The government announced yesterday that full implementation of the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) by the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) will be halted while it undergoes a thorough review.
The confusion will cause a major headache for organisations which have been preparing for the July kick-off of the scheme.
Self-employed private tutors, for whom the VBS is not a statutory requirement, will be no doubt be watching the ensuing chaos with a sense of relief that they don’t need to get involved. Other tutors won’t be so lucky: they’ll still be affected because of their employment by schools or other so-called Regulated Activity Providers (RAPs).
The good thing is, the information in our recent interim statement on private tuition and the VBS still holds true.
We therefore urge all parents, tutors and others concerned about child protection in the private tuition industry to familiarize themselves with the issues by reading it at:
http://www.thetutorpages.com/media-room/june-2010-child-protection-interim-statement.pdf
Tutors and organisations who have been preparing for the expected introduction of the vetting and barring scheme will at least gain some comfort from the fact that changes that have now been inplemented by the CRB so far seem to have had a positive effect on CRB’s own internal efficiency. The introduction of the new forms has made the CRB process easier for candidates and the checks carried out since the change have speeded up the process and checks seem to be coming back from CRB more quickly. The CRB checking service offered by CRB umbrella bodies is also now more varied, with the introduction of the Ebulk web based CRB system. So at least many positives have resulted in the changes that were intended as part of the new registration system.