The publicity over the database extension set up under the Independent Safeguarding Authority has given many of us food for thought as to how we can best protect children in our care.
The first thing to catch my attention was the total lack of certainty as to when the provisions of this new legislation would bite, and whom. Surely, any law that could have catastrophic effects on a person's career and future needs to be couched in certainty, not clouded in ambiguity.
Phases like 'frequent or regular access' when related to the number of times a neighbour might deliver your child to school or a youth club are unhelpful. They are simply examples of a legislative process that is either under too much pressure to draft important legislation correctly or is caught on the current and, some would say, deliberate 'wheel of uncertainty' which pervades so much political thinking these days.
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