We now have a new system run by the "Independent Safeguarding Authority" for preventing adults coming into contact with children and other ‘vulnerable people' unless they have been first approved by the Authority. A system already exists, but the latest version of it simplifies things - now only one check will be required, regardless of however many different relevant activities you may engage in or different areas of the country you work in. Of course the price for the certificate has increased by 50%.

Unfortunately, it also enlarges the scope of the system. Now it includes far more volunteers and so around one quarter of the adult population will need to be checked and given a certificate of worthiness. The criteria for this need are: frequency (once a month) and/or intensity of contact (3 hours) or being with a child overnight. There has been a major outcry. The newspapers are saying that the burden of proof is being changed so that everyone is now guilty until proven innocent; that people will not bother to volunteer for work with children if they have to engage with so much bureaucracy. And the reply has been, quite seriously, that if the life of only one child is saved as a result of the inconvenience suffered, then it will all have been worthwhile.

It seems to me that there are a number of important points amid all the noise. For a start, more and more quangos are being set up. We will have the Independent Paperclip Authority quite soon with its own budget, salaries and expenses And in quite what way is the Independent Safeguarding Authority independent? It relies on government money for its existence and upon a government sponsored statute for its authority. The concept of ‘Independence' is being changed in an Orwellian kind of way. That it is not independent has been underlined by the fact that the minister responsible, Ed Balls, has now launched an inquiry into it all in response to the outcry.

But what is more important in many respects is the corrosive effect on our lives which this is having. None of us feel that we are trusted. The default position for children is that they should be wary of all adults. The justification offered by the prospect of saving just one child's life is obvious nonsense. We live in a society where there have to be compromises between living our lives and the safety of individuals, whether adults or children. We could certainly save far more than one child's life by banning motor vehicles from the road, but there is is no thought of dong so. And if people really do stop volunteering in significant numbers, then this too will have a very adverse impact, on children's lives. We rely on volunteers to create somewhat more normal lives for disadvantaged children. In the absence of such volunteers, more of them will grow up to be a danger to their own children.

And then there is the whole basis for the new system. It arose out of the Soham murders - where a school caretaker killed two young children. His record had been checked through the system, but his history with another police force had not been disclosed to the local police. The two victims were not, though, children from his school, but from his partner's school. They just happened to call at the house to see their former teacher. She was out. He was in. He murdered his young visitors. The lack of information was actually irrelevant to the murders, but it did highlight the lack of co-ordination within the existing system. The public outcry, though pushed the government into a ‘review', the result of which has been more draconian laws. Which is strange, granted that the vast majority of child abuse is carried out by members of the child's family or by friends. And so they would not be caught even by the new system. The officer in charge of the Soham investigation himself says that the new system will have no significant effect. So then, we are causing considerable inconvenience and cost as well as creating an unhealthy atmosphere of distrust in order to have what can only be a marginal effect on the problem.