Keep Governance and Safeguarding

Safeguarding Associates for Excellence recently posed the question: What safeguarding actions would be your go to, to make a better change in safeguarding? I thought it was such a great question which could generate so many responses, some of which included better PSHE in schools relevant to safeguarding and an expansion of multi-disciplinary child protection teams. My reflections come back to the principle of developing top level leadership throughout all organisations who understand their responsibilities toward safeguarding the people who engage with them. These already exist for charity trustees (although this responsibility is not always executed effectively) who are unpaid, and yet company executives do not have such explicit safeguarding expectations placed upon them. In 1974, the Health and Safety at Work Act created mandated duties for employers and employees to take responsibility for the safety of employees and colleagues. These responsibilities can apply to company directors if they were negligent in their decision making, and there have been cases where directors have been sentenced to a custodial sentence and/ or have been disqualified from being a director in the future. In 2008, Lord Grocott undertook a formal review the Act and observed that between 1974 and 2007, the number of fatal injuries to employees, the number of reported non-fatal injuries and the rate of all injuries to employees all fell by 70% or more. He also noted that Britain had the lowest rate of fatal injuries in the European Union in 2003, the most recent year for which figures were available. There is no doubt that the Health and Safety at Work Act, which made health and safety everyone’s responsibility (the classic question in all online training on the matter) including company directors, had a huge impact on the reduction of risk. Anyone who has done any introduction to safeguarding training, or has read their organisation’s safeguarding policies should hopefully know that safeguarding is also everyone’s responsibility. And yet, understanding safeguarding risks and raising safeguarding concerns still feels like the preserve of a few, rather than the bread and butter of the many! With the general exception of the education sector, and while some great Boards understand and engage with their moral responsibility to safeguarding the vulnerable people their organisations work with or employ, the majority of Boards do not understand the statutory responsibilities they already have. Working Together to Safeguarding Children (2023) states of itself that “this statutory guidance sets out key roles for individual organisations and agencies to deliver effective arrangements for help, support, safeguarding, and protection. It should be read and followed by leaders, managers and frontline practitioners of all organisations and agencies as set out in chapter 4 of this document.” [1] Alongside many public bodies, those organisations and agencies include “voluntary, charity, social enterprise, faith-based organisations, and private sectors” as well as the Armed Forces [2] . Further expectations are then placed on charities by the Charity Commission. So, there is statutory guidance, issued under the Children Act 2004, which mandates general safeguarding expectations on all organisations. The problem is that is currently has no teeth! No board members are currently being held criminally responsible for safeguarding failings within their organisations that didn’t directly involve them as the perpetrator and so, while they may acknowledge the risks, safeguarding is often not high enough up their priority list to ensure everyone knows that safeguarding is a fully responsibility shared by everyone and owned by the Board. But the way to make change happen is for someone at the ‘top-table’ to take absolute responsibility for effective safeguarding practice across their organisation, and for them to be able to be held account if the organisation fails to effectively protect individuals. Of course, we can never get eliminate risk all together, and there will be times when through no-one’s fault a perpetrator of abuse gains access to an individual through an organisation, but the question must then be ‘did the organisation reasonably do their best to protect their people?’ If not, the whole board should held accountable. So lets start at the very top table, our government. There should be a Cabinet Minister who leads a dedicated Department for Safeguarding and Social Care, with a remit to lead on national safeguarding policy and to ensure safeguarding is considered in governmental policy development across departments. Not only will this model the expectations we should have for all organisations, but it will be able to take a strategic perspective on the development of safeguarding practice across all sectors and all vulnerable groups. This will include a comprehensive review into the structures and processes across the whole United Kingdom to learn from the arrangements that effectively identify and disrupt abuse, neglect and exploitation. This should then shape a strategy for national improvement. I would have thought that a case could then be made for a safeguarding equivalent to the Health and Safety at Work Act, placing specific responsibilities on leaders of all organisations and through which they can be held account for failings. [1] Working together to Safeguarding Children: Paragraph 8 www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2 [2] Working together to Safeguarding Children: Chapter 4 www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2 Photo credit: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com