Emasculation

The ISA will begin in earnest on 12th October. The Independent Safeguarding Authority, - the new overarching safeguarding agency, will begin with over 11 million Britons on its database, but will expect to add.

Additions will include any adults who regularly, even infrequently, have other people's children in their charge. This will include, for example, those who share school journeys on a rota with other parents, or those who take children on sporting outings regularly. All will have to be vetted and certified.

This will lead to a reduced flow of volunteers in all sorts of directions, not because they have anything to hide but because of the cost (- over £60) and the sheer silliness of the whole enterprise. Sports groups will suffer, parents will be inconvenienced and there will be more cars on the road! There will also be large costs on the public purse at a time when the government is broke!

There are more insidious costs. Men, in particular, will be very wary of speaking to children, even more of comforting them with an arm round the shoulder, when they are in distress.

There are, unfortunately, many children at risk. Most of these are at risk within the family or with near relatives. This will do nothing for these. There are pedophiles, admittedly, and we most do everything to protect children from them, but they are unlikely to be able to do much in a car driven by a friend of their parents, or in a minibus driven by a parent. In both cases other children are present and there will not be time for anything untoward to happen.

The police know where registered pedophiles live, although we are not permitted to know the details. They are "loners" who will be obvious, and there are other ways of dealing with them. If the government really wants to reduce risk, why not do something about parental control and chat rooms?

As usual we have a large expensive bureaucratic policy, when the real problem is in the home and with families.