News Insight: Safeguarding - Vetting and barring changes hands

From next week the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) will begin taking over responsibility for the vetting and barring of new staff in the children's sector.

This is a crucial stage in the development of the ISA, which from October will exercise even greater powers over the wider children and young people's workforce.

What will the ISA be doing over the coming year?

The ISA has been set up as a single vetting and barring body for all those working with children and vulnerable adults. Eventually all children's professionals must be registered with the ISA.

Its powers are being adopted in stages. From 20 January all new referrals for List 99 and the Protection of Children Act and Protection of Vulnerable Adults lists - which record the names of people banned from working with these groups -must be sent to the ISA. These were previously sent to the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health.

The next important date is 12 October when the ISA's vetting and barring scheme is formally launched. Over the coming months a series of roadshows, involving the government and the Criminal Records Bureau, will set out to explain the ISA's role to the children's sector.

Recruitment is also well under way. So far around 180 staff have been recruited and a further 70 will be hired during 2009.

How will these changes affect the children's workforce?

The 20 January change is largely a procedural one, with referrals being sent to the ISA rather than the government.

The major change will be in the autumn. From 12 October employers will have five years to ensure all staff are registered with the ISA. All new applicants from this date will need to apply for registration and it will be illegal for employers to recruit anyone who is not registered. From 2010 the process of ensuring existing employees and volunteers are registered begins. The ISA will be looking to ensure those without Criminal Records Bureau checks are among the first to register.

How much will it cost staff to register?

Home office junior minister Meg Hillier confirmed in November that employees will have to pay £64 to register, which includes a £28 ISA fee and £36 for a Criminal Records Bureau check. Unpaid voluntary workers do not have to pay a fee. Hillier added that the fee is a one-off, once in a lifetime payment.

Why was the ISA set up?

The ISA is the centrepiece of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, which emerged following the Bichard Inquiry into the murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by school caretaker Ian Huntley in 2002. This called for a single vetting and barring organisation to ensure all organisations working with children and vulnerable people check the backgrounds of staff and new recruits.

Who runs the ISA?

The chair is former Barnardo's chief executive Sir Roger Singleton. He will manage the strategic direction of the ISA. He has specific expertise having served on a number of public enquiries into child abuse in children's homes.

Day-to-day management of the ISA is handled by chief executive Adrian McAllister, a former police detective and Association of Chief Police Officers' spokesman on criminal records issues.

Supporting them is a 10-strong board, which includes Valerie Brasse, the social care adviser to the Victoria Climbie child abuse enquiry and Debbie Ariyo, founder of Africans Unite Against Child Abuse.

What do we still not know?

The address for referrals to be sent to from 20 January had still not been published as CYP Now went to press. The venues and dates for the roadshow have also yet to be decided and the ISA still does not have a dedicated promotional team in place. The Home Office is still in the process of handling this work.

PROFESSIONAL VIEW - SHAUN KELLY, head of safeguarding, Action for Children

"The introduction of the ISA and its new powers from this month will be a great help to the children's sector. One of the main benefits is that it offers a more streamlined system. When you register as an employee, there will be just the one CRB check and then continuous updating. This will be of enormous benefit to people who work for a number of organisations on a voluntary and paid basis. Some of them are having six or seven CRB checks under the present system, which makes no sense.

The checks for existing employees will start from this October but employers need to be looking at the implications for their organisation already. They need to make employees aware of the changes and keep up-to-date with any roadshows or promotional material being made available by the ISA. Staffing levels and areas such as turnover also need to be taken into account.

As with any new system, it is bound to take some time to bed in but at the moment there is nothing to suggest that the ISA will be anything other than a positive move. Above all, it needs to reiterate to staff that the reason for the new system is to ensure that children are properly safeguarded."