Section 64: Restriction of scope of regulated activities: children
273.Section 64 amends the definition of ‘regulated activity relating to children’ which is set out in Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (“SVGA”). Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the SVGA specifies what work a person is barred from doing if he or she is included in the children’s barred list. A person may be included in that list as a result of committing certain offences or following a decision by the Independent Safeguarding Authority (“ISA”) that the individual presents a risk of harm to children. A person can be barred in England and Wales by virtue of being included in a corresponding children’s barred list in Northern Ireland or Scotland. The overall effect of section 64 is to reduce the scope of work that barred individuals are prohibited from doing.
274.Broadly speaking, the activities specified in Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the SVGA comprise paid and unpaid work that involves certain close interaction with or (in a specified place) the opportunity for contact with children. It also includes work carried out by individuals occupying certain positions (‘office-holders’) whose functions relate to services provided for, or in relation to, children. Any work falling within Part 1 of Schedule 4 must not be carried out by an individual who is included in the children’s barred list.
275.The amendments made to the SVGA by this section provide that regulated activity relating to children no longer includes the following:
Any supervised teaching, training or instruction of children, unless any such activity takes place in a specified place such as a school, children’s home or a children’s centre (with the exception of work in specified settings carried out by supervised volunteers, which is to be removed from the scope of regulated activity);
The provision of any care or supervision of children by a person where the provision of such care or supervision is being supervised by another unless, once again, it takes place in a specified place (as above). Further exceptions to this are where certain types of personal care or health care are provided to children, in which case not only will such types of care fall within the definition of regulated activity (even if supervised), they will also fall within that definition if such care is provided only on occasion. This is because the requirement in Schedule 4 to the SVGA for any activity mentioned above to be undertaken regularly (for it to be a regulated activity) is removed in relation to the provision of such personal care or health care;
The provision of any legal advice to a child;
Any paid work that is carried out in a specified place, which gives the worker the opportunity to have contact with children and which is of an occasional or temporary nature (excluding any teaching, training, instruction, care for or supervision of or advice to children that is carried out on an occasional or temporary basis). This would, for example, mean that work carried out in a school by maintenance or building contractors is no longer a regulated activity relating to children but that any teaching by supply/locum teachers would continue to be a regulated activity;
The work of officials of the Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) and their Welsh equivalents and the work of office-holders in various governance-related or senior management roles, for example a school governor, a local authority director of children’s services, and the Children’s Commissioner for England;
The work of inspectorates in England, for example inspectors of schools, children’s homes and childminding in England;
Inspection work by the Care Quality Commission;
The day-to-day management or supervision, on a regular basis, of any type of work referred to above that is removed from regulated activity; and
Work that is a regulated activity solely because it takes place in a hospital and provides the opportunity for an individual to have contact with children.
276.This section also brings within the meaning of ‘health care’ for the purposes of Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the SVGA, the provision of first aid to a child by anyone acting on behalf of an organisation established to provide first aid (new paragraph 1(1D) of Schedule 4). This means that the work of organisations such as St John’s Ambulance is added to the scope of regulated activity. This would not however encompass a designated first-aider in a workplace.