A duty to submit safeguarding audits to local authorities is loading pressure on to schools with no benefit to student safety, according to academy trust leaders.

The audits are required under the Education Act 2002, which says governing bodies must assess the effectiveness of safeguarding measures.

Trust safeguarding leaders say these are detailed reports that add to the already high workloads of designated safeguarding leads (DSLs).

But they are rarely, if ever, being followed up by local authorities, leaving schools to effectively “mark their own homework”, they warn.

These workload concerns come as “overburdened” safeguarding leads say they are under more pressure than ever, with school referrals to children’s social care services reaching record levels.

At the same time, leaders face increased responsibilities under the Department for Education’s Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) guidance.

‘Frustrating’ lack of feedback

Kathryn Huggett, director of safeguarding at the Priory Federation of Academies Trust, said: “They are a self-assessment, essentially. A DSL would perhaps take from it what they’d put in.”

Ms Huggett said that nobody is scrutinising schools on the audits or asking for additional conversations or information.

“To a certain extent, you could say you have a policy and attach it, and it could be blank document”, she said.

Laura Phillips, trust lead for safeguarding, attendance and inclusion at King’s Group Academies, echoed this, describing the lack of follow-up as “the most frustrating thing”.

She said schools “often get no feedback or response”.

Ms Phillips questioned why schools were asked to complete the audits. “What impact is it having in terms of improving the safety and wellbeing of young people?” she asked.

‘When you send it to the local authority, they don’t do anything except send your report back based on what you’ve said’

While schools have been required to submit audits to local authorities since 2002, the growth of large MATs means many now carry out their own.

Brian Duffy, director of safeguarding and compliance at Shaw Education Trust, said he questioned whether he would want a DSL completing the council audit alongside the MAT’s own report, only to receive no feedback.

“When you send it to the local authority, they don’t do anything about it except send your report back based on what you’ve said - so you mark your own homework. It’s not checked,” he said.

Some leaders say the audits give schools the chance to demonstrate that they are fulfilling statutory responsibilities outlined in KCSIE, so that local authorities can monitor key trends or risks across their schools.

Heather Fowler, head of safeguarding and welfare at Endeavour Learning Trust, said: “Are they checked? Are they verified? I don’t think they always are, but I know that data is collected in the authorities that we work in, and that data then funnels the support to the areas which are most common that schools need support.”

But she questioned the “reliability” of the data. “It is obviously questionable, because schools are completing it themselves,” she said. The answer was for leaders to be open and transparent, she added.

“It’s just one mechanism to help us have that self-reflective tool to frame our thinking, which hopefully we would be wanting to do anyway,” Ms Fowler said.

Similarly, Ms Huggett said audits could be a valuable piece of self-assessment if local authorities engaged with schools and scrutinised the work.

Tes approached the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) but neither wished to provide a comment.

‘Onerous’ audits add pressure

Alongside receiving no feedback, a key source of frustration for safeguarding leaders is the workload pressure that these audits impose.

The reliance on schools to safeguard children was highlighted in the Covid-19 inquiry, and this is widely felt to have increased as other public services have faced funding cuts.

DSL teams vary in size, and while DSL can be a full-time position, teachers and senior leaders also often take up the post alongside their existing role.

Thomas Michael, a safeguarding lead at a school in the West Midlands, told Tes that the audit in his local authority was a 60-page document and that completing it alongside internal procedures was “onerous” and “essentially doubling or tripling the work”.

“In safeguarding, trying to find time to get anything done is difficult at the best of times. Having to go through that document, filling it all in - it’s not always stuff that you’ve got off the top of your head, you’re going to have to go away and find out the information. It’s a pretty onerous task”, he said.

Ms Fowler acknowledged that the audits are “lengthy” and “take a lot of time in schools”, adding that this was “largely because safeguarding is a vast area” with many issues falling under it.

A national approach?

Leaders say that the quality of audits varies by local authority and, as with DSL qualifications, they are calling for a more standardised approach.

Ms Fowler told Tes that the benefits of submitting audits varied by council. In some areas, it is a short questionnaire, while in others it is “much longer”, requiring supplementary evidence.

“But I think, like with a lot of areas of safeguarding, it would be great if there was a national approach to that,” she added.

Ms Phillips echoed these sentiments, saying that the “main issue” with local authority audits is how they “vary wildly” between councils and it would be “so much better” if there was a national one.

Samira Sadeghi, director of trust governance at the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), agreed that approaches to collecting safeguarding information were “inconsistent, with different approaches between councils”.

“This lack of clear standards casts some doubt on how useful the process really is, and it creates unnecessary admin work for trusts that run schools across council boundaries.”

Ms Sadeghi said that schools are “one of the few places” that have consistent contact with children and families, and that CST supports “looking at how trusts can be more formally part of safeguarding partnerships, to encourage closer collaboration”.

The concern over duplication was shared by Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, who said schools were already self-assessing more regularly and more widely than dictated by the annual audit.

Ms Mulholland said that completing council audits can “lead to duplication and create workload pressure for DSLs”.

“An agreement from local authorities that schools can submit their own quality assurance document, as long as it meets the criteria, would be beneficial for both parties,” she added.

The Department for Education has been approached for comment.

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