We are seeing the first blowback from the introduction last autumn of the Government’s absurdly over-egged Vetting and Barring scheme. Children scheduled for surgery are having their operations cancelled by zealous apparatchiks blocking surgeons who – despite CRB clearance in one trust – are being refused entry to others, where they would otherwise be able to operate. The var, one might say, between stooge and surgeon is on, and all operation bets are off.
On a benign view, this is an example of goal displacement – a triumph of process over outcome. One could leave it at that, were it not for the fact that this triumphant process has trumped real kids needing real operations by real surgeons. And so we have a scheme designed to protect children perversely achieving the opposite result – harm to children.
How could we get to such a contrary outcome? The answer, of course, is totalitarian creep. A somewhat extreme explanation, I hear you say? Not a bit of it. Consider the following.
Some ten years ago, we largely trusted people. Doctors and others working with vulnerable people had to declare convictions on job application forms, but that was as far as it went. Then someone realised that maybe some applicants’ memories weren’t quite as sharp as they might be – and so, in 2002, we had CRB checks, and then enhanced CRB checks. Typically, their introduction was late and chaotic.
The Bichard Inquiry into the Soham murders led to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, which in turn gave rise to the Vetting and Barring Scheme, designed to vet some five million adults – all of whom were deemed by the State to be paedophiles until proved otherwise. It was only a matter of time before the scheme was extended, and, surely enough, last year it was, to cover some ten million adults – one in four of the adult population. Full implementation is due later this year.
At the same time, the ‘Independent’ Safeguarding Authority was set up to centralise, on the State’s behalf, the investigation of one in four adult citizens, and to maintain a database of both hard – such as convictions – data and soft intelligence – canteen gossip to you and me.
And so we arrive at a culture of distrust – initially distrust by the State, but when it reaches the epidemic proportions that it has, the contagion spreads. The people adopt the State’s mood: citizen monitors citizen, subject spies on subject, and the zealous report the suspects to the ‘authorities’. No one – not even a surgeon with clearance from a nearby trust – can be trusted.
Meanwhile, children continue to miss operations they need – and to die. Khyra Ishaq was only the latest is a string of catastrophic failures by ‘professionals’ – ‘professionals’ who no doubt had full CRB clearance, who satisfied all the process requirements, but who failed utterly to do the job they were supposed to do.
The whole CRB thing’s a money making exercise. If you are say, a teacher and you also help with the football team and a youth club, you need three separate clearances to work with them. And if you move authority, you have to do it all over again. No wonder it takes so long to get a clearance; they must be absolutely drowning in paper. Not to mention the amount of duplication on their computer. I seriously wonder how that duplication inpinges on their ability to detect an abuser. The sad thing about it is; most child abuse happens at home. Most abusers are known to children and there’s very little we can do to stop the vast majority of cases. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t try to stop institutional abuse; of course we should; but it is usually a teacher, doctor or social worker who reports the abuse of a child, rather than them being the abuser.
At £64 a pop, and with ten million required to register, Dr No reckons the new ISA’s turnover will be a staggering £640 million – over half a billion smackers! Talk about trousering the lolly!
The error rate is important – because even a very low rate, when applied to ten million, adds up to an large number of affected people. Both false positives and false negatives.
And quite right about where most abuse happens. But don’t tell HMG – they will extend the VBS to everyone who has contact with children – including parents. And then to all carers. And then it’ll be so many they’ll say everyone must be registered. Ker-CHING!
As a trusting sort of soul, I would like to believe CRB checks were introduced with the best of intentions, in an effort to protect the vulnerable and the innocent from abuse. And hopefully, they were.
But now our protective friend has grown in to a accusing enemy who presumes that we all are guilty, until proven innocent. But after my CRB clearance, I could abuse somone tomorrow! So in reality it offers little protection.
We have an innocent situation in my workplace where a good, kind, young male, fresh to caring, has had to be taken aside and advised not to tell a vulnerable woman that he loves her TOO. She tells everyone that she loves them. I tell her I love her. But the difference is, that I am female and he is male. If she should pass this on to her social worker, who knows what might result? Worlds gone mad!
But even worse, is that for a child to be denied surgery in a trust that falls outside of the scope of a surgeons CRB check. It is downright abuse.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The term “skilled incompetence” was coined by Chris Argyris in 1986 to explain why “managers use practised routine behaviour (skill) to produce what they do not intend (incompetence)”. I made myself very unpopular at the time when I suggested to my UK Health manager colleagues that much of what we then did felt like skilled incompetence to me. There has been an almost exponential growth in this way of working in the NHS under both conservative and nulabour governements. The CRB paradox that you describe is yet another example.
For anyone interested in reading the ORIGINAL ARTICLE(link) it appeared in the Harvard Business Review undeer the title Skilled Incompetence by Chris Argyris 6 pages. Publication date: Sep 01, 1986. Prod. #: 86501-PDF-ENG
and is summarised as follows:
Many top executives pride themselves on their skill in avoiding and managing conflict. However, when managers neither speak candidly nor put important facts on the table, candor is lost, communication suffers and so does the company. Skilled incompetence is a condition in which people excell at doing what they shouldn’t because it seems right. These managers are “skilled” because they act without thinking. They are “incompetent” because their skill produces unintended results.