Current scrutiny of historic child sexual-abuse allegations has implications for all charities. Ian Allsop reports on a meeting convened by Charity Finance and Farrer & Co to discuss the issue.
The Goddard Inquiry, which opened in the summer of 2015 following a series of non-recent and contemporary cases of institutional failure to protect children, could have a significant impact upon the voluntary sector, and not just for those organisations with direct responsibility for the care of children.
Led by Justice Lowell Goddard, a New Zealand High Court judge, the inquiry will: consider the extent to which state and non-state institutions in England and Wales have failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation; consider the extent to which those failings have since been addressed; identify further action needed to address any failings identified; and consider the steps which institutions need to take in order to protect children from such abuse in future.
The inquiry is calling for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to share their experiences, as well as “those involved or formerly involved in the care of children, and ... institutions under investigation”. Adele Eastman, a child protection expert, author of the Centre for Social Justice Report Enough is enough and associate at Farrer & Co, says that the inquiry is only in its early days and could extend beyond Goddard’s 2020 completion estimate. She considers that it has made a solid start – notwithstanding the initial difficulties around the appointment and resignation of its two previous chairs. With the inquiry’s research project and the first phase of its investigative work now underway, there is plenty for the sector to ponder.
“There will be public hearings,” explains Eastman, “and organisationsincluding charities could be subjected to Leveson-type examination. How will Goddard choose institutions? Should charities, in some cases, consider self-referral? Should CEOs and FDs be proactive? What should charities be doing to improve safeguarding?”
Sam Monaghan, corporate director children’s services (England) at Barnardo’s, explained that his charity has been looking at Goddard in a broader context. “We have already been involved in inquiries in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so this is the third in a tranche. It is not yet clear what will be required and whether it will be a rerun of existing cases, but we have a duty of care to people going through the process and need to provide support. There will be an impact in terms of cost, and while not wanting to minimise the inquiry’s importance, that cost will be very significant.”
Phillip Noyes, chief adviser on child protection at NSPCC, said that while his charity doesn’t run institutions or schools directly, it has been approached by lots of people who may be questioned by Goddard. “There has been a board-led review of all our files. But what do we analyse and at what cost?”
Professor Mark Bailey experienced the pressures of dealing with allegations of historic abuse two years ago as high master of St Paul’s School London. “We have felt the full weight of regulatory scrutiny in the present as well as the past. There is a combination of uncertainty and trepidation in the independentschools sector.”
He added: “We would be willing to self-refer. How we respond to historic allegations in the present gives a sense of our values in the present day.”
Reinforced procedures
Aside from any potential direct involvement with the Goddard inquiry, what else should charities be doing? Eastman cited the Southbank International School serious case review published in January 2016, and the earlier independent review by Hugh Davies QC, as good starting points for charities to check their own safeguarding policies and procedures.
Monaghan stated that Barnardo’s has reinforced its reporting infrastructure. “We now have a safeguarding trustee, and we have increased our safeguarding performance data to promote greater transparency from board level throughout the organisation.”
Noyes added that NSPCC has undertaken a complete review. He cautioned: “You need to keep things in proportion, remain calm and maintain a sense of authority while avoiding a vigilante approach.”
All of this has a cost. Bailey said that aside from any legal fees, estimates suggest that some independent schools will need to appoint an extra 3.5 staff members for compliance, recruitment and training on safeguarding. This will add as much as £200,000 a year onto their salary bills. “The cost of fees and compliance for smaller charities could threaten their existence.”
Increased scrutiny
What is clear is that the regulatory and media scrutiny upon all institutions, including charities, will be intense. Trustees will have to ensure their governance is fit for purpose and encourage a culture of best practice in safeguarding, which will affect different charities in different ways. Eastman explained that a charity operating in a highly regulated area, for example education or residential care, will need to beahead of the curve. She said Farrer & Co has, for example, seen huge progress in best practice around safeguarding in schools over the last 20 years, and considers most to now be generally extremely safe places, with good reporting mechanisms. “However, at the other end of the scale are charities operating in less regulated and inspected areas, and we see some tackle it better than others.”
The Charity Commission’s emphasis as a regulator in this area is on good governance, and it has highlighted safeguarding as one of three high-impact strategic risks affecting charities. It has recently published guidance – a policy paper called Safeguarding children and young people, and a strategy document titled Strategy for dealing with safeguarding vulnerable groups including children issues in charities – and its position is that: “Trustees are responsible for ensuring that those benefiting from, or working with, their charity are not harmed in any way through contact with it. They have a legal duty to act prudently and this means that they must take allreasonable steps within their powers to ensure that this does not happen.”
As well as encouraging trustees to undertake the requisite risk assessments on their safeguarding policies and procedures, Eastman said that the Commission places great significance on the trustees’ duty to report serious incidents. “They have made it clear that the buck stops with trustees.” However, she argued that there is a risk of trustees requiring staff to tick 100 boxes, with the result that those staff fail to ask the bigger question – are kids safe?
Bailey suggested that the guidance is changing the relationship between the executive and the board fundamentally, in terms of where responsibility for safeguarding lies. “This makes good sense in the buck-stopping context but blurs the line of responsibility and expertise. Charities don’t generally recruit trustees for their safeguarding expertise. And how much time does a trustee have to dedicate to this?
“There could be a move towards the outsourcing of information gathering and scrutiny, when trustees need to take full responsibility. There will be major resourcing and cultural changes over the next five years as a result of regulatory changes.”
Monaghan argued that while it is difficult to fully measure performance against safeguardingcriteria in financial terms, the cost of information gathering is significant and a huge undertaking.
Bailey mused that we might be approaching the problem the wrong way round. “Compliance and prevention leads to cultural change, but we need to make sure that the momentum of compliance doesn’t decrease marginal returns of effectiveness. If it becomes a box-ticking exercise then alertness goes down.”
Eastman agreed that an approach of going “beyond compliance” is required. “It is about achieving a gold standard and building a strong culture of safeguarding in an institution. Everyone should take personal ownership of it. A sense of individual responsibility then becomes a natural response and creates renewed confidence in staff.”
Sceptical trust
Panellists were asked to come up with a list of bullet points for how to embed a culture of safeguarding. All agreed on the need for an awareness of boundaries throughout the whole community of an organisation, to ensure everyone understands what problems need reporting and who should report them.
Monaghan said that you need to have processes along with a clear and open culture. “It isn’t whistleblowing, which is the safety net at the end of the process, but mechanisms that allow the confidence to speak out on a day-to-day basis. How do you create that culture? You need a robust framework, policy, training, support and leadership to facilitate dialogue and instil it.”
Bailey argued that it can be difficult to attain and maintain such a culture. “It is built on trust but you have to have sceptical trust. It is a tricky balance, which you achieve by structures, training andexemplification. This helps you walk the tightrope.”
Monaghan added: “Organisations shouldn’t wait for people to report concerns but create a culture where people take the responsibility to ask. This means people taking the responsibility to ask questions. Safeguarding needs to be on everyone’s agenda. You also need a cohesive management structure, with the HR department fully integrated.”
Eastman talked about the need for triangulation of concerns. “One of the striking things about the Southbank International seriouscase- review conclusion was that concerns were shared, but no one individual had the full picture in order to spot a pattern. You need someone to take the lead. Human systems can lead to error, so you need to reduce the capacity for that, and ensure consistency in terms of sharing and reporting concerns.”
Looking for positives
Monaghan cited the importance of having better reporting and management-information systems. “This can help keep a sense of balance when a tragedy occurs and retain a sense of proportion. One of the risks of major inquiries such as Cleveland [which took place in 1988] is that it becomes a dust cloud that contaminates everything. You can have the best safeguarding processes, but sadly things can still occur. You can’t say things will never happen again, but you can be better prepared to prevent them in the future.”
Noyes stressed that if Goddard only looks at the worst cases thenprogress won’t be visible. “We need a parallel forum saying that things aren’t as bad everywhere.” However, he added: “One benefit of Goddard is that it has proved that victims exist, so if there will be a positive consequence for today’s children and tomorrow’s adults, then we have to bite the bullet in terms of regulation and compliance.”
Bailey concluded that there is a misunderstanding of how organisations dealing with children will react publicly to allegations of historic abuse. “There is a misconception among sections of the media, police and government that charities will move to protect their reputation, to cover up and minimise bad publicity. But that fundamentally misunderstands that charities trade on integrity, trust and the confidence of donors. This makes it more likely that they will want to deal with these issues headon. Therefore a better understanding of how charities deal with these things will benefit everyone.”
Eastman summarised: “While compliance with the regulatory requirements of safeguarding will be essential, I hope that charities will also see this as an opportunity to take the lead on this vitally important area and adopt a gold standard approach, thereby minimising, as far as possible, the risk of safeguarding concerns arising in relation to the children they work with.”
With thanks to Farrer & Co for their support with this feature.
Ian Allsop is a freelance editor and journalist, and regular contributor to Charity Finance.
This article orginally appeared in Charity Finance magazine.
