What is Section 11?

Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places duties on a range of organisations and individuals to ensure their functions, and any services that they contract out to others, are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

What Does Safeguarding and Promoting the Welfare of Children Mean?

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children means:
  • Protecting children from maltreatment
  • Preventing impairment of children’s health and/or development
  • Ensuring that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe effective care, and
    taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.

What is the Responsibility of Wirral Safeguarding Children Board?

All organisations have a general duty to promote and safeguard children. Wirral Safeguarding Children Board (WSCB) is a statutory body that oversees these arrangements and in order to measure the effectiveness of these duties the Board has developed standards with indicators which can support a judgement.

What is the responsibility of schools/education settings?

Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 places a duty on local authorities (in relation to their education functions and governing bodies of maintained schools and further education institutions, which include sixth-form colleges) to exercise their functions with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children who are pupils at a school, or who are students under 18 years of age attending further education institutions. The same duty applies to independent schools (which include Academies and free schools) by virtue of regulations made under Section 157 of the same Act.

In order to fulfil their duty under sections 157 and 175 of the Education Act 2002, all educational settings to whom the duty applies should have in place the arrangements set out in paragraph 4, chapter 2 (included below). In addition schools should have regard to specific guidance given by the Secretary of State under sections 157 and 175 of the Education Act 2002 namely, Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education and Dealing with allegations of abuse against teachers and other staff.

Completing and Scoring the Self-assessment
 
This year, the WSCB has developed a new model for Section 11 and 175 to include shorter audits throughout the year. Agencies will have the opportunity to upload key documents as evidence and use the findings from the audit to create their own action plan. The audits consist of a series of questions which relate to specific arrangements, including policies, procedures, managing allegations and training which help safeguard children and young people.


When you have completed your audit, a blank Action Plan template can be downloaded from the WSCB website and populated with any areas requiring further improvement. The WSCB will dip sample action plans on an annual basis.
 
To find out more about Section 11, follow the link to our website.

Question Title

* 1. Please select your agency from the options below

Question Title

* 2. Please provide details of the professional completing this audit

Question Title

* 3. Has the designated lead for safeguarding (and the deputy lead) attended appropriate safeguarding training in the last 3 years?

Question Title

* 4. Have all staff (including volunteers) received or attended training regarding their safeguarding responsibilities?

Question Title

* 5. Have all staff (including non-teaching and governors) received whole school training?

Question Title

* 6. If your staff have received whole school training, please specify your training provider:

Question Title

* 7. Is WSCB multi-agency training advertised and promoted to staff in line with the competency framework?

Question Title

* 8. How does your setting identify who requires training and which courses are most suitable?

Question Title

* 9. How does your setting ensure and test the level of understanding and learning following attendance at training?

Question Title

* 10. Does your organisation have a designated person who monitors attendance at training and identifies when refresher training is required?

Question Title

* 11. Have your staff completed WSCB e-learning courses in the last 12 months?

Question Title

* 12. What are your agencies’ safeguarding training priorities for the next 12 months? (i.e courses)

Question Title

* 13. Use the upload feature to attach any supporting evidence to your audit

DOCX, DOC, JPEG, GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG file types only.
Choose File

T