back to article ISA circling the drain

The Independent Safeguarding Authority, standard-bearer for the last government’s efforts to protect every child in the country from any harm imaginable, is sailing into choppier waters this week with the announcement that the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is now seeking a judicial review to delay its implementation. The …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The price of what ISA stands for

    Dropping ISA makes sense. After all, the ISA amounts to thought police, ``for the chiiiildrunnnn''. And there's the basic freedoms angle: Freedom to act implies the freedom to fuck up. Perhaps only once; caught and tried us-the-people could easily decide that once is enough to permanently bar you from working with children. But since you can't very well do that to people who haven't fucked up yet....

    Justice can be a bitch sometimes. But, not giving people the chance to learn, to repent, and so on, is perhaps a worse fate. If we're not willing to do that, we might as well dress everyone in straitjackets all the time. And not, as the holier-than-thou childhugger brigade would like to imply, just the people we suspect, either. Because justice without equality is not justice, that naturally means: Every Last One Of Us All. Do you like that?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Dangerous Farce

    Vetting is and will be a farce. I have no problem with barring individuals convicted of offences from certain work where that is sensible, nor vetting where that is truly needed, but for the majority; the innocent will likely tell the truth and become victims of that truth ( or of insinuations and slurs from others ), while the dangerous will lie and/or quite likely slip under the radar.

    It is really the scope of vetting and increasing risk-averse mentality which is the problem.

    I do not like the notion that I or anyone else should have to prove their innocence against a de facto presumption of guilt and particularly do not like that I should have to pay for the privilege of proving my innocence.

    Above all is the nonsense that having watched pornography, read Lolitta, seen Bugsy Malone, or the neighbours thinking "she's a bit odd", should be be accepted as justification for destroying a career and a person's livelihood. Possibly forever if vetting-lite becomes the norm; "have you ever been refused a job on the grounds of vetting rejection?" on application forms.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Fail

    Heresay CAN be admitted as evidence in a criminal trial.

    1. Jane Fae

      OK...

      Generally unadmissible, then....subject to common law practice, as codified in CJA 2003...not to mention whatever the last government was tinkering about with just before it departed.

      OK?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: Admitted as evidence

      Hearsay, perhaps... Heresay(sp) [Heresy] - nope. At least, in secular courts.

  4. RTNavy
    Unhappy

    Kill Bill

    So, if I watch Kill Bill, I won't get to keep my job as a nurse at a hospital?

    1. Scott 19

      Gutted

      After watching High School Musical I wanted to go straight out and become a teacher until someone pointed out inner city schools where not liek this. I was gutted.

      And i thought it was against parlimentary rules to use common sense?

  5. RW
    Flame

    "Utmost importance"????

    This shibboleth regarding protection of children from harm at all costs is so laughable it's....well, laughable. It's an unbalanced attitude perhaps due to saccharine memories of childhoods that never were and the idea that the little darlings are angels made of snowflakes.

    Someone really needs to put the cat among the pigeons and work out the monetary value of a child's life cut short prematurely, then compare that (and the number of such lost lives) with the cost of the many insane, unbalanced provisions made for their protection. (Some of which provisions are actually detrimental to the proper development of children.)

    And as for the internet: instead of assuming the internet, the web in particular, is by default "safe for children" with only "adult" sites earmarked, how about we do it the other way around? Assume that everything on the web is only suitable for adults, with the exception of specific sites marked as safe for the kiddies.

    Grumpily yours....

  6. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects 1
    Paris Hilton

    That bloody government!

    It won't go away. They've just spent millions to spy on Birminham's Muslims and we are still butchering women and children for George Bush.

    When will somebody say: "Fuck off forever you cunts."?

  7. raving angry loony

    who watches the watchers?

    Have the people who run and work for the ISA been themselves vetted by the criteria they propose? Have they submitted to the very scrutiny they're trying to impose on others? Or is it, as I suspect, very much a "do as I say, don't do as I do" hypocritical organization?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why now?

    Notice that the RCN waited until the Labour government was out of office before protesting at the vetting scheme. Why was that?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Power is _always_ misused to extremity. No exceptions.

    So the nurse's boss don't like the nurse and says he/she has said something and *poff* the nurse is unemployed at least 10 years. No hearing, no proof needed.

    More blatant Nazism is hard to imagine.

    Nobody gives a sh**t what these powers are meant for, it's always "what can we do with this kind of power?"

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Censorfreak idiots

    "And as for the internet: instead of assuming the internet, the web in particular, is by default "safe for children.."

    This is the stupidiest assumption I've seen in decades: The Internet is similar to the world: It is not and never will be suitable material for the kids. (Fortunately the writer is not assuming that, rather the opposite.)

    Everybody demanding that should be shot as censorfreak idiot.

    There is no room for those in any society where parents are responsible for the kids, not some government bureucracy.

  11. Lawson

    isa victim

    To think I used to believe in British justice.... I received a letter from ISA 2 months ago saying I'd been put on their Vulnerable Adults' Barred List (even though I've never even been alleged to have done anything to any adult nevermind a vulnerable one). I wrote to complain assuming a mistake had been made and my letter still hasn't been acknowledged. I formally applied to be taken off the List and that hasn;t been acknowledged either. I phoned today and was told my letters haven't even been allocated to a worker yet! It sounds like a laborious process thereafter too as they said they write to the Police for comments but there is no protocol in place for the length of time to receive a response so the Police can drag it out for ages. In the meantime I've had to give up my job and turn down another to be sure I'm not committing an offence. It's a scandal

This topic is closed for new posts.