Culture of fear caused by vetting 'increases the risk to children'

The atmosphere of suspicion created by the vetting and barring scheme damages the Government's Big Society concept and "actually increases the risks to children", Civitas said.

In a strongly worded report out today, it says the scheme not only interferes with parents' abilities to make arrangement for childcare that best suits them but also has formed a barrier to adults wanted to become involved, thus putting children at risk.

But the report was countered by warnings from charities that while it may be nicer to believe the scheme is not needed, in reality it was "necessary to protect our children".

Home Secretary Theresa May called a temporary halt to the "draconian" vetting scheme in June as she launched a review, saying it was time to return to a more "common sense" approach which did not risk alienating volunteers doing valuable work.

Civitas said it must be replaced with a "greater openness and more frequent contact between the generations".

"If the Government fails to halt the VBS, the scheme will continue to poison the relationship between the generations, intersecting a broader culture of fear, which creates a formal barrier between adults and children," a Civitas spokesman said.

Problems include more than 12,000 innocent people being labelled as paedophiles, violent thugs and thieves through an error, councils banning parents from playgrounds saying only vetted "play rangers" would be allowed in, and parents running into difficulties when trying to share the responsibilities of the school run, Civitas said.

Frank Furedi and Jennie Bristow, authors of Licensed To Hug which calls for the scheme to be scrapped, said: "The vetting and barring scheme seems to be gaining the dubious distinction of being the most unpopular piece of regulation ever developed.

"The VBS has interfered with parents' ability to make private arrangements, subjected a quarter of the population to intensive scrutiny of their personal lives, discouraged volunteering, and institutionalised mistrust between the generations.

"In a short space of time the scheme's destructive consequences have acquired a momentum of their own."

There was widespread confusion around when the checks were needed and the rigid distinction between volunteering and private arrangements "betrays officialdom's other-worldly understanding of community life", they said.

But Barnado's chief executive Martin Narey said there was a need for some adjustment at the margins "but, much as it might be unpleasant to stomach, this scheme is necessary to protect our children, as adults who seek to harm children can be uniquely manipulative in gaining positions of trust."

He described the scheme as "a range of measures that all organisations need to have in place to build trust; giving parents and carers confidence that any volunteer who works with their children through faith-based, community, leisure or sport groups has been vetted appropriately.

"It might be nicer to believe that we need no such scheme, that somehow we can trust our instincts. Regrettably, that's simply not true."

Civil rights groups have also criticised the scheme.

Isabella Sankey, Liberty's policy director, said it "casts its net too wide and employers are still told directly about any allegation, or piece of gossip, malicious or not, ever made against a job applicant".

Around nine and a half million people were expected to have to register under the original scheme.