Thank you, Jenni Russell (“Crazy law leaves a child out in the cold”, Comment, last week), for drawing attention to the lunacy and intrusiveness of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). A lack of convictions does not make a person respectable, and the only effect of this piece of officiousness will be to stifle community activities.

We can also expect that the agency will be disregarded as parents continue to make their own private arrangements. Some years ago I had the misfortune to place my autistic daughter with a registered childminder. The person had ticked all the right boxes with social services but had no idea how to care for my daughter.

Fortunately, I found a family prepared to help me. The lady of the house was not registered, but had the gift of communicating with disturbed children. We came to a private arrangement which worked brilliantly for years, and my daughter, now in her thirties, remembers her with great affection.

Kathryn Bennett
Reading, Berkshire

Parents’ views wanted

I do not think and I have never said that adults should no longer be free to decide who is entrusted with their children. There is nothing in the government’s vetting and barring scheme which interferes with such parental responsibilities. It is when schools, clubs and organisations make decisions about who works with children that registration with the scheme may be required, if the adults’ degree of contact is sufficiently great.

Ministers have asked me to check whether the present proposals on the degree of contact that triggers the requirement to register are proportionate. That work is under way. Nothing is yet decided and I would welcome your readers’ views, especially those of parents. This scheme is not about criminalising people, or presuming guilt. It is about protecting children and the vulnerable and giving their parents and carers greater confidence.

Sir Roger Singleton
Chair, ISA, Darlington

Apply common sense

The father who was not allowed to take a 12-year-old boy home from a youth club because he had no written permission should have arranged to pick him up down the road and take him home, especially as he had his own son in the car and knew the family. Last week two boys of similar age came into my garden — they were lost. Without thinking twice, I put them in my car and drove two miles to their school, from where they could get home. Should I not have done this?

Adults must take the initiative to get around ludicrous laws that are supposed to protect children and use some common sense when they see children neglected or at risk.

Gillian Williams
Woking, Surrey

Growing up the old way

This is no way to bring up our children. With proper parental care and guidance, they have to be encouraged to discover the world and learn how to look after themselves, just as our 1950s-1960s generation did.

Once we had learnt to ride bikes, at the age of eight or nine, we were off, cycling to school and exploring the local area — frequently all day in the summer holidays — often being “rescued” from a scrape or accident by a passing adult; just as we shall continue to do when we see a child in obvious distress, lost or hurt.

They must be free to ride bikes and buses, go to the shops, play in the park, climb trees and scrape their knees and learn which “friend” or adult to trust, or to avoid. It is time to make adults, and let children, grow up.

Kevin and Diana Hunt
Corsham, Wiltshire

Volunteers unwelcome

I recently volunteered to help a charity which takes people with handicaps to the theatre, ballet and so on. I filled in the forms, underwent the criminal checks and waited. I was then told I had to go on a disability awareness course first. After sitting through what I can only describe as a nonsensical few hours, I decided not to do any volunteer work as I would have been constantly worried about transgressing diktats.

My experience must have been repeated in many other places and the latest nonsense will make volunteer work almost impossible to do.

Susan Kaye
London NW8

It won’t stop predators

As a parent who takes two sons plus mates to cubs and helps another friend with her disabled son, this approach makes me spin with rage. Not one child will be saved from abuse, as most paedos, family or otherwise, are always well below the radar.

Anastasia Parkes
Winchester, Hampshire

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