The government is to hand control of vetting and barring of children's workers over to the newly created Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) from 20 January.

Read: Date revealed for start of new vetting scheme.

A pocket sized guide to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 is available to order on-line from www.caeuk.org

Does anyone have a way to actually get in touch with the ISA? They don't publish a phone number on their website apart from an an automated service, and their email inbox seems to be full most of the time.

i had a meeting with Shadow Justice David Burrowes, with my co worker Trevor Jones to discus the injustice of some enhanced CRB disclosures, several weeks ago within Parliament. In some cases of alleged Child Abuse, the CPS and Police sometimes decide to take no action, due to lack of evidence, in other cases, more often than not ,Social Services instigate Care Proceedings, in other cases decide to take no action. Individuals have been vindicated, but yet, The Criminal .Records Bureau,hold the Allegation on file, preventing that person ever being able to work with children and young people,such has teachers,and carers, who have their livelihoods taken away, resulting in financial hardship. In my opinion, a gross violation of Human Rights. A recent Daily Telegraph article stated that there could be as many as 17000 persons wrongly registered. I am in the process of trying to arrange a meeting to see Keith Vaz MP, who is on the Home Affairs select committee, to once again raise the groups concerns. Alison Stevens Parents Against Injustice.

No there isn't a way to actually get in touch beyond a virtual receptionist. However, the permanently full email box has now been complemented with an automated e-acknowledgement system, but no human actually responds to the query. There is also an equivalent web-based backend (http://www.isa-gov.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=331) which gives automated responses (without a reference number) and no human output. They do respond humanly and formulaically to access to personal data requests sent by snail mail. This consists of sending their own paper form back asking you to transfer all the information (notably id) that you had put in the e-mail into their form and POSTING it back by snail-mail: they specifically exclude any electronic means of communication, although they do allow photocopies of passports and driving licences. They do not respond to the paper form at all. The system is indistinguishable except in cost to a paper shredder and the "Recycle bin" on your desktop.

 There is a published e-mail address: VBS Info <info@vbs-info.org.uk> and which even has a phone number, but it appears to be independent of isa, and is staffed by pleasant-sounding ineffectual humans who merely e-mail you a hand-crafted e-redirection or telephonically re-direct you to the system in the previous paragraph. They DO, eventually, give you a phone number and address in Darlington which functions like the old List-99 mechanism but on tranquillisers.