Please note, the registration element of the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) has been halted as part of the Coalition Government's VBS review. There is no longer a requirement for those working or volunteering with vulnerable groups to register with the ISA.
The Coalition Government has confirmed that until all the appropriate legislation has been introduced and the new arrangements are established, the existing responsibilities of employers and the ISA will remain.
These include:
A person who is barred from working with children or vulnerable adults will be breaking the law if they work or volunteer, or try to work or volunteer with those groups.
An organisation which knowingly employs someone who is barred to work with those groups will also be breaking the law.
If your organisation works with children or vulnerable adults and you dismiss or remove a member of staff or a volunteer because they have harmed a child or vulnerable adult, or you would have done so if they had not left, you must tell the Independent Safeguarding Authority.
The new Vetting and Barring Scheme (“the Scheme”) is one of the Government’s key responses to the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by Ian Huntley, which focused public attention on the way that we vet people who work with children. The resulting Bichard Inquiry recommended a new scheme under which everyone working with children or vulnerable adults should be checked and registered.
The inquiry led to The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (“the Act”) and the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Order (Northern Ireland) 2007 (“the Order”) which set up the scheme. This new Scheme will affect everyone who works with children aged under 18 or vulnerable adults. It is being developed in conjunction with the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Executive as the Scheme applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Parallel arrangements are being developed by the Scottish Government.
The Home Office is responsible for delivering this scheme, in partnership with the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and families.
The scheme recognises the need for a single agency to vet and register all individuals who want to work or volunteer with vulnerable people, and to bar unsuitable people. The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) was created to fulfil this role. The Criminal Records Bureau will be responsible for managing the system that will support the Vetting & Barring Scheme and process the applications for ISA registration. The Scheme provides significant safeguards but does not remove the need for employers to have robust recruitment procedures, involving interviews and references.
For more information on the scheme, please visit the ISA website http://www.isa-gov.org.uk/
The communications team at the Vetting and Barring Scheme are pleased to announce that full guidance about the Scheme is available for free download now.
This document contains details on:
In response to the overwhelming interest in the subject, the guidance makes special mention of those areas where the Scheme does not apply and discusses the points raised by Sir Roger Singleton when he reported into the boundaries of the Scheme in December 2009.
This full guidance release will be followed by a suite of 'sector specific' guidance documents, which will show how the Scheme will be applied in different areas of work and volunteering activities and will be published by our partners from the appropriate government departments.
We will make printed copies of this full guidance document available on request from our contact centre on 0300 123 1111. We expect these to be available from 5 April.
This useful checklist includes:
Click here to download the checklist.
