Articles

Safeguarding was a relatively unknown topic a few years ago, barely mentioned outside of children’s and elderly charities. Now it is a topic that raises concern and attention within not-for-profit board rooms not only within the UK but internationally. In February 2018, the Charity Commission opened their statutory inquiry into Oxfam GB¹ relating to severe sexual misconduct within its global operations, particularly in Haiti during 2010. The inquiry resulted in a three-year ban on Oxfam bidding for UK aid. As a consequence, Oxfam faced instituted cuts of £16m. The ban was lifted on 11 March 2021, but was reintroduced 28 days later due to claims of abuse of powers in the DRC.

The expectations placed upon charities and not-for-profit organisations is now much greater than ever before. They are expected to comply, monitor, and report beyond anything seen previously in the sector, both domestically and internationally.

In 2019 the Charity Commission expanded the requirements in relation to safeguarding, but sadly this is still often missed. The safeguarding requirements as set out by the Charity Commission require that you must take reasonable steps to protect from harm anyone that comes into contact with your charity². This broadened the expectation from beneficiaries, staff and volunteers to all people. This was then reflected in the changes to the Charity Governance code in December 2020.

Principles of safeguarding

1. Have appropriate policies and procedures
2. Have a fair, honest and open culture that enables reporting of concerns, with preventing harm at its centre
3. Ensure that people in roles of responsibility for safeguarding have appropriate qualifications
4. Ensure enough resource is allocated to manage the responsibilities
5. Provide safeguarding training to staff
6. Make sure there is a process for identifying, reporting, monitoring and investigating safeguarding reports
7. Make sure there is a process for escalation and reporting externally as required
8. Ensure that risks are considered and reflected in the risk register as required
9. Follow Charity Commission guidance and relevant safeguarding laws
10. Conduct periodic reviews of safeguarding policies and training
11. Have a balanced trustee board

And most importantly:

Do not ignore harm or downplay failures

Risks that now fall under the classification of safeguarding include health and safety, cyber abuse, radicalisation and a number of additional areas. Making a serious incident report to the regulator is complicated and requires a significant amount of judgement at times. What we have seen is that it is better to have an open dialogue with the Charity Commission, seek guidance early and report accurately.

Over the years a number of best practice initiatives have been created in regard to safeguarding. These have included international safeguarding (normally focused on sexual exploitation and abuse) such as the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee Minimum Operating Standards: Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Own Personnel (MOS-PSEA) and the Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (Number 190) and Recommendation Number 206. There are also guidelines related to delivering humanitarian assistance to communities affected by crisis, the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS).

What should organisations be doing when working internationally?

1. Create relationships and engage with communities from the beginning, including informing them of their rights, what to expect from you and how to report any concerns.
2. Be present on the ground where possible and proactively seek information rather than waiting for reactive reports.
3. Be transparent and clear about your recruitment process. Candidates need to be aware of this to overcome power dynamics and sometimes cultural and environmental differences.
4. Encourage and incentivise reporting, so that your staff and volunteers know that they will be encouraged to raise  concerns in order to breach through control and project dynamics.
5. Create diversity in project staff, to encourage different culture, representation and thoughts.
6. Give safeguarding priority, authority and resource.

Safeguarding and protecting those in contact with not-for-profit organisations needs to remain at the core of decisions, to not only protect reputations and finances, but most importantly from an ethical and moral perspective.

If you would like to discuss how safeguarding could impact your firm’s business model and how you can begin positioning your firm to meet these requirements, get in touch with Sarah Hillary.

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-inquiry-follow-up-oxfam-gb-progress-on-safeguarding/charity-inquiry-follow-up-oxfam-gb-progress-on-safeguarding
2. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safeguarding-duties-for-charity-trustee