checks the Government stated that they would review the situation and subsequent to that a group of School Organisations wrote in stating that ?"the rules were too bureaucratic and would not guarantee safety".

The day after that the Government has decided to "water down" the legislation, which, as far as we can see will cover the needs of Twinning Groups.

Read the following report from the BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8410335.stm

A leading writier Philip Pullman told the BBC the original plans had been "absurd" and he welcomed the changes. However, he said such regulation remained "fundamentally unhealthy".

It is good that the Goverment has finally decided to listen to the concerns of the public and I hope that our compaign may, in some small way, have helped to bring about this review.

However, this sort of legislation can be quite invidious and we need to watch closely that it is not extended through the back door as so many of our current laws are.

If any of your groups find they still being restricted by over zealous officials please let us know.




Thank you all for your support up to this point and we shall be keeping an eye on the situation.

Alan