§ Ms WalleyTo ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what guidance she has issued to the voluntary sector in respect of(a) training arrangements and (b) checks on the suitability of personnel working with children. [4361]
§ Mr. SproatThe Department of National Heritage makes grants totalling nearly £12 million annually to organisations which support a healthy, cost-effective voluntary sector and promote volunteering. A number of these organisations are funded to provide a range of services to other voluntary organisations, including training.
645WDepartments may issue guidance to voluntary organisations working in areas relevant to Departmental interests. For instance in 1993 the Home Office, in consultation with the Department of Health, the then Department for Education and the Welsh Office published "Safe from Harm: A Code of Practice for Safeguarding the Welfare of Children in Voluntary Organisations in England and Wales". The code offered a guide to good policy and practice in areas such as recruitment, supervision and management, and set out recommendations and statements of principle which voluntary organisations are asked to consider in the light of their own particular circumstances.
Guidance to voluntary organisations seeking checks on the suitability of personnel working with children was issued in 1994—Home Office Circular 42/94, Department of Health Local Authority Circular (94)22, Welsh Office Circular 64/94—"Protection of Children: Disclosure of Criminal Background to Voluntary Sector Organisations" which set out the criteria for obtaining criminal record checks for use by voluntary organisations which were members of the voluntary organisations consultancy service.
Copies of both the code of practice and the circular are available in the Library of the House.
Proposals for new arrangements for access to criminal record checks are in the Police Bill, currently before Parliament.