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An extract from chapter 11 The certification system relating to section 1 firearms
11.21 These considerations indicate, in my view, that a system should be instituted to ensure that clubs and groups which are voluntarily attended by children and young people for their recreation, education or development use adequate checks on the suitability of the leaders and workers who have substantial unsupervised access to them. 11.29 These considerations lead me to put aside the option that there should be compulsory registration, and to turn to the option for voluntary accreditation. This would have the advantage of being much more flexible and certainly simpler to administer. In determining what required to be demonstrated in order to obtain accreditation the body could adapt its approach according to what was appropriate in the case of different types of clubs or groups. 11.39 The functions of the body and the need for its work to be well known clearly indicate that what is required is a national body. It is true that a local authority is readily accessible to parents. However, in the case of organisations which operate nationally or in several local authority areas there would be undesirable duplication if registration had to take place in every local authority area in which they were active. Further, the fragmentation of responsibility among a large number of bodies would make it difficult to achieve the collection of information about potentially unsuitable persons to which I referred in paragraph 11.36.
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