In schools, academies, Alternative Providers / Our Ref:
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Date: / Jane Walker
01670 622734
Dear Colleague
Safeguarding Standards in Schools, Academies and Alternative Providers
I am writing to confirm arrangements for the quality assurance of safeguarding standards in Northumberland schools, academies and alternative providers from January 2015. These arrangements have been developed in partnership with the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) and yourselves during the last 12 months in response to local and national requirements for keeping pupils safe from harm.
It remains the responsibility of leaders within individual schools, academies and providers to ensure that safeguarding procedures are in place and fully understood by all professionals who come into contact with our children and young people. The named Governor with responsibility for child protection, the Designated Person for Child Protection and the Headteacher should work closely together to ensure standards are met and individual cases are managed appropriately. The safeguarding requirements you are required to have in place by law are outlined on Northumberland’s LSCB website under the Information for Schools section.
The role of the Education and Skills Service is to act as a partner of the LSCB to quality assure the safeguarding standards in education settings. Last year we published a safeguarding standards audit resource to help you to review and monitor current safeguarding arrangements and identify areas which might need strengthening. The resource corresponds to the safeguarding duty introduced in section 11 of the Children Act 2004 and the section 5 inspection framework for schools (Education Act 2005). Schools, academies, alternative providers and the Education Service are required to report these standards to the LSCB on an annual basis.
The Education Service is able to use the section 11 process as a vehicle to explore safeguarding issues which arose in individual settings and a three tier level of response has now been established:
- Using the authority of the LSCB and with the direction of the Chair of the LSCB, intervention in a setting to conduct a Section 11 audit and produce an action plan for improvement, triggered by:
- an Ofsted inspection where safeguarding is judged to be inadequate
- substantial evidence that safeguarding standards might be inadequate (from members of the public, Client Relations, professionals)
- a serious case review involving the setting
- With the direction of the Director of Education and Skills or the nominated Senior Manager with responsibility for safeguarding, a request to the setting to review safeguarding standards using the Section 11 with an officer from the Local Authority to produce an action plan which will then be monitored, triggered by:
- a complaint received through Ofsted’s whistleblowing team
- a complaint received through Client Relations (children’s safeguarding)
- an event which raises questions about safeguarding standards in a setting
- A request to the setting from the Senior Manager with responsibility for safeguarding to submit their current section 11 audit, triggered by:
- the setting being monitored under the Local Authority’s Schools Intervention and Support Programme
- concerns about practice expressed by social care
- as part of the on-going quality assurance of standards through sampling.
From January 2015 the Partnership Co-ordinators in each Education Partnership will have a brief to quality assure their team of School Improvement Partners. SIPs will expect to see the section 11 audit document on their visits and will request to see evidence of robust safeguarding practice. Safeguarding standards are the responsibility of the Governing Body. If the Local Authority is concerned that the Governing Body is not fulfilling its statutory duties with regard to safeguarding then the sanction of replacing the Governing Body with an IEB may be used so that strong and decisive action is ensured.
The LSCB is exploring the potential of investing in a virtual section 11 system which will have the dual benefits of being easier to review as a working document for settings, but will also allow the Local Authority and LSCB to have access at any time to the section 11 audit of every setting. Until that system is in place, the Education and Skills Service will introduce a quality assurance dip sampling system with effect from January 2015. All school, academies and providers will be required to co-operate with this system and provide a copy of the section 11 audit on request.
Further details will be published by the LSCB in January 2015, with an expected submission date for this year’s audit by the end of April 2015. If you have any questions about the new arrangements then please contact Jane Walker (Senior Manager Alternative Education) on 01670 622734.
Yours sincerely