Safeguarding and Protecting Children

Safeguarding and Protecting Children

Relevant Legislation Guidance Notes

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Protecting Children – A Shared Responsibility:

Guidance on Inter-agency Co-operation (1998)

This guidance describes the roles and responsibilities of the various agencies involved in the welfare and protection of children, eg; police, social services, education, health, voluntary sector and Children’s Reporter. It forms the basis for all local authority child protection guidelines and emphasises that all organisations must work together to protect children.

It contains the definition of child abuse and the definitions of different categories under which children suffering abuse or at risk of abuse can be registered on the Child Protection Register; Physical injury, physical neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and non organic failure to thrive.

This guidance states that those working or volunteering in sport or leisure can play an important part in keeping children safe by identifying a child who needs help and taking action to help the child by reporting concerns.

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Child Welfare and Protection

Children (S) Act 1995

The main piece of legislation for the care and protection of children in Scotland. It covers the roles and responsibilities of parents, and the local authority towards children. It also covers the Children’s Hearings and powers to act in an emergency situation to protect a child, eg; Child Protection Order.

One of the most important areas of this legislation is section 5, which states:

“Anyone (aged 16 or over) who has care or control of a child (under 16 years) has a duty to do what is reasonable in all the circumstances to safeguard the child’s health, development and welfare”

In other words; ‘Duty of Care’

This is the basis for asking those working / volunteering with children in any setting to put safeguards in place to keep children safe.

Criminal Offences against children

If an offence is committed against a child the individual will be charged under one of these pieces of legislation:

Sexual Offences (Ammendments) Act 2000

Criminal Justice (S) Act 2003

Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (S) Act 2005

You may have heard the phrase ‘Schedule 1 Offender’. This is an individual who has committed an offence against a child under 17 and has been charged under section 1 of the Criminal Procedures (S) Act 1995.

Recruitment and Selection of staff and volunteers.

The Police Act 1997

After the events in Dunblane (1996) it was recognised that greater safeguards were needed for those working with vulnerable groups, eg: children, elderly, those with a disability.

This act provided access to the criminal records of those who work with (either paid or unpaid) vulnerable groups. This provided the legal framework for Disclosure Scotland and CRBS.

Protection of Vulnerable Groups (S) Act 2007

All organisations working with children / protected adults have a legal responsibility to ensure that any individual doing ‘regulated work’ with children or protected adults is not listed on the Children List and /or the Adults list which bars them from regulated work.

‘Regulated Work’ with children includes:

• caring for children
• teaching, instructing, training or supervising children
• being in sole charge of children
• having unsupervised contact with children
• being a host parent

The Act provides a robust vetting and barring scheme that will safeguard children and protected adults by barring identified individuals from positions of authority where this could be abused. A new, continuously updated, electronic scheme record system will be introduced which will make it easier for employers to identify individuals who are (or who become) unsuitable for work with vulnerable groups.

There is a new system of Disclosure. Individuals register to become ‘scheme members’ to carry out regulated work with children or protected adults. It is not an offence for not participating in the scheme, but an offence will have been committed if you work as or employ a barred person.

Organisations have a legal duty to refer individuals who meet the referral criteria to Disclosure Scotland to be considered for listing.

PVG should be more ‘pro-active’ than the old system as information from a number of sources is continually fed into the scheme.

The following is not on slides, but may come up during the acceptable / unacceptable exercise regarding leaving a child home alone.

Children and Young Persons Act 1937

Whilst it is not illegal to leave a child alone at home, or have an older sibling ‘babysit’, they could be problems should something happen to any of the children.

Section 12 of the act states “that it is an offence for a person who has reached the age of 16 and has parental responsibilities in relation to a young person under the age of 16, or who has the charge or care of such a young person, to wilfully neglect.. or expose, or causes the young person to be neglected or exposed, in a manner likely to cause the young person unnecessary suffering or injury to health”.

If the police are involved in such a situation they will most likely charge the person responsible for the child at the time. If the case goes to court, it would then be up to the judge to determine whether the circumstances amount to wilfull neglect by considering the risk to the child in the specific circumstances of the case.

Further advice on legislation can be obtained on-line at and using the search facility. Alternatively, the Safeguarding in Sport service can provide advice and support ( )