Law To Protect Weak ‘Will Deter Volunteers’

A proposed law aimed at protecting the vulnerable will frighten people from volunteering in the community, a cross-party group of MSPs said yesterday. The Vulnerable Groups Bill was meant to safeguard children following the Soham murders by introducing more checks on people who work with youngsters or vulnerable adults. However, the finance committee raised questions about whether the new legislation represented “value for money” and would contribute to a decline in volunteer numbers.

At the moment, anyone who began working with children after 2005 is checked for a criminal record through Disclosure Scotland. But in line with the Bichard Inquiry after the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the Executive wants to tighten the law further, so that anyone working with children will be checked retrospectively, as will those working with vulnerable adults.

The Executive estimates this would mean checking around a million people – or about a quarter of Scotland’s adults. The current disclosure scheme in Scotland will cost £100 million over ten years and the Executive insists the new legislation will cut costs. However, the committee report questioned this costing.

It read: “There is confusion around the numbers involved, and concerns have been raised by organisations working in the field that costs could be significantly higher than estimated.”

In particular, the committee questioned claims that a new data system for a million people would cost just £2 million.

The charitable sector have already warned that the cost of checking all paid staff and volunteers will be £24 million and could force many smaller organisations to close down.

The committee was also concerned about the potential impact of the bill on the number of people volunteering, amid fears that many will simply not want to dedicate time to going through the lengthy process.

The report added: “The committee remains extremely concerned that the levels of volunteers will continue to decline, and this could have a severe impact on the sector.”

Gavin Yates, of the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, called on the Executive to find a more workable system. “It appears that there is serious cross-party concern over these proposals, on grounds of cost, resource, red tape and bureaucracy. A better way to improve the protection of children and vulnerable groups must be found,” he said.

Jim Duffy, the chief executive of the Scouts Association’s Scottish council, said the plan could have a severe effect on organisations reliant on volunteers. “If you do not have people who can help people to fill in all the forms, then you cannot get more people to volunteer and you cannot get more young people involved.”

Norman Dunning, the chief executive of Enable Scotland, said the Bill was discouraging people from working with vulnerable adults. “The proposals drive people away from volunteering and establishing friendships with disadvantaged people.”

Derek Brownlee, the Tory finance spokesman, said the legislation required changes. He said: “Ministers appear to have taken the most expensive, intrusive and bureaucratic way of dealing with this problem. It has all the hallmarks of legislation rushed out to allow ministers to say something is being done.”

The Scottish Executive said criticism would be taken seriously, but insisted the bill would be made law.

‘Our society must learn to live with a bit more risk’

As a football coach of both a school and a community team, a foster parent, a prison visitor and a university lecturer, Mark Smith has been disclosure checked five times. “I feel it is ridiculous and I also feel it is insulting,” he said.

He thinks it is part of an increasingly unhealthy approach based around fear. He said: “I think it is part and parcel of a whole panoply of measures and assumptions created by child-protection lobbies which collectively are starting to have a very dangerous effect on intergenerational relationships and the way kids feel about adults, and adults feel about kids.”

The Scottish Executive’s new legislation is designed to replace multiple disclosure checks with a single transferable passport. But charities fear the technology is not in place for it to work.

Mr Smith, a lecturer in social work at Edinburgh University, believes society should take a more realistic approach rather than trying to eliminate risk by checking everyone involved with children. “I think we have to learn to live a bit more with risk in society and realise there are balances to be struck,” he said. “We will never eliminate some of the Soham cases and Thomas Hamilton cases, and some of this legislation would not have made any difference to these cases anyway. It is a political reaction rather than one with a basis in reality.”