Safeguarding Policies for Charities

The Charity Commission has stated that it is essential for charity trustees to have and implement a safeguarding policy and procedure. In any event it is good practice to adopt and implement such a policy and procedure. The Commission has also stated that safeguarding should be a key governance priority for all charities, regardless of size, type, or income, not just those charities working with children or vulnerable adults.

If your charity is a small or medium sized organisation, has volunteers and paid staff, and operates in only one or a few locations, use of one of these templates will be a useful tool to help you draft your safeguarding policy. (A large or complex charity would instead be best served by seeking specialist advice however.) The particular template that you select will depend on whether your charity is either small (annual income up to £100,000) or medium in size (annual income between £100,000 and £1 million).

You might be able to use or adapt some provisions in these templates with little change. In relation to certain topics, however, the relevant provisions might only be suitable to be used as a checklist of points of what you might or should cover. The amount of detail needed will depend on what your charity does and the level of risk entailed in its activities. You will need to carry out a risk assessment and design a policy containing measures proportionate to the risks. 

In short, when drafting your policy, please bear in mind that no template safeguarding policy can be a “one size fits all” document, and that the Charity Commission has stated that a safeguarding policy has to be adequate and appropriate for a charity's particular circumstances. You might therefore need to make substantial changes to the template that you select for use.

In particular, if any of the following factors apply, that will make it more likely that you will need to make substantial changes to it, but this is not an exhaustive list of such factors:

a) your charity has more than a few operating locations;

b) the number of staff and/or volunteers is substantial;

c) the charity deals directly with children and/or vulnerable adults;

d) the Prevent Duty under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 applies to your charity;

e) the purposes or activities of the charity are such that it has to abide by the safeguarding standards of a national governing body or a particular regulatory regime (in addition to regulation of it as a charity) or particular statutory guidance;

f) the nature and/or scope of volunteering activities require changes;

g) the personal characteristics of the client group require it;

h) the history and experience of the charity require it.

You might need to annex to your policy a detailed document of procedures to be followed to implement points covered by the policy itself. 

We recommend that in all cases, once you have prepared your draft policy, and before you finalise it, you obtain legal advice as to whether it is adequate for your purposes.

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