Safeguarding Children Legislation: Guidance for Schools

This was a revolutionary piece of legislation when it was implemented, as it completely reformed the law relating to children. This Act formed the basis of the current child protection system in England, and layed out the duties and responsibilities of all involved.  

Some of the key principles that The Act established include:

• The concept of parental responsibility.
• The need for the child’s welfare to be the primary concern when a matter under the Act is before a court.
• The need to take the child’s feelings and wishes into account.
• The notion that children are best looked after by their family unless intervention in family life is essential.

The Act set out the duty of Local Authorities to promote and safeguard the welfare of children in their area. This included a responsibility to ‘promote the child’s educational achievement.’ It also introduced the concepts of children in need and children at risk of significant harm, which are key to ensuring children are appropriately safeguarded and given the level of support relevant to their needs. 

A child in need is defined under the Children Act 1989 as: ‘a child who is unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable level of health or development, or whose health and development is likely to be significantly or further impaired, without the provision of services; or a child who is disabled.’

Significant harm takes into account many different factors, including:

• The severity of ill-treatment.
• The duration and frequency of abuse and/or neglect.
• The extent of pre-meditation.
• The ability of those with parental responsibility to protect the child.

Section 17 of the Act put a duty on the local authority to provide services to children in need in their area.

You may have heard the term section 47 with regards to child protection concerns. This refers to circumstances where a Local Authority is required to carry out an investigation as there is ‘reasonable cause to suspect that a child who lives, or is found, in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm’. The aim of this is to decide whether any action needs to be taken to safeguard the child. This is covered in Section 47 of the Children Act, hence the term.

The Act also covered the functions of Local Authorities in relation to looked after children. This included a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their care.

You can access the full act, which includes updates, here.

This Act is a development from and amended the Children Act 1989. It provides the legal basis for how social services and other agencies deal with issues relating to children. The principles of the Act are to allow students to be healthy, remain safe, enjoy life, succeed and make a positive contribution.

Following the inquiry into the murder of Victoria Climbié by Lord Laming, the Children Act 2004 made a number of key changes to the child protection framework. (Further changes were then made by the Children and Social Work Act 2017, which amended the 2004 Act in a number of areas).

The Act reinforced that safeguarding children and promoting their welfare, is the responsibility of all people and organisations working with children. 

According to a House of Commons briefing (2020), the 2004 Act (as amended), among other things:

• Places a duty on Local Authorities in England to make arrangements to promote cooperation with key partners and local agencies, in order to improve the wellbeing of children in that area.
• Places a duty on a range of agencies, including Local Authorities, the police and health services, to ensure that they consider the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children when carrying out their functions.
• Establishes the roles and responsibilities of safeguarding partners (the local authority, NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups and the police), which are responsible for determining how safeguarding arrangements should work in their area

The Act also introduced the role of the Children’s Commissioner for England, who is responsible for championing children’s views and interests, in order to promote their welfare. The role’s statutory remit includes ‘understanding what children and young people think about things that affect them and encouraging decision makers to always take their best interests into account’. 

Further information about the Children’s Commissioner, and their work, can be found here.

You can access the Children Act 2004 here.

This Act is concerned with provision for looked after children, other provision in relation to the welfare of children, and the regulation of social workers.

It had four main purposes, which were:

• To improve decision making, and support for looked after and previously looked after children in England and Wales.
• To improve joint work at the local level to safeguard children, and enable better learning at the local and national levels to improve practice in child protection.
• To promote the safeguarding of children by providing for relationships and sex education in schools.
• To enable the establishment of a new regulatory regime specifically for the social work profession in England.

This Act includes the requirement for governing bodies in maintained schools and academies to designate a staff member of staff for previously looked after children. This designated staff member is responsible for promoting the education achievement of those previously looked after pupils within the school.

This Act covered a wide range of content relating to statutory education including, amongst other things, defining the stages of education, compulsory school age, the function of the Secretary of State, and roles and responsibilities of the Local Authorities.

It also detailed the requirement that parents (or those with parental responsibility) must ensure that their children of compulsory school age receive appropriate full-time education suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs. This can be by regular attendance at school, at alternative provision, or otherwise (e.g. the parent can choose to educate their child at home). 

You can access the full Act here.

This legislation sets out duties and responsibilities for schools in regards to safeguarding children. The Act requires anyone working with children and young people to share information or concerns in relation to a child’s safety and wellbeing.

Section 175 of this Act sets out a requirement for maintained schools, including nursery, early years and further education providers, to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The roles and responsibilities of schools have also been enhanced and reinforced through publications, such as Keeping Children Safe in Education (which we will look at later in the article).

These provisions are equally applicable to free schools, academies and private providers under the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, and the Non-Maintained Special Schools (England) Regulations 2015. 

The Education and Training (Welfare of Children) Act 2021 extends this welfare duty to 16-19 academies, special post-16 institutions and independent training providers.

You can access the full Act here.

This Act raised the minimum age at which children could leave education. It contains measures to encourage more young people to participate in learning post-16 and to achieve higher levels of skill and qualification.

The Act:

• Raised the age young people stay in education or training until from 16 to 18
• Places a duty on young people to participate and on parents to assist their children to participate in such education or training.
• Sets out duties on employers to release young people for the equivalent of one day a week to undertake training elsewhere (where the employer does not provide their own training)
• Requires Local Authorities to assess the education and training needs of young people aged 16-19 with special educational needs.

You can access the full Act here.

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (SVGA) 2006 was passed to help avoid harm, or risk of harm, by preventing people who are deemed unsuitable to work with children and vulnerable adults from gaining access to them through their work. The Independent Safeguarding Authority was established as a result of this Act. 

The Act ensures safer recruitment by providing a system for employers to check the suitability of potential employees or volunteers who will be working with children or vulnerable adults. It covers DBS requirements and essentially prevents unsuitable people from gaining access through work. This act clarifies what is considered regulated activity, and therefore subject to such checks.

You can access the full Act here.

The Equality Act brought together a range of anti-discriminatory laws, and covers all of Great Britain. 

It offers protection from discrimination, harassment and victimisation for nine specific personal characteristics. These are known as protected characteristics under the law.

The nine protected characteristics are:

• Age.
• Disability.
• Gender reassignment.
• Marriage and civil partnership.
• Pregnancy and maternity.
• Race.
• Religion or belief.
• Sex.
• Sexual orientation.

The Act makes it unlawful for a school to discriminate against, harass or victimise a pupil or potential pupil. This includes:

• In relation to admissions.
• In the way that it provides education for pupils.
• In the way that it provides pupils access to any benefit, facility or service.
• By excluding a pupil or subjecting them to any other detriment. 

Schools should also carefully consider how they are supporting their pupils and students with regard to particular protected characteristics. Provisions within the Act allow schools and colleges to take proportionate, positive action, to deal with particular disadvantages affecting students with a particular protected characteristic. This includes a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and young people (including those with long term conditions). Positive action could also include providing support for a group of students who share a protected characteristic. 

State-funded schools and colleges are subject to The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) found in the Equality Act. 

The PSED means that schools and colleges have a duty to 

• Have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation (and any other conduct prohibited under the Equality Act). 
• Advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not. 

This applies to all protected characteristics and equality implications should be taken into account whenever significant decisions are being made or policies developed. The PSED helps schools and colleges to focus on key issues of concern and improving pupil and student outcomes, being mindful that some pupils or students may be more at risk of harm from specific issues such as sexual violence, homophobic, biphobic or transphobic bullying or racial discrimination (KSCIE, 2022). 

You can access the Equality Act 2010 here, and DfE guidance, The Equality Act 2010 and Schools here. 

This Act seeks to improve services for vulnerable children and support strong families. It underpins wider reforms to ensure that all students and young people can succeed, no matter what their background. It deals with a variety of subjects, from childcare at home to special educational needs (SEN) in schools and issues around adoption.

You can access the full Act here.

The Human Rights Act protects, amongst other things, the right to education. Article 2 of the first protocol states that no-one should be denied the right to education. It also states that, ‘in the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.’

The Equality and Human Rights Commission elaborates further on the implications of these rights, as follows:

• The right to education does not give you the right to learn whatever you want, wherever you want. 
• The courts have ruled that the right to education relates to the education system that already exists. 
• It does not require the government to provide or subsidise any specific type of education.
• The government is allowed to regulate the way education is delivered. For example, it can pass laws making education compulsory or imposing health and safety requirements on schools. 
• Schools are allowed to use admission policies so long as they are objective and reasonable.
• Although parents have a right to ensure their religious or philosophical beliefs are respected during their children’s education, this is not an absolute right. As long as these beliefs are properly considered, an education authority can depart from them provided there are good reasons and it is done objectively, critically and caters for a diversity of beliefs and world views.

As well as the rights that are specific to education, a range of other Human Rights may also be applicable in an education context, such as:

• Article 3  – No person shall be subjected to torture or inhuman treatment or punishment.
• Article 5 – Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person except in a number of defined circumstances.
• Article 6 – Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.
• Article 8 – Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, home and his correspondence.
• Article 9 – Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience or religion.
• Article 10 – Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.
• Article 14 – Prohibition of discrimination.

You can access the full Act here.

The purpose of this Act was to reform the statutory framework for the care system in England and Wales.  The Act also includes provisions in relation to wellbeing of children and young people, private fostering, child death notification to Local Safeguarding Children Boards and appropriate national authorities and applications for the discharge of Emergency Protection Orders.

With regards to education, the Government includes the following key points in their summary of the Act. The Act:

• Placed a duty on governing bodies of maintained schools to designate a member of staff as having responsibility for promoting the educational achievement of registered pupils at the school who are looked after.
• Extended the duty on Local Authorities to appoint a personal adviser and keep the pathway plan under regular review to young people who are former relevant children (i.e. care leavers who are over 18) and who start or resume a programme of education or training after the age of 21 but under the age of 25 years.
• Required Local Authorities to pay a bursary to a former relevant child who goes on to Higher Education.
• Added the provision of short breaks for those who care for disabled children, and services to support family contact for children who are provided with accommodation under health or education legislation, to the range of services that local authorities must provide for children and their families.

You can access the full act here.

This Act made new provision about sexual offences, their prevention and the protection of children from harm from other sexual acts, and for connected purposes.

The full act can be found here.

You might want to read our Hub article, How To Respond To Harmful Sexual Behaviour.

Sometimes referred to as the anti-voyeurism act, this act made ‘upskirting’ an offence. 

The Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019 created two new offences under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, ‘criminalising someone who operates equipment or records an image under another person’s clothing (without that person’s consent or a reasonable belief in their consent) with the intention of viewing, or enabling another person to view, their genitals or buttocks (with or without underwear), where the purpose is to obtain sexual gratification or to cause humiliation, distress or alarm.’

This was reflected in the 2019 updates to the Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory safeguarding guidance.

You can access the full act here.

The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 contains a duty on schools, colleges and other specified authorities, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.

The core tasks of the Prevent Duty are:

• To tackle the causes of radicalisation and be responsive to the ideological challenges of terrorism.
• To safeguard and support those most at risk, through early intervention and ongoing support.
• To enable those already engaged in terrorism to disengage and rehabilitate. 

DfE guidance regarding the Prevent duty for schools can be found here and you can find further information in our Hub article Prevent Training: What Do I Need To Know? You can access the full act here.

This Act effected a number of proposals set out in the 2013 Serious and Organised Crime Strategy. It built upon existing criminal and civil law.

In relation to safeguarding children, the act introduced measures to enhance the protection of vulnerable children and others, including by strengthening the law to tackle female genital mutilation (FGM) and domestic abuse. 

Amongst other things, the act:

• Extended the scope of serious crime prevention orders and gang injunctions.
• Clarified the offence of child cruelty, to cover cruelty which causes psychological suffering or injury, as well as physical harm.
• Replaced outdated references to child prostitution and child pornography in the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
• Introduced a new offence of sexual communication with a child.
• Created a new offence making it illegal to possess paedophile manuals.
• Criminalised patterns of repeated or continuous coercive or controlling behaviour against an intimate partner or family member.

In addition, with specific reference to female genital mutilation (FGM), the Act sought to help stop FGM and protect victims. It:

• Extended the extra-territorial reach of the offences in the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 so that they apply to habitual as well as permanent UK residents.
• Introduced a new offence of failing to protect a girl from risk of FGM.
• Granted lifelong anonymity to victims.
• Brought in a civil order (FGM protection orders) to protect potential victims.
• Introduced a duty on healthcare professionals, teachers and social care workers, to notify the police of known cases of FGM carried out on a girl under 18.

You can access the full act here.