Keeping your safeguarding robust and up to date

Safeguarding is one of the most serious responsibilities a faith-based organisation carries — and one of the easiest to let quietly fall out of date. A policy written five years ago and never revisited, a named lead who has long since moved on, training that a few people once attended: these are common, and they leave real people exposed. Safeguarding is not a document you produce once; it's a living practice you keep current. This article explains what that means for trustees, and the duties that go with it.

Safeguarding is an ongoing trustee duty — for every charity

The Charity Commission is unambiguous: trustees are ultimately responsible for ensuring there are measures in place to protect people who come into contact with their charity. This isn't limited to organisations working with children or adults at risk. The Commission treats safeguarding as a key governance priority for charities of all kinds, expecting trustees to take reasonable steps to protect everyone the charity meets through its work — beneficiaries, volunteers, staff and visitors alike.

There's a particular reason for faith organisations to take this to heart. The regulator has pointedly reminded the faith sector not to assume their setting is automatically a safe one — sadly, not everyone experiences places of worship as places of safety. Complacency is itself a risk.

The core components of good safeguarding

A robust safeguarding framework generally includes:

• A clear, current policy that sets out how your organisation protects people and what to do when concerns arise
• A named safeguarding lead (and ideally a trustee with safeguarding responsibility) whom everyone can identify
• Safer recruitment, including appropriate background checks for eligible roles (see our guide to DBS checks)
• Training so that trustees, staff and volunteers know how to recognise and respond to concerns
• Clear reporting routes — internal and external — that people actually know how to use
• Records kept appropriately and securely

Having these on paper is the start. Keeping them alive is the real work.

Keeping it current — the part most often neglected

Safeguarding decays quietly. To keep yours robust:

• Review on a set cycle. Put a safeguarding review in the governance calendar — at least annually — rather than waiting for a problem to force it.
• Refresh training. People leave, roles change, and good practice moves on. Training is not a one-time event.
• Learn from what happens. Near-misses, complaints and incidents — yours and the wider sector's — are how a thoughtful organisation improves. Build in a habit of asking "what does this teach us?"
• Keep pace with the rules. Expectations shift. The definition of regulated activity, for instance, is currently under review in ways that particularly affect faith settings (see our DBS guide). Don't assume last year's understanding still holds.
• Check it's understood, not just written. A policy no one has read protects no one. Make sure people know what to do and feel able to raise concerns.

The duty to report serious incidents

This is where safeguarding meets a specific legal obligation, and where trustees must be clear.

Charities are expected to report serious incidents to the Charity Commission promptly. A serious incident is broadly an adverse event — whether actual or alleged — that results in, or risks, significant harm to people connected with the charity, or significant loss, or major damage to the charity's work or reputation. Crucially:

• An incident does not have to be proven to be reportable — a credible allegation can meet the threshold.
• Responsibility to report rests with trustees, even if the task of submitting is delegated.
• Reports should be made as soon as reasonably possible.
• Reporting to the Commission does not replace reporting to the police, social services or other statutory bodies where that's required — those come first where someone is at risk.

There's also an annual-return dimension: charities with income of £25,000 or more must declare, when filing, that they know of no serious incidents that should have been reported but weren't. Providing false or misleading information to the Commission is a criminal offence, and failing to report something that later comes to light can itself be treated as mismanagement.

A reassuring point alongside the seriousness: the Commission understands that things sometimes go wrong even in well-run charities. What it scrutinises above all is how trustees respond — whether they acted honestly, promptly and in the interests of those affected. A charity that reports openly and handles an incident well is in a far stronger position than one that stays silent.

When to seek help

Safeguarding can involve difficult judgements made under pressure. Faith organisations don't have to navigate them alone — sector safeguarding bodies, your insurer, and specialist advisers can help, and where a child or adult is at immediate risk, statutory services should be contacted without delay. Knowing in advance who you would turn to is part of being prepared.

The bottom line

Robust safeguarding isn't achieved by writing the perfect policy once. It's kept alive through regular review, real training, honest learning, and a culture where concerns can be raised and are acted on. Add to that a clear grasp of the duty to report serious incidents, and you have the foundation of an organisation that genuinely protects the people it serves — and earns the trust that makes everything else possible.

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This article is general information, not advice. Safeguarding duties are serious and fact-specific. Where someone may be at risk, contact the relevant statutory services. Check the current position with the Charity Commission (or OSCR / CCNI), your safeguarding lead, or get in touch and we'll help.

A note on this sensitive topic. Safeguarding concerns can be distressing. If reading this raises a worry about a specific situation, please don't sit on it — speak to your safeguarding lead or the relevant authorities.

Sources verified (June 2026):

• Charity Commission, Safeguarding and protecting people for charities and trustees — https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safeguarding-duties-for-charity-trustees
• Charity Commission, How to report a serious incident in your charity (June 2025 update; serious-incident definition; £25,000 annual-return declaration) — https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-report-a-serious-incident-in-your-charity
• NCVO, Trustees' safeguarding duties and A charity's duty to report safeguarding issues — https://www.ncvo.org.uk/help-and-guidance/safeguarding/