Scottish Parent Teacher Council

Support for SPTC and common sense

Copy of a letter sent to "The Herald" in support of our campaign to bring common sense to the disclosure system.

"We were encouraged by the letter on 31st January from Judith Gillespie from the Scottish Parent Teacher Council about the problems with the disclosure procedure and to see we were not alone in our concerns. The procedure is forcing people to go through a "trial" without the benefit of the checks and balances of the British legal system and is being often run by people who do not have legal training. In our experience with volunteers a "proportionate" repsonse often doesn't even enter the equation.

Volunteers, even those who have no charges or convictions, can have information put on their disclosure document which is misleading or untrue and we were told, when phoning the Disclosure Helpline, that "there was no appeal procedure". They even checked with a supervisor and phoned us back to confirm it when we expressed disbelief that this could be true. It was nonsense, of course, but it took a long time to find out how to appeal and eventually one volunteer decided that enough was enough and 45 years of experience and unblemished volunteering ended. The scheme shocked us when we experienced it in operation, we didn't feel that we were still in Britain, it had a Kafkaesque quality, people were very selective in the way they used it and seemed to be plucking decisions out of the air.

The employment situation is bad enough, but volunteers are not covered by Employment Law and may be faced with enormous difficulties if they try to challenge information given about them. The non-conviction information is seriously worrying. We were advised by one solicitor that it could take years to overturn a decision and may cost thousands. This is an erosion of our legal system and we are allowing it to happen by giving in to a moral panic. One MSP with whom we raised this matter said that authorities feel they must be seen to be doing something and tend to say, "Here's something, let's do that", however meaningless. It is more about protecting organisations from possible legal action than about protecting children. We have worked with children for over 50 years, both professionally and as volunteers, our lives have been dedicated to the welfare of children but just questioning anything, however illogical, to do with child protection gives rise to accusations of not caring about children's safety. We care, particularly as grandparents, and we fear for the future of our society when we condone such badly thought-out legislation which ultimately erodes human rights. Our children are worth more than this.

In spite of all the expense and all the turmoil this legislation has caused, disclosure documents are only valid on the day they are written and merely prove that, if someone poses any kind of risk to children, they have not yet been caught. It seems to us it gives us a false sense of security to parents.

We hope any consultation period will address these problems and that the sytem, which appears to be promoting vigilante action, will be severely curtailed before any more harm is done and any more time and money wasted.

Anne & Joe Patrizio

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