Wiltshire Club Welfare OfficerForum

Chippenham 20th February 2013

Club Welfare Officers Forum

Welcome

Outcomes•Safe Hands Kit Bag update

•Changes to disclosure and barring: What you need to know

•Drugs and Cricket in Wiltshire

•Policy Task

•Questions and Answers

•Safe Hands Workshop

ECB Safe Hands Update

• No changes to the Safeguarding guidelines for the current year, although processes have changed (DBS)

• The current list of persons who require disclosure checks has been temporarily withdrawn whilst consideration is given to the new Disclosure and Barring Scheme. However, we will continue run checks on all those persons considered to have significant contact with young people. (No Change)

Disclosure and Barring Scheme

Changes to

disclosure and barring:What you need to

know

The History• The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) was established from the

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. This legislation follows the Bichard Report on the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

• The VBS was to have been operated by the CRB and a new body created by the legislation - the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). Members of the workforce of paid employees and volunteers who work with children and vulnerable adults would required to join the VBS.

• The scheme would monitor any relevant information from the police, employers or others, and the ISA will bar those who are unsuitable to work with the vulnerable groups.

Protection of Freedoms Act 2012

•Provides:– Clear, well managed arrangements for

safeguarding.

– Scales back the criminal records and barring system to “more proportionate levels” (under the current scheme 9 million people would require CRB Checks, under the new scheme this would be closer to 5 million)

– Definitions for regulated activities: “work which involves close and unsupervised activity with vulnerable persons including children”

Major Changes from 1st January 2013

• New definition of a regulated activity. (Next Slide)

• Repeal of a controlled activity

• Repeal of registration and continuous monitoring

• Minimum age at which someone can apply for a CRB/DBS check will be 16.

• More rigorous relevancy test when information is released for an enhanced check.

Regulated activity relating to children

•The new definition of a regulated activity relating to children comprise only:

•Unsupervised activities: – teach, – train, – care for or supervise children, – or provide advice/guidance on well being – drive a vehicle only for children.

Not Changing

• Appropriate referrals must be made to the ISA

• You must not engage in regulated activity someone who is known to have been barred by the ISA

• Everyone within the definition of a regulated activity will remain eligible for an enhanced disclosure check.

Update Service

• This will become available in early 2013

• The Update Service will allow individuals, if they so choose and on payment of a small fee, to subscribe to this service.

• If an individual needs more than one criminal record check they can reuse their existing certificate. The host organisation will be able to check online to see if it is up to date and no changes have been recorded.

• This is intended to avoid many unnecessary repeat applications.

• More information will be made available by the Home Office once it is available. In the meantime it is business as usual.

•Any Questions

Drugs and cricket:

Wiltshire's concerns

Wiltshire’s Concerns

• Wiltshire Cricket does not knowingly have any major issues involving the taking of drugs and/or doping substances.

• To say there are no issues would be to bury ones head in the sand.

• During the last season there were a small number of instances of players reportedly smoking class B substances in and around cricket establishments.

• Each of these is being dealt with on an individual level.

• Whilst none of these incidents directly relate to children, cricket s a sport where we readily integrate young people into the adult game, Wiltshire Cricket Board does not condone this and recognises the risk to young people who may be exposed to this activity.

ECB• The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is committed to

ensuring that cricket is a drug free sport. Anti-doping programmes across all sports are intended to promote ethically fair and drug-free sport, with the aim of producing sportsmen and women who are competing and winning fairly.

• It should be noted that the ECB recognise that the supplying of alcohol to any person under the age of 18 is a drugs related matter and constitutes a breach of the Safe Hands Policy.

• There has also been questions raised about the appointment of persons with drugs related offences which have appeared on CRB forms.

Wiltshire Cricket Board

• Wiltshire does not have a drugs related policy

• Wiltshire relies on the advice of the ECB when dealing with incidents

• This is a weakness in our own Governance and therefore a Policy is required in order to have a clear strategy for dealing with incidents.

•Your Task:

Bearing in mind we have a blank canvas, each group come up with five key “things” (definitions, strategies, sanctions) that you might want included in such a policy.

In the meantime……………

• Please refer any drugs related issues back to the County Welfare Officer to discuss appropriate action.

Q & A / Any further matters