The vetting of up to nine million people who frequently work with children and vulnerable adults, which was due to start next month, was halted by the home secretary, Theresa May, pending a review intended to scale back the scheme to “common sense” proportions.
May said she had taken the decision because it was now recognised that the vetting and barring scheme was disproportionate, burdensome and infringed on civil liberties.
The scheme was introduced in the wake of the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by school caretaker Ian Huntley in Soham in 2002.
However, the effect of the announcement is limited. Voluntary registrations, at £64 a time for new employees and those changing jobs, were due to start next month but are not due to become mandatory until November.
Existing staff are not due to be phased into the scheme until 2011.
Under the original scheme, the database of people registered to work with children would have covered 11 million adults, making it the largest child protection database in the world.
Read more at The Guardian.
