NEWS

On day three of Anglican Hearing at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Dr Sheila Fish gave evidence on the work the Social Care Institute of Excellence is doing for the Church of England.

On the important matter of ‘audits’ that SCIE have been commissioned to undertake in the 42 dioceses of the Church, we alighted on the following comments made by Dr Fish :

The approach we take with audits is flavoured with the Learning Together methodology. So that Learning Together method is SCIE’s model for initially conducting incident reviews …….

Dr Fish continued :  (more…)

The Disclosure and Barring Service  (“DBS”) is often mistakenly oversold as a functioning barrier that reliably stops perpetrators working with children and vulnerable adults. It is almost certain the DBS does not see itself in this way. If it works well, it then needs to be part of a functioning safeguarding framework that must include Mandatory Reporting of known or suspected abuse by Regulated Activities in England and Wales. Scotland would also benefit from MR – Northern Ireland has had a form of mandatory reporting since 2005.

The DBS was formed in 2012 by merging the functions of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. The DBS started operating on 1 December 2012. It operates from Liverpool and Royal Wootton Bassett. Its equivalent agencies are Disclosure Scotland in Scotland and Access Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland. (more…)

On 21st April Cardinal Vincent Nichols was interviewed on BBC Sunday Programme. He either  blanked or sidestepped questions on child abuse in the Catholic Church. Our post concentrates on this aspect of the interview including the cover up of child abuse in the Archdiocese of Birmingham where Nichols was Archbishop from 2000 – 2009. The Archdiocese was part of IICSA’s Catholic investigation undertaken – Nichols gave evidence. (more…)

We have reviewed two core components of the Crewe Alexandra Football Club safeguarding policy: (i) the child protection and safeguarding policy and, (ii) the whistleblowing policy. We provide a third document showing the email exchanges needed to secure the policies from the club.

The whistleblowing policy is key because in England there is no legislation that requires employees and/or volunteers who have responsibility for the care of children in a ‘Regulated Activity‘ (a football club academy for example) to report known or suspected abuse to the statutory authorities. Anyone who chooses to report is by default a whistleblower with little legal protection. Furthermore it’s discretionary to report a safeguarding concern. No law is broken by  a member of staff who chooses to not report a concern to the local authority for independent assessment that perhaps, only many years later when the child has disclosed abuse in adulthood, secures a criminal conviction.

Please read the conclusions on the first page of the safeguarding policy review below. 

To the extent safeguarding works in any setting, it does so thanks to good staff trying their best with a legislative framework that simply cannot function effectively within Regulated Activities. The design and delivery of any safeguarding policy is vitally important and reveals the extent to which safeguarding is embedded in the culture of  the setting.

Our reviews of:

The CAFC Safeguarding Policy 

The CAFC Whistleblowing Policy

Emails needed to secure the Crewe Alexandra policies 

In 2018 a representative of Mandate Now provided evidence to the Independent Football Review led by Clive Sheldon QC.

(The policy in the review was current at the time of going to print  10/12/18)

Meg Munn, the recently appointed Chair of the National Safeguarding Panel of the Church of England, appeared on Radio 4 Sunday programme on the 17th March 2019. The peg for her contribution was the appalling story of Bishop of Chester, one of the 26 Spiritual Lords who contribute to the formulation of legislation in the House, failing to report to the statutory authorities abuse perpetrated by Rev. Gordon Dickenson which Dickenson wrote to him about in 2009.  Dickenson was convicted earlier this month of eight counts of sexual assault after pleading guilty to abusing a boy during the 1970s inside a church hall and even his vicarage.

Here is the interview with Ed Stourton.  In the first minute, Ms Munn provided clear opinion on what should now happen with this matter. Ed Stourton then read an extract from a letter sent to Andrew Graystone by the Bishop of Chester. Below we provide the transcript of the interview with Ms Munn from @1’39” onwards. Our observations are interpolated into the copy under ‘comment’.  Emboldening and italicisation are ours. (more…)

In 2013 the children’s charity Barnado’s entered into a contract with the Youth Justice Board  to provide independent advocacy for children at the Medway Secure Training Centre in which the charity agreed not to refer any child protection concerns arising in the setting to the local authority (Kent).  What does this tell us about the charity’s commitment to vulnerable children and just how safe are children it advocates for and protects today?

Barnardo’s looks conflicted between protecting children and its cherished relationship with Government and the public sector. Agreeing a contract that obliges it to not report child protection concerns to the Local Authority hits rock bottom. But having reached it, Barnardo’s breaks out the Kango hammer and starts digging again.  (more…)