Iain Dale @LBC 20/5/15 interviews Robin Fletcher of @BSAboarding which still does not 'get' child protection

Robin Fletcher asserts child protection training is 'professional.' The claim is wrong. There is no accreditation scheme for providers of training which makes the provision inherently variable. He claims there now exists stringent regulation of schools safeguarding. This is also wrong. The legislative foundations of child protection have not changed since the late 50's and the reporting of concerns are no more than a 'professional / behavioural expectation.' No one can be held to account for failing to report even rape of a child.. What therefore exists in boarding schools is child protection responsibility without accountability. Mr Fletcher claims school inspection is stringent which is once again wrong. We have evidence in abundance to demonstrate safeguarding inspection failure by all inspectorates. Both Ofsted and the ISI (the latter being the peer review inspectorate for boarding schools) are first and foremost educational inspectorates with a 'tacked on' function to inspect child protection. Both inspectorates as well as Bridge, which was closed by the Secretary of State for its education for safeguarding inspection failures, and the SiS are exceptionally poor at this role not least because it is culturally incompatible with education inspection. One needs inspectors who have been steeped in child protection combined with a first rate inspection framework to inspect against. Neither exist. . Has child protection changed in boarding schools? Only in the imagination of Mr Fletcher, the DfE, the schools inspectorates and the schools themselves. Evidence informs the rest of us that it is not 'all different now' which is the message Mr Fletcher seems so keen to transmit to the naive.