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 Partnership (WSCP) 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 WSCP 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 agencies have completed their audit, a blank Action Plan template can be downloaded from the WSCP website and populated with any areas requiring further improvement. The WSCP will dip sample action plans on an annual basis.
