Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 106)
TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2001
MR STUART
ETHERINGTON, MR
ADAM GAINES,
HELEN REEVE
AND MR
ANDY FORSTER
100. I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Gaines,
but just thinking about this, the area of concern that we have
got about, let us just focus on working with young children. There
is a lot of co-operation going on across Europe among police forces;
there is going to be information available somewhere, maybe not
immediately to the Bureau, but I would have thought they would
have had access, or could get access, to that, through something
like NCIS, or whatever?
(Mr Gaines) I think it will be important that that
information, where it is available, will be accessible to voluntary
organisations working with children, because, obviously, the issue
of information from abroad is going to be vital. I understand
the Criminal Records Bureau, initially, will be developing a list
of potential sources of such information, which organisations
would be able to access, but they would not be able to provide
us with the specific information. A number of voluntary organisations,
over time, actually have built up information also about other
bodies that they might be able to go to for information, but,
of course, at the moment, that is very limited, and it is important
that voluntary organisations, given their work in this particular
field, can access that information, if it were possible to make
it available.
Chairman: We know, do we not, from child abuse,
and worse, as it were, that there are people that are making a
lot of money, right the way across the globe, on this, and it
is a big international business, in that sense.
Mr Howarth
101. Can I ask a question of Mr Etherington.
In your submission to us, you drew attention to the fact that
the Government has estimated the cost of exempting voluntary organisations
at between £48 million and £200 million; that seems
a sort of reliable sort of Government estimate, pinpointed so
accurately between £48 million and £200 million. I wonder
if you could tell us a bit more about that, and also the research
which you yourselves have done, indicating you think that it is
nothing like that sort of figure, that on the basis of £10
per enhanced certificate it will be a mere £11 million, that
would suggest 1.1 million volunteers to be screened?
(Mr Etherington) Yes. You are quite right to say that
that is a fairly wide margin of estimate by the Government, on
the cost of providing this check. It goes back to the original
question, which is, what is going to be the level of demand for
checks, and, based on their estimates, if it was a £10 check,
for an enhanced check, and, say, £5 a basic check cost, we
think it would be about £16 million, in total. If you go
to the higher range of figure, which would include the cost, an
estimate, these are all estimated costs, of course, if you include
an estimated cost for the Registered Body, on top of, say, a median
range for the enhanced check, we reckon the total cost of providing
free checks for volunteers to be at its upper limit, around £30
million to £32 million, so that is below the range of the
Government's estimate.
102. Sorry, could you just spell out why there
is the difference between the £16 million and the £32
million?
(Mr Etherington) Yes. It rather depends on your estimate
of the cost of the enhanced check. If the cost of the enhanced
check works out at a level of demand which is roughly where they
think it is going to be, I think, plus an assumed level of fee
from the Registered Body, then the enhanced check works out at
£20 per check, with £8 of a basic check, which on estimates
of demand gives the £32 million figure.
103. So how has the Government come to this
hugely increased figure; is this in order to frighten those who
might be calling for the Government to shoulder this burden, and
pointing out that it was a contribution the Treasury would have
to make?
(Mr Etherington) I think it would be a cynical view
to say they were trying to frighten us; it may well be that they
just had very different demand forecasts in the early days of
this, and therefore they were finding it quite difficult to arrive
at a view. From the charitable sector, that is a charitable view.
104. If we take, I am trying to remember the
figures, that the Scouts, I think, were talking about, the number
of people per annum, is it 70,000, I see a nod at the back, indicating
I am right, and for the Guides 45,000, it shows we have got good
memories here, so we are talking about 115,000 people in respect
of the Guides and Scouts, perhaps the largest. How many people
do you reckon would require an annual check, for the other organisations
which you represent?
(Mr Etherington) Estimates vary of the number of volunteers
that there are, but I think the commonly accepted number is four
million volunteers, in formal volunteering roles. What we have
done is, we have looked at the number of voluntary organisations
that principally are concerned with providing youth services,
which are about 15 per cent of the total, and we made a rough
estimate, based on that, of about a million volunteers.
105. So really we are talking about, if it is
only a million—I say only, it is tremendous that there are
a million people doing this kind of work—but if this is
a million people, at £10 a time, we are talking about £10
million, we are not talking anywhere near £200 million?
(Mr Etherington) No. Even at the higher estimate of
the cost of an enhanced check it would only come up to about £30
million.
Chairman
106. Is there anything you would like to say
to us?
(Mr Etherington) No, thank you, Chairman.
Chairman: If not, thank you very much for your
help in this inquiry. Thank you.
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