Wales High School in Kiveton, South Yorkshire, sits at the boundary of three different local authorities: Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Rotherham. As such, when a designated safeguarding lead (DSL) needs to refer a child into social care, they face a set of very different processes.

If the student has a Rotherham postcode, the DSL can ring the local authority and get help straight away. But if the child happens to live in Nottinghamshire, the DSL can only ring Nottinghamshire County Council if it’s “urgent”. Otherwise they must fill in an online form and wait for a response.

When an instance of domestic abuse occurs, Rotherham council will send the school an email laying out all the relevant information in a standardised format, while in Derbyshire a police officer will give the school an ad hoc phone call.

All these differences make the job of a DSL “confusing and time consuming”, says Richard Harrison, deputy headteacher and DSL at Wales High School.

The picture becomes even more complex “when you consider our looked-after children, who have come to us from Doncaster, Kent, York”, Harrison adds.

“Our designated teacher [for looked-after and previously looked-after children] now deals with seven different local authorities, and their processes are all very, very different.”

Harrison’s colleague Chloe Watts, child protection officer at the school, says this is an additional complication for what is an already challenging role. “We’re battling against multiple different local authorities,” she says.

Variation in safeguarding systems

These inconsistencies between local authority safeguarding processes run nationwide.

For example, a DSL a few miles away will refer to a document called “multi-agency threshold and continuum of need” when trying to identify what early help services a Doncaster family requires. But if the family is in Barnsley the document is titled “thresholds for intervention”.

In the South East, meanwhile, a DSL helping a student who lives in Windsor and Maidenhead will refer into a single point of access (SPA). But for students at the same school who live in Bracknell Forest, the process involves the DSL referring into a multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH).

In London, where each borough is its own local authority, the situation can be even more complex. A DSL working with a child who lives in Merton has to refer into social care and early help services separately, using Word documents. But when dealing with a child from the neighbouring borough of Croydon, the same DSL will use an online system to refer into a single point of contact (SPOC).

Ultimately, all schools are trying to adhere to the guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) while also being mindful of the Working Together document that outlines multi-agency working. Yet the processes they must follow to meet these guidelines are not standardised.

These may just seem like administrative issues, but in safeguarding, the stakes are high.

More on safeguarding:

• Why we need a mandatory safeguarding qualification
• The safeguarding disconnect affecting children and teachers
• Why supervision is critical as safeguarding incidents rise

This is something that Delyth Lynch, director of safeguarding at the independent school Wellington College, has seen first-hand, she tells Tes, describing a review panel that she sat on regarding a parent complaint over a referral.

She explains that a DSL had made a referral to a local authority that they weren’t used to working with. On the form, they had ticked a box to say parental consent had been received - but it hadn’t.

They made this error because on the referral form for the local authority that they most often dealt with, it required ticking a box to say consent had not been received, Lynch says. “They got into trouble for ticking a box that was just different. That’s an issue.”

Another trust safeguarding lead, who asked to remain anonymous, tells Tes about a case of suspected neglect whereby the local authority in which the school was located and the local authority in which the child lived followed different processes to provide help.

“This led to the family receiving different messages from two agencies and a subsequent breakdown in trust of external agencies, meaning the family was without support and facing escalating actions from social care,” the safeguarding lead says.

It is exactly these sorts of situations that DSLs say make the lack of a standardised process a cause for concern. Multi-academy trusts with schools across a wide geographical area are especially alert to this issue.

“We have schools across Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster and Cambridge,” says Rosie Hart, head of safeguarding at 26-school Astrea Academy Trust, “so children at our schools are from many, many local authorities.”

This adds an extra dynamic to Hart’s role. “My main responsibility is quality assurance of our safeguarding practice across all our schools. To do that, I need to have a thorough understanding of the expectations of each local authority, so I can ensure my DSLs are holding high standards.”

However, while core standards are the same nationally, what a “really good referral looks like in Cambridge is different from what a really good referral looks like in Barnsley” - meaning best practice comparison is hard. “The fact that local authorities work differently is a barrier for me,” says Hart.

Different terminology

These discrepancies are also an issue for Steve Bane, lead safeguarding officer at Cabot Learning Federation, which runs 34 academies in Bristol, Somerset, North Somerset, Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire.

The fact that each of these local authorities uses different terminology for its services causes havoc for end-of-term safeguarding reports, he tells Tes.

“One question we put to DSLs would be: ‘How many referrals have you made this term, and who have you made them to?’ Then the data comes in, and what you might call ‘early help’ in one area is called something else in another area.”

The same is true for the terms used to describe access to services: what might be called “first response” in one area is “access and response” in another and “front door” elsewhere.

Bane says this seems especially illogical given that across other areas of safeguarding a common language is used: “We talk about extra-familial harm or contextual safeguarding. If we’re going to make a referral to children and young people’s services, or social services - why isn’t it just called that?”

Standardisation would also make it easier for DSLs to more confidently “move from one school to another” within the trust, Bane adds. Hart echoes this point, arguing that she would more easily be able to “move DSLs around fluidly if systems were united”.

A further area of discrepancy is the services that local authorities offer a young person after a DSL has made a referral.

A DSL at a school in South London, who asked to remain anonymous, says they have seen the effects of this with pupils at the same school, with similar case profiles, who live in different local authorities.

“If we referred an allegation of sexual misconduct into two local authorities, one might go to early help, who would put some mentoring in place. The other could come back to us for further action back at school.”

‘A really good referral in Cambridge looks different from a really good referral in Barnsley’

Stephanie Eyers, safeguarding manager at Wellington College, explains that early help services aren’t statutory, so what is available “will depend on how well funded the local authority is”.

As an example, she says: “You can have two children in a classroom that need behaviour support services. One lives in Bracknell Forest, one lives in Windsor and Maidenhead, and only the Bracknell Forest child will get the support because it doesn’t exist in the other authority.” For the DSL, seeing this disparity is “heartbreaking”, she says.

Bane also has this issue in the South West, where boundary lines affect the support that a child receives. “That’s really difficult to explain to a child,” he says, adding that for staff it is “disheartening”.

Call for streamlining

Clearly, the inconsistencies between local authorities’ safeguarding processes and services are negatively affecting schools. So, what can be done?

Streamlining administrative processes for referrals would be an important first step, says the DSL in London. “I think it would massively help if there was one form.”

Eyers agrees, adding that consistent paperwork “would lessen the time it takes to fill in a referral correctly” and also reduce the likelihood of mistakes.

Meanwhile, Hart adds that a more streamlined system “would allow us to act quicker, implement support faster and be more preventative”.

Other sector voices agree, including Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, who says inconsistencies only add to the workload burden for DSLs.

“Having a shared set of national protocols would undoubtedly make things simpler and provide a level of consistency to an area where accuracy is absolutely essential,” Mulholland says.

Rob Williams, senior policy adviser at the NAHT school leaders’ union, concurs, telling Tes: “Eradicating unnecessary variability in the way local social services operate…should be a national aim.”

But not everyone agrees. David Smellie, a safeguarding lawyer and partner at Farrer and Co, says the issue is “double edged”.

“Superficially, it would be a lot easier if every local authority approached situations in the same way,” he says.

However, he adds that for councils that already work well, standardisation could mean that the quality of their service worsens. “I would worry that the removal of the right to self-determination within that local authority might, counterintuitively, lead to a worse result.”

Others don’t believe that the situation is a cause for concern. Helen Lincoln, Essex County Council’s executive director for children, families and education, tells Tes that she doesn’t think variation between local authorities is a “significant issue”.

Her perspective is naturally different from schools’, she explains, because services are set up to support families “in a way that is orientated around where the parents live”, not where a school is.

She adds that she feels DSLs have the skills to adapt to different systems. “Schools get used to being able to deal with different local authorities,” Lincoln says.

Offers of support

However, other local authorities do acknowledge the issue, including Nottinghamshire County Council. “We are aware of it because the queries come up all the time,” says Moira Loadman, education adviser in the council’s MASH.

“We can’t change that wholesale. But what we try to do is offer support.”

That support includes a professional consultation line, which Loadman says DSLs can call for advice before making a referral. “We’ve had that in place for a couple of years, and it’s really well used.”

The issue is also on Croydon Council’s radar, with a spokesperson telling Tes: “We are aware that London councils may have slightly different processes for making referrals, such as differing forms or names of services.”

They add, however, that all partners adhere to Working Together guidance.

‘Having a shared set of national protocols would undoubtedly make things simpler’

Meanwhile, Amy Tisi, cabinet member for children’s services and education at Windsor and Maidenhead Council, tells Tes: “We take the safeguarding of all children seriously. All schools…follow the single safeguarding procedures set out by the Department for Education.”

Rotherham Council declined to comment, while Bracknell Forest Council and the London Borough of Merton did not respond to a request for comment.

Tes also contacted the Department for Education to ask whether it had any plans to standardise local authority safeguarding processes, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Precedent for change

Clearly, the impact of these inconsistencies is not always felt at a local authority level - or not so that councils would admit.

Whether standardisation will ever happen, therefore, is unclear. But it has been done in other areas of safeguarding and child protection - most notably with the anti-terrorism Prevent scheme, referrals for which previously went to local authority social care teams.

“But there were huge discrepancies,” recalls the London-based DSL. “So they decided that police need to be the first contact.” Now Prevent referrals are screened nationally, so the system is consistent. “It’s really simple,” the DSL says.

For Hart at Astrea, similar efforts to remove discrepancies in safeguarding processes between local authorities could be just as simple - and bring immeasurable benefits.

“It would give our DSLs more time to work face-to-face with children, talking to our families, researching the best possible solutions for them - rather than fighting with the multiple systems we have at the moment.”

For the latest education news and analysis delivered every weekday morning, sign up for the Tes Daily newsletter