Independent Safeguarding Authority - The Singleton and Munro Reviews

The Singleton and Munro Reviews

The critical media coverage when the scheme was launched in 2009 led to confusion over the registration requirements. The Singleton Review was set up due to concerns which had been expressed about the degree of contact with children which should trigger the requirement to register with the (ISA). Sir Roger Singleton, Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children and the Chair of the ISA, produced his ‘Drawing the Line’ report, to check that the Government had drawn the line in the right place in relation to the requirement to register. In December 2009 the Government accepted all of the recommendations found in ‘Drawing the Line’.

The report included clarification in a number of areas:

• Frequent is defined as contact that takes place once a week or more often with the same children. (This was previously defined as an activity that happened once a month)
• Intensive is defined as contact that takes place on four days in one month or more with the same children or overnight. (Previously this was defined as three times in every 30 days or overnight)
• Mutually agreed and responsible arrangements made between parents and friends for the care of their children should not be affected by the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS)
• Individuals who go into different schools or similar settings to work with different groups of children, should not be required to register unless their contact with the same children is frequent or intensive. (This clarification means that the concerns of the authors raised above were to some extent alleviated.)
• Exchange visits lasting less than 28 days, where overseas parents accept the responsibility for the selection of the host family, should be regarded as private arrangements and would not require registration.
• Overseas visitors bringing their own groups of children to the UK e.g. to international camps or the Olympics should have a three months exemption from the requirement to register.

The DCSF has published a Vetting and barring myth buster to further clarify the requirements of the scheme. However, this fact-sheet has been challenged as being rather simplistic and one-sided by several of the unions and professional associations that represent those most effected by the ISA. From 2009 onwards these organizations produced a large amount of documentation in the form of statements, conference resolutions and advice either clarifying or challenging the ISA's own publications. Some of these are referenced here, including some of those written by: the Royal College of Nursing (nurses union); National Union of Teachers (NUT), The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) and Unison (the union for non-teaching staff in schools). Interestingly even as a small sample of responses from different unions and associations, there are significant differences within the opinions expressed and positions adopted, with the RCN and specific branches of the NASUWT seemingly taking the strongest oppositional stance. This perhaps indicates quite how complex the child protection debate in the UK currently is.

In 2010 the government, partly in response to pressure from those organizations mentioned above, launched a second review of the ISA led by Professor Eileen Munro of the Department of Social Policy, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Following this Munro review in 2011 the requirement to register was withdrawn entirely. It was also announced that the ISA would be merged with the CRB from 2012. The ISA's role is now to maintain lists that can be accessed by employers and certain other bodies of who is barred from working with either children or vulnerable adults.