Volunteers:

We aim to actively promote voluntary work to all members of the community in every way we can. We realise that there are many local people who wish to volunteer, and who do so for a variety of reasons. The personal benefits of volunteering can range from:

• having time to spare
• helpiing to meet people
• open your eyes to new opprotunities
• make use of your exiting skills
• build up your confidence
• keeo you active while unemployed
• give you a good reference

Check the Checks

Are you asking all your volunteers to undergo CRB Checks?

The Volunteer Centres in Kent and Medway are working together to prevent unnecessary bureaucracy from discouraging valuable volunteers from supporting their communities and are highlighting a strand of Volunteering England’s “Free Volunteering from Red Tape” Campaign.

Our concern is that in a desire to protect service users or property, public, private and voluntary and community sector organisations often ask prospective volunteers to undergo Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks where none is necessary. This can result in the loss of volunteers who are unwilling to have checks after considerable time and cost has been incurred in their recruitment and selection by Volunteers Centres and organisations, and may also be against the law.

In his recent report “Unshackling Good Neighbours”, Lord Hodgson of Ashley Abbotts, Chair of the Independent Task Force appointed to consider how to reduce red tape and bureaucracy in the Community Sector urges
‘organisations to avoid using a CRB check as the default option. CRB checks are only required for people having “frequent and intensive” contact with children and vulnerable adults.’

We are asking all organisations that involve volunteers in their work to consider whether they:

• have lost promising volunteers because they are unwilling to undergo checks?
• find this issue to be a barrier to volunteering?
• could review policies and procedures to ensure that only volunteers who have frequent and intensive contact with children or vulnerable adults undergo CRB checks?
• should support and develop volunteers on an on-going basis, only asking that they undergo CRB checks when and if it becomes appropriate to their specific role?
• are complying with Rehabilitation of Offenders legislation if they require that all volunteers present with a “clean” CRB check?

To find out more about cutting bureaucracy around volunteering contact us for a chat or email us through this website.

If you agree that CRBs should be used only when volunteers are in “frequent and intensive” contact with children and vulnerable adults email us with the words “We support Check the Checks” in the subject field.

If you are on Facebook you can “like” our campaign at www.facebook.com/KentCOVE  or visit www.kentcove.org.uk and click on “Join our Campaign”.