Well it is the Home Office, what else can we expect!

With amazing timing, the complete nonsense that is the CRB check was highlighted once again in our house this morning.

Postie brought me 3 letters today. One contained my copy of a recent Enhanced CRB check I was asked to provide for an organisation. In one of the other envelopes was a CRB form to be completed by me in respect of a charity for which I volunteer as a Trustee. Of course the rules have it that if I have a check carried out by one organisation, it can’t be used by another. So there’s another £36+ taken away from being delivered to the very people who need it, in order for me to be deemed ‘safe’ to sit around a table and discuss governance!

Now here’s what I see as the really daft point to CRB checks, apart from telling people what the applicant hasn’t simply been caught doing. When you get elected as a County Councillor and presumably the same applies for an MP, AM, MEP, MSP etc, no one carries out a check on your suitability. So I would regularly be invited into the homes of complete strangers, often with vulnerable adults or children residing within because they were seeking help, yet there had been absolutely NO check whatsoever carried out on me. The Local Authority would afford me access to confidential information on citizens, again having carried out no CRB check. I was positively encouraged to attend schools and organised events involving young people with no information having been obtained and now when volunteering and simply talking about events for children and not meeting them, I must have another enhanced check. And there must be plenty of other scenarios where a check is not required, but to any layperson would appear to be the desirable pre-requisite.

The system is a mess. It needs urgent reviewing to ensure the public can have confidence in it being fit for purpose and most importantly, that it is not simply a cynical means to generate income.


nick