Page 440 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 18 February 2015
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I think that if there is any good to come out of this whole exercise, the primary one will be that a range of other community organisations will undoubtedly be reviewing their own procedures and practices and making sure that they have them in the right place. I will not say anything further about Menslink, other than to note—and I will come back to it—the statement that has been issued by Menslink today, who I think have laid out very clearly their perspective on it. I will return to that matter.
The second area that I think is of importance here is looking at the role of the schools that have been caught up in this discussion. I think there are interesting questions here. I had not looked closely at the working with vulnerable people program, although I have now; I have looked much more closely at it. But certainly when this issue first came to the fore, it raised questions for me about whether the schools are asking for working with vulnerable people cards. Do they have the right systems in place to make sure that they are checking these things?
In looking at that this week, I and my office read the policies. As best we can understand them, they do not spell out the need for an up-front declaration or request for a working with vulnerable people card. Is that appropriate? Should the schools actually, before anybody enters the place, demand to see a card? Are they doing it and is that the standard we expect?
I do not know the answers, but these are questions that need to be reflected on. I also wonder how the schools are supposed to sift their way through this, because the legislation allows for up to seven visits a year without a working with vulnerable people card. If you are a school that somebody turns up to without one, how do you know whether that is that person’s third, sixth, seventh or eighth visit in a year? What role does the school play in that? What are they supposed to do?
Again, I do not know the answers to these questions. But what this whole discussion has highlighted is that there are difficult questions to be resolved here. There clearly are issues that need to be resolved in the rollout of the working with vulnerable people program, because we look at this and say, “Why didn’t the headmaster check?” The “principal”, I should say; I am showing my age there by referring to the headmaster. Why did the principal not check whether this young man had the suitable qualifications? Even if they had asked and he had said, “Actually, I do not have one,” they then would have had to count up how many times he had been in a school in a year. How can they possibly verify that?
The third area I touch on is the role of Ms Burch. She has two roles in this: as the mother of a young man who, like quite a few others no doubt, has made some poor choices in his life and has committed a very serious criminal act. Her other is as an MLA. I make no comments on Ms Burch’s role as a parent other than to say that I hope I never find myself in the situation she did. No-one wants to see their child in those circumstances and no-one would want to be in the shoes of a parent in that case.
As an MLA, the question that most needs to be answered is whether she sought to use her position to unduly influence the opportunities given to her son. Did she breach the relevant codes of conduct by seeking special favour or by not addressing a conflict of
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