Safeguarding Policy | English Heritage

Safeguarding Policy | English Heritage
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Our Policies and Reports
Safeguarding Policy
Here you'll find information on our safeguarding policy.
Who is at risk?
We want all of our properties, events, stores, websites and offices to be accessible, enjoyable and safe places, so we take extremely seriously our responsibility to safeguard all people within our stakeholder community including members, visitors, employees, volunteers and contractors.
We bring history to life for millions of people each year, including individuals who may be considered to be vulnerable as follows:
Adult at Risk
This is a person who is 18 years of age or over, and who:
Has care and support needs (whether or not those needs are being met by the Local Authority or others)
Is experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect
Is unable to protect themselves from experience or risk of abuse or neglect because of those support needs.
Child
A child is someone who has not yet reached their 18th birthday. This includes children aged 16 and 17 who may be living independently, but should be afforded the same protection and entitlement as any other child.
Safeguarding adults at risk means protecting their right to live in safety free from abuse and neglect.
Safeguarding children means to:
Protect children from abuse and maltreatment
Prevent harm to children’s health and development
Ensure children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care
Take action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes
Scope
This policy is to be followed by all employees, volunteers and contractors in English Heritage at all times. They will take all reasonable steps to ensure the safeguarding of all those that come into contact with English Heritage and will follow our reporting process (see below) when they suspect or are aware of a potential safeguarding incident or concern.
Overall responsibility for ensuring that English Heritage has safeguarding policies and procedures, principles and practice in place rests with the Board of Trustees, with operational compliance delegated to the Chief Executive. This policy is managed by the People & Culture Director, who is also the Designated Safeguarding Officer for English Heritage. English Heritage also has a Deputy Designated Safeguarding Officer, who will take responsibility in the absence of the Designated Safeguarding Officer.
The Designated Safeguarding Officer has the responsibility for:
Developing and creating accessible and visible safeguarding policies and procedures,principles and practice ensuring that they keep up to date with legislation and best practice, reviewing them regularly alongside other allied policies
Ensuring that all employees and volunteers receive safeguarding training and development appropriate to their role; and that they comply with the charity’s policies and procedures
Receiving concerns and referring them to the appropriate statutory bodies, when required and in a timely manner
Ensuring that the charity follows all mandated safeguarding reporting procedures and that the processing of all correspondence and records related to safeguarding incidents complies with the relevant data protection legislation
Embedding and maintaining a culture of safeguarding at English Heritage
This policy complies with the following legislation and guidance:
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999)
Data Protection Act (2018)
The Children Act 2004
The Children and Social Work Act 2017
Working Together to Safeguard Children (Department for Education, 2023)
The Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice
The Charity Commission: Safeguarding Guidance for Charities.
Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance 2024
The following internal policies/guides also underpin this policy:
Recruitment Checks Guidance
Safety & Risk Management Standard for Young Persons
Bullying and Harassment Policy
Whistleblowing Policy
Code of Conduct
Social Media Policy
Modern Slavery Transparency
The Policy
The Charity Commission requires all charities to have policies in place which make it clear to trustees, employees, volunteers, contractors, partners and beneficiaries how they will:
Protect people from harm
Make sure people can raise safeguarding concerns
Handle safeguarding allegations or incidents
Report safeguarding allegations or incidents to the relevant authorities (including internally at English Heritage to the Audit and Risk Committee)
Processes to be followed
Protect people from harm
The most sustainable way that we can keep English Heritage as a safe and trusted place for all our stakeholders is to ensure that we maintain a culture where we all work together to maintain an environment that is safe, healthy and free from harassment or abuse of any sort, and where everyone feels able to report concerns, confident they will be heard and responded to. We do this through:
Identifying types & indicators of abuse: In order to protect people against harm effectively, all colleagues should be familiar with the various types and key signs of abuse. Abuse can appear in many forms, for example: physical, sexual, emotional, digital, neglect, domestic, financial and institutional. Radicalisation is also a form of abuse
Safer recruitment: All English Heritage employees and volunteers, including Trustees, are safely recruited using a robust selection process and background checks relevant to their role, including Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks for certain roles. DBS checks are always used in the recruitment of posts where there is the opportunity for employees or volunteers to be working unsupervised with children or adults at risk, for example employees and volunteers at smaller sites and those in youth participation roles. All employees, volunteers and contractors will receive a copy of this Policy at their induction and be responsible for adhering to it at all times.
Safeguarding training for colleagues in site-based customer-facing roles
All site- based employees and volunteers receive a thorough induction and annual refresher training appropriate to their role. This training covers the accessibility and support needs that visitors may have, how these needs differ, and how we will safeguard and support all customers, including children and adults at risk, to get the most from their visitor experience.
Site-based colleagues are also trained on dealing with other, more serious, incidents of a potential safeguarding nature such as lost children on site, concerns regarding the behaviour of parents or guardians towards children in their care, and people found rough sleeping in English Heritage grounds, gardens or landscapes.
Safeguarding support for managers
The People & Culture team will ensure that managers of any employees and volunteers with support needs, or who are children or adults at risk, are fully briefed on how to manage any necessary adjustments required. Managers are required to complete risk assessments to evaluate whether there are potential risk considerations for any activity or hazard.
Welfare of Children
Our site operating practices mandate that, in most circumstances, only children above the age of 16 (when not visiting as part of an organised group) should be allowed on our sites unsupervised. When schools or other young people’s groups visit English Heritage sites, for example (including for
education visits
, with over 300,000 children visiting per annum), it is a requirement that they must have adequate adult/child supervisions ratios in place upon entry (including students up to the age of 18) and that English Heritage people on site have no supervisory role to play. In some circumstances however, particularly with youth participation projects via Shout Out Loud, English Heritage will operate “in loco parentis” with groups of young people where the children may be as young as 11. Our youth participation teams are required regularly to undertake enhanced safeguarding training so that they are fully conversant with what they should do in responding to concerns about the welfare of anyone under their supervision.
A dignified workplace for all
We want all English Heritage sites, events, stores and offices to be free from any sort of behaviour or culture that is undignified or makes people feel uncomfortable or violated. We therefore have a Bullying and Harassment Policy here that reinforces our stance that this behaviour is unacceptable and gives information on how bullying and harassment can be recognised, and how to seek help, both formally and informally.
Monitoring the use of the formal English Heritage social media channels
Social media is a powerful communications and marketing tool for English Heritage and, as such, there is a small team of people who, as part of their role, have systems privileges that enable them to be the “voice of English Heritage” on social media channels. Whilst social media is a positive asset, it can also be a vehicle for grooming or inappropriate contact with children or adults at risk. As such, English Heritage undertakes to habitually check the social media footprint of these colleagues’ work to safeguard against inappropriate use of these channels is being made. These checks are recorded.
Safe and responsible fundraising
As a charity, English Heritage engages with potential donors who may be adults at risk. We take great care to ensure that our fundraising is safe and responsible and in line with best practice as outlined by the Fundraising Regulator in its
Code of Fundraising Practice
.
Make sure people can raise safeguarding concerns
It is not the responsibility of anyone working at English Heritage to decide whether or not a person is or might be being abused. However, there is a responsibility to act on suspicions or concerns to protect people in order that appropriate agencies can then make enquiries and take any necessary action to protect the person.
Who to contact
If any person in English Heritage suspects, or is aware of, any concern relating to the welfare, wellbeing or safeguarding of an employee, volunteer, contractor, customer or any other stakeholder, or if they witness something that causes them concern, then they are obliged to raise these suspicions or concerns immediately with their line manager or the People & Culture team. The People & Culture Director (as the charity’s Designated Safeguarding Officer) will be informed immediately.
In an emergency
In the event that it is felt there may be an immediate and significant risk to the safety of an individual, and it is impractical for that English Heritage colleague to contact their line manager or the People & Culture team in the first instance, then they must report the matter to the police via 111 or 999 and then let their line manager/the People & Culture team know retrospectively.
Handle safeguarding allegations or incidents
At times, English Heritage employees and volunteers may have to respond to concerns about the welfare of a person under their supervision. This could relate to actual or alleged harm. Alternatively, a person we are working with may disclose abuse directly to us. This section provides information and guidelines on our procedures in these situations.
Responding to concerns:
Please follow the steps outlined in
Who to Contact
above.
Hearing a disclosure
What an English Heritage colleague should do if an individual comes to them and tells them that they are being abused
It is normal for both parties to potentially feel overwhelmed and confused in this situation. Abuse is a difficult subject that can be hard to accept and even harder to talk about. Individuals who are abused are often threatened by the perpetrators to keep the abuse a secret. Thus, telling someone about it takes a great amount of courage. So, care must be taken to remain calm and to show support to the individual throughout the disclosure phase.
A individual may make a disclosure about another individual within their social/family network. This also needs to be taken forward as a safeguarding matter.
Employees and Volunteers affected by a disclosure can seek advice from the People & Culture team. We also provide and Employee Assistance Programme for our staff and volunteers.
Report safeguarding allegations or incidents to the relevant authorities and internally to the Audit and Risk Committee. When a case of actual harm, alleged harm or risk of harm to an English Heritage stakeholders is referred, the People & Culture Director will contact the relevant local authority’s Multi-Agency Safeguarding Board for advice on where the case should be referred to (for example the police or social services).
At this stage the Chief Executive will be informed as a matter of course. The Charity Commission must also be notified of serious safeguarding incidents and the People & Culture Director will work with the Head of Governance and the Chief Financial Officer to file a Serious Incident Report to the Charity Commission, if required. The Audit and Risk Committee is notified of all serious safeguarding incidents, and associated learnings, as part of the whistleblowing and fraud annual update.
Review frequency
Formal review every 3 years (or earlier if circumstances require), with interim review at least every year by designated Senior Management Team owner.
Next review due: March 2026
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