Councils targeting burger vendors and tree surgeons with 'unnecessary' CRB checks The report also found Hertfordshire County Council has required a vicar visiting a school to have a check, while Bristol City Council vetted almost 200 parent helpers in one year. Josie Appleton, founder of the Manifesto Club, said many of the checks are paid for by the councils themselves at the expense of the taxpayer. There is no good reason why parent volunteers in schools should be CRB checked. This is a tax on goodwill," she said. It is surprising that councils can find the money to CRB check tree surgeons and leisure centre managers. They should cut these unnecessary checks rather than frontline services. Paul St Clair, a local councillor who runs a burger van in a lay-by in East Yorkshire, has complained about having to be vetted once a year, as he never comes into contact with children alone. "You have to have a car to come here," he said. The only way children can get here is with an adult and that is few and far between. In another incident, a 16-year-old comedian was told by his local council that he could not go on stage unless staff in the venues where he performed had CRB checks. The report claims there has been a 50 per cent increase in Criminal Record Bureau checks since 2004, costing the council and businesses more than £284 million. The highest checking councils last year were Hertfordshire with 21,680 CRB checks, Essex with 21,610 and Devon with 20,095 checks, at a cost of nearly £1 million per authority. The Manifesto Club is now calling on the Home Office to introduce penalties for councils that are making unnecessary checks. A Home Office spokesman said the report proved how "excessive the current system of employment checking has become." "This is why we are scaling the regime back to common sense levels so that the public are properly protected but the number of unnecessary checks is substantially reduced," he said. Our proposals, currently before Parliament in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, will ensure that employers are able to make the right decision on who should be checked, and we have strengthened our guidance to make clear the financial penalties for employers who carry out unnecessary checks.