The Guardian: Government drops plans for child protection database

‘The Home Office confirmed it has dropped plans to set up the database because it would be “prohibitively costly and impractical to implement” given the size of the workforce, with 3.5 million people working with children alone. The register would have covered staff and volunteers in social care, health, education, sports coaching, private tuition and domiciliary care.’

But it’s not too “costly or impractical” to catalogue the whole population of the UK under a £3bn (yeah right, watch that figure expand faster than Charles Clarke at a free buffet) national ID card scheme.

I’m not going to get into the whole hysteria of the paedophile child-killer lurking on every corner. After all, the vast majority of children killed in the UK every year are done so by close family members and cars. The database was never going to catch abusive parents and reckless drivers.

But it just seems to prove again that someone is asleep at the wheel of the New Labour charabanc. They could have put the child protection database into action in an even half-hearted fashion, and be seen to be doing something. And in the greater scheme of things, in terms of cost, for buttons. Instead they’ve given their critics, particular those elements of the right-wing press who love a bit of paedosteria when sales are flagging, yet another stick to beat them with.