ATL

Protecting the vulnerable

From 2009 a new system is coming into effect to vet new and existing employees and volunteers working with children and vulnerable adults. Report explains. Words by Alex Tomlin

The Bichard Inquiry, set up after the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, by school caretaker Ian Huntley in August 2002, concluded there was a need for a single agency to check individuals working in establishments with vulnerable people. Thus the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) has been created to do this in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland is developing its own system, which will work closely with the ISA.

The new vetting service will have a single list of all those who are barred from working with children and another, related list of those barred from working with vulnerable adults. These are called the Barred Lists and will replace the existing Protection of Children Act (PoCA) List, List 99 and the Protection of Vulnerable Adults (PoVA) List, as well as the current system of Disqualification Orders, which is operated by the criminal justice system.

It will also collate information from employers and voluntary organisations, local authority social services, professional bodies such as the General Medical Council and General Social Care Council, and inspectorates such as Ofsted and the Healthcare Commission.

The independence of the ISA means that ministers will no longer be involved in any decision-making process on individual cases, as they have been hitherto.

The ISA will assess every person who wants to work or volunteer with children or vulnerable adults - including those working in maintained, independent and post-16 schools and colleges. To help with this, the ISA will work closely with the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).

However, job applicants will still need to obtain separate CRB checks for roles that require one. The CRB check covers all criminal convictions, while the ISA covers only convictions and other issues relating to children or vulnerable adults.

The ISA system will be introduced gradually in the following phases.

From October 2009:

• new job applicants will need to apply for ISA registration

• employers and voluntary organisations working with children and vulnerable adults cannot recruit workers who are not ISA-registered.

From 2010:

• existing employees and volunteers with no CRB check must apply for ISA registration

• existing employees and volunteers with CRB checks will also need to apply for ISA registration, starting with staff whose CRB checks are the oldest.

Scotland's equivalent scheme is being established under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007. Anyone included on a Barred List in Scotland will also be barred from working with children and vulnerable adults across the UK.

The ISA fee of £64 will be a one-off payment and is intended to cover the applicant for the duration of their career in regulated activity. Those working in unpaid voluntary activity will not have to pay the application fee. It is the employee's responsibility to provide their ISA registration number to a prospective employer who can then check online for its validity.

The purpose of the ISA is to prevent cases such as the 2002 Soham murders by stopping individuals gaining positions in schools and other establishments. For this reason, employers cannot employ a person until their ISA check has been completed, which in the majority of cases will take approximately a week.

The ISA updates records as new information comes in and employers can be notified if an employee's suitability status has changed and they have been placed on one of the barred lists. Employers have to sign up to receive such notifications or can check the status of registrations free of charge at any time.

To find out more about the ISA and its introduction, visit  www.isa-gov.org.uk