Carers or suspeCts? - Manifesto Club

A Manifesto Club Report
Carers or
Suspects
CRB Checks and the
Regulation of the
Caring Professions
Ken McLaughlin / Josie Appleton
October 2010
manifestoclub.com

Executive summary / 3
Manifesto Club Campaign Against Vetting
The Manifesto Club has been campaigning
against the Safeguarding Vulnerable
Groups Act since October 2006, when we
launched a petition signed by individuals
including Fay Weldon, Johnny Ball and
Alan Silitoe, and hundreds of volunteers,
parents and concerned adults. We have
also published a series of reports,
documenting the expansion of vetting and
its damaging effect on social life, including:
The Case Against Vetting October 2006
provides an overview of the dramatic
expansion of vetting, and shows how this
feeds a child protection bureaucracy,
while undermining everyday relationships
between adults and children.
How the Child Protection Industry
Stole Christmas December 2006 shows
how overregulation is ruining seasonal
celebrations.
Hobby Clubs April 2007 documents how
some mixed-age clubs are banning children.
Briefing Document April 2008 shows
how the government’s new vetting laws
are late, over-budget and over-stretched.
Briefing Document Regulating Trust
July 2009 reports on a leaked government
document, and exposes officials’ absurd
plans for the vetting database.
Vetting Under-18s: An education in
mistrust December 2009 shows how
Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks
are undermining teenage volunteers.
Volunteering Made Difficult June 2010
shows how CRB checks and other child
protection rules are undermining volunteers.
A record of our campaigning is at:
www.manifestoclub.com/hubs/vetting
Executive summary
–The discussion about CRB checks and the vetting
database has so far focused on adults caring for children.
Yet there is another dimension to the vetting and
barring scheme, which concerns those who care for
‘vulnerable adults’. There has been a massive growth
of CRB checking in the caring professions, and these
professionals would also have to register on the vetting
database if it goes ahead as laid out in the Safeguarding
Vulnerable Groups Act (2006).
–In total, CRB checks of those working with ‘vulnerable
adults’ have increased from 369,049 in 2004–5, to
568,877 in 2009–10: a total of nearly 3 million checks
since 2004. People who are now CRB checked
include doctors and nurses, social work academics
and students, care home workers, and volunteers for
hospice or homeless charities. Many are repeatedly
checked: NHS workers are CRB checked when they
change jobs, and some social work students will clock
up four CRB checks during an undergraduate course.

Executive summary / 4 Executive summary / 5
–CRBs are expensive for the caring professions and
for individuals themselves. The total cost for the CRB
checks for those working with vulnerable adults is
some £164.7 million since 2004. In 2009–10 alone,
the bill for CRB checks for the medical and care
sectors was £69 million.
–In effect, carers have become suspects. All caring
relationships between adults are cast as one between
potential abuser and abused. Carers are also restrained
by other suspicious rules – for example, they cannot
assist an old lady to the toilet, or cannot be alone with
an elderly person. One carer cited in this report says
‘I find it hard to do my job the way I would like to …
we risk our jobs caring for people because we care’.
–In reality, abuse within the caring professions is rare,
and requires more targeted mechanisms, rather than
general measures for the monitoring of all adults in
health and social care. The money spent on CRB
checking and monitoring carers would be more productively
spent on delivering social and health services
to the public. This report argues that we need to roll
back this suspicious bureaucracy, which is preventing
adults from caring for other adults and wasting vast
amounts of public money that could be better spent.
–The policy of protecting ‘vulnerable adults’ vastly
inflates the vulnerability of adults who are receiving
health or social care. The number of state-defined ‘vulnerable
adults’ has undergone a massive expansion,
from a small number of unusually vulnerable individuals,
to a category that includes the majority of the population.
‘Vulnerable adults’ now includes anyone who
receives any form of healthcare or a range of welfare
support, which in any year is over 80% of the population.
One organisation even defined drunk people as
vulnerable, and CRB checked volunteers who were
helping them home on a Friday night.

Introduction: Suspecting Carers / 6 CRB Checking Carers / 7
sorting items at a hospice, serving customers in a charity shop, or teaching
social work in a university.
Introduction: Suspecting Carers
The discussion about CRB checks has so far focused on adults caring
for children. Yet there is another dimension to CRB checks and the
vetting and barring scheme, which concerns those who care for ‘vulnerable
adults’. Under these provisions, those working or volunteering
with medical patients, the elderly, disabled or homeless, must undergo
regular CRB checks. They would also have to register with the Independent
Safeguarding Authority (ISA), if the vetting and barring scheme
goes ahead as planned.
Alongside the child protection bureaucracy, therefore, there is now a
‘vulnerable adult bureaucracy’ – a system for the monitoring of social
workers, doctors, charity workers, and other members of the caring
professions who play a role in caring for other adults. As with adult-child
relations, adult-adult relations are also increasingly likely to be viewed
with suspicion, and those who purport to care are seen as potentially
predatory.
The number of adults defined by the state as ‘vulnerable’ has expanded
massively over the past decade, from a small number of unusually vulnerable
individuals, to a definition that now includes, in any given year,
over 80% of the UK population. In effect, the state has defined the vast
majority of adults as vulnerable, and those who offer care services as
potential abusers.
It is now common practice to CRB check carers including: doctors and
nurses; social workers; social work academics and students; workers
and volunteers with homeless, aged, blind or hospice charities. This
process has gone so far that some of these who are CRB checked have
little actual contact with the so-called ‘vulnerable’. They could just be
This report charts the growth in CRB checks of the caring professions;
the expansion of the definition of ‘vulnerable adult’; and finally, the implications
for service users, professionals and adult-adult interactions.
CRB Checking Carers
Prior to 2002, guidance for police checks was set out in Home Office
Circular 47/93, and covered people who applied for employment with
local authorities or schools for work that would give them ‘substantial
unsupervised access, on a sustained or regular basis … to children
under the age of sixteen’. 1
As a significant section of the adult population became officially vulnerable,
we have seen the extension of vetting to those working with the
‘vulnerable adult’ population. And, in line with developments for those
working with children, not only those with ‘substantial unsupervised
access’ to ‘vulnerable adults’ required vetting, but any employee or
volunteer whose duties may bring them into contact with such people.
It is not even necessary to have any contact with a ‘vulnerable person’
to be required to undergo CRB clearance: merely having access to
confidential information about children or vulnerable adults is sufficient
for many organisations to require the vetting of their staff. 2 In other cases,
people are checked who have ‘access to information about vulnerable
adults’, for example care records – or who do intellectual work on vulnerable
adults, for example in social work academia. In a short space of
time we have gone from viewing the need to vet staff as a rare event in
very specific circumstances to one in which such vetting is ubiquitous.
Even drunk people are classed as ‘vulnerable adults’. A Christian organisation
that walks the streets helping drunken revellers at weekends
requires its volunteers to be CRB checked, since they are helping the
‘vulnerable’. 3 Homeless charities routinely CRB check the volunteers

CRB Checking Carers / 8 The Cost of CRB Checking Carers / 9
who work in their shops, whose main activity is putting customers’ items
into carrier bags. Homeless charities CRB check the volunteers who take
food to people living on the streets around Christmas time.
Age Concern Sussex advertised a ‘befriender’ scheme, which would
include volunteers visiting an old person for ‘general chatting or sharing
hobbies such as crosswords and chess’. The Age Concern representative
said that ‘volunteers will need a CRB check’. 4
In addition to a CRB check, carers are also checked against the Protection
of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) list. The POVA scheme was launched
in July 2004, and laid down by section 80 of the Care Standards Act 2000.
It is a system whereby ‘known abusers’ of vulnerable adults have their
names put on a register. Section 80 of the Care Standards Act requires
care agencies to refer a worker to the list if they have been suspended,
sacked or moved to a non-care role because of evidence or suspicion
that they have harmed a service user or placed them in danger.
Care providers and agencies in England and Wales have a statutory
duty to consult the register whenever they employ someone whose work
involves care duties for those considered vulnerable, and they cannot
employ anyone whose name appears on the list. It is a criminal offence,
punishable by up to five years in prison, for someone whose name appears
on the list to seek employment in a care position. So, while the employer
has the discretion to appoint someone with criminal convictions, they
have no such discretion over anyone whose name is on the POVA list.
The rise of CRB checking of those working with ‘vulnerable adults’ is
shown by looking at the number of CRB applications received since
2002 where a check of the POVA list was also requested. The POVA
list, formerly owned by the Department for Education and Skills, is now
owned and maintained by the Independent Safeguarding Authority
(ISA), and is known as the ISA adults barred list.
This table shows the number of CRB checks for those working or
volunteering with vulnerable adults (ie, where a POVA check was also
requested as part of the CRB check).
Year
2002–035
2003–04
2004–05
2005–06
2006–07
2007–08
2008–09
2009–10 6
Total
Even allowing for overlap, where the same person may have been POVA
checked more than once, such figures indicate a massive expansion in
the numbers of care employees and volunteers being vetted.
If current plans go ahead, a substantial number of adult carers would
have to register on the vetting database. According to figures from the
CRB, released to the Manifesto Club, out of a total of 2 million volunteers
who would have to register on the vetting database if it goes ahead as
planned, around 500,000 of these would be volunteering with vulnerable
adults. 7
The Cost of CRB Checking Carers
CRB Checks
These CRB checks come at a considerable cost to health and social
care sectors that are currently experiencing cuts.
The cost of these 2,940,766 CRB checks is £36 fee per check, plus
an average £20 administration fee per check (which is either paid for
directly, or borne within the costs of the organisation). This means a
total of some £164.7 million.
The vetting database, and the additional requirement for all workers
with vulnerable adults to be ISA-registered, will make matters worse if it
goes ahead. 8 The registration of each carer would cost £84 in total (at a
cost of £64 for ISA registration, plus a £20 admin fee). The CRB is not
6
29
369,049
516,062
483,961
487,441
515,341
568,877
2,940,766

The Cost of CRB Checking Carers / 10 The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ / 11
currently releasing estimates on the number of adult carers who would
be expected to go on the vetting database. If this figure was 2 million –
a relatively conservative estimate out of a total of 9.5 million adults on
the database – this would mean a total cost for the ISA registration of
carers of £168 million. This is another good reason for scrapping the
ISA scheme.
Many of these ‘vulnerable adult’ CRB checks are for people who work
in public bodies – doctors, nurses, social workers – and so the public
body generally covers the cost of the check. This is therefore a substantial
expenditure for public services, at a time of widespread cuts.
According to the CRB’s response to a recent FOI request, the UK Home
Care Association alone submitted 17,654 CRB checks between August
2009 and August 2010, which would mean a total cost of nearly a million
pounds; the Registered Nursing Home Association submitted a similar
number of checks. 9
FOI requests also reveal that, in the year 2009-10, the CRB carried
out 610,461 checks for the care sector, and 621,469 for the medical
sector. This means a total of 1.23 million CRB checks, at the cost of
£69 million to these substantially publicly funded sectors. 10
In some cases, professionals – such as agency nurses – must pay for
the CRB check themselves. This has caused substantial conflict in some
local health boards. When NHS Central Lancashire brought in a new
policy asking staff to pay for their own CRB checks, health staff rebelled
and their unions lodged a grievance, stating: ‘These checks are compulsory
for large numbers of NHS staff and to demand that staff pay at
the same time as they are being told that they will not be receiving a pay
rise for two years is disgusting.’ 11
In other cases, voluntary organisations have had to bear the cost of checks
themselves, creating difficulties as highlighted in the following case study:
I am the secretary for a charity which is for blind and
partially sighted elderly people. Originally only the
organiser had to have a CRB check, but later this Spring
all volunteers will need to undergo the check. This
includes our rota of drivers, who collect and deliver the
members to the club, supplied by the local Rotary Club.
It is an extremely small charity and I am uncertain who
will have to pay for the 20-25 volunteers’ CRB checks.
I am absolutely certain that if the volunteers have to pay
to have the checks, i.e. pay to be a volunteer – then the
club will be forced to close. 12
Small organisations are essential to providing valuable help to adults in
local communities. However, this is a fragile economy and simply cannot
cope with these heavy bureaucratic demands and costs.
The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ 13
In 1992, I [Ken McLaughlin] was appointed as a support worker for
homeless families. My main place of work was in a shared house/hostel
that could accommodate approximately 14 women and over 30 children.
No adult male residents or visitors were allowed on site as many of
the women were fleeing domestic violence. I recall asking my manager
why I did not have to undergo a police check (the precursor of today’s
CRB check). Her reply was to question why such a measure would be
necessary. The women residents, she said, were homeless, with specific
needs, but they were not vulnerable. The children were not in care; they
were being looked after by their mothers. I accepted this explanation as
entirely sensible. 14
What is striking about this episode is the extent to which, from today’s
perspective, such a response would be seen as seriously naive at best,
to grossly irresponsible and dangerous practice at worst. Today, the
children and their mothers would be automatically classed as vulnerable,
and I would be CRB checked before being allowed to set foot in the
hostel. I have often reflected on this incident in my decade in academia
as I have witnessed both the expansion of the definition of ‘vulnerable
adults’ and the related extension of those required to undergo a criminal
records bureau check for helping them.

The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ / 12 The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ / 13
CRB checks are presented as sensible measures to protect the vulnerable.
What is rarely pointed out is the way that the term ‘vulnerable’ has
changed in recent years, to cover evermore sections of the population.
In 1995, the Law Commission proposed the following definition of a
‘vulnerable person at risk’:
a “vulnerable person at risk” should mean any person
of 16 or over who (1) is or may be in need of community
care services by reason of mental or other disability, age
or illness and who (2) is or may be unable to take care
of himself or herself, or unable to protect himself or
herself against significant harm or serious exploitation. 15
(my emphasis)
Vulnerability to risk is not automatically assumed to flow from the specific
categories mentioned in section one; the criteria in section two
must also be met. In addition, even being at risk of harm or exploitation
is not sufficient for the label of vulnerable to be applied; the harm must
be ‘significant’, the exploitation ‘serious’. This would appear to have been
a commonly held working definition, given my erstwhile team leader’s
response about police checks for working with homeless adults. This
reflected a view that to be vulnerable was not considered the norm,
a view that many practitioners such as my manager and I subscribed.
This definition was adapted by the Lord Chancellor’s Department in
1997, with ‘vulnerable person at risk’ being replaced by ‘vulnerable
adult’. In this new definition, the word ‘serious’ was dropped, so it now
read ‘significant harm or exploitation’. This definition was adopted by
most local authorities.
Three years later, the policy guidance document No Secrets kept within
this 1997 definition, but elaborated on what constituted ‘community
care services’ – ‘to include all care services in any setting or context’. 16
However, the same year the Care Standards Act 2000 expanded the
definition to a quite considerable extent. A ‘vulnerable adult’ was now
(a) an adult to whom accommodation and nursing or
personal care are provided in a care home;
(b) an adult to whom personal care is provided in their own
home under arrangements made by a domiciliary care
agency; or
(c) an adult to whom prescribed services are provided by
an independent hospital, independent clinic, independent
medical agency or National Health Service body. 17
Gone is the need to belong to a specific category of service user, as is
the need to be at risk of any form of harm or exploitation, never mind of
a significant degree. Simply to use one such service now automatically
classifies you as a vulnerable adult.
The trend to further expand the category of ‘vulnerable adult’ continued,
culminating in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, which
views a person to be a vulnerable adult if they have attained the age of
18 and he or she
(a) is in residential accommodation
(b) is in sheltered housing
(c) receives domiciliary care
(d) receives any form of health care
(e) is detained in lawful custody
(f) is by virtue of an order of a court under supervision
by a person exercising functions for the purposes of
Part 1 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act
2000 (c.43) 18
(g) receives a welfare service of a prescribed description 19
(h) receives any service or participates in any activity
provided specifically for persons who fall within
subsection(9) 20
(i) payments are made to him (or to another on his behalf)
in pursuance of arrangements under section 57 of the
Health and Social Care Act 2001 (c.15), 21 or
(j) requires assistance in the conduct of his affairs (s.59[1]) 22

The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ / 14 The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ / 15
This is quite a remarkable expansion, especially when you consider that
health care means receiving ‘treatment, therapy or palliative care of any
description’ (s.59[5], my emphasis), while any provision of assistance
by virtue of age, health or any disability also renders the recipient among
the ranks of the vulnerable (s.59[5]).
As the vast majority of disabled people require some form of assistance,
this legislation effectively equates being disabled with being a
‘vulnerable adult’. With dyslexia now recognised as a form of disability,
and with many higher education students having assistance for just
such a diagnosis, the implication is that they are vulnerable adults also.
However, in a rare moment of insight into the absurdity of such a broad
definition, officials working on the Vetting and Barring Scheme specifically
removed dyslexia-related services from the list of those officially
classed as ‘vulnerable’. 23
It is difficult to get precise figures for how many people are now officially
classed as vulnerable, due to the potential for overlap. Some people will
be in more than one category, for example receiving community care
and health services and/or being in lawful custody and suffering mental
health problems. Nevertheless, it is clear that, at some point in any given
year, a majority of the UK adult population would be labelled as ‘vulnerable’,
and that those who cared for them in a formal capacity would have
to be CRB checked. For example:
– In 2007–08, 1.77 million clients were in receipt of social
care services, 1.53 million (87%) of whom received
community-based services 24
– During a sample week in September 2008, 340,600
people received a total of 4.1 million contact hours of
home care. 25
– 78% of people will see their GP at least once during the
year. GPs also refer 14% of the population to hospital
specialities. 26
– In 2008–09, over 1.2 million people accessed NHS mental
health services. 27
– There were 85,086 detained prisoners as of 30 April 2010. 28
Government guidance relating to the ISA’s Vetting and Barring Scheme
states that the definition of ‘vulnerable adult’ depends on context:
On Tuesdays Mrs B attends a day care centre which
provides social activities for frail old people. During her
time at the day care centre she is receiving a service
which is provided specifically for people with age-related
needs and so is a vulnerable adult. On Wednesdays Mrs
B visits the library. During her time at the library she is
using a service which is targeted at the general public
and so is not a vulnerable adult. 29
As I [Josie Appleton] pointed out in an earlier Manifesto Club document,
such ‘guidance’, rather than offering clarification, merely adds to both
confusion and bemusement, in that:
the staff at the daycare centre would have to be vetted,
because they had ‘access’ to Mrs B in a situation where
she was classified as a vulnerable adult. But the staff at
the library would not, because she would not be defined
as a vulnerable adult in the library. 30
Furthermore, if Mrs B were herself to volunteer at a
local school, then she would be a potential risk and the
pupils would be defined as vulnerable, and she would
have to be vetted. If the school’s sixth formers were to
visit her daycare home as helpers, then they would need
to be vetted and Mrs B would again be defined as
vulnerable. In each case, a helping or caring relationship
is defined as one of potential victim and potential
abuser, with the helper as the risk and the helped as
the potentially abused.
What is worrying is the way a bureaucratic legal procedure overrides
common assessment skills, and the implication that it is those who
purport to care who we should view with most suspicion. In the process
both professionals and service users are undermined; the former viewed

Adults at Risk / 16 The Silent Repeal of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 / 17
as potential threats, the latter as a homogenous group who require
protection from malevolent carers.
Adults at Risk
Nobody working in social work or social care would deny that many
adults suffer serious and sustained abuse. Such a position would be
untenable. However, it is not the case that there is an epidemic of abuse
that requires a state monitoring system of all adult carers.
The 2007 UK Study of Abuse and Neglect 31 found that 2.6 per cent of
its sample of people aged 66 and over who lived in private households
had ‘experienced mistreatment’ from a family member, close friend or
care worker. This may include some horrific individual cases, but it does
not suggest widespread mistreatment, especially when you consider
that older people make up 72% of social services’ clients. 32 In addition,
there tends to be a conflation of categories in the way such reports
are interpreted. A small number of very bad cases of abuse are listed
alongside a more common form of mistreatment: ‘neglect’. While the
consequences of neglect can be serious, it is more often than not an act
of omission rather than necessarily a calculated form of abuse.
Other forms of abuse, such as psychological, physical and sexual, were
so uncommon that the report’s authors combined them under the term
‘interpersonal abuse’. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the position is
further blurred by the wide range of behaviours included in some definitions.
For instance, psychological abuse included such behaviours as
shouting and taunting, which can certainly be unpleasant but are a long
way from the serious end of the abuse spectrum. 33
Between July 2004 and November 2006, 3,418 workers were referred
for investigation, for possible inclusion on the Protection of Vulnerable
Adults list. Two-thirds of these were closed at the ‘pre-provisional’ (first)
stage of investigation and only 10.6% were subsequently placed on
the Protection of Vulnerable Adults list following further investigations. 34
This would indicate two things. First, employers are referring staff too
readily for POVA investigation, no doubt afraid not to comply with the
procedures and face sanction themselves. Second, an average of
12–13 people a month being placed on the POVA list does not indicate
widespread mistreatment of vulnerable people. And while it has to be
borne in mind that some perpetrators may have escaped censure due
to lack of evidence and/or credibility of victim/witness, it is also the case
that those who were deemed guilty were found so on the ‘balance of
probabilities’, rather than the more stringent ‘beyond reasonable doubt’
legal threshold.
This conclusion is also suggested if we examine the numbers of CRB
checked adults who turned out to be on the adults barred list, for the
period 2009–10. Out of a total of 2.25 million CRB checks, only 89
were on the ISA adults barred list. 35
While it has few benefits, the expansion of CRB checks of carers has
significant downsides. One is the erosion of important civil liberties protections,
as endowed in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. Another is
the creation of a climate of mistrust within the caring professions which
makes them less able to do their jobs and help the adults who need it.
The Silent Repeal of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 had the aim of providing exoffenders
with a ‘fresh start’. It allowed many convictions, provided they
resulted in a prison sentence of 30 months or less, to become classed
as ‘spent’ after a certain period of time had lapsed, and therefore the
prospective employee would not have to disclose them on an application
form. They could legally tick the ‘No’ box if asked whether they had
ever been convicted of a criminal offence.
The Act, as the name suggests, was concerned with the rehabilitation
of offenders. It acknowledged that preventing ex-offenders from working
was counter-productive, and it was also of a time when there was a
general belief in the ‘rehabilitative ideal’.

Institutionalising Suspicion and Mistrust / 18 Institutionalising Suspicion and Mistrust / 19
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975
detailed certain positions that were exempt from the Act and any convictions,
whether spent or not, would have to be divulged by the applicant.
In the intervening years, the number of exempt posts has grown so
exponentially that to all intents and purposes the government has effectively
undermined the original Act in both theory and practice. The
most notable change has been the addition of posts involving working
with children and vulnerable adults. The rehabilitative ideal has been
lost, and, for a significant section of the population their convictions will
never be regarded as spent.
Institutionalising Suspicion and Mistrust
Personal testimonies can also help illustrate the way in which the
present climate of distrust and the procedural measures that arise from
it inhibit the caring relationship. One of us [Josie Appleton] experienced
this first hand, as a routine trip to the physiotherapist for a sports injury
became a relationship between potential victim and predator:
When I turned up for my regular physiotherapy appointment
I was told that we would ‘have to be supervised’,
because my therapist’s CRB check had not come through.
He had already had three checks, and because he was from
China the whole thing was probably a waste of time, but
still, anybody receiving medical treatment is classified as
a ‘vulnerable adult’ and therefore requires CRB protection. 36
A routine appointment is recast as a potential abuse situation, to the
annoyance of both patient and therapist. Such a climate can also affect
worker-client interaction in care settings. The experience of the care
worker below will be familiar to many within the sector:
1st CRB needed: I teach at a college where I do a lot of
work with adults [who are not in Education, Employment
or Training…]
2nd CRB needed: I also work for a national care group who
own homes for a national care organisation.
3rd CRB needed: I work for an agency, currently working in
a sheltered village for people with learning disabilities.
4th CRB needed: I work for another agency in nursing
homes, caring for the old, infirm and dying.
The consequence In all cases, I find it hard to do my job
the way I would like to. I cannot be alone with them,
or I have to leave the door open. I cannot assist an old
lady to the toilet in many places, despite her requesting
such help so she does not have the indignity of soiling
herself. (Occasionally I do as a caring person as it
distresses me and my colleagues if we don’t, and so we
risk our jobs caring for people because we care)! 37
Perversely, procedures set up to ‘protect the vulnerable’ actually damage
the quality of care they receive. In an email to the Manifesto Club, a lady
who works in social care describes how systems for the management of
carers end up cutting off service users from potentially fruitful contacts:
Modern social care services advocate practice which
promotes participation and inclusion, and supports
people to develop social networks and natural structures
of support within their communities. However, a
dichotomy exists within the social care system, which
itself creates one of the greatest barriers to achieving
this vision: the framework of vulnerable adult protection,
and the organisational culture that it creates, means
that it is extremely difficult for people to develop informal
relationships within the community, outside of the
regulated environment of care services.
There is minimal opportunity for service users to interact
and engage with the people around them, unless strictly
supervised, and attempts by members of the public to
form a friendship with a person receiving care services

Institutionalising Suspicion and Mistrust / 20 Conclusion / 21
is often looked upon as suspicious. This outlook does
a great disservice to both parties: it regards the public
as potential abusers, and implies that adults who are
elderly, disabled, homeless or have mental health
problems have nothing to offer to another person; that
one would only seek to engage with a vulnerable adult
in order to benefit from them by abusing or exploiting
them. I think until the system of safeguarding vulnerable
adults, and the attitudes it promotes, are changed, inclusion
and equality will not be achievable. 38
Whilst there is little evidence to suggest the expansion of CRB and ISA
guidelines and procedures have improved public protection, it would
appear to be the case that rather than alleviating public anxiety they are
actively contributing to it.
This is brought home to me [Ken McLaughlin] each year with my university’s
social work students. Prior to the introduction of mandatory
CRB checks, our students, as with those on most other such courses,
were sent out on practice placements each year without undergoing the
then ‘police checks’. It was rarely an issue. Occasionally some agencies,
for example in residential social work or child protection, would
do their own check as per Home Office Circular 47/93, as the student
would have substantial unsupervised access to children. Today, all of the
5,000 plus students enrolled on initial social work qualifying degrees are
required to have a satisfactory CRB check. 39
Indeed, it is not uncommon for agencies to require students to undergo
repeat CRB checks, even if their last one was only a year or even a few
months previously. Many students will have three or four ‘current’ (within
the past three years) CRB checks on the go at the same time. Such
is the way that the debate around vulnerability and distrust has been
naturalised that many students see the undertaking of a CRB check as
akin to a rite of passage, albeit one that will be repeated frequently in
the duration of their careers. With everyone viewed with suspicion the
tendency is for such measures to constantly extend.
This suspicion is particularly off-putting for volunteers, and others who
have informally offered their help to care for others. One potential
volunteer for a homeless charity, Christina Davenport, told us that she is
currently unable to volunteer because she is waiting for her third CRB
check to come through. All this in order to be able to put items in a
plastic bag in a Worthing charity shop – a shop that she says is ‘desperate
for volunteers’. She told us that the bureaucratic hassle had nearly
put her off volunteering:
I thought, I can’t stand this. You have to take your passport,
and the whole process makes you feel like a criminal. But
then I thought of the homeless and so I’m sticking it out. 40
The Manifesto Club has been contacted by several doctors who
object to being CRB checked in order to sit on their local health boards
in an unpaid capacity. Some of these doctors have threatened to resign
in protest. 41
Mistrust is only enforced by suspicious ‘adult safeguarding’ rules, which
prevent carers being alone with clients, or taking an old lady to the toilet.
The Rotary Club introduced a policy for its volunteers to always go out
in twos, for example if they were driving an old lady to get her shopping.
In this scenario, the very offer of help makes someone a source of suspicion
and in need of being watched. 42
Conclusion
Bureaucratic measures for regulating carers are more concerned with
protecting agencies than their clientele. This approach to social work
and social care does little to help the relative few who really are at risk
of abuse, and diverts much-needed resources from frontline social
care. Worst of all, it helps promote societal distrust by encouraging us
to view everyone, especially those who purport to care, with suspicion.
The ever-growing category of the ‘vulnerable adult’ is a recent phenomenon,
based on a rather degraded view of both service users and

Endnotes / 22 Endnotes / 23
their carers. The former are viewed as inherently fragile, the latter as
potentially predatory. It represents the institutionalisation of misanthropy,
whereby thinking the worst about people is viewed as a positive civic
duty and positive social care value.
This report calls for a more positive and humane view of carers and
the adults they help. Abuse is not the norm. The money spent on CRB
checking and monitoring carers would be more productively spent on
delivering social and health services to the public. What is needed, we
argue, is to roll back this suspicious bureaucracy, which is preventing
adults from caring for other adults and wasting vast amounts of public
money that could be better spent.
Endnotes
1 ‘Protection of Children: disclosure of
criminal background of those with access
to children’, Home Office Circular no.47/1993
2 CRB checks: Guidance for departments,
Queen Mary University of London www.hr.
qmul.ac.uk/docs/policies_procedures/
recruitment/2550.pdf
3 Christian volunteers help get people home
safely www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/local/
durham/8127206.A_shoulder_to_lean_on_for_
city_centre_drinkers
4 www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/hailsham-news/
Age-Concern-urges-people-to.6334873.jp
5 Figures for 2002–9 from Manifesto Club
Freedom of Information Act request to
CRB, no.14597
6 Figures for 2009–10 from Manifesto Club
Freedom of Information Act request to CRB,
no.14597. These figures were given for up
to the end of February 2010, so have been
scaled up proportionally to cover until the
end of March 2010
7 CRB response to Manifesto Club FOI request,
29 April 2010
8 The vetting database is currently under
review, and an announcement is expected at
the start of 2011
9 See FOI response, ref:16203 www.crb.
homeoffice.gov.uk/pdf/FOI%2016203_.pdf
10 On the basis of £36 fee, and £20 admin
fee, per CRB check. See FOI response,
ref:16094 www.crb.homeoffice.gov.uk/pdf/
FOI%2016094.pdf
11 www.lep.co.uk/news/nhs_workers_criminal_
check_cost_standoff_1_928690
12 Post on Saga website, 12 January 2010
www.sagazone.co.uk/forums/thread/54062/
13 This section develops material first
discussed in McLaughlin, K. (2010) ‘Control
and Social Work: A reflection on some
twenty-first century developments’, Practice,
vol.22, no.3, pp.143–154
14 In the over three years I was there it was
only when I organised a summer playscheme
for the children that I was required to have
a police check, as I was then seen as in
loco parentis
15 Report on Mental Capacity, Law Commission
no.231, 1995
16 No Secrets: Guidance on developing and
implementing multi-agency policies and
procedures to protect vulnerable adults
from abuse, Department of Health, 2000,
Para 2.4 www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/
groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/
digitalasset/dh_4074540.pdf
17 Care Standards Act 2000, Department of Health,
part VII, S80(6) www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/
acts2000/ukpga_20000014_en_9#pt7-pb1-l1g80
18 This refers to those subject to supervision
by the probation service.
19 This includes services which provide support,
assistance, advice or counselling to individuals
with particular needs.
20 A person falls within this subsection if
(a) he has particular needs because of his
age; (b) he has any form of disability;
(c) he has a physical or mental problem of
such description as is prescribed; (d) she
is an expectant or nursing mother in receipt
of residential accommodation pursuant to
arrangements made under section 21(1) (aa)
of the National Assistance Act 1948 or
care pursuant to paragraph 1 of Schedule 8
to the National Health Service Act 1977
(c. 49); (e) he is a person of a prescribed
description not falling within paragraphs
(a) to (d)
21 This refers to those in receipt of ‘direct
payments’
22 Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006,
Department of Health, S.59 www.opsi.gov.uk/
acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060047_en_5#pb14-l1g59
23 ISA (2008) (Independent Safeguarding
Authority) ‘ISA Scheme Consultation
Document Formal Government Response’,
30 May 2008 www.fairplayforchildren.org/
pdf/1218024387.pdf
24 Community Care Statistics 2007-08:
Referrals, Assessments and Packages of
Care for Adults, England, The Health and
Social Care Information Centre, 2009 www.
ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/Social%20
Care/RAP%20Full%20Report/2007-08/RAP%20
Report.pdf
25 Community Care Statisitcs 2008: Home care
services for adults, England www.ic.nhs.
uk/statistics-and-data-collections/
social-care/adult-social-care-information/
community-care-statistics-2008:-help-careservices-for-adults-england
26 Royal College of General Practitioners
www.rcgp.org.uk/patient_information/
what_is_general_practice.aspx
27 NHS Mental Health Minimum Dataset
www.mhmdsonline.ic.nhs.uk/statistics.asp
report_ID=1&results_type=national&sha_ID=&
provider_ID=&natyear=&n=&remember=report_
ID%3D1%26results_type%3Dnational
28 HM Prison Service Population Bulletin Weekly
30th April 2010 www.hmprisonservice.gov.
uk/resourcecentre/publicationsdocuments/
index.aspcat=85
29 Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006:
ISA Scheme Consultation Document,
14 November 2007, page 8 www.dcsf.gov.uk/
consultations/downloadableDocs/SVG%20
Act%20ISA%20consultation%20final.pdf
30 Regulating Trust: who will be on the vetting
database, p.15 (emphasis in original),
Manifesto Club, 2009 www.manifestoclub.com/
files/RegulatingTrust.pdf
31 UK Study of Abuse and Neglect 2007 assets.
comicrelief.com/cr09/docs/elderabuseprev.pdf
32 NHS Information Centre Statistics www.ic.nhs.
uk/statistics-and-data-collections/socialcare/older-people
33 Look on the bright side of ‘later life’ by
Ken McLaughlin www.spiked-online.com/index.
php/site/article/3811/
34 The protection of Vulnerable Adults List:
An investigation of referral patterns and
approaches to decision making, Department
of Health 2008 www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_
dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/
documents/digitalasset/dh_086637.pdf
35 Response to Manifesto Club FOI request to
CRB, no.16057
36 Checking Physiotherapists www.manifestoclub.
com/blog/4page=2
37 Email sent to Manifesto Club Vetting Blog
38 www.manifestoclub.com/node/587
39 There were 5,221 students enrolled on
initial social work qualifying degrees in
2007-08. Parliament UK www.publications.
parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchi
lsch/527/52706.htm
40 Interview with Josie Appleton in Brighton,
July 2010
41 See case of Raymond Tallis in report,
‘Volunteering Made Difficult’
42 Email to Campaign Against Vetting

About the Authors / 24
Ken McLaughlin has twenty years’
experience in social care, initially within
social services training before moving
to work in the homeless families sector
and then to a statutory mental health
team where he was Team Manager and
Approved Social Worker. Since 2001 he
has been a senior lecturer in social work at
Manchester Metropolitan University where
he teaches modules on sociology, social
movements and mental health
Josie Appleton founded and is current
director of the Manifesto Club civil liberties
group. She initiated and has coordinated
the club’s Campaign Against Vetting for
the past four years. She also writes many
of the club’s reports and documents,
and edits Manifesto Club publications.
As a journalist and writer, she comments
frequently on contemporary freedom
issues of everyday life.
Design: Tom Mower

The Manifesto Club campaigns against
the hyper-regulation of everyday life. We
support free movement across borders,
free expression and free association. We
challenge booze bans, photo bans, vetting
and speech codes – all new ways in
which the state regulates everyday life on
the streets, in workplaces and in our
private lives.
Our rapidly growing membership hails
from all political traditions and none, and
from all corners of the world. To join this
group of free thinkers and campaigners,
see: www.manifestoclub.com/join