CRB Checks (was: Trade,Ratty is it worth it)

[JennImpey]

Frankly, though, all this is giving me a definite urge to look mostly for over-18s-only conventions. All that "We're all happy fun gamers!" Piffany-ism is all very well, but if letting in a few kids is going to drag an event through this amount of legalistic nervousness, I personally am going to say sod it. Anyway, it makes it a lot easier to run games in the bar.

Given your inability to discuss this in a non-confrontational manner, perhaps it's best to stay well away from children anyway.
We're talking about the issue, trying to work out the legalities and all you can do is over react.

Simply working out whether or not GM's should have been being CRB checked all along isn't going to change anything 'on the ground' at all. People under 18 have been attending conventions for years, playing games and running them. Surely it makes sense to ensure that the legalities are at least understood, and followed as much as possible? How is discussing a simple check that turns out to be free for volunteers going to turn you into a child minder? in this instance we're talking about RUNNING A GAME and nothing else. If you've got a 'child' at your table then you'd still be RUNNING A GAME. Would you make considerations because of age? Depends on your choice and the child in question, does that constitute looking after them? No!

Oh, and are there any 18+ cons?

[JennImpey]

Dear All

There is an easy way around this for conventions, you have GM's who will run games for 18+ gamers and accompanied children, and GM's (Maybe Jenn Impey will volunteer?) who are happy to GM for children who voluntarily offer to be CRB checked.

It does not cost £50 at all, Enhanced checks cost £36 and Standard checks cost £31. A POVAFirst check costs £6. However please note above - They are issued free to volunteers (This depends on the convention organisers rewards system, if they have one)


NEWUKCON REPRESENTATIVE

OK, sorry about the mix up re costs - I'm sure the church accounts said something like that, but my bad

As to volunteering to GM - sorry but not at all likely! I have no short term memory (ten years of interrupted sleep will do that to a girl ) and can't keep the various rules systems straight in my head anymore (having played too many editions of D&D complicates that further). Add to that shyness and insecurity, and the need to organise someone to watch my brood and it gets too complex. I'm happy to work on stuff that my four can join in with, thereby negating the need for one layer of preparation, but even my amazing 20 month old isn't up to playing yet

[pedr]

Stuart, you've looked into this far more than I have, but the SVG Act provides that "regulated activity" means (among other things)

(a) any form of teaching, training or instruction of children, unless the teaching, training or instruction is merely incidental to teaching, training or instruction of persons who are not children;
(b) any form of care for or supervision of children, unless the care or supervision is merely incidental to care for or supervision of persons who are not children;
(c) any form of advice or guidance provided wholly or mainly for children, if the advice or guidance relates to their physical, emotional or educational well-being;
(d) any form of treatment or therapy provided for a child;
(e) moderating a public electronic interactive communication service which is likely to be used wholly or mainly by children;
(f) driving a vehicle which is being used only for the purpose of conveying children and any person supervising or caring for the children pursuant to arrangements made in prescribed circumstances.

Obviously there are other bits, but that's the main provision as far as my first look suggests. The only things which could possibly cover being the GM for a game where children are playing would be a or b, and that would be taking the words 'teaching, training or instruction' or 'supervision' a very long way, even without the second clause which might well apply: the activity is arguably 'merely incidental' to teaching, training, instruction or care for or supervision of the other players.

It's also worth pointing out that most of the Act is not yet in force, and offences relating to regulated activity as so defined are not yet in force (I don't think there's an easily/publicly available database of what provisions are in force, unfortunately, though anyone with access to a university library's databases can search Lawtel for the information.)

Now I'm looking at this fresh, and merely following the leads given here and working from the statutes, so I could be overlooking other sources of information. Best practice might well be to get anyone in any contact with children checked - however note that you can only get someone checked if you're entitled to ask questions about spent criminal convictions, so some people will not be allowed to request CRB disclosure.

[StuartBall]

Depends on whether it drops into the Regulated Activity as per Schedule 4:

Regulated activity: general 1 (1) An activity is a regulated activity relating to children if—
(a) it is mentioned in paragraph 2(1), and
(b) it is carried out frequently by the same person or the period condition is satisfied.


A lot depends on whether GMing, or demonstrating a game to children falls under the following section of Schedule 4:

Activities2 (1) The activities referred to in paragraph 1(1) are—
(a) any form of teaching, training or instruction of children, unless the teaching, training or instruction is merely incidental to teaching, training or instruction of persons who are not children;
(b) any form of care for or supervision of children, unless the care or supervision is merely incidental to care for or supervision of persons who are not children;


The period condition is in Part 3 Schedule 4:
Part 3

The period condition

10 (1) The period condition is satisfied if the person carrying out the activity does so at any time on more than two days in any period of 30 days.
(2) In relation to an activity that falls within paragraph 2(1)(a), (b), (c) or (d) or 7(1)(a), (b), (c), (d) or (g), the period condition is also satisfied if—
(a) the person carrying out the activity does so at any time between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m, and
(b) the activity gives the person the opportunity to have face-to-face contact with children or vulnerable adults (as the case may be).

So Saturday/Sunday Cons should be fine, unless the organisation does more than one con a month! However on a 3+ day convention the Period condition comes into play.

It's the 2.1.1.a that is the key, whether GMing falls into that category, and whether it is considered incidental that Children are part of that.

I read it that if you GMed or demonstrated to a whole table of Children on more than two days in any given 30 day period, you would need a CRB check done.

2.1.1.b could be problematic if the other people at your table are not considered "Vulnerable Persons" (drunken gamers don't count) as there could be a potential supervisory role inferred if the child is left unattended.

So at any point Mummy or Daddy leave little Johnny to go for a fag, pee, coffee or fresh air, the game would have to stop whilst they do so in order to stop 2.1.1.b coming into effect and making the activity a Regulated Activity.

Again, I am not a lawyer, I have seen similar discussions on a Wargames Clubs thread on Yahoo Groups, and no conclusion was reached there, other than most clubs that accept kiddies now have a designated Child Protection officer on the committee, which is something required for a club to join the Gaming Club Network (GCN) as many clubs have members that play GW products.

I apologise for the poor formatting of the text, but I am dodging doing some overtime, and need to crack on.

Pip Pip Onk Onk

Stuart

[pedr]

But - again, unless I'm missing something - there is no requirement for anyone to check who is doing regulated activity, until sections 7 to 12 of the Act come into force. They are not, currently, in force* - I checked because my reading of sections 8, 10, and 11 introduce a different procedure whereby anyone wishing to do a regulated activity has to apply to become subject to ongoing monitoring, which wasn't something I'd heard of before.

What I've seen that is currently in force is that certain specified employers (schools, care homes, etc) have to ensure that no-one on any of the banned lists is employed to work with children, and that some other organisations can choose to use CRB checks as part of their risk management and the discharge of their duty of care towards children they come into contact with. Again, they can only do this if some operation of law (probably a Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order) gives them the right to ask questions about spent criminal convictions. I do not know (and can't easily find) those details at the moment; whether a convention would fall within the exceptions to the RoA Act isn't something I can comment on.

Besides that, I remain unconvinced that acting as GM for a tabletop roleplaying game falls within Sch 4 Part 1 Para 2 (1). I think that to the extent that is it teaching or instruction and/or supervision, that is incidental to the teaching or instruction of adults, so it might be that a table full of under-18 year olds could fall within the definition, if teaching or instruction is construed widely.

As you say, this is obviously going to be debated in various places, but I'm not sure that the rules are quite as strict as it seems (at this stage, at least, and perhaps not even if/when the whole of the SVG Act comes into force). It's worth noting the slow introduction into force of the provisions of the Act. If you don't have access to Lawtel or a current law annotated version of the Act, (and as you've clearly taken an interest in this) I could email you the status of the various provisions of the Act from Lawtel, though it'd still need some digging around to figure out exactly what the Act currently says. Let me know if you'd be interested in seeing that (and send my your email address!)

(* some bits are, but they don't create any criminal offences or impose any duties upon anyone.)

[Wolverine]

If the parents are not present then the person 'in charge' needs to be CRB checked, and they are not to leave the children alone with any other person. If the lead person is CRB checked and any other volunteers are no alone with the kids they do not need to be CRB'd.

Unfortunately, this use to be the case. When I started my voluntary work with kids, even though I was never alone with the children, I had to have a CRB check. The same went when I volunteered for the charity Mind before that. If you work with "at risk" people or children, no matter your role, the law states you have to have a CRB check.

[w00hoo]

If the parents are not present then the person 'in charge' needs to be CRB checked, and they are not to leave the children alone with any other person. If the lead person is CRB checked and any other volunteers are no alone with the kids they do not need to be CRB'd.

Unfortunately, this use to be the case. When I started my voluntary work with kids, even though I was never alone with the children, I had to have a CRB check. The same went when I volunteered for the charity Mind before that. If you work with "at risk" people or children, no matter your role, the law states you have to have a CRB check.

Or the people who employed you told you you had to have one. 'The Law' doesn't force you to take a CRB check, people worried about what the law actually means force you to take CRB checks. Sometimes they are right and you should have one, sometimes they are wrong and you shouldn't have one. Either way, I wouldn't take what you were told you had to do as what actually has to be done with CRB checks because (and I may have mentioned this before) very few people actually
know how it works and a lot of those are the people choosing who takes them and who doesn't...

[geoffgibbs]

Hi there, I am one of the people able to sign off CRB forms for the GCN (mentioned in a previous post).
I thought I'd chip in with what I believe to be true based on what I know (but I'm no lawyer).

I Believe that there is currently no law requiring people to have been CRB checked if they are running events attended by children, it is just a sensible precaution on the part of the organisers. This may be different for people who are basically employed to spend a lot of time alone with children (like teachers) but I honestly don't know.

A CRB check performed at one organisation cannot always be applied for another, there are various level of checks that can be performed. For simplicity many organisations, including the GCN, will require you to pass the check for them alone.

CRB checks for volunteers are not always free. The completing of the forms is done by a signatory or counter signatory of the organisation or an umbrella organisation. These organisations are free to charge what they wish and often impose a fee of some kind as there is a cost involved in setting up the signatories and counter-signatories, there are also charges applied for each form filled in incorrectly (putting a space in a postcode for example, grr). A database of umbrella bodies can be searched here: http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=349

As to the question of if DM's should be CRB checked for cons, I think this is a decision that has to be made by the organisers and is entirely depended on the set up. If the role-play takes place in a separate room from the rest of the convention (which is quite often the case, I believe) then there is a reasonable case for asking for a CRB check. After all, the DM may be spending a fair amount of time with children and often the organiser of an event knows nothing of the volunteers except that they are willing to give up their time to play games. I, personally, feel that the argument that a DM is just another player and is only responsible for the game is not right. If you have volunteered to run something at a convention, then you are going to be in a position of authority. This isn't to do with being the DM, it's to do with being the person responsible for the game.

On a side note, I thought I'd just raise an example of what can happen at conventions and why the CRB checks are a good idea for event organisers.
Last weekend I was a volunteer at GenCon UK with the GCN. On one of the days, we were unwittingly used as a crèche when a child was left playing on a computer game in our room at about 10 and was still in the room 6 hours later! This was on the Friday, so it was not particularly busy, there was a fair amount of time when it was just this child and our volunteers. I don't think we actually saw the parent(s), we did see a brother. Obviously nothing untoward happened or we'd have all heard about it by now and GenCon UK would be dead, but the risk was there. If Horseman Events had mandated that volunteers be CRB checked, or at least one volunteer per room, then this risk would have been lessened.

[pedr]

What geoffgibbs says makes sense based on my far less extensive look into this.

Essentially it's primarily about risk management and discharge of duty of care on the part of the organisers/organisation/company involved in providing the activity. They are probably not legally required to have everyone CRB checked, nor to ensure that everyone has been CRB checked, but they are legally required to do everything they can to prevent forseeable harm coming to anyone who could be harmed by their event - despite the small-print on the back of the GenCon UK badge, you cannot exclude liability for loss caused by negligence in England and Wales!

Now, any sensible risk assessment would determine that the risk of abuse or neglect to children at a games convention is very low in most cases - no-one is purporting to be caring for children (at the moment) and the opportunities for anyone to be alone with a child are very few and far between. Do shop keepers who allow children to play Magic in their shop have to be CRB checked? I doubt it, and I would imagine the same considerations apply. Good practice would likely be to have some more senior volunteers or staff members have a particular role for child protection, though, and ensure that they were present - at least periodically - in all areas where groups of children were likely to congregate.

I'll assert again, though, that by my first-glance reading of it, even the new and not-yet-in-force heightened system of protection won't require everyone who happens to be with children in the course of an activity like a games convention to be subject to monitoring (the new, not-yet-applicable parlance). And I still haven't seen concrete proof that an organisation like Horseman Events is even entitled to ask its staff and volunteers questions which are usually prohibited by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 - and if you cannot ask those questions, you cannot require disclosure under a CRB check, except disclosure of non-spent convictions.

[DigitalMage]

I, personally, feel that the argument that a DM is just another player and is only responsible for the game is not right. If you have volunteered to run something at a convention, then you are going to be in a position of authority. This isn't to do with being the DM, it's to do with being the person responsible for the game.

If the convention organisers feel the same then they must make it absolutely explcit to any volunteers that they are accepting responsibility for something other than just the game. What that extra responsibility is needs to be clearly defined - if it includes supervision of any minors who are playing in the game then what exactly does that entail? Keeping them in visual range at all times? Escorting them to the vending machines and toilets? Making sure they are picked up by their parents at the end of the game (how to identify who parents are)? Escorting the minor to a lost child centre if they have not been collected when the game ends?

If convention organisers do state that volunteering to GM involves supervising minors then they will either need to accept that quite a few GMs will no long agree to volunteer (I would be one of them) or that GMs should be allowed to impose an 18+ restriction on players (to circumvent the supervision responsibility).

Also, the con organisers would need to come up with a process for when the GM is themselves a minor - who supervises them and any other minors in the game? You could ask the parents of the GM to be with him at all times, but that still wouldn't cover any other minors at the table.

Personally, I feel that if con organisers want to cover themselves that they have a CRB checked person in every gaming area where minors are playing rather than impose that extra responsibility to the GM.

[Phil Masters]

There is an easy way aroudn this for conventions, you have GM's who will run games for 18+ gamers and accompanied children, and GM's (Maybe Jenn Impey will volunteer?) who are happy to GM for children who voluntarily offer to be CRB checked.

We would just like to state that we have no plans to implement any kind of elitism or segregation of gamers at any convention, however we will organise such an event in a way that non gamers would not be disruptive to gamers.

In what way does the first suggestion not involve "segregation"? You've got to segregate the two types of game/GM.

[Max Bantleman]

Hidely ho neighbourinos...

Missed a lot of these threads and got very confused reading back over them.
Question: If I GM at a con, and there are under 18 players at the table, do I need to inform anyone, i.e. the organisers, that I'm not 'anything checked' or stuff like that, or can I just run as I do now?
I'm really not sure what the core issues are with under 18s at cons as far as GMs who run games goes: these GMs are seldom the con organisers and I think most GMs don't know the ins and outs of under 18s in their games, if indeed there are any...

This thread seems to have got heated and very 'important', i.e. it would seem to have far reaching consequences (no pun intended) for cons?

Is the issue something that must be dealt with at con organiser level or is the responsibiliy with the individual GM?

Confused of Plumstead.

[DigitalMage]

Is the issue something that must be dealt with at con organiser level or is the responsibiliy with the individual GM?

I would imagine the responsibility to ensure GMs are CRB checked (if that does turn out to be requirement) would be with the con organisers as they "allowed" a person to GM without being checked.

From what has recently been posted I get the feeling that GMs don't need to be CRBed, but as always IANAL.

[Max Bantleman]

I would imagine the responsibility to ensure GMs are CRB checked (if that does turn out to be requirement) would be with the con organisers as they "allowed" a person to GM without being checked.
From what has recently been posted I get the feeling that GMs don't need to be CRBed, but as always IANAL.

I guess 'll just have to wait and see if it becomes a requirement for GMs.
I assume (foolish) that if it does become a requirement it will become part and parcel of the game sign up sheet to show who can have younger players and who can't?

I of course understand the neccessity to take all possible and reasonable precautions that children are kept in the safest environments at all times, just odd that I've never thought about cons as being part of this 'need', having always seen younger gamers taken care of at all times and welcomed whenever they appeared.
Be interesting to see how GW respond with their shops / games days...

[pedr]

Hidely ho neighbourinos...

Missed a lot of these threads and got very confused reading back over them.
Question: If I GM at a con, and there are under 18 players at the table, do I need to inform anyone, i.e. the organisers, that I'm not 'anything checked' or stuff like that, or can I just run as I do now?
I'm really not sure what the core issues are with under 18s at cons as far as GMs who run games goes: these GMs are seldom the con organisers and I think most GMs don't know the ins and outs of under 18s in their games, if indeed there are any...

This thread seems to have got heated and very 'important', i.e. it would seem to have far reaching consequences (no pun intended) for cons?

Is the issue something that must be dealt with at con organiser level or is the responsibiliy with the individual GM?

Confused of Plumstead.

If someone knew that they were on one of the banned lists, it would be foolish for them to GM at a convention without informing the organisers - though probably not illegal at the moment, and potentially not illegal under the rules which may come into force soon.

For the vast majority who are not on any banned list, there's no personal requirement at the moment to do anything - all the obligations, such as they are, fall on those providing the activity. This may change if and when the requirement to be 'subject to monitoring' comes into force, but that's not the case at the moment. As far as I can see.

In short: it's the organisers' job - unless I'm missing something obvious, the requirement at the moment is one of good practice and avoiding negligence by an organiser, rather than personal liability or, indeed, anything imposed by statute.

(note, I am not a solicitor, and even if I was, I'm not your solicitor: obtain professional legal advice if you require it!)