Child protection scheme for sport in Scotland `not working`, say MSPs

Football authorities have been accused of being “asleep on the job” in protecting children from predators, a report into historical sexual abuse warns. MSPs said the Scottish Football Association (SFA) has been “continually complacent” and that grave concerns remain over the safety of youth footballers in a largely unregulated environment. An inquiry by Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee into football grooming revelations found a backlog of background checks waiting to be carried out on men working with youngsters, and called for a complete revamp of the system which is supposed to offer safeguards. The committee also attacked the Scottish Youth Football Association (SYFA), accusing it of “misleading” government officials and MSPs about the amount of work needing to be done to ensure coaches are vetted properly. Both the SFA and the SYFA are supposed to adhere to the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme, set up in 2011 as a registration system for all those who work with children and protected adults in Scotland. However, PVG does not apply to volunteering, and MSPs have said it should now be made mandatory for all sports groups in the country to sign up to the scheme. Ministers plan to have new legislation in place by 2019, but the committee believes action needs to be taken now to strengthen the PVG scheme and to ensure “unsuitable people are prevented from doing regulated work”. In December, it was revealed that 2,500 of the 15,385 coaches registered with the SYFA did not have PVG clearance. Three months later the SYFA admitted almost 1,000 youth football coaches and officials had still not completed the full PVG background checks, managed through Disclosure Scotland. Committee convener Neil Findlay said: “Our evidence highlighted variations in how the PVG scheme operates in sports across Scotland. “Ultimately, we believe the current system of PVG checks may not be preventing unsuitable people from doing regulated work with children. “We’re talking about the safety of children – urgent action is needed now to strengthen the scheme as 2019 is too long to wait for new legislation.” He added: “In relation to football, we have raised serious concerns about the ability of the SYFA to ensure PVG checks are carried out efficiently. “We cannot even now be confident that the SYFA is being truthful in relation to the size of their backlog and consequently that as an organisation they are committed to undertaking the appropriate PVG checking expeditiously. “We consider the SFA to have been asleep on the job and continually complacent in this area. Based on the information provided, we are left with concerns about the current protections being afforded to youth footballers in Scotland.” A spokesperson for the SYFA said: “Whilst we have not yet received a copy of the report, the thousands of volunteers and the staff of the SYFA place the safety of Scotland`s youth footballers at the heart of everything we do. “We have tightened our procedures in recent months and are among the very best-performing youth sports bodies in the country when it comes to ensuring Disclosure Scotland checks are carried out in a timely fashion. “We are very disappointed with comments that we in any way misled anyone about our procedures and have been open and honest in all our dealings with the Parliament.” More than 20 UK police forces have confirmed they are investigating claims of historical child abuse in football. Police Scotland is looking into 130 reports of such cases in the sport.