The Local Authority (Bristol City Council) and Local Safeguarding Partnership (Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership) have a legal duty to safeguarding children and young people within their boundaries.
S. 175 of the Education Act 2002 provides a legal duty on the Local Authority to make arrangements for ensuring that their education functions are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
This is a direct duty on maintained settings, however also has been interpreted to ensure that this covers all education establishments within the Local Authority jurisdiction.
The audit is a proportionate mechanism to ensure that education settings are complaint with their statutory duties and Local Safeguarding Partnership processes and procedures. In Bristol, it is the Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership - Education Reference Group, co-constructed by colleagues from Education workforce and facilitated by Bristol City Council Safeguarding in Education Team.
There are other ways in which the s.175 duty is implemented. This could be via: responding to complaints or identified deficits,commissioned safeguarding reviews,and/or learning from statutory reviews (Child Safeguarding Reviews, Adult Safeguarding Reviews, Domestic Homicide Reviews)
The Audit tool and associated resources is curated by the Safeguarding in Education Team.
The results and governance of the process are overseen by the Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership Education Reference Group - a partnership of sector representatives, the Local Authority and representatives from other relevant colleagues.
The results assist with the partnership supporting settings to target and commission resources where there are systemic/sector deficits or areas of vulnerability.
From 2022-24 - we are separating the need for data collection away from the s.175 Audit. Whilst the Audit tool is a useful mechanism to collect data, the need to collect safeguarding data from schools should happen at meaningful times of the year. A working group has been set up to consider the best way to achieve this and support a standardised approach to using this. Click here to access the KBSP Annual Education Data Drop
The Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to promote and safeguard the welfare of children in need in their area.
The Local Safeguarding Partnership has a legal duty under s.10 Children Act 2004 which requires each local authority to make arrangements to promote co-operation between the authority, each of the authority’s relevant partners, and such other persons or bodies who exercise functions or are engaged in activities in relation to children in the local authority’s area, as the authority considers appropriate. The arrangements are to be made with a view to improving the wellbeing of children in the authority’s area – which includes protection from harm and neglect alongside other outcomes.
Educations Acts
In addition to the duties to the Local Authority and by proxy the Local Safeguarding Partnership the following laws put duties directly onto the different types of education settings:
Working Together to Safeguard Children
Since December 2023, with new version of Working together to safeguard children - GOV.UK puts a statutory duty on all education settings to engage with this process.
Paragraph 79 states
Education providers, including multi-academy trusts, have a responsibility to play their full part in local safeguarding arrangements, including where their footprint extends across several local authority areas. This includes, but should not be limited to, responding to safeguarding audits of quality and compliance, as requested by the local authority and/or local safeguarding partners. This is to ensure that policies are consistent with the local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements and relevant legislation and/or regulations. They should also provide staff and governor training that meets local and national safeguarding requirements. Education providers where required should report their audits to their governing bodies and proprietors to be shared as requested by the LSPs. Training for designated safeguarding leads and designated teachers should include shared understanding about different levels of need and how these need to be responded
to. Education providers also play a vital role in sharing and contributing to key information about children, including attendance data, exclusions, concerns about abuse, neglect, exploitation, and wider social and environmental factors including extra-familial contexts, which are a key aspect of keeping children safe.
Regulatory bodies (for example Ofsted, The Regions Group, and the Department for Education) can seek assurance from the Local Safeguarding Partnership and the Local Authority to inform their judgments around the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements in a setting.
The tool is hosted on SharePoint as an Excel Spreadsheet.
The Safeguarding in Education Team have already sent copies for your setting's folder.
Please email the team if you are having trouble accessing this.
The next period of audit will be from 2024-2026.
Support and communities of practice will take place every term through our professional networks.
