• Charity Commissions Safeguarding Strategy

    The Charity Commission has now brought Safeguarding for all charities to the fore. To assist busy Trustees, SAFE has developed a free handy resource for charities to easily check what they need to have in place to be legally compliant.
    Earlier this year, The Charity Commission published their Safeguarding Children & Young People Policy Paper 2014, which outlines how (by law) trustees of charities working with children and other vulnerable groups must promote welfare and protect them from harm, in both the UK and working abroad.
    The Commission’s related strategy document also defines safeguarding as one of the three key areas of high regulatory risk.
    The failure of a charity to adopt and implement rigorous safeguarding arrangements is now considered to be a serious regulatory issue. The Commission will now become involved in “one to one” engagements with charity trustees when any serious incidents occur. In essence, these include:

    • Not having current, and robust, safeguarding policies and procedures in place
    • Concerns that a charity beneficiary has been abused or exploited in any way
    • Not having appropriate vetting procedures, including Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks in place for the recruitment of charity volunteers and staff, including trustees
    • Failure to refer individuals to the DBS when they may, or do, pose a risk of harm to vulnerable beneficiaries
    • Trustees taking no, or inadequate, steps to address safeguarding weaknesses in their charity

    Ultimately, charities who fail to comply can be made subject to permanent protective powers which can have serious legal consequences for Trustees.
    Click Here for the free handy charity resource which is designed to help charities be legally compliant.
    If you have any specific queries about your charity’s safeguarding arrangements do contact us direct at [email protected].
    Click here for the Charity Commission’s Safeguarding Children & Young People Policy Paper 2014.
    Click here for the Charity Commission’s strategy document, “Strategy for dealing with safeguarding vulnerable groups including children issues in charities” can be found here:

    Posted on 3rd December 2014