Rob Shorrock

Anxiety and over zealous application of guidance on safeguarding children is creating a sealed environment in many schools. Head teachers and governors wary of falling foul of OFSTED, are restricting access for parents and other adults into schools.

My son’s primary school is a case in point. Parents were issued with a letter saying that they should not come into the playground when dropping children off. And the children should go straight inside when they are dropped off at the school gates. Apparently, it was difficult to distinguish between parents in the playground and the slight risk of predatory adults who use the crowd as cover. Also, there were concerns that some children were being dropped off early and left totally unsupervised.

Apart from denying children the right to play in the morning, the solution to this ‘problem’ is to exclude the adults, rather than to look imaginatively at ways in which the school and parents could work together to solve a problem.

Another case in point is the decision of the Central Technology College in Grantham to not allow adult users of its commercially run gym and fitness centre to use it during school hours (something which they had been doing for years, it seems, with few problems). The Head teacher and governors were concerned that Ofsted would penalise them for allowing adults on site unsupervised. The solution was again blunt: ban the adults.

 OFSTED are often cited as the reason for these decisions by helpless heads and governors. In fact, OfSTED guidance talks about the proper management of risk and that schools should have systems in place to anticipate and manage risk. Indeed, I was advised by OfSTED that there could be other solutions to allowing adults access to a facility during the school day and the school and local authority could look at ways that this could be done within the local safeguarding policy. They decided not to do so.

 The other concern is the future of extended schools provision. There is a duty on schools by 2012 to be offering services and facilities to the community, including adult education and the use of sports facilities, as well as having clubs and afterschool care for children. This becomes increasingly difficult if schools pursue policies of adult exclusion. How can be schools be regarded as hubs of the community if the community is viewed with suspicion?

 Managing risk is the key. It is totally impossible to remove risk and to imply that taking adults out of the environment will somehow do this is irresponsible.

 Finally, it is worth remembering that learning environments are becoming more fluid. The 14-19 diplomas will mean that some children and young people will be receiving their education in FE colleges and even with employers. These are environments that contain adults as employees and learners, who can’t all be vetted and it is utterly impractical to try and keep the adults and children separate, although I can imagine attempts will be made in some places.

The solutions to safeguarding children need to be more imaginative and avoid the deficit model. This can only benefit children by making them more resilient and develop environments that are vigilant and not suspicious.

The Information Commissioner will soon publish a decision-notice that upholds the right of local authorities to make secret payments to senior staff if all parties agree to confidentiality when they enter into discussions. This follows a Freedom of Information complaint I made to the Commissioner about South Kesteven District Council following the termination of the former Chief Executives contract. I had requested information, among other things, about how much had been spent on paying him off. SKDC refused both my request and an appeal, arguing this was personal and confidential information. And to cut a long story short, the Information Commissioner has agreed with them

It appears from this decision that senior officers and elected officials are able to discuss and make decisions, using tax payers money under the cloak of confidentiality, and pay sums of money to senior officers of the council, and no public scrutiny is permissible of these decisions or clear publication necessary of the sums of money spent - just in case this breaches the confidentiality agreement and the right to privacy of the senior officer.

A bizarre and perverse set of affairs

Not only do these current arrangements lack fidelity and efficacy but place public authorities at risk of improper and possibly unlawful decision-making. Where is the accountability mechanism, when local councillors involved in remuneration panels are essentially threatened that any breach of the confidential nature of the agreement could leave the council at risk?

I have passed this onto John Healey at the DCLG. He made some interesting comments about this issue in June this year and launched a consultation to amend the local government finance regulations. Hopefully, he will take note of this.

 Josie Appleton in Spiked argues that the creation of the ISA is ‘irrational’ and has dwindling support from those who advocated the idea in the first place. Putting aside the technocratic arguments about design and management, Josie speaks for many people who believe that the ISA is simply a step too far in regulating adults who have contact with children in a public space.

There is no doubt there are problems with the way the ISA will work and I have a lot of disquiet over assumptions and values that the ISA is built upon. However, for those of us working in early years there is a well established practice of ensuring that all staff are CRB checked. The reason isn’t just about regulation but also because parents expect it. It is this conception, or perception, that staff will be properly checked that drives the market in ensuring that staff and volunteers are properly checked. Interestingly, it also key to how parents choose childcare services.

Generally, the media has tried to make out that the ISA will be regulating informal arrangements between parents. The case of the sports club car lift is often sited as an example of an innocuous activity that will have to be regulated and parents involved in doing this will have to be vetted. However, there are few clubs that make these arrangements anyway and any club that uses volunteers to drive would probably insist already on more important checks relating to their duty of care and health and safety responsibilities. And, of course,  private arrangements are private arrangements and not matters for the ISA.

It is also argued that the ISA requirements to register and vet volunteers will put people off volunteering. I am not so sure. It is already the case that is you want to volunteer to work in schools, or with any children’s charity, for example, you have to be CRB checked. There is no real evidence that this has put people off volunteering, but there is real frustration in how long CRB checks take. The ISA scheme entails one free registration and is completely portable between employers and organizations. Conversely, the CRB check had to be done every time someone moved between employers or organizations.

Josie is right, however, in pointing out that this is a problem of our own making. We expect people who work with our kids to have been checked – whatever that means – because we have a sense of misplaced dread about what could happen to them, but also because we want to diffuse responsibility. If I hand my child over to another adult I do it on the basis that they will look after them. If they hold some symbol of authority more the better and the more the responsibility is diffused.

There is an argument, with a degree of merit, that the creation of the ISA will make parents less vigilant about who they hand their children over too because they have been vetted and cleared by the state. Possibly, but the exercise is always fundamentally subjective until there is an issue and then, of course, questions about vetting, clearance and appropriateness rip to the fore.

 This all leads to a set of  key questions: do we vet adults who work with children, or not? And if so, is it irrational to come up with a system that attempts to develop something that is consistent and accountable? Finally, if we commonly believe the vast majority of adults are absolutely no threat to children then is universal vetting appropriate when targeted vetting may be a better use of resources?

And so my request for information from SKDC on payments made to the outgoing CEO has now gone to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). It should tell us something about both the success and problems within the Freedom of Information Act that the ICO is averaging a turnaround time of 19 months! 

Slightly dispirited, I came across a rather technical consultation from the DCLG which recognises the problem. Being led by Local Government minister John Healey it is a proposal to ensure that there will be a presumption that the salaries and benefits of senior employees in public authorities will be publically available http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1189291

I have drafted a response to the consultation which is posted below:

 I would support the proposed regulations as described.

I would also concur with the ambition to extend this to senior postholders of other publically funded organisations. This would be the officers with the key controlling influence (director level) and\or chief finance officer. This should apply to organisations that are majority funded through public grants. Majority will need to be defined but should be in the region of 2\3rd of overall income.

All interim appointments should be covered by these regulations.

I would also extend the regulation to make it clear that the following data is permissable under freedom of information Act 2000 requests:

• Pay
• Performance related bonuses
• Other bonuses
• Pension information
• Severance payments
• Acting up allowances
• Expenses payments (including access to claims)
• Recruitment incentives
• All cost related employment benefits
• Benefits in kind
• Consultancy payments

The SI should also make it clear that it is not permissable for a publically funded authority to enter into confidentiality agreements with senior employees on any of the above matters and to then hide behind the Data Protection Act. I would be interested to know the interrelationship between this SI and legislation covering Freedom of Information and Data Protection.

In line with recent SOLACE guidance this data should be published along with the authorities annual report.

The consultation closes on the 20th.

I am also in the process of referring the members on the SKDC Chief Executive Performance Panel to the Standards Board for England. Essentially, they have breached their duty be open and transaparent and by agreeing to enter into a confidential agreement with the outgoing CEO hamstrung all the elected members of the council who have essentially be warned that a breach of this agreement could have serious consequences for the council. Ill informed and generally aquescient these members who voted through the secret report probably thought they had little choice.

But there has been little regard to the public interest case for releasing this information. There had been a long period of criticism of the CEO compounded by his decision to take a long period of sabbatical leave to go cycling around Europe, and also the high profile national concerns about pay, expenses and remuneration of senior civil servants and elected officials that appears to be absent from information I have seen and received to date. By entering into a confidentiality agreement, the public interest case was kicked into touch.