CQC Compliance Quality Assurance
Care & Client Management

The role of the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s (ISA) is to work to prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable adults and children. The ISA was set up following the Bichard report into the 2002 murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by Ian Huntley, a school caretaker, and brought into being as a result of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. The ISA created and manages the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS), within which its role is to make robust and accountable decisions on referrals, and to maintain the ISA’s Children’s Barred list and the Adult’s Barred List. The new Coalition Government (2010) has announced a review of the review the criminal records and vetting and barring regime, with a view to scaling it back, and as a result the ISA has halted its planned introduction of a registration scheme in July 2010. Existing schemes remain in force.

According to the ISA’s web site, their legal responsibilities are:

• To maintain a list of individuals barred from engaging in regulated activity with children;
• To maintain a list of individuals barred from engaging in regulated activity with vulnerable adults;
• To maintain both barred lists; and
• To reach decisions as to whether to remove an individual from a barred list.