Volunteering England is committed to working to help the new Vetting and Barring Scheme work in ways which are supportive and user-friendly for volunteers and volunteering organisations.
We welcome the modifications recommended by Sir Roger Singleton’s report Drawing the line and their acceptance by Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.The changes on the frequency and intensity of contact and also on exchanges and overseas visitors groups will be helpful for organisations involving volunteers in the activities Sir Roger Singleton refers to.
However, we are disappointed with the review overall. We think – as we indicated in our submission to Sir Roger Singleton – that the focus on frequency and intensity of contact does not get to an essential aspect of the problem.
We believe it is necessary to focus on the organisational context or social setting of the activities related to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. If factors concerned with the supervision and the interaction with other non-vulnerable adults (paid staff and volunteers) could be built into the scheme, it would reduce the scale of activities for which volunteers would be required to be registered with the Independent Safeguarding Authority. It would follow the good practice that organisations should be adopting in management and risk assessment, and it would reinforce the social context for developing the trust within communities that is desirable in broader public policy.
Therefore, we ask for a further review of the scheme to consider issues of the organisational setting and supervision for volunteers in regulated activities.
Our experience suggests there is a real need to amend the scheme so that it does not seem to undermine confidence in volunteers and does not deter people from volunteering. We see a widespread public concern about the introduction of the scheme because of the scale of its intrusiveness, even if some of the media coverage has been misinformed.
We are not convinced by the way Sir Roger Singleton turns aside arguments that people will be discouraged from volunteering. The research he cites refers to a kind of volunteer not representative of the people likely to be put off by the scheme. The introduction of the CRB checks was a barrier to volunteering, at least until the guidance was clarified - and Sir Roger is right to demand better communications for the scheme.
Sir Roger Singleton points to further consideration to be given on two issues where there has been confusion over the proposals. He refers to discussions about volunteering by ex-offenders; properly so, as the negative impact of the scheme on this group is a major issue to resolve. He also develops the case for 16-17 year-olds in continuing education as not needing to be registered for their placements but believes that 16-17 year old volunteers not in any supervised training capacity should be required to be registered; this does not seem consistent with his general position.
