Vetting scheme for adults gets even worse
From the Telegraph:
Adults who look after friends’ children on a regular basis are being forced to register with Ofsted under new legislation. They must complete a criminal record check, learn first aid, take a childcare course and even follow Labour’s “nappy curriculum” for under-fives. …It comes just weeks after it emerged that parents giving lifts to other children face prosecution if they fail to register with the Government’s vetting and barring scheme, a new anti-paedophile database. Dr Richard House, senior lecturer in psychotherapy at Roehampton University, and founder of the Open EYE campaign group, said: “In any ‘couldn’t-make-it-up’ league table, this latest Government incursion into family life surely has to come very near the top. It beggars belief that Ofsted is now telling parents that a private co-operative arrangement whereby friends choose to take care of each others’ children is against the law. It appears that the stealthy nationalisation of childcare is now proceeding at full throttle.”
The rules were set out in Labour’s Childcare Act 2006 and, in a little-noticed move, regulations were adopted two years’ later. Adults must register with Ofsted if they look after children for more than two hours on any one day – even if it time is split between an hour in the morning and over an hour at night. It means officials can inspect their homes to vet standards of care and ensure premises are safe. Inspections are carried out every three to four years. Childminders must also take a course and follow the Early Years Foundation Stage – a new “curriculum” for under-fives setting out a series of targets covering literacy, numeracy, problem solving and social skills. Many official childminders have already been forced out of business after blaming the demands of the EYFS. The watchdog said regulations covered any childcare carried out for “reward”. …It could apply to neighbours regularly looking after their friend’s children during the summer holidays or for several hours after school to allow parents to work. The rules do not apply to adults looking after children in the child’s own home and does not cover “close” family members.
More than 1,000 people have signed a petition on the Number 10 website calling for the regulations to be scrapped. It came after two un-named mothers were banned from looking after each others’ children. The women, who worked together, had daughters at the same time and decided to start a job share. Under the arrangement, one would look after the girls for two-and-a-half days while the other worked. But they were shopped to Ofsted which ordered them to stop. …A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families added: “The legislation is designed to ensure that care for children away from the family home meets requirements aimed at ensuring the safety and welfare of the child. These include [criminal record] checks on adults living and working on premises where the childcare is provided.” But Dr House added: “What the Government seems incapable of understanding is that their claim to be concerned about the declining authority of parenting is comprehensively contradicted by absurd injunctions like this one, which can only further undermine parents’ capacity to make informed decisions about their own children’s well-being.”
Geeesh. And I thought the adults-giving-lifts-to-children vetting scheme was bad.
Witanagemot Blogs
Do you have a permit to make critical comments about our Enlightened New Labour Government Policy? If not, you should expect the rozzers shortly.
This scheme is ridiculous and, I’d argue, comprehensively illegal when enforced as above. The ECHR guarantees a right to privacy and family life. Oddly, my family doesn’t include a big brother.
Does yours? Because New ‘Paedos under the bed’ Labour thinks it does…
It’s almost as if the want to set off mass civil disturbances……Then again they’d have to cancel the election, so it’s a vague possibility.
This ties in nicely with Julia’s piece on the issue – it is certainly one I’m bringing up in the Britblog Roundup. It needs resolution at the highest level, in order for sanity to return.
This government has single handedly been responsible for the massive acceleration in the breakdown of societal structures, whilst replacing them with it’s own insidious brand of nannyism.
Also noted the reference ‘But they were shopped to Ofsted which ordered them to stop’. Nice. Just shows how far the government has managed to turn us into small minded malicious grasses.
We’re screwed unless this lot are ousted pronto and swathes of this type of badly thought out law are repealed.
“It beggars belief that Ofsted is now telling parents that a private co-operative arrangement whereby friends choose to take care of each others’ children is against the law. “
When all that hell was being raised over the ISA checks needed for volunteers a few weeks ago, plenty of people were saying it wouldn’t apply to informal arrangements. I rremember them being wheeled out to radio shows etc to spread that lie in an effort to pooh-pooh people’s concerns.
Now we find out another government agent is doing precisely the opposite.
Soon, the government will have become the compulsary intermediary in all relationships between people outside the home. Personal, institutional, business. The state is all pervasive.
Only 7 months to go until the British people end the Nulab reign of terror.
“Only 7 months to go until the British people end the Nulab reign of terror. “
And replace it with the BluLab reign of strong anxiety..?
“And replace it with the BluLab reign of strong anxiety..?”
That’s the tragic sting in the tail, Julia. We’ll have a few hours of jubilation and freedom between NuLab losing and BluLab taking over where they left off.
Anyone fancy staging a coup on that Thursday night?
@ Stewart & Julia.
I recon that the Conservatives will come to power next year, and will do so with a limited amount of goodwill, much less so than the Blair government in 1997.
If they do not make very swift moves to undo the Stalinism of the Blair/Brown terror, the British public will swiftly conclude that Parliament in its current format is dead, and that a real change of system is needed.
[...] Letters from a Tory: Again, we must account for ourselves before the state, or we are non-persons liable to sanction… Vetting scheme for adults gets even worse [...]
@Tony E –
I’m sure the Tories will be working towards a one world government as well, but maybe we should delay the coup until it becomes obvious.
I wonder how bad it has to get before people instinctively get together and revolt.
jameshigham,
I made exactly the same connection. It is absolutely bloody unbelievable. My parents would have fallen foul off this. I bet the same for yours. This is entirely about the atomisation of society so we all really for everything on the state and not on friends or relatives. Who would you trust with your kids (if you have them) – a good friend or the bloody SS who would probably do a RAD “test” and scrobble them.
If I could transmute my utter contempt for them into energy we’d light Birmingham for a billion years.
I am very angry about this watered-down abomination of a law.
Why are family members exempted from this process? It is a known fact that family members are responsible for most child molestation. Is Ofsted truly serious about the safety of our most precious members of society, or are they simply pursuing a course of political expediency? And where are the more stringent checks? Or more severe penalties for those who flout the law and knowingly expose their children to potential rapists?
If this had truly been crafted with the welfare of our children in mind, no one would be complaining. To protect our babies, we will gladly sacrifice anything. But this is not protection, it is merely a dumb show to suggest they are “doing something” about this horrible epidemic.
The insights of the 1984 novel are coming to fruition slowly but surely and sooner or later our lives will be completely controlled by this government. The fictional images brought to light in 1984 are coming to be a reality in our country a little late, but if Labour remains in power our society will finally be completely controlled.
Frightening that faceless government authoritarians can have such an impact on our lives all under the mandate that they want to bring about a ‘caring, safer society.’
[...] Letters from a Tory comments: Vetting scheme for adults gets even worse! Geeesh. And I thought the adults-giving-lifts-to-children vetting scheme was bad. [...]