Audits and Reviews

There are many ways in which safeguarding practice across the diocese is audited.  Whenever we complete the casework relating to concerns about a Church Officer the Safeguarding Planning Group (Core Group) will consider whether a Safeguarding Practice Review is held. Any recommendations are shared at the Diocesan Safeguarding Advisory Panel who determines how best to disseminate the learning in a way that does not identify anyone involved.  This anonymity is important to provide confidence to all those taking part.   

Within the Diocesan Safeguarding Team we strive to improve our practice all the time and welcome opportunities to participate in any reviews – this is part of our approach to continuous improvement. However, we start by setting our own high standards about the work we do, and these are based on our Team’s Mission statement: 

To INSPIRE, educate, support and challenge our churches to be safer places for all: 

• Integrity
• Non-judgmental
• Safe
• Person Centred
• Inclusive
• Respectful
• Empathic Practice

As part of our desire for continual improvement the Diocesan Safeguarding Advisory panel undertakes a dip test analysis of the casework decisions annually to ensure there is consistency and continuity with wider safeguarding standards and best practice. 

Parishes are also required to audit their safeguarding arrangements annually and report to the Parochial Church Council and the Diocese.  We have provided two software packages to help the Parish Safeguarding Officers complete this task.  The Safeguarding Dashboard and the Safeguarding Hub provides a simple way to self-audit and the Dashboard automatically generates the report for the Parochial Church Council on request.  Furthermore, the diocese can access the parish dashboards so there is no need to report into the Safeguarding Team if you are using these helpful tools.  To know more about the Dashboard and Safeguarding Hub please visit the websites linked. 

The Diocese also participates in the national audits that are part of the National Quality Assurance Framework and the response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) recommendation 8 that the Church should have period external audit of the safeguarding practice across the church. The last audit was undertaken by Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE) in 2016 for the diocese and 2021 for the Minster. Both of the SCIE reports can be accessed below.  Our next audit is a combined one in January 2026 and will be undertaken by INEQE.   

INEQE has been commissioned to undertake reviews of every diocese and Cathedral over the next few years.  The audits have already started, and you can read the reports completed to date by clicking here. The theme of the audits is to measure diocesan and parish compliance with the National Safeguarding Standards.  The dates for the Southwell and Nottingham audit is 9th-11th January 2026.  That might sound a long way off but it will soon come around.  Please take a look at the National Safeguarding Standards section of the website by clicking here where you can find lots of helpful tools and resources to get you started. 

Learning from the past

The following are recent reports relating to safeguarding practice within the church context: 

Past Cases Review 2 (PCR2) 2021

National Report 

The National Past Cases Review 2 (PCR2) Report was published in 2022. You can read the national report using the following link click here. 

Southwell and Nottingham Local Executive Summary Report 

Following national guidance, the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham produced an Executive Summary report outlining the key themes from our PCR2 process.  The Executive Summary Report was written to ensure that no survivors could be identified, a commitment given to them when they agreed to assist in the review.  We extend our thanks once again for the valuable contribution the survivors made to the review.   

You can read the Local Executive Summary here. 

Graham Gregory: Lessons Learnt Review | The Church of England (2022) 

The publication of the report into the actions of Graham Gregory is a stark reminder of the failures of the Church over many years, including within the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. 

We are deeply sorry for the part played by this Diocese in this failure, and for the lack of empathy and action at the time these issues were drawn to diocesan attention.  While the current safeguarding arrangements are significantly different to those thirty years ago, we nevertheless reflected on our current practice and the recommendations contained within the report to ensure that a very different approach would be adopted now. 

Apologies will never take away the lifelong effect on the survivors and victims, but pastoral support and an apology has been provided to those affected. 

IICSA 2018

Following a number of high-profile child abuse cases, the British Government ordered a public inquiry into how large organisations respond to allegations of child sexual abuse.  The Church of England volunteered to participate in the Inquiry following the allegations made against Bishop Peter Ball and the Archbishop’s commissionaires report into the safeguarding arrangements in the Diocese of Chichester. 

On 6th October 2020 the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, IICSA, published its Investigation Report, The Anglican Church – Safeguarding in the Church of England and the Church in Wales.  

The full report can be accessed here 

Summary and Recommendations 

SCIE 2016 audit of Southwell and Nottingham Diocese safeguarding arrangements

In 2016 the Diocese was audited as part of a national church-wide audit of each of the then 43 Dioceses.  All the audits were undertaken by the Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE) and took place over a three-day period in 2016.  Southwell and Nottingham were one of the early diocesan audits and the report was presented to the DSAP. 

Southwell and Nottingham Final Report 

Safeguarding action plan in response to SCIE audit 

Wilkinson & Jay Reports 2023/2024

Following a decision to reset the Independent Safeguarding Board in June 2023, the National Church Institution (NCI) commissioned a report into the lessons to be learned from the setting up, functioning and dismantling of the ISB.  The report was produced by Sarah Wilkinson and was critical about the impact on survivors of the decisions made by the NCI and especially the Archbishop’s Council.  The report was published in October 2023. 

Wilkinson Report 2023 

Alongside the Wilkinson Report the Archbishops also commissioned a report from Professor Alexis Jay to identify steps needed to implement a fully independent safeguarding service for the Church of England.  The Jay report was published in January 2024. 

Alexis Jay Report 2024 

Both reports have been presented to General Synod and there is currently a Response Group under the leadership of Bishop Joanne Grenfell the Bishop of Stepney and Lead Bishop for Safeguarding.  There are also detailed Terms of Reference for the Response group jay-wilkinson-response-group-tor-17.04.24_0.pdf (churchofengland.org) 

Prior to the Response Group’s initial report presented at the General Synod in July  2024, a factual briefing report on both the Jay and Wilkinson reports was produced. 

Summary of the Wilkinson and Jay reports

National Safeguarding Standards

The national church has also developed National Safeguarding Standards National Safeguarding Standards | The Church of England which each diocese and parish should be working towards, with the aim of evidencing compliance by the end of 2027.  We are recommending that parishes start looking at the National Standards in earnest from 1st January 2025.  There are self-audit tools for dioceses, cathedrals and parishes, alongside information that is shared within the regular Safeguarding Newsletters, Briefings and the annual Safeguarding Conference. 

The Church of England has been in the process of developing a set of National Safeguarding Standards since 2020. 

The Standards are essential for the Church to understand the quality and, most importantly, the impact of its safeguarding activity. In addition, the Standards provide a simple construct which integrates the complexity of all safeguarding activity in the Church. All such activities, at all levels across the Church, will relate to at least one Standard. Thus, the Standards provide a means of connecting and integrating what might otherwise be experienced as disconnected activities and also enable the Church to easily communicate its commitment to safeguarding. 

The Five Standards are:

• Culture, Leadership and Capacity: Church bodies have safe and healthy cultures, effective leadership, resourcing and scrutiny arrangements necessary to deliver high-quality safeguarding practices and outcomes.
• Prevention: Church bodies have in place a planned range of measures which together are effective in preventing abuse in their context. 
• Recognising, Assessing and Managing Risk: Risk assessments, safety plans and associated processes are of a high quality and result in positive outcomes. The assessment and management of risk is underpinned by effective partnership working. 
• Victims and Survivors: Victims and survivors experience the timeliness and quality of Church bodies’ responses to disclosures, and their subsequent support, as positively meeting their needs, including their search for justice and helping their healing process. 
• Learning, Supervision and Support: All those engaged in safeguarding-related activity in Church bodies receive the type and level of learning, professional development, support and supervision necessary to respond to safeguarding situations, victims and survivors, and respondents, effectively. 

Each Standard contains:

• A statement of the Standard itself
• An explanation of why its important
• A series of ‘What Good Looks Like’ Indicators – these are detailed criteria that show how well a Standard is being achieved
• Details of relevant House of Bishops’ Guidance and Code, training, resources and tools that can be used to help gather data relevant to the indicators. These are important as they will equip Church bodies with the means to undertake quality assurance work locally, but also in a way that is consistent across other bodies.

It is not expected that every Church body will be able to meet every indicator overnight. The Standards set out the direction of travel and will enable Church bodies to identify both their strengths and areas for development, which will in turn inform their strategic planning in respect of safeguarding.

The National Safeguarding Standards aimed to create a mechanism for answering the question “How good is our safeguarding activity?”.

The current version of the National Safeguarding Standards were approved by the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG) in July 2023.

Following the consultation on the National Safeguarding Standards in May 2023, a commitment was made to “add a clear methodology to outline what is expected for each context (e.g., dioceses, cathedrals, parishes). This would help the reading of the Standards to be less overwhelming and to give a clearer outline as to how each of the ‘What Good Looks Like’ Indicators are relevant. 

‘Our Church’ is a series of documents that highlight what is relevant for each individual context. It is currently broken down into ‘Our Parish’, ‘Our Cathedral’, and ‘Our Diocese’. Within each of these, the relevant indicators have been tweaked to follow on from a sentence that begins with “Our [Insert Context Here]…”.

• ‘Our Diocese’ leaflet
• ‘Our Cathedral’ leaflet
• Cathedral Safeguarding Standards Workbook
• ‘Our Parish’ poster for noticeboards
• ‘Our Parish’ booklet for Parish Safeguarding Officers
• ‘Our Parish’ leaflet for Parish Safeguarding Officers

Current resources and tools

• Standards Self-Audit Tools
• Culture, Leadership and Capacity
• Prevention
• Recognising, Assessing and Managing Risk
• Victim and Survivors
• Learning, Supervision and Support

We will be holding a number of workshops about each standard in Spring 2025.  Booking is open for our Safeguarding Standards workshops.

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