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Philip Pullman is the latest children's author to reaffirm his opposition to the government's controversial 'vetting and barring scheme' (VBS), despite changes announced earlier this week by the Independent Safeguarding Authority that largely exclude authors from having to be registered.
Pullman told The Bookseller: "It will make it easier for some people, like authors and illustrators, to do their jobs without interference from bungling nosey parkers. But the main objection remains, because the main objection was never to say 'Authors are special'. The main objection is that there is now in place a massive bureaucracy whose function is to enquire into the most private areas of people's lives."
Pullman pointed out that the ISA could now ask, for instance, “whether the person whose life they're prying into thinks he or she is ‘entitled to or deserves to have sex’, or whether they suffer from ‘severe emotional loneliness’" (Guidance Notes for the Barring Decision Making Process, Independent Safeguarding Authority, February 2009).
A government review of VBS was launched in September following a public outcry against its wide-ranging nature, spearheaded by author Philip Pullman in The Bookseller in July. The original scheme required all those who worked with children once a month or more in school and hospital settings, including authors, librarians, and booksellers to be registered.
Pullman said that the "real fight remains to be fought". He explained: "This authority [the ISA] is instructed to disregard the verdict of a court that decides someone is not guilty of an offence, and to decide instead that 'on the balance of probabilities, notwithstanding an acquittal at court', he was actually really guilty (Guidance Notes, 5.6.1)."
And he added: "In other words, they are taking a basic principle of English law and throwing it out of the window. That is the real wickedness of this legislation."
Children's Secretary Ed Balls confirmed this week that only people who work with the same group of children in schools every week will now need to be registered with the ISA. This removes about 2m people from the list of those who need to register, but still leaves 9m needing to register.
Author Anne Fine told The Bookseller on Monday (14th): "This is still a deeply pernicious and misguided business that is already damaging relations between adults and children, discouraging the varied social contacts that are so necessary in a child's life, and creating a deeply unpleasant and suspicious society in which most of us no longer feel comfortable.
"If nine million citizens are still on the list, I think it goes almost without saying that list needs pruning radically yet again."