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The CRB, The ISA, Enhanced Disclosure, Vetting and Visiting Authors!

If your school, council or local authority insist that authors paying a single visit to your school need a CRB or other criminal records check then they are asking the impossible.

There is NO valid certificate or documentation available to authors who travel round the country visiting schools.

If there was such a thing I'd have it. But there isn't so I haven't.

Of course I am prepared to be chaperoned throughout my visit if this is what your rules require.

Kjartan Poskitt explains:

I was first asked for a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check in 2006 by a lady in Bedfordshire trying to get me in for a school visit. As ridiculous as I thought it was, I didn't want to cause trouble for her so I arranged to have the check done at my own kids' local school in York. It transpires that the resulting Enhanced Disclosure Form (like any other EDF form) only applied to the school it was issued at, it did not cover me for visiting anywhere else. Furthermore it expired after two years and so, because it was useless, I didn't renew it. If your council accepts a CRB check done elsewhere, it's the legal equivalent of an immigration officer accepting a false passport.

Read it and weep! Taken from the full page published in THE WEEK December 2009.
In 2009 it was proposed that authors could pay a one-off fee and sign up for a special check and get a form with the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) which would cover any school visits. I tried repeatedly to do this, but the forms were never available, the plan was delayed and then finally abandoned.

The best summary of the position is to be found here (if the link still works): The Society of Authors / ISA clearances for writers

The report is dated 14/12/2009 so if the link has gone out of date, the main point made is that:

Sir Roger Singleton (acting on behalf of The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families) recommended that individuals who go into different schools or similar settings to work with different groups of children should NOT be required to register unless they have contact with the same children which is ‘frequent’ or ‘intensive’. He also proposed that the ‘frequent or intensive’ contact test should be relaxed, with registration only being required if the work with children takes place once a week or more, on 4 or more days in one month or overnight.

Clearly this does not apply to authors making a one-off visit.

Furthermore, the CRB has NEVER insisted authors need a check. Our status is the same as any guest to the school: we are not teaching staff so we have no authority, no union protection and no professional teaching insurance. Therefore for our own protection as well as that of the children we do NOT expect to ever be left in sole charge of any number of children.

WEBSITES and PHONE NUMBERS

Criminal Records Bureau (CRB)

tel: 0870 90 90 811

Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA)

tel: 0300 123 1111

In preparing this page I have spoken to the staff in both these organisations. They were all extremely friendly and helpful, so if you're in any doubts, please contact them directly.

(Just so you know, the CRB gather the data on behalf of the ISA. I found this out by phoning both organisations and very helpful they all were too. They do a difficult and important job that requires a lot of tact and delicacy, and I fully support what they have to do.)

Despite all this, some petty bureaucratic box-tickers still think it's their job to make sure visiting authors have some relevant paperwork. The only thing that would be valid (although completely unnecessary) is a CRB form issued at the school or place of engagement. This of course requires various forms to be filled in, fees to be paid and the author to send away his/her passport. I personally visit around 50 schools a year. Obviously it would be ridiculous to send my passport to all of them, so I absolutely refuse to send it to any.

I'm truly sorry if you're trying to arrange an event with me, and you find you are being hampered by somebody in an office far away that you probably will never meet, who is insisting on me going through some sort of vetting procedure. Some authors (including Michael Morpurgo and Philip Pullman) object on principle, and I sympathise with them. However I don't object on principle, I object because what is being asked is contrary to government guidelines and the relevant paperwork does not exist.

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Read it and weep!
This page is taken from the brilliant magazine THE WEEK December 2009