21 April 2006
The failure of List 99 to stop paedophiles working with children shocked parents and teachers – and nearly did for the career of Education Secretary Ruth Kelly. Phil Revell asks whether the government's new measures will be enough to safeguard pupils
By all accounts, Keith Hudson is good at his job. After qualifying as a teacher in 1973, he worked in the independent sector, moving from school to school. Four years ago, he was working in East Sussex as a private tutor; in August 2002 one of his pupils, a ten-year-old boy, passed his maths GCSE five years early, with an A grade. The boy's mother was delighted. 'He only started the syllabus in January,' she told her local paper.
But Hudson should not have been teaching at all. In 1998 at Croydon Crown Court he was convicted of a sex offence involving the importation of child pornography. He was fined £750 with £1,000 costs, but not immediately banned from teaching. He appealed against his conviction and, when he lost that case, appealed to the Care Standards Tribunal against the decision to place him on List 99, the register of teachers forbidden from working in schools in the UK.
As a result of the appeals process, it took until 2001 for Hudson's name to be added to the banned list. After it became clear that he was still advertising his tutorial service, East Sussex local education authority issued a circular to local schools.
'It seems straightforward that someone who has committed this kind of offence should not be allowed to work with children, especially on a one-to-one basis in a private home,' the council warned. But it was powerless to stop Hudson teaching.
This case was just one of the examples laid out before horrified parents earlier this year as it became clear that the system supposed to prevent paedophiles working in schools was failing on a massive scale.
The furore over List 99 – which earlier this year pushed Education Secretary Ruth Kelly to the brink of resignation – was sparked by the Paul Reeve case. The PE teacher was placed on the sex offenders' register after receiving a police caution in 2003 for accessing banned images of children on the Internet.
But he was never convicted and was able to carry on working after government minister Kim Howells cleared him. A letter from the Department for Education and Skills apparently describing Reeve as 'trustworthy' enabled him to get a job at Hewett School in Norwich. Howells, now a minister in the Foreign Office, said he had been told Reeve 'did not represent an ongoing threat to children'.
When Reeve's history became known in December last year, he was first suspended and then resigned. Hewett School's head teacher, Tom Samain, and chair of governors, Marion Wright, voiced their concern in a public statement and the media trawl began, as reporters sought out more cases. They weren't hard to find and the government suffered huge political embarrassment as case after case was exposed.
In March, Kelly was forced to admit that 56 individuals had escaped being put on her department's proscribed list since 1997. These included some individuals on the sex offenders' register and others who had committed offences before it was established. Hundreds of others might have slipped through the net because of deficiencies in the bureaucratic and complex system.
Kelly admitted that 'root and branch' reform was necessary, and announced legislation to tighten controls. The Bill – Safeguarding vulnerable groups – will be introduced later this year. It will take decisions out of the hands of ministers, establishing an independent 'central barring unit' to take all decisions on banning any person from working with children or other vulnerable groups.
Employers will be able to make instant on-line checks through a 'secure system' – rather than the current, paper-based process – and they will be informed if any new information about their staff is discovered. There will be fines for employers of up to £5,000 if they take on someone who has not been through the vetting system, or if they fail to check on an employee's background. For the first time, parents will be able to check if private tutors are cleared to teach.
As an exercise in damage limitation, Kelly's announcement was a success, but it was a close run thing, not least because of the Bichard report, which had exposed 'very serious failings' in the vetting system after the double murder of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Sir Michael Bichard's report, published in June 2004, had called for a registration scheme for anyone working with children, and had said that interim measures should be in place by 2005.
'We are pleased with the swift response to the public concern that arose earlier this year,' said Alison King, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board. She said she was looking forward to a 'more modern and cohesive vetting system, which will be more reactive to changing circumstances, and which will provide better information more regularly'.
At the Association of School and College Leaders (formerly the Secondary Heads Association), general secretary John Dunford also welcomed the setting up of a committee to oversee the process. The committee is led by Sir Roger Singleton, the former chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's, and includes a senior police officer with responsibility for child protection, a senior executive from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, psychiatrists, head teachers and local authority children's services directors. Almost its first act was to advise ministers to add three new names to the existing banned list.
'The new committee is broad-ranging,' says Dunford. But he points out that it will require the Criminal Records Bureau to carry out thousands more checks. 'I'm concerned about the cost of that process for schools, and about whether the CRB has the capacity to do the job,' he says.
Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, echoes that worry. Both heads' organisations have raw memories of the chaos in 2002, when CRB checks were first introduced for teachers. Schools across the country found themselves unable to allow newly appointed teachers into their classrooms, because the required CRB checks were taking weeks – and in some cases months – to process.
'I doubt whether the CRB will be able to cope with this new workload,' says Brookes.
At the Grange Primary School in Nottinghamshire, head teacher Richard Gerver is equally apprehensive about the impact of the new legislation. 'We have adopted a common-sense approach up until now,' he says. 'When visitors come into school we never leave them alone with children. All our staff, both teaching and non-teaching, are currently CRB-checked, as are our governors and visiting teachers.'
Gerver's concern centres on the impact of the new legislation on community involvement. Grange is a national model for bringing the community into the classroom. A wide variety of visitors drop into his classes, including parents, drama and arts groups, and local employers. In the past couple of years, BBC Radio Derby has guided the Grange children through the principles of community radio. The Midlands Today news team did the same for the school's budding TV stars.
'These are busy people,' says Gerver. 'They often come into school at short notice. If we have to go through a vetting process for every visit, we will lose that flexibility and spontaneity. We have to have a mix of strategies. There's a danger that a certificate-based system will leave people relying on bits of paper. Every school should have very powerful systems in place – systems that include training in how to recognise the danger signs.'
NSPCC director and chief executive Mary Marsh agrees. 'Employers must do more than just tick the “vetting box”, as many abusers are not known to the criminal justice system,' she says. 'However good the system is, it can never identify everyone who is not suitable to work with children.'
Whatever the results of the legislation, the 'fear' effect has been influencing daily practice in schools for some time. Parents are asked not to take pictures at school events and many schools no longer allow parents into the building at the start and finish of the day.
Heads argue that it is impossible to know every carer who might drop off or pick up a child, and the result has been a mushrooming of verandahs and shelters, as schools provide somewhere out of the weather for parents to wait. Parents who want a quick word with a teacher have to make an appointment.
'It's sad,' says Mick Brookes. 'Keeping parents out – that's the exact reverse of what schools have been trying to do since the 1960s.'
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