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Safeguarding Policy

Aims

The aims of the company safeguarding policy are to provide an environment where all can work safely; The Company will take every reasonable precaution to minimise risk while providing demanding, challenging and enjoyable training and development activities at our own premises and the premises of our employers and clients. 

Rationale

The rationale of the policy is to contribute to the personal safety of all children and adults using our facilities and resources, through actively promoting awareness, good practice and sound procedures. The organisation is committed to ensure that all and specifically those that are vulnerable are kept safe from harm while they are involved with the organisation. 

Principles

Safeguarding has a meaning wider than child protection. The policy aims to ensure that all apprentices, staff, customers, linked employers, freelance trainers’ stakeholders and visitors are safe from harm and abuse, harassment and bullying. Harm and harassment have formal legal meanings within civil and criminal law. 

Safeguarding also includes all staff acting in a responsible way to avoid any false allegations of inappropriate behaviour being made about their conduct that would give cause for concern. 

This policy is based on the law and statutory guidance applicable in England only. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 and the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 deal with aspects of regulated activity 

This policy is directly linked to the company disciplinary procedures. All company personnel have a legal duty to report instances of harm and abuse in regulated activities to the Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) following action in accordance with staff disciplinary procedures where appropriate.

In addition to the legal aspects, it is our policy to ensure that all persons learning and working with us respect each other and strive to help each other in a professional and caring manner. 

Purpose

All staff have a personal responsibility for safeguarding the welfare and wellbeing of all children and adults at risk of harm by protecting them from abuse which may be:

All staff should refer to the health and safety policy, especially the lone working section to make themselves aware of the lone working guidance and how to protect themselves from safeguarding allegations and ensure personal safety. 

In addition to the above- all personnel have a responsibility to undertake the safeguarding training provided by the company or third parties. Staff should also ensure they review and maintain currency of knowledge for safeguarding/prevent/British values as part of their CPD. 

Line managers are accountable for managing safeguarding training for their line reports and ensuring relevant information in respect of Safeguarding is provided to individuals for whom they have line management accountabilities. 

Managers undertaking recruitment are responsible for applying for appropriate DBS checks and advising selected applicants of this fact and advising them of appropriate information to access the relevant DBS portal to satisfactorily complete a submission. 

Designated Person

The Designated person is responsible for providing or signposting company personnel to relevant safeguarding training and coaching resources. All staff have a responsibility to participate in safeguarding training and maintain their professional development in this area. 

Senior Management and Directors and Safeguarding Designated Person

The senior management team and Directors are accountable for the execution of this policy throughout the organisation. The Safeguarding Designated Persons are responsible for providing the Board with information pertaining to Safeguarding and such notifications will be addressed where required, under the health and safety agenda item of all Board meetings. 

The Safeguarding Designated Persons shall ensure active compliance with this policy by all staff, apprentices, stakeholders’ freelance trainers and linked employers. 

The aim of safeguarding actions regarding personnel is to ensure as far as is possible that anyone, who seeks to work with children and young people (or vulnerable adults where appropriate) through the companies’ activities and who gains substantial access to them thereby (whether within activity hours and/or beyond) is as safe to do so in safeguarding protection terms as can be guaranteed. 

The Safeguarding Designated Persons are accountable for the following checks being carried out on all prospective employees whose work may create a situation of substantial access to children and young people (or adults): 

-DBS criminal records check at enhanced level including barring and police disclosure where legal and appropriate (without breaching the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act) but complying with regulated activity safeguarding requirements. 

-References are sought and checked as, nominated by the applicant. Such references must come from a person who is not related to the applicant and who preferably knows of the applicant’s character, trustworthiness and any previous experience of working with/looking after children and young people. 

No applicant may start work unsupervised without the above enquiries being completed. However, the Safeguarding Designated Persons may, in consultation with the managing director and HR Manager authorise an applicant to commence supervised (one-to-one basis) work where it is absolutely clear there will be no problems arising from the checks. 

This supervision must meet the Secretary of State for Education’s definition. 

The Safeguarding Designated Persons and HR team will not accept any previous reference, police check, social services endorsements provided by an applicant in substitution for the above enquiry process. At all times the initiative must lie with our company to make its own, completely independent enquiries in line with the latest legislation and codes available. 

Record keeping shall be in accordance with our personnel policies and will comply with the Data Protection Act. 

Subcontract Provision

It is a requirement that the company hold copies of DBS records for all staff involved in the subcontracted provision as required. In addition, we must ensure that the relevant Safeguarding and Prevent training is completed and evidence of this is held centrally. 

Records

The Safeguarding Designated Persons are to keep records1 of all incidents of harm, abuse, harassment, bullying and ‘prevent’ referrals and not to destroy those records where relevant to harm or abuse. The General Data Protection Regulation applies to protection of personal data, ensuring that records are stored securely and appropriately. All records related to Safeguarding and Prevent concerns will be accessed only by the Designated Persons. The records and content will not be shared with third parties unless the Designated Persons have strong evidence of a safeguarding issue. Under these circumstances, relevant legislation such as the Children Act 1989 takes precedence and personal information may be shared if it is clearly in the vulnerable persons best interests. 

Disciplinary Procedures in Relation to Regulated Activity 

If a person is accused of an act of harm or thought to have committed one as defined by law, they can be suspended and requested to remain away from work while an investigation takes place into the incident. This is called ‘neutral ground’. Staff may not visit the person in neutral ground to give information about the progress of the disciplinary inquiry without the formal permission of the HR Manager and Safeguarding designated person. It is not a disciplinary matter at that point because no offence has been proven. 

If no offence can be proven then following advice from HR and the Safeguarding designated person and relevant services where appropriate, the person may be reinstated. If a police officer notifies the company that the disciplinary procedure or any subsequent reporting to DBS should be halted pending a police investigation that instruction will be complied with by all staff members involved. False accusations against staff or apprentices will be reported to the police as potential criminal offences as well as disciplinary offences. 

If the person is found to have committed harm, they may be moved to another post or dismissed in accordance with disciplinary procedures. At this point the managing director or the disciplinary manager will instruct the safeguarding designated person to complete the DBS reporting form and send full details of the case including previous notes of other relevant incidents or concerns to the DBS for investigation by a senior case officer. 

If the staff member resigns, retires or flees at any point during ‘neutral ground’ or disciplinary procedures thus making it impossible for the procedures to be completed, then the law requires that the managing director shall instruct the safeguarding designated person to report that staff member to the DBS for further investigation regardless of their location and status. 

Harassment

No apprentice or staff member shall be harassed. No apprentice or staff member shall harass any visitor, client customer or employer. Harassment can be of two kinds – civil harassment linked to discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 and criminal harassment linked to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 or racial harassment under a range of Police laws. Apprentices have the right to complain about harassment. Staff also have this right. Staff members have the same rights to protection as apprentices. 

Reporting and Confidentiality 

It is the duty of all staff to report incidents of concern whether they affect regulated activity or not. It is also the duty of staff to protect and assist apprentices when they wish to report. Our company has an open style of management, and we wish to support anyone who feels concerned about their treatment. Although any reported incident will be kept confidentially in line with policy and data protection, staff cannot – and must not – promise confidentiality when a safeguarding disclosure is made since the law requires that police and social services and the DBS are told. The person reporting and the person making the disclosure will be protected. It is their legal right to remain anonymous to other staff and the public. However, the safeguarding designated person has a duty to pass on the names and details of any child or adult who has made a validated safeguarding disclosure to relevant authorities. 

Harm

Staff are to carefully note the following. Any queries or request for additional information should be addressed to the safeguarding designated person. Although adults will understand the general meaning of harm and abuse in normal parlance, it is not possible to say that a person has ‘harmed’ a child or adult in a legal sense unless we understand what legal harm is. 

Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to make enquiries where it is suspected that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm, to enable it to decide whether it should take any action to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child. The framework for assessing such children is set out in chapter 5 of Working Together to Safeguard Children – the key document for defining the role and actions of Safeguarding Designated Persons. Our Safeguarding designated person is to liaise with the local authority on these matters. 

Legal Requirments

Regulated activity providers and personnel suppliers are required by law to refer a person (to the DBS using the correct form) where they have: 

-Harmed a child or vulnerable adult (engaged in relevant conduct) 

-Represent a risk of harm to vulnerable groups including children (satisfied the harm test) 

-Received a caution or conviction for a relevant offence 

The Safeguarding designated person is required to provide information relating to the person’s conduct, (including copies of relevant documents), namely: 

a) A summary of the conduct including details of the setting and location in which such conduct occurred. 

b) Details of any harm suffered by any child or vulnerable adult resulting from or arising from the conduct or any risk of harm that a child or vulnerable adult was, or may have been, exposed to as a result of such conduct. 

c) Whether the person you are referring has accepted responsibility for or admitted the conduct or any part of it. 

d) Any explanation offered by the person you are referring for the conduct or any remorse or insight demonstrated by them in relation to the conduct. 

e) Any information other than that relating to the person’s conduct which is likely to, or may, be relevant in considering whether they should be included in or removed from a barred list including information relating to any previous offences, allegations, incidents, behaviour or other acts or omissions. 

It is a legal requirement to supply information relating to the reason why you consider that the harm test is satisfied in relation to the person you are referring. You are also required to provide details of any investigation undertaken by any person in relation to the person’s conduct including: 

a) The evidence and information obtained and considered in any such investigation. 

b) The outcome of the investigation, if known. 

c) The contact details (including a name, address, telephone number and e-mail address) of any person responsible for the investigation. 

This Policy has been agreed by Mason Healy-Rice, Director.

Effective from 08/01/24

Next review – 08/01/25