The Tutor Pages today publishes the results of its survey into tutor attitudes towards the government’s new vetting and barring scheme.
As the Guardian reports, our poll shows that support among tutors for the new Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) is currently very weak.
Key findings of The Tutor Pages poll, which surveyed over 500 private academic and music tutors, were:
- 74% of self-employed tutors say they will not sign up for the scheme
- 70% say it is a waste of resources and will be a bureaucratic nightmare to administer
- 71% say it will create a blanket of suspicion and undermine trust in all adults working with children
- 68% say it will lead to miscarriages of justice, with innocent people being unfairly barred from working with children and their reputations and careers ruined
- 76% say there is a real danger that sensitive information will be lost or released in error with the risk that reputations and careers could be seriously damaged
- 80% believe it is about protecting agencies and schools and will not prevent paedophiles accessing children elsewhere
- 80% believe it is ‘way over the top’ and needs to be replaced with a simple, common sense vetting system.
You can read the full press release here.
The survey comes as the Conservative Party in their 2010 election manifesto pledged to ‘scale back’ the Vetting and Barring Scheme to ‘common sense levels’.