BCA Statement on Children & Young Persons

[Bob Mehew]

Goalpost shuffling time looms.

Yes indeed.  A draft document on the implications of the impact of the changes to caving activities with children has been submitted to Damian but it needs a volunteer to carry it through BCA. 

One small piece of good news is that the new set up means you only need one registration rather than have a CRB check for every organisation as at present and that if you are a volunteer it is free.  There is an exemption from the requirements of the acts for children with parents or friends of the family.

Some of the less good / bad news is that it will become a criminal offence to use some one who is not registered in undertaking a "regulated activity / duty" (there are differences in law between England, Wales and Northern Ireland and Scotland) with a child. And "regulated activity / duty" is extremely broadly defined (so it catches voluntary / amateur activities like caving clubs).  To a first approximation, regulated activity / duty means more than one caving activity per month with a child or children or any activity between 2am and 6am. 

The law comes into effect in England Northern Ireland and Wales in October this year and sometime in 2010 in Scotland.  There is a transition period for those already checked.

In my view it means all clubs will need to sort out membership for under 18s and curtail their access to the club unless the club uses the exemption of parent or friend of family.  But the new law makes life easier for the professional.

 

[Peter Burgess]

I would like a clarification of the situation where a school or youth organisation arranges a visit to an underground site, and uses members of a club to act as guides, while the teachers or other supervisors remain present at all times with the children.

 

[graham]

I would like a clarification of the situation where a school or youth organisation arranges a visit to an underground site, and uses members of a club to act as guides, while the teachers or other supervisors remain present at all times with the children.

Well, as the case of Philip Pullmann shows, you would not be allowed to lecture to a hall full of kids in the presence of teachers without a CRB check, so I reckon your guides would need to be vetted in that situation.

 

[Peter Burgess]

What about if its Mum, Dad, and the kids being shown around?

 

[Bob Mehew]

I would like a clarification of the situation where a school or youth organisation arranges a visit to an underground site, and uses members of a club to act as guides, while the teachers or other supervisors remain present at all times with the children.

I will take the easy option and suggest that the once per month exemption criteria will cover you.  (Pullmann will be doing more than once per month.)  But I am slightly worried about this frequency criteria since it is not written into the act, only in the material being sent out.  Hopefully when the guidance comes out, the legal basis for the frequency should be come clear. 

My reading of the acts and the limited material supporting it suggests that in any case you are not carrying out a relevant activity / duty in that the teacher is doing it, not you.  But that does not square with the Pullmann problem which has me puzzled.

I hope BCA pull something together.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Thank you, Bob. If this once per month option holds good, it may well apply to us. We need to check how many trips a year we are asked to run, and how many of our volunteers are involved. I am concerned about our Reigate Caves where, as well as four open days per year (which I suppose are not covered by this legislation), we are asked to run private trips, often for school groups.

I suppose the Redcliffe Caves operations fall into much the same category.

 

[exsumper]

Graham is right.The lack of participation opportunities in most activities not just caving, is the CRB legislation. Upon the implimentation of the legislation. My Chess club was faced with the same situation , If we wanted to allow young people under the age of 16 to remain as members. We were faced with two choices, either  adult members would have to undergo a CRB check, a motion that was unanimously and rightly defeated at our AGM, as a gross infringement of our privacy, rights and liberty. Or as is the pragmatic solution we arrived at was, that all members under the age of 16 have to be accompanied by a parent or guardian whilst taking part in club activities.Whilst this hasn't affected most young members, we have sadly lost a few.Some of them the most promising or talented ones.

 

[graham]

Alex

Can you clarify? Did your chess club actually take advice on this, or did this come from their own reading of the legislation? I'm only asking because any specific advice received in these circumstances might be of use to all.

The joke, of course, in all this is that student caving clubs, of all things, are not affected by this as incoming students are over 18.

We do have other problems, mind.

 

[Colin the Caver]

I have no problem at all volunteering to help show some kids the great underground but there is no way on earth I'll jump through any hoops to be able to do it.

What's the next step, being barred from visiting a cave, Churns for example, without a CRB check if there is a school party there.

 

[exsumper]

Graham
It was our own interpretation based on the advice of a club member, who worked in the social services department of the council. If the club was confined to one venue, it would not have been neccessary, but because it also involves individual travel for attendance at tournaments and league matches. It was thought that all members would have to have a CRB Check. This was deemed the simplest and most pragmatic solution.
This legislation has also had an affect on the people who run the cadet section of my yacht club.

 

[Bob Mehew]

It was our own interpretation based on the advice of a club member, who worked in the social services department of the council. If the club was confined to one venue, it would not have been neccessary, but because it also involves individual travel for attendance at tournaments and league matches. It was thought that all members would have to have a CRB Check. This was deemed the simplest and most pragmatic solution.

Unfortunately Councils are often risk adverse and hence will take the precautionary line.  The act for England, Northern Ireland and Wales defines regulatory activity as amongst other things teaching or supervision.  I have had clarification from the body charged with putting the new law into effect: "Supervision is the act of watching over the work or tasks of another who may lack full knowledge of the concept at hand".  In my mind this means that caving clubs will have to comply with this law if they don't take advantage of the exemptions of having the child supervised by a parent or family friend or only conduct a child activity at once per month or less. 

Pete Burgess also raised a question about school visits.  The clarification I just got from the body (to an expanded question) was "If a child enters a shop or walks into the museum/display area it would not fall into work of a specified nature and would be merely co-incidence that they were there (not targeted at children) and therefore would not require registration. A guide showing people around a cave would again not be providing a service of a specified nature so would not need registration regardless of whether a child had an escort or not.  We have been given advice from the Home Office stating that companies providing tours around mines and caves would not need ISA registration. It appears from the examples given that very few people in your company would actually need ISA registration."

If people have specific questions, then the Vetting & Barring Scheme Information Team have been prompt and very helpful, see http://www.isa-gov.org.uk/ for details (though the web site is not overly useful).  I would appreciate being copied on any questions and responses so I can ensure BCA is kept informed.

 

[cap n chris]

It has been pointed out elsewhere that there are interesting anomalies with the new system being implemented; one such affects higher education establishments where mature students are exempt from the legislation but staff are not.

One wonders whether, in light of this, it is only the caving club executive/workers who will be required to jump the hoops and the membership (as minions) are exempt from doing so, on the grounds that they are not providing a service but merely on the receiving end of it.

Probably not, is my hunch.

 

[exsumper]

As far as I can see from the guidance, as long as a club doesnt employ a professional guide/trainer for its underground activities and no money changes hands, there seems to be no requirement to have any checks at all.

 

[estelle]

Anything involving kids these days has become a nightmare on legislation, insurance, and this total paranoia of being sued. I got into caving via being a youth leader and got involved with a voluntary outdoor activities group connected to the youth service which was funded by charitable donations and our own fundraising. Back then the liabilities insurance wasn't overly expensive for our group and you didn't need any qualifications for most the sports you were taking them on (there wasn't a qualification structure in place for many sports at that time including caving) and the scout/guide troups, sea/air cadet and youth clubs we took groups out from had no problems with our organisation taking their 12-18 year olds out on these sports - we had good guidelines in place and although our instructors didn't have a piece of paper saying they could instruct necessarily, the kids were always with several leaders with many years experience under their belt. Unfortunately our voluntary group was driven to close in the end (around 1993) by rising insurance and the cost of needing to do all these courses that were appearing across all the outdoor sports to get that insurance - the lyme bay canoeing disaster seems to have been the 'starter incident' that has made it harder and harder for organisations taking childen to be able to and i just think it is really sad that many kids these days don't get to experience the activities we were able to do easily when we were younger. More and more organisations seem to be forced into not allowing under 18s, because of the additional requirements (and usually costs) should they choose to allow the kids to be members or come along and try those sports. While no 'normal' person probably has anything to be scared of from a CRB check, it is an invasion of privacy and many clubs just won't want to make life complicated by forcing and hence administering all this. 

I think legislation has gone mad when as an IT geek, i am expected to have a CRB check done regularly as i may occasionally come into contact with databases with childrens details on as part of my job! A CRB check is only as good as that point in time anyway, it doesn't stop someone going on to be a risk to children after the check!

 

[cap n chris]

the lyme bay canoeing disaster seems to have been the 'starter incident' that has made it harder and harder for organisations taking childen to be able to

if you insert the words "amateur, maverick or dangerous" in front of "organisations" your sentence makes more sense.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l7vsuKKVavEC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=lyme+bay+whistleblower&source=bl&ots=4dI1RbIIKG&sig=mLLlh8i5DmqRWQWfBvhYfrmXcnA&hl=en&ei=7QJ7SobgD9HJ-QbH6tlA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=lyme%20bay%20whistleblower&f=false

You should also read this:
http://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/operational-policing/bichard-inquiry-report?view=Binary

Having done so you will probably better understand why things are the way they are nowadays.

 

[exsumper]

I don't think you should associate 'amateur' with maverick or dangerous in this context. When your dealing with the lyme bay disaster. The sentence should read criminally negligent, maverick and dangerous COMMERCIAL organisations.

 

[Bob Mehew]

One wonders whether, in light of this, it is only the caving club executive/workers who will be required to jump the hoops and the membership (as minions) are exempt from doing so, on the grounds that they are not providing a service but merely on the receiving end of it.

My take is that when a child is present then some one needs to be registered (the phrase CRB checked is partially superseded by the new process).  Further more the act specifically deals with clubs [Sec 6(10)] and potentially could catch any and every member who is present at the activity and officials of the club who are not.  The implications of this could be significant for club members who are registered under the act since it might rebound on them by simple association with the club. 

As far as I can see from the guidance, as long as a club doesnt employ a professional guide/trainer for its underground activities and no money changes hands, there seems to be no requirement to have any checks at all.

I think you are wrong.  The act is very carefully worded to catch regulated activity providers and persons who undertake regulated activity.  Regulated activity is defined very broadly and aspects such as work / professional / money do not come into the consideration of whether one is undertaking a regulated activity.  A similar approach is taken in the Scottish legislation though they use different legal phrases.  Although the terms work, employer and employee are frequently used in material relating to the act, you will find in the small print of authoritative documents (for example see the final paragraph of http://www.isa-gov.org.uk/PDF/283896_ISA_A4_FactSheetNo3.pdf ) that the words should be taken to have broader meaning.  Oh by the way it is not just underground activities which are caught.  It is any activity where it is necessary to watch "over the work or tasks of {the child} who may lack full knowledge of the concept at hand".  The act also specifically catches any activity with a child (including sleeping) between the hours of 2am and 6am. 

I don't think you should associate 'amateur' with maverick or dangerous in this context. When your dealing with the lyme bay disaster. The sentence should read criminally negligent, maverick and dangerous COMMERCIAL organisations.

regrettably amateur organisations have also been caught out. 

 

[cap n chris]

I don't think you should associate 'amateur' with maverick or dangerous in this context. When your dealing with the lyme bay disaster. The sentence should read criminally negligent, maverick and dangerous COMMERCIAL organisations.

*Sigh*. Originally I had written maverick, dangerous and amateur" but altered it thinking people would associate all three words as a single description and conclude (wrongly) that I was suggesting amateur organisations were maverick and dangerous as a result; therefore I changed the sequence of the words in order to make it read that any single adjective would be a stand alone description of the qualifying term "organisation".

Shows I was wrong, then.

However now the misunderstanding has surfaced let's try another tack and may I be bold enough to suggest that any organisation, be it commerical or amateur, which takes children underground should also be disallowed from doing so if it happens to be maverick or dangerous, or both in varying degrees and in whichever order you wish to read the words.

 

[Colin the Caver]

Now that the ISA (Independent Safeguarding Authority) is up and running and all the unintended consequences of the legislation are crawling out of the woodwork this may need to be looked at again.

My own take on the subject is that I would avoid like the plague anything requiring ISA registration on the grounds that I find it offensive to be asked to prove my innocence

 

[ian.p]

Now that the ISA (Independent Safeguarding Authority) is up and running and all the unintended consequences of the legislation are crawling out of the woodwork this may need to be looked at again.

My own take on the subject is that I would avoid like the plague anything requiring ISA registration on the grounds that I find it offensive to be asked to prove my innocence

well to be honest if we have to jump through hoops then we have to jump through hoops. If pride is the most important facter in your decision as to wether or not to help get young people involved in our sport than i think thats quite an unfortunate thing.