Yet another update to the Child Protection Policy

St Benedict's School has published its third version this year of its Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy, and its second version in September.

I've checked through the new version. The changes are solely in Appendix 2. Last month I described some Continuing shortcomings in the Child Protection Policy. These have mostly not been addressed in the newest version. The main improvement in the policy is to make it clearer that referrals of allegations to outside authority should specifically go to the LADO (Local Authority Designated Officer for child protection).

But Appendix 2 is still contradicted by various other bits of the policy. Although Appendix 2 mentions the LADO, section 23 simply mentions "the Social Services Department", and Section 22 mentions referral to SSD as well. because of these sorts of contradictions (there are far more than I have mentioned here) even this third version of the Child Protection Policy is still too full of holes to be worth much.

A child protection policy and procedure shouldn't be all that hard to write and to write clearly. In circumstance X, you do Y. Make sure that X and Y are adequately defined. Make sure that you don't have two different Ys for the same X in different parts of the document. Make sure that overall you cover all contingencies that you can think of as being reasonably plausible. For the unanticipated events, have a default situation of asking for guidance from the appropriate people in Social Services - the LADO for adult-on-child abuse, Childrens Services for child-on-child abuse.

This isn't hard to do. For the school to have such a poor child protection policy even at the third attempt this year means they really aren't trying. They are looking to make the minimum changes they think that they can get away with in terms of persuading the ISI and DfE that they have met the regulatory requirements. There is no sign of any interest in fulfilling Recommendation 2 of the ISI Supplementary Report, to "render the safeguarding policy a model of excellence in its wording, implementation and review".

Continuing shortcomings in the Child Protection Policy

I have to say that as a result of the DfE having a hissy-fit about the May 2010 version of the Child Protection policy, the new September 2010 version is somewhat better. But it would have required a very serious effort to make it worse than the May 2010 version, so saying it is an improvement isn't that much of a commendation. There certainly isn't enough of an improvement to justify the policy being described as "good" or even "adequate". It still has very serious deficiencies. These are some of the most obvious:

Section 22 deals with the duties of the Designated Teacher, but does not specify what the Designated Teacher will actually do on receiving a report or allegation of abuse, but rather there is a list of things which the Designated Teacher "will take into account". This kind of wriggle-room is precisely what a Child Protection Policy ought not to have.

The training requirements with regard to safeguarding remain wholly inadequate. Section 9 specifies that the Designated Teachers and deputies shall receive "basic child protection training and training in inter-agency working and will attend refresher training at two yearly intervals". Other staff, according to section 16(h) are to undertake "appropriate training including refresher training at three-yearly intervals". What is "appropriate" is not specified, but is presumably less than the "basic" training specified for the Designated Teachers. This falls far short of the recommendations of the Ealing Safeguarding Children Board, as indicated in their Training brochure. This document indicates that the Ealing SCB Target Group 3 training is suitable for Designated Teachers and people with comparable levels of responsibility for safeguarding matters, while Target Group 2 training appears to be the level suitable for other teaching staff, and Target Group 1 is suitable for ancillary staff who have occasional contact with pupils. Only the Target Group 1 training could reasonably be described as "basic". The Child Protection Policy should be specific in describing the required levels of training, and should reflect the recommendations of the local Safeguarding Children Board.

The ISI supplementary report mentions that a member of the Board of School Advisers has been appointed as the "child protection governor". However, this person's name and duties are not stated anywhere in the Child Protection Policy. Also, the policy makes reference in section 31 to "Other staff with Child Protection responsibilities", but does not describe what their responsibilities and duties are. There's no point in having such positions unless there is some description of what the occupants of those positions are supposed to do.

Appendix 2 appears to have been copied and pasted whole from the policy of another school. No attempt has been made to harmonise the text with the rest of the policy. An obvious example is that Appendix 2 refers to "Child Protection Officers" rather than "Designated Teachers". It is clearly necessary that this new Appendix is properly integrated into the policy and that any necessary consequential changes to other clauses are made, to ensure that there is no contradiction or confusion between potentially conflicting requirements in different clauses.

Although the policy is now clearer about always referring cases to Social Services, it doesn't state that allegations of adult-on-child abuse shall always be referred specifically to the Local Authority Designated Officer for Child Protection (LADO). This needs to be changed.

The policy is silent on the procedures to be followed on completion of a police or Social Services investigation, either in terms of what to do with a teacher pending a criminal trial, or in terms of what procedures to follow if the case is passed back to the school for further investigation and/or disciplinary action under the school's internal procedures. This is a particular concern, since the school is presumably applying these non-existent procedures to the current investigation of the suspended teacher.

Section 30 requires that the Designated Teacher shall monitor the operation of the policy and procedures. Since a large proportion of the procedures are carried out by the Designated Teacher, we have the ridiculous situation where the Designated Teacher is supposed to monitor his own actions. A more independent monitoring scheme needs to be put in place.

The overwhelming impression is that the school has made the minimal changes necessary to scrape through the regulatory requirements, and that there is no desire or intention on the part of the school to make the thorough overhaul of both its policies and the school culture that would be necessary to promote excellence in its safeguarding practices, as described in Recommendation 2 of the ISI Supplementary Report. The headmaster even tried to pass off the May 2010 version as "wholly compliant" until the DfE rumbled him. It took me 22 articles to highlight the shortcomings of that version, and even then I probably missed a few!

The Carlile Inquiry

We now know a bit about the Carlile Inquiry. The inquiry was described in the meeting on 14th September and the the Terms of Reference have been posted on the school website. They are as follows:

To provide a report and recommendations covering the following issues:

1. The history of abuse allegations and findings made by and/or at St Benedict’s School.
2. The history of abuse allegations and findings made in connection with Ealing Abbey, and anyone involved in any activities at the Abbey.
3. The action taken in respect of the matters described in paragraphs 1 and 2 above.
4. Past and present policies, written or otherwise, for dealing with such abuse allegations and findings.
5. A future policy for the effective protection of young persons by whom any such allegations are made.
6. An effective complaints system, and the provision of information about such a system.
7. Files and paperwork concerning complaints.
8. Other reassurance for present and prospective students and their parents/guardians.
9. Issues concerning presence at the Abbey or School of persons who have been the subject of findings and/or allegations.

The first and most obvious thing we can say is that this appears to be authentic Abbotspeak. As with the previous "independent review", it appears that the Abbot is constitutionally incapable of creating a numbered list consisting wholly of grammatical and meaningful sentences. One would have thought that given the huge amounts of money that they are about to spend on this inquiry (somebody who is a Lord and senior QC isn't exactly going to be cheap) that they would have taken a bit more of a look at this before publishing. It doesn't exactly stand up as an advert for the quality of education currently provided by the school.

With respect to items 1 and 2, the question is "findings by whom"? Whose findings are we concerned about here? If we are talking about the school's findings, then items 1 and 2 will be very quickly be disposed of, since the school has hardly ever found that anybody has abused anybody at all!

Whether there is anything to report with regard to item 3 depends to a great extent on how Lord Carlile interprets items 1 and 2.

On all these points, there is a worrying point in that nothing is said about how far into the past Lord Carlile is to probe. The earliest account of abuse I'm aware of dates from the late 1940s, and there is no reason to expect that the earliest example I happen to have heard of is the earliest that has occurred. If Lord Carlile is going to get to the start of the abuse, he might have to end up investigating the founding of the Abbey back in 1897 and of the school in 1902!

With regard to item 4, it might be hard to obtain evidence about unwritten policies. But the absence of written policies or the failure to follow written policies shouldn't be too hard to spot.

Item 5 is simply not grammatical. If it had ended with "young persons" then it might have made more sense. I suppose I'll have to ask Lord Carlile what he thinks it means when I meet him.

Item 6 is unclear. Does in mean investigating whether there has been and effective complaints system in the past or whether there is one at present? Or is it accepting that there isn't, and this point is about what needs to be done to institute a complaints system in future?

In any case a "complaints system" is far too broad an issue. Complaints about what? This inquiry is supposed to be focussed on safeguarding, and therefore what is needed is an effective and well-operated child protection policy. An effective child protection policy by definition includes provisions for dealing with allegations of child abuse. It seems that the trustees don't even have a clear idea about the basic vocabulary of child protection, let alone how to run a child protection policy in a school. I suspect that Lord Carlile might have his work cut out!

Item 7 is also ambiguous. Does this mean that Lord Carlile will review existing files and paperwork concerning complaints, or that he will make recommendations concerning how such files should be maintained in future?

And what on earth is this business about reassurance in item 8? How on earth is Lord Carlile supposed to investigate that? In fact, I rather suspect this betrays the Trustees' real objectives in this. They are spending a sum probably of the order of a quarter of a million pounds on an exercise in reassurance. As the headmasters comments at the safeguarding meeting amply showed, there is no evidence of any interest in actually improving safeguarding, but they want to give the impression that Something Is Being Done. Lord Carlile's name will of course appear on the cover page of the report in letters rather larger than the title. And of course a glossily printed copy will be sent to each parent. The aim is to provide a reassurance to parents that All Is Well Really, if with some minor tweaks to procedures.

Sorry if the capital letters make this all look a bit like Winnie the Pooh, but as far as I can tell, this is how the school is actually in the habit of addressing parents, as if they were three years old and being read a bedtime story. With some parents it may work. The interesting thing is going to be whether Lord Carlile is prepared to go along with such an exercise in reassurance. It may turn out that he feels that the abuse had been so bad and the attempt to avoid facing it is so blatant that he isn't prepared to go along with it and issues a surprisingly critical report. We shall see.

Item 9 is really none of the inquiry's business. There are legal obligations which the Abbot is trying to sort out with the Department for Education, but the law and the ISI's recommendations are perfectly clear. The school, as part of its duty of care to the children, has a legal obligation to ensure that persons who are known to a be a danger to children are kept off the premises.

There is another issue here, and that is what has been left out of the Terms of Reference. The above covers what his Report is supposed to contain. But the Terms of reference don't include anything about how he is to go about his inquiry.

This was filled in a bit by the headmaster at the meeting last week. Apparently Lord Carlile will be interviewing people in addition to looking at documents. Adverts are to be put in the local and national press inviting old boys and victims to come forward and give evidence. And even I have received an email invitation to speak to him! But there is one obvious way of encouraging OPs to come forward with their experiences which seems to have been forgotten - an email to the OP main email list. Or perhaps it is just that Richard Baker is less than keen on more evidence appearing about the activities of his friend David Pearce.

But the real problem with this inquiry is that it ends merely with a Report. The trustees will have spent all that money, and still will not know how to operate an effective child protection policy. To change that, several additional things are going to have to happen.

1. The Trustees and headmasters are going to have to decide that they want to have an effective policy
2. The Trustees, headmasters are going to have to be provided with an unambiguous and well-written policy and set of procedures, that not only meets the school's legal obligations but is a model of excellence.
3. The Trustees, headmasters and staff need to learn how to operate the policy
4. The Trustees, headmasters and staff need to have ongoing mentoring to ensure that they don't drop back into old bad habits.

At present, the evidence from the headmasters comments in the Safeguarding meeting offers no confidence that even item 1 can be achieved.

Item 2 isn't all that hard, I know where a model policy can be found and it would be a straightforward matter to adapt it to the school.

Item 3 is much harder, especially if the will from top management is absent. But if that problem can be overcome, there are organisations who could come in and provide a consulting and training service for this. One possible organisation is the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

Item 4 can be dealt with by ongoing mentoring and refresher training from the same organisation, if there is the will from management.

The interesting thing though is that these four items could be achieved perfectly well without involving Lord Carlile at all, but by commissioning the Lucy Faithfull Foundation or somebody similar immediately.

So why are they spending all this money on Lord Carlile?

From inside the meeting

I've now had some excellent reports from parents about the meeting. I was amazed by some of the things that were said. I can't cover everything that I've been told, so I'm just going to address a few key points.

One of the first points that Mr Cleugh apparently made was to the effect that the ISI's issues primarily revolved whether the school automatically passed allegations of abuse to the authorities without "investigation". As I understand it, Mr Cleugh claimed that of course the school has always referred all cases (or was it nearly all cases?), and that the "investigation" carried out by the school is just a basic check to see whether there is any issue to refer. He claimed that the issue with the ISI boiled down to a semantic one of whether this should actually be called an "investigation" in the the Child Protection Policy, and that he was able to make the child protection policy fully compliant by minor edits replacing "investigated" wherever it occurred with some other form of words..

If I've understood this correctly, then this is absolute rubbish. Mr Cleugh has accurately described the change he made in the May 2010 version of the policy, but it is decidedly not the case that the Child Protection Policy stated that all cases will automatically be referred. This is paragraph 23 of the May 2010 version of the policy.

23. Referral guidelines: A referral to the SSD or police will not normally be made where:

• a referral would be contrary to the wishes of a pupil complainant who is of sufficient maturity and understanding and properly informed, and contrary also to the wishes of the complainant's parents; and
• the case is one that can be satisfactorily dealt with under the School's internal procedures, the parents being kept fully informed, as appropriate.

However, if during the course of the internal procedures and the procedures required under paragraph 5, it appears that the situation is more serious, the Designated Teacher will again consider whether a referral should be made in accordance with paragraph 22 above.

This is not a form of words which indicates a policy of automatic referral. The referral doesn't happen if against the wishes of the pupil, or if the school's internal procedures (whatever they are) can handle it. I've analysed this paragraph in more detail elsewhere. This is far from the only example of text which provides for substantive decisions before a referral is made. Look back through past articles on this blog. I've analysed the child protection policy paragraph by paragraph, starting here. Then make up your own mind as to whether this was a policy of automatic referral.

Interestingly, and apparently as a result of the DfE's intervention, this paragraph has been changed. In the September 2010 edition of the policy, it now reads as follows:

23. Referral guidelines
Our policy is to refer all matters of concern to the Social Services Department.

Much better. But there are other related paragraphs that haven't yet been brought into line with this. The Designated Teacher is normally the person supposed to make the referral, and yet paragraph 22 still doesn't specify what the Designated Teacher must do on receiving a report. Instead, paragraph 22 gives a long list of things that the Designated Teacher "will take into account". I've analysed the May 2010 version of para 22 in more detail here. Some items in the bullet list in the September 2010 version have been changed, and so the current version is somewhat improved. But it still has this fundamental weakness.

And as for Mr. Cleugh's claim that the school actually always reports cases, this is not borne out by the ISI's findings. This is what the ISI says about the reporting of allegations

The allegations against Fr DP were referred to social services by the school following disclosure by a pupil. The school’s safeguarding records since 2003 do not mention any other report to social services in connection with concerns related to staff, volunteers, trustees or monks. All have been family or other matters. Safeguarding contacts have also been maintained with the Westminster Diocesan Safeguarding Commission. The Abbot made a statement disclosing the cases of Fr DP and another monk, and each headmaster issued copies in March 2006, with covering letters to parents.

The rules on reporting apply to governors and Trustees just as much as they do to staff. And yet, since 2003 Father Stanislaus Hobbs has been arrested and tried and Father Gregory Chillman investigated. Both have resigned as Trustees. And yet no records of any referrals concerning them (or any other staff member or trustee) were found by the ISI or produced by the school.

The rules are even more strict about resignations or sackings in circumstances where a person's suitability to be in charge of children is in question. Since about 1959 it has been a statutory requirement for a school to return a Notification to the authorities (used to be to the Department for Children Schools and Families, now it is to the Independent Safeguarding Authority) describing the circumstances. This is what the ISI report stated about this matter.

At the time of the follow-up inspections, the school did not have a fully established policy for reporting directly to the Department for Education and Skills (later the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and currently the Department for Education) or to the Independent Safeguarding Authority, responsible for such referrals since 20 January 2009. The advisability of making such referrals is now clearly understood even when there may not be a strict legal obligation to do so, and an historical referral was made in May 2010.

 In fact, this is not quite true. The school does have a written policy on this. This is the last paragraph of Section 26.

If the School ceases to use the services of a member of staff (or a governor or volunteer) because they are unsuitable to work with children, a compromise agreement will not be used and there will be a prompt and detailed report to the Independent Safeguarding Authority. Any such incidents will be followed by a review of the safeguarding procedures within the School, with a report being presented to the Governors without delay.

This is perfectly clear and in fact is one of the few well-written parts of the Child Protection Policy. There's just one small problem: in the cases of Hobbs and Chillman, they didn't follow the policy.

Now, this is a very serious matter. It means that not only was the school's policy seriously inadequate, but the school didn't even bother to follow the bits of it that are clear.

Let us be perfectly blunt about this. In failing to make those Notifications, the school has broken the law. So merely getting the school's written policies into a fit state will not guarantee that the school will actually follow the policies.

Next is the issue of Father Stanislaus Hobbs. He is living in the monastery under restricted covenant, imposed because he was considered a danger to children. The ISI made this issue the subject of its first recommendation.

1. Ensure that any staff or members of the religious community live away from the school, if they are subject to allegations of misconduct related to safeguarding or convicted of wrongdoing.

I understand that the Abbot gave a long speech on how Father Stan is old, unable to live by himself, that finding alternative accommodation for him is not easy and that the Abbot is negotiating with the ISI and DfE to gain their agreement to an exemption in his case. That may all be so, and ultimately the ISI and DfE might agree to an exemption. But until it is agreed, it is grossly misleading for Anthony Nelson, the school's solicitor, to have told The Times in August that the school was fully compliant with the ISI's requirements when he knew perfectly well that this issue had not been resolved. It think it's not unreasonable simply to call this a lie.

I'd now like to address the idea that almost all the cases are historical and needn't concern current parents. As I understand it, this line was pushed pretty consistently throughout the meeting. But a parent rather pricked the balloon when he asked whether there had been any cases in the last 12 months other than those referred to in the ISI report. It appears that Mr. Cleugh hesitated somewhat before admitting that a teacher is currently suspended while an investigation is carried out concerning child abuse allegations. He quickly went on to say that Social Services have been brought in, but the police are not interested that it is not a criminal matter, that the children are all entirely safe, and while the investigation is continuing he can't provide further details.

To a degree I can have some sympathy with this. But that sympathy doesn't extend to condoning the claims he had made only a few minutes earlier that we were primarily dealing with matters that had occurred 20 years ago. Don't make claims that aren't true, especially about the safety of children. Parents are apt to get rather upset about it. By the sound of it, the effect on the parents of Mr Cleugh's admission could hardly have been greater had a bomb gone off next door.

Unless the policies are perfectly clear, and they are properly implemented, then there is a very great risk that a new long-term paedophile could get onto the staff, or even still be on the staff undetected. After all, if the trust has lost a third of its Trustees to paedophile abuse in the last five years, what is the probability that there are really no abusers amongst the staff? No doubt part of the reason Father David Pearce was able to carry on abusing for so long (36 years) is that some at least of those around him on hearing rumours disbelieved them because they believed that somebody like him would never do such a thing. There is no profile for paedophile abusers. They can be from any social class, any occupation, any level of intelligence, any creed or colour. In fact the intelligent and socially respectable ones are the most dangerous, because they can work themselves into positions of trust where they do damage to very many children. The reason that automatic referral to Social Services is so vitally important is that they won't know the alleged perpetrator, and so will not be burdened by the belief that he is a splendid fellow who would never hurt a fly, let alone a child.

And what is this about wanting to keep the press out as it is a private meeting? Child protection is a very serious issue, and if the school is as thoroughly in the clear as the headmaster and the Abbot were trying to suggest, then they should have welcomed the press in to hear the parents' questions and their answers. but they didn't do that. They even barred parents of former pupils from attending.

If they have nothing to hide, why has the Abbot repeatedly refused my requests to meet him? And if the school gives such priority to making the Child Protection a model of excellence, why did the Abbot and headmaster ignore my email to them commenting on problems with the child protection policy last November?

Then there is the issue of the Inquiry by Lord Carlile. There seems to be a fundamental contradiction here. If the problems of the school are as minor as Mr. Cleugh was apparently suggesting, then why call in such a major establishment figure to conduct an inquiry? I dread to think how much Lord Carlile will be costing the school - probably something approaching the fees of 20 senior school pupils for the whole year. The school would never voluntarily spend such a sum of money which could otherwise be spent on improved sports facilities for instance. So I do rather wonder who has been twisting the Abbot's arm about this, and therefore who has sufficient concerns to think that such a major and expensive step is necessary. It's obviously not the parents, because the inquiry was decided on before any parents knew about the ISI report. It can hardly be the Trustees, since the Abbot was standing alongside Mr. Cleugh when he was energetically minimising the problem. I would be surprised if it were the ISI, because if they had made such a demand it would have been included in their report. By process of elimination, the obvious candidate is the DfE. It rather suggests they take an extremely dim view of the situation at the school.

I've written a line-by-line analysis of that the ISI supplementary report says and means. Read it for yourself and decide whether you think the school has been open with you.

• The ISI Supplementary Report - 1 (Introduction and situation at the time of the inspection)
  
• The ISI Supplementary Report - 2 (Reporting, and responsibilities of Trustees)
  
• The ISI Supplementary Report - 3 (Regulatory requirements)
• The ISI Supplementary Report - 4 (Recommandations)

I'd like to close with one last important point. You cannot guarantee that a school will forever remain free of abusive staff. The discovery of an abuser on the staff should not necessarily be regarded as a failure by the school. What matters is how quickly the abuse is detected, and how effectively the alleged abuser is removed from contact with children. An abuse case might be picked up very quickly and dealt with effectively, in which case parents should regard that as a success for the school, a demonstration that the safeguarding procedures work. I wish I could say that the safeguarding procedures at St. Benedict's meet that description. If in future they do, then I will be the first to cheer.

But at the moment they fall far short, and the headmaster and the Abbot are trying to kid you otherwise. They are playing word-games with the safety of your children. It is for you to decide if you are going to put up with that.

More on the Safeguarding meeting

I'll have lots to report about the Safeguarding meeting at St Benedict's School in due course, but in the meantime, if any parents (or others) present at the meeting on Tuesday evening have anything they would like to say about it - what was said, what you thought, feel free to comment here.

Remember that you can comment entirely anonymously, or if you prefer to contact me privately, send me an email to jonathanwest22@googlemail.com. Some parents have already contacted me privately. Naturally, I shall not be giving out names. If you wish to contact me in confidence, that confidence will be respected.

The Child Protection Policy - 22

Here's a quick run through the final paragraphs of the 24 May 2010 version of the St Benedict's School child protection policy - the one published a week after the second ISI visit on 17 May and which in August the school's solicitor Tony Nelson claimed in The Times was "completely compliant with [the ISI's] requirements". In a future article, I'll summarise the changes that have been made in the new September 2010 version of the policy.

28. Allegations against pupils: A pupil against whom an allegation of abuse has been made may be suspended from the School during the investigation and the School's policy on behaviour, discipline and sanctions will apply. The School will take advice from the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) on the investigation of such allegations and will take all appropriate action to ensure the safety and welfare of all pupils involved including the pupil or pupils accused of abuse. If it is necessary for a pupil to be interviewed by the police in relation to allegations of abuse, the School will ensure that, subject to the advice of the LADO, parents are informed as soon as possible and that the pupil is supported during the interview by an appropriate adult. In the case of pupils whose parents are abroad, the pupil's Education Guardian will be requested to provide support to the pupil and to accommodate him/her if it is necessary to suspend him/her during the investigation.

It is very instructive to compare this wording with the paragraph concerning allegations against members of staff. The Staff paragraph falls over itself to suggest that allegations might not be true, and that staff members must be protected against unfounded allegations, and that suspension will not normally occur while an investigation is carried out.

There is no such sensitivity towards pupils similarly accused. It is perfectly clear how the school views things. The children exist for the glory of the school, instead of the school existing for the education and welfare of the children.

And what is this business of the "Education Guardian"? Clearly this isn't a reference to a national newspaper, but it would appear to concern somebody standing in loco parentis when a child's parents are abroad. Such a situation is only likely to occur if the child is boarding at the school. But St. Benedict's doesn't have boarders!

29. Suspected harm from outside the School: A member of staff who suspects that a pupil is suffering harm from outside the School should seek information from the child with tact and sympathy using "open" and not leading questions. A sufficient record should be made of the conversation and if the member of staff continues to be concerned he or she should refer the matter to the Designated Teacher.

The most obvious thing missing from the policy is what the Designated Teacher is supposed to do with this information when it is received from another member of staff.

But there is an additional point - it seems to be the situation that a referral to the Designated Teacher will only be made if "the member of staff continues to be concerned". So it appears that the record that the staff member makes of the initial conversation isn't supposed supposed automatically to go to the Designated Teacher, and from there to Social Services. This is wrong.

I have now become exceedingly cynical, and view this as another case of the school looking to pick and choose whether or not a case is reported, and the wording being such that abuse by non-teaching monks is regarded as harm from "outside the school" and that they want ways of not having to report it.

30. Monitoring

a) The Designated Teacher will monitor the operation of this policy and its procedures and make an annual report to the Board of School Advisors and Trustees.

b) The Board of School Advisors and Trustees will undertake an annual review of this policy and how the related duties under it have been discharged.

c) The Trustees will ensure that any deficiencies or weaknesses in regard to child protection arrangements are remedied without delay.

The Designated Teacher has the major part of the actions (or inactions) specified by the policy. How on earth is the Designated Teacher supposed to monitor himself? This is ludicrous!

We have no means of knowing whether the Advisers and Trustees carry out item (b) or what the review consists of because it appears that the minutes of their meetings are not published.

And the school simply doesn't operate item (c) at all. I pointed out many of these shortcomings in the child protection policy in emails to the Abbot and headmaster in November last year. Precisely nothing was done. I received no reply at all from the Abbot, and nothing more than an acknowledgement from the headmaster that the policy was reviewed annually. Then earlier this year, through Peter Turner, the Diocesan Child Protection Adviser, I requested a meeting with the headmaster and Abbot to discuss these matters, and they refused.

If they did operate item (c) as described, then the ISI supplementary inspection visit probably would never have happened!

31. Essential Information

Senior School:

Designated Teacher for Child Protection: Mr Stephen Oliver
Deputy Designated Teacher for Child Protection: Miss Fiona MacTaggart
Other staff with Child Protection responsibilities: Mr Joe Foley
Mr Peter Halsall

Junior School/Early Years Foundation Stage:
Designated Teacher for Child Protection: Mrs Monica McCarthy
Deputy Designated Teacher for Child Protection: Mr Rob Simmons
Other staff with Child Protection responsibilities: Mrs M Lawry

Very interesting to note that there are "other staff with child protection responsibilities". This phrase occurs nowhere else within the policy, and so we have no idea what their responsibilities are. Also, given that Mr. Simmons is Deputy Designated Teacher and Junior School headmaster, we are in the ludicrous position of him being required by some of the procedures to report events to himself!

Lastly, paragraph 32 lists contact details for verious agencies. Included are

• OFSTED
• Ealing Social Services Child Protection Advisors.
• The Metropolitan Police Child Abuse Investigation Team
• NSPCC
• Independent Safeguarding Authority
• Parentline (Opus)
• Ealing Hospital

No explanation as to why any of these are there, or under what circumstances any of them may be called. And There's no reason for OFSTED to be in the list at all because the school is inspoected by ISI, not OFTSED. OFSTED has nothing at all to do with the school.

Finally, there is Appendix 1.

Appendix 1

Physical Contact with Pupils
It is not realistic to suggest that teachers should never touch pupils and they, and other staff, have the right to use reasonable force to control or restrain pupils in certain circumstances.

Physical contact

Physical contact may be misconstrued by a pupil, parent or observer. Touching pupils, including well-intentioned gestures such as putting a hand on a shoulder, can, if repeated regularly, lead to serious questions being raised. As a general principle, staff must not make gratuitous physical contact with their pupils. It is particularly unwise to attribute touching to their teaching style or as a way of relating to pupils. Teachers and other staff do, however, have the right to use reasonable physical force to restrain pupils in certain circumstances.

Any form of physical punishment of pupils is unlawful as is any form of physical response to misbehaviour unless it is by way of restraint. It is particularly important that staff understand this both to protect their own position and the overall reputation of the school.

Where physical contact may be acceptable
There may be occasions where a distressed pupil needs comfort and reassurance which may include physical comforting such as a caring parent would give. Staff should use their discretion in such cases to ensure that what is normal and natural does not become unnecessary and unjustified contact, particularly with the same pupil over a period of time. Where a member of staff has particular concern about the need to provide this type of care and reassurance they should seek the advice of the Head Master.

Some staff are likely to come into physical contact with pupils from time to time in the course of their duties. Staff should be aware of the limits within which such contact should properly take place and of the possibility of such contact being misinterpreted.

There may be occasions where it is necessary for staff to restrain a pupil physically to prevent them from inflicting injury to others, self-injury, damaging property, or causing disruption. In such cases only the minimum force necessary may be used and any action taken must be to restrain the pupil. Where an employee has taken action to physically restrain a pupil they should make a written report of the incident in the form prescribed by the school's policy on restraint.

This is all concerned with how staff can ensure that any touching they do cannot be construed as abuse. But it is terribly misguided even so. The first paragraph of "Where physical contact may be acceptable" is just plain wrong and dangerous. If a pupil is distressed, the first task of the teacher is to discover the cause of the distress. This is not done by "physical comforting". This is done by sitting the child down somewhere quiet and acting as a reassuring presence without physical contact, and giving the child time to recover to the point where he or she is able to describe what is wrong. Inappropriate physical contact from somebody else might be the source of the child's distress, and so the last thing the child needs is some teacher giving them a hug.

Young children (junior school age) are usually very wary about who they will accept hugs or other physical contact from, and except from their parents they generally do not want physical contact with somebody twice their size if they are distressed. Young children might wrap their arms round a teacher's legs in the playground, but that is when they are happy and pleased to see the teacher, not when they are distressed.

With older children, their hormones are likely to be raging and physical contact when they are distressed is most unwise. The same strategy should be followed - a reassuring presence but no initiation of physical contact. Otherwise, there is a very high risk of the contact being interpreted in a sexual fashion. This would result in a highly dangerous situation whether it is welcomed or not by the pupil. If it is welcomed, you are on the first steps to an inappropriate and illegal sexual liaison between teacher and pupil, and if it is not welcomed, there is a great risk of a complaint against the teacher.

The Safeguarding meeting

I decided that I would write to the headteacher at St. Benedict's to ask if I could attend the meeting next week.

From: Jonathan West
Date: 8 September 2010 15:54
Subject: Safeguarding Meeting 14 September
To: Senior School Headmaster

Dear Headmaster

As I am sure you are aware, as the father of a former pupil of St. Benedict's School I have taken a close interest in safeguarding matters at the school since the conviction of Father David Pearce last year. I note from the August edition of your Headmaster's Newsletter that you will be holding a meeting with parents on this subject in the Cloister on 14th September.

Since safeguarding is a matter of general public interest (for instance to parents who may be considering sending their children to the school in the future),  I would like to attend the meeting, and be able to ask questions. Please advise whether you have any objection to my presence at the meeting.

Yours sincerely

Jonathan West

I have received the following reply from the headmaster.

From: Senior School Headmaster
Date: 10 September 2010 16:53
Subject: RE: Safeguarding Meeting 14 September
To: Jonathan West

Dear Mr West,

Re: Ealing Abbey

I have received your email of 8th September, and the meeting I have called on 14th September is restricted to current parents, and current staff.

As you know, Queen’s Counsel, Lord Carlile of Berriew, is undertaking a review of all child safeguarding matters, both historical and up-to-date. I know Lord Carlile will be contacting you to arrange a meeting to discuss the close interest that you have taken in safeguarding matters at the School.

I should be grateful if you would kindly acknowledge safe receipt of this communication.

Yours sincerely

Chris Cleugh
Headmaster

Notice the request for an acknowledgement that I have receiived his reply. He wants to be sure that he's within his rights to throw me out and charge me with trespass if I were to try and sneak in.

This is of a piece with my previous requests to meet the Abbot. The school can hardly claim to be interested in making all possible improvements to child protection if they persistently refuse to meet with those who have knowledge of the matter and concerns about the situation.

It appears that they will do anything rather permit themselves to be in a position where they have to answer difficult questions in front of witnesses. If they have nothing to hide, why avoid speaking to me?

I have a number of important questions which it would be good for parents to be able to ask. Although I can't be there, the questions can. If you are a parent of a pupil at the school would like to help ask the questions they ought to be answering, by all means get in touch. Email me at jonathanwest22@googlemail.com.

I acknowledged Chris Cleugh's email and asked him when the Terms of Reference for Lord Carlile's inquiry would be published. Until we see the terms of reference, we can't tell whether it will be another whitewash. I would be very happy to see the school make a real effort to put its house in order, and would unreservedly cheer and congratulate them if they do. But on present performance, we have to assume that the inquiry will be a whitewash unless and until we see evidence to the contrary.

The ISI Supplementary Report - 4

Now let's look at the Recommendations the ISI makes in its report:

Recommended action

In view of the previous incidents, it is recommended that an enhanced emphasis is placed on safeguarding and that the following precautionary action is taken where possible.

An "enhanced emphasis". Nice way of putting it. In other words, make some passing attempt at keeping the children safe from abusers.

1. Ensure that any staff or members of the religious community live away from the school, if they are subject to allegations of misconduct related to safeguarding or convicted of wrongdoing.

The ISI has had to tell the school to remove staff and monks suspected of abuse from the  premises! It is extraordinary that a school needs to be told this.

It will be interesting to find out whether this has been done with respect to Hobbs and Chillman.

2. Follow the advice given to render the safeguarding policy a model of excellence in its wording, implementation and review.

Unfortunately, as it stands this recommendation is totally useless, because we don't know what advice has been given! So parents will have no way of knowing whether or when this is done. If the school is serious about improving safeguarding, they should be prepared to publish the correspondence from the ISI which contains this advice.

3. Ensure that referrals are always made to the Independent Safeguarding Authority when appropriate. For historical cases, ensure that all relevant information is passed to the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

And this shows how weak-willed the ISI is. Rather than recommend that the school be prosecuted for breaking the law, it is just asking the school retrospectively to put its paperwork in order.

The ISI isn't saying how far back the school must go in respect of "historical cases". One year, two years, 30 years? We don't know. In the absence of a specific timescale, the school is almost certainly going to be very tempted to interpret this recommendation in the narrowest possible way. Remember, the school's failings in this respect (for instance in the case of Father David Pearce) have led directly to additional pupils of the school being abused. This is not a mere administrative matter of inadequate record-keeping. This has wrecked pupils' lives.

4. Give greater emphasis to safeguarding in the school personal, social, health and citizenship (PSHCE) programme and reflect this in the school improvement plan.

There is no evidence that this has yet been done, nor any indication as to how (or if) the ISI will enforce this.

As far as I’m aware, the School Improvement Plan is not published, so again parents cannot enforce this because they can't tell what the targets are and whether they are being met.

5. Emphasise awareness raising and training in safeguarding across the whole community of school, Abbey and parish, with formal contact between the child protection officers.

There is no evidence that this has yet been done, nor any indication as to how (or if) the ISI will enforce this. On the matter of Parish safeguarding, it appears that no lessons have been learned. The safeguarding page of the Ealing Abbey parish website has a statement on safeguarding which contains no procedures, it is merely a statement of good intentions. The page also contains a reference and link to the CSAS model procedures, but doesn't say that those procedures are actually being followed in the parish.

For the CSAS procedures to be followed effectively, far more is needed than a mere link to the CSAS website. Actual written procedures need to be developed that are specific to the abbey and the parish, and for them to be published and regularly reviewed. Names of individuals need to be given, with details of who is responsible for what.

This was touched on in the Diocesan review published earlier this year. Curiously, the Diocesan review addressed procedures in the Abbey (but not the school), and yet the sumary of the review is only available on the Information for Parents page of the school website! One does get the overwhelming feeling that the Abbot is looking to do as little as possible about all this and hope that all the bad publicity eventually blows over. He shows no sign of any interest in actually doing the right thing and getting child protection working properly.

Se let's summarize. The ISI is recommending a variety of measures which could make a real improvement in the quality of safeguarding. However, they have not stated how they propose to ensure that these measures are actually put into effect by the school, and they have not provided enough information about the recommendations to enable parents to check this for themselves.

The ISI Supplementary Report - 3

Let's look next at what the ISI says about the school's compliance with regulatory requirements, and what needs to be done about it.

Regulatory requirements

At the time of the inspection visit on 30 April 2010, the school’s safeguarding policy was found to cover most of the requirements which are the duties of governors of independent schools. However, the school’s written policy for dealing with allegations and suspicions of abuse was focused on investigation by the school rather than speedy referral to outside agencies. As a result, under Regulation 3.(2)(b) of the Independent School Standards Regulations, the school was required to word the policy so that it is clear that in the case of a disclosure or suspicion of abuse:

(i) the investigations are to be carried out by the local safeguarding children board or in case of doubt the advice of such an agency is to be sought;

(ii) the child’s interests are paramount;

(iii) referrals are made not only where a case is considered by the school to be serious and criminal;

(iv) no case of substance is investigated and dealt with under the school’s internal procedures.

The school was also advised to include in the policy more of the best practice guidance from Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education.

Let's be completely clear about what this says. The school is not supposed to investigate complaints of abuse. Any case of substance is automatically passed to the local safeguarding children board (part of Social Services) for them to investigate. As you can see from my previous articles analysing the school's Child protection policy, the school has been dedicated towards finding any possible excuse not to make such referrals.

Only in the new version of the policy issued today (4 months after the initial visit in April) is any attempt made to fulfil these requirements. The 24 May 2010 version of the policy, and before that the 1 September 2009 version had none of this.

It would appear that the school has been breaking primary legislation for many years, perhaps even decades, and not returning Notifications to the DfE or the ISA, and in all that time the ISI and its predecessors have never noticed. You can't expect the ISI to police the school - if they have let this past for so many years, one can't really expect them to keep a close eye on the school hereafter.

Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education is 129 pages long. The report doesn't say what improvements should be made from from what sections of this document. So parents aren't in a position to know whether all the requested changes have been made.

The DfE has said that it is parents who are responsible for holding schools to account for child protection – clearly this is not understood by the ISI and so they determinedly do not inform parents of their expectations of the school – presumably because it would further damage the school’s reputation.

Soon after the inspection visits, the school had posted on its website a fully compliant version of its safeguarding policy, and it undertook that from September 2010 it would include examples of ways in which staff, volunteers and members of the religious community are guided to help avoid the possibility of allegations in the future.

The 24 May 2010 version of the policy most certainly did not comply with the requirements mentioned above in the report. The ISI appeared to be unaware of this when I contacted Durell Barnes on 4th August to ask him about it.

I was outraged when I saw this paragraph in the report, as I had received assurances from the DfE that they were aware of the 24 May version of the Child Protection Policy and did not regard it as the final compliant version. I phoned the DfE on 4th August demanding an explanation, following up with an email to describe my concerns. In reply, I received the following very cagey email from Georgina Carney of the DfE on 5 August.

Dear Mr West

Thank you for your email confirming the concerns we discussed.  The detail you have provided is helpful.

We have now obtained a copy of what the school considers to be the final version of its child protection document.  Officials are in the process of reviewing the document in detail and we will take advice from the relevant policy team. I confirm that any on-going concerns will be taken up with the school directly.

Georgina Carney
Independent Education and Boarding Schools Team
Department for Education

And yet the following appeared in an article in the Times the next day.

Anthony Nelson, solicitor for Ealing Abbey, said the Abbot was anxious to address the mistakes of the past and make sure they were never repeated.

“We held an urgent two-hour meeting with the ISI and the Department for Education last week to discuss the report and the school’s child protection policy is now completely compliant with their requirements,” said Mr Nelson.

Something similar appeared on the BBC website.

Chris Cleugh, St Benedict's current headmaster, says policy changes had been implemented since the visit.


"We have fully co-operated with the ISI while they did the inspection. Whenever they have made suggestions we have been very compliant.


"We would never do anything that would not ensure the safety of the children in this school."

But the fact is that at the time these statements were made, no significant changes had been made to the child protection policy. The ISI had made suggestions, and they simply hadn't been carried out.

On to the next paragraph of the ISI's statement on regulatory requirements:

Under Standard 4C of the Independent School Standards Regulations, the school was required to ensure that the dates of checks are included in the single central register of appointments. At the time of the second follow-up visit, this action had been taken.

What! The school didn't even maintain the statutory information properly in its central register of appointments? That is a scandal! Unfortunately, we don't know how much of a scandal, because the ISI hasn't been very specific in terms of what was missing. This is what Regulation 4C states.

4C.—(1) The proprietor shall keep a register which meets the following requirements.

(2) In relation to each member of staff appointed on or after 1st May 2007, the register shall show whether—

(a) his identity was checked;

(b) a check was made to establish whether he is subject to any direction made under section 142 of the Education Act 2002 or any disqualification, prohibition or restriction which takes effect as if contained in such a direction;

(c) checks were undertaken to ensure, where appropriate, that he had the relevant qualifications;

(d) an enhanced criminal record certificate was obtained in respect of him;

(e) checks were made pursuant to paragraph 4(2)(c);

(f) a check of his right to work in the United Kingdom was made; and

(g) checks were made pursuant to paragraph 4(2)(e),

and the register shall include the date on which each such check was completed or the certificate obtained.

That's a lot of different checks, and a lot of different dates to be entered. But we don't know which ones are missing, because the ISI doesn't say. And they didn't notice this in their November 2009 inspection.

As you can tell from the wording of Regulation 4C. correct maintenance of the register is crucial to safe recruitment practice, making sure that unqualified teachers are not appointed, and making sure that staff who have been found to be unsuitable to work with children are not appointed.

This is not limited to those who have actually been convicted of something. When a staff member is appointed, an enhanced disclosure CRB check is supposed to be conducted. This should reveal details of any Notifications reported by schools who had previously employed the person. A school really should not be recruiting a teacher who has been sacked by another school for inappropriate sexual conduct towards pupils, even if that conduct did not result in a criminal conviction. If there is any irregularity in the register of appointments, this is a the sort of thing that can happen.

This should have been noticed in the November 2009 inspection. Since the ISI didn’t notice that the school hadn’t published a compliant child protection policy, why should we believe them when they say that the school now has a compliant register of appointments?

Let us summarise the situation the ISI has found. At the time of their visit, the school had a Child Protection Policy that failed to fulfil the school's statutory obligations, and the school was not maintaining its central register of appointments according to statutory requirements. So it was practicing unsafe recruitment and inadequate child protection. And breaking the law in the process.

Safeguarding Meeting at St. Benedict's

Well well well!

The August edition of the Headmaster's newsletter includes the following fascinating article.

Inspections
Following the full Inspection in November 2009 ISI conducted a followup unannounced inspection in April. This was to look specifically at the safeguarding procedures here. We were advised by the Reporting Inspector not to inform parents until the report was complete. This report, commissioned by the DFE, was published in August. A copy of this report (selected parts of which have featured recently in both local and national press) will be sent to you by the end of the summer holiday with a covering letter. This will include an invitation to a meeting on Tuesday 14th September at 7.30pm in The Cloisters at which Fr Abbot, Mr Simmons and I will answer any questions you may have. Although the report does include recommendations which will be fully implemented, it most importantly affirms that your children are safe, happy and thriving here!

At the same time you will be sent a copy of the Diocesan Report following their Inspection in July. This is hugely affirming of the Catholic Benedictine life of the School.

Just in case you are a parent and haven't yet received a copy of the ISI report, then unfortunately you cannot download it from the school website. As far as I can tell they haven't yet put a copy up there. When you read it you may understand why they aren't very keen to publicise it. However a copy is available at the ISI website, and you can download it from there and read it. If you are a parent of a pupil at the school, I strongly recommend that you do so.

The ISI report is rather coy in some of the language it uses. This is not surprising given the shambolic incompetence in the ISI that the report reveals, quite apart from the failings of the school itself. The report highlights numerous shortcomings in child protection which have existed at the school for years, which were completely missed in the ISI's last two routine inspections in 2003/4 and 2009.

I have described the first two pages of the ISI supplementary report here and here. Keep checking in here, I shall in the next day or two be describing the "regulatory requirements" and "recommended actions" sections of the report, and what the words mean in plain language.

Also, it turns out that, entirely unheralded, an update the the school's Child Protection Policy has today been published on the school website. I haven't had a chance to look at it in detail yet, but I do notice that some changes have been made in areas I have been criticising. The definition of Sexual Abuse is much improved for instance, and some of the wording to do with internal investigations has been changed to say that matters of substance will be referred to Social Services. But I can see that many paragraphs remain largely unchanged, and there are still far too many weasel words in the document.

If you are a parent of a pupil at the school, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you should attend this meeting. It concerns the safety of your children. It is important that some serious questions are asked at the meeting. if you would like some help working out what are the necessary questions, feel free to contact me by email at jonathanwest22@googlemail.com, and I can help with this.

The Child Protection Policy - 21

Winding down now, but even in the last few pages of the St. Benedict's School child protection policy there are still some interesting little nuggets.

27. Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One - Pre-Preparatory School and Nursery: The School will inform Ofsted of any allegations of serious harm or abuse by any person living, working or looking after children on the premises of the Pre-Preparatory School or Nursery (whether that allegation relates to harm or abuse committed on the premises or elsewhere), or any other abuse which is alleged to have taken place on the premises and of the action taken in respect of those allegations. The School will inform Ofsted of these allegations as soon as reasonably practicable but in any event within 14 days of the allegations being made.

The first and most obvious question is why is there a special provision here for reporting allegations of harm to EYFS and Key Stage 1 pupils? Why do the older pupils in the school not benefit from the same provision? I suspect that what has happened is that the Senior School, Junior School and Pre-prep/Nursery used all to have their own separate policies, and that at some point it was thought a good idea to combine them. Whoever got given the task did a copy & paste job, eliminated obviously duplicated paragraphs, and left everything else more or less as it was. And then nobody bothered to look the document over for consistency and usability. That would explain why here and elsewhere there are differing provisions for senior school, junior school and nursery, without there being any good reason for them.

The second question is what is meant by "serious harm"? The term is not defined in the policy. Without a definition, there is huge scope for the threshold to be set differently for allegations of harm from monks or staff members, and allegations of harm from others.

Third question is why is Ofsted mentioned? The school is not inspected by Oftsed, it is inspected by ISI. Neither ISI nor Ofsted is a body tasked with investigating allegations of abuse. Ofsted would not have the faintest idea what to do with such a report if one were to be sent to them. Reports of this kind should go to the local Safeguarding Children Board. I suspect this paragraph has never actually been used, otherwise this weakness would have come to light. I suspect also that it hasn't even been reviewed since ISI took over inspection of the school from Ofsted, whenever that was. The recent ISI report suggests that this is probably the case, since it reports that according to school records, no allegation of abuse by monks or staff has been passed to the authorities at least since 2003.

Fourth, it is worth noting that "The School" will inform Oftsed. Unless the task is allocated to a specific person, then it will never get done, and nobody will be to blame because it wasn't anybody's specific responsibility. And again, the ISI report suggests that is exactly what has happened.

By the way, in any school with good safeguarding practice, allegations of abuse should be reported a heck of a lot quicker than within 14 days.

The Child Protection Policy - 20

This is where the policy plumbs new depths unreached previously even by the dismal standards of this document.

26. Allegations Against Staff Members

The School has procedures for dealing with allegations against staff (and volunteers who work with children) that aim to strike a balance between the need to protect children from abuse and the need to protect staff and volunteers from false or unfounded allegations. These procedures follow the guidance in chapter 5 of Safeguarding children and safer recruitment in education.

The school might have procedures, but they aren't written down here! And there is a little phrase that is very striking: "the need to protect staff and volunteers from false or unfounded allegations". I've come across that phrase before. At Father David Pearce's sentencing hearing, it was revealed that the publicly-stated reason for Pearce having been put on a restricted ministry was "to protect Father David from unfounded allegations". That was a letter written by Abbot Martin Shipperlee. The allegations, stretching across a great many years, were all-too-well founded, as the Abbot knew perfectly well. After all, Father Martin (as he was then) was Father David's immediate successor as Junior School headmaster. But that didn't stop that little phrase from getting used to cover up the true reason for Pearce's restricted ministry.

Suspension will not be an automatic response to an allegation. Full consideration will be given to all the options, subject to the need to ensure:

• the safety and welfare of the pupils or pupil concerned; and
• the need for a full and fair investigation.

If there is an allegation of mistreatment of a pupil by a member of staff, it is hard to imagine how the pupil's safety can be assured by any means other than the removal of the member of staff from proximity to the pupil. And it is hard to imagine how that can be done without the removal of the staff member from the premises. That means suspension. A suspension in such circumstances while an investigation is carried out should not be regarded as a disciplinary action, but rather as an administrative procedure. It shouldn't carry any implication as to the guilt or innocence of the staff member.

Oh, and that "full and fair investigation"? The school's not supposed to even attempt that. If there is a case of any substance, it should be referred immediately to the Local Safeguarding Children Board. But the policy strangely doesn't say that.

Where an allegation or complaint is made against the Designated Teacher, the matter should be reported immediately to the Headmaster. Where an allegation or complaint is made against the Headmaster, the person receiving the allegation should immediately inform the Chair of Governors, or in his absence the Prior, without first notifying the Headmaster.

This is great, except that the next step is completely missing. What is the Designated Teacher, or Headmaster, or Chair of Governors or Prior supposed to do with this reported allegation or complaint? Based on what is described in this policy, the answer is nothing, because nothing is precisely what is included on the subject.

Appendix 1 of this policy gives guidance to staff on how to ensure that their behaviour and actions do not place pupils or themselves at risk of harm or of allegations of harm to a pupil.

I'll come to Appendix 1 later.

If the School ceases to use the services of a member of staff (or a governor or volunteer) because they are unsuitable to work with children, a compromise agreement will not be used and there will be a prompt and detailed report to the Independent Safeguarding Authority. Any such incidents will be followed by a review of the safeguarding procedures within the School, with a report being presented to the Governors without delay.

This is actually not all that bad a paragraph. It ought to be elsewhere in the policy, as it deals with a rather different stage of the procedure, where as a result of an investigation it has been decided that the teacher is unsuitable to work with children. There's a whole lot of text that ought to be in the policy describing how you get from there to here which is entirely absent.

But the real problem with this paragraph is that we know the school ignores it. How do we know this? Because the ISI report says so, and they visited the school in April and May this year and examined the records. This is what the ISI had to say about the reporting of allegations.

"The allegations against Fr DP were referred to social services by the school following disclosure by a pupil. The school’s safeguarding records since 2003 do not mention any other report to social services in connection with concerns related to staff, volunteers, trustees or monks. All have been family or other matters."

Now, since 2003, there have been the following incidents.

1. The arrest and trial of Father Stanislaus Hobbs. At the time of his arrest in 2005, he was a Trustee. He was acquitted in 2007, but was placed on restricted ministry. To the best of my knowledge, he is still at the Abbey on restricted ministry.
   
2. The civil case brought by "C" against Father David Pearce and the school in 2006. The school lost the case and Pearce was placed on restricted ministry.
   
3. The various trials and convictions of John Maestri in 2003, 2005 and 2008. Admittedly Maestri had left the school (rather suddenly) in the 1980s, but the trials were concerned with offences whose victims were pupils at the school at the time, and the police investigations must have involved visits to the school.
   
4. The resignation as a Trustee of Father Gregory Chillman in 2010 and his being put on restricted ministry, at the time of a police and Social Services investigation.

Under various Education Acts from about 1959 onwards, if a governor or member of staff is sacked or resigns in circumstances where his or her suitability to work with children is at issue, there is a legal obligation to notify the event to the authorities. Over the years, with various government reorganisations, where the Notification should be sent has changed. In recent years it has been the DCSF Teacher Misconduct Section, but in 2009 it was changed to be the Independent Safeguarding Authority. Within the meaning of the Act, the Trustees fulfill the role of Governors, and so the resignations of Hobbs and Chillman at the very least should have been notified.

But according to the ISI, this didn't happen. If the ISI report is correct, this is a clear breach of the law by the school. Twice.

The ISI appears only to have examined the school's records as far back as 2003. One does wonder what happened in previous years. For instance it would be interesting to find out whether a Notification was sent at the time of John Maestri's abrupt departure from the school in the early 1980s, or whether a Notification was sent at the time of David Pearce's "retirement" as Junior School Headteacher. Since John Maestri was able to obtain a teaching post elsewhere after he left St. Benedict's, we can only conclude that no Notification was issued. That would rather suggest that the school has been breaking the law for the better part of 30 years.

This is utterly dreadful. Even where the school has a policy to report, it doesn't actually apply the policy, and breaks the law as a result. There is a very important conclusion to be drawn from this. Even if the policy were to be be rewritten properly, the school could still not be trusted to follow it. There is no more reason to expect the school to properly apply a good policy than there is to expect it to follow the good fragments of a bad policy.

Until such time as the Abbot and Headmaster show themselves to be trustworthy, they will have to be watched like hawks. Who is going to have to do that watching? You, the parents. There isn't anybody else who can.

The ISI can't do this for you. According to its report:

"Soon after the inspection visits, the school had posted on its website a fully compliant version of its safeguarding policy"

The inspection visits occurred on 30 April and 17 May. The version of the school's child protection policy I have been reviewing is dated 24 May. This is the policy the ISI thinks is "fully compliant". That should tell you all you need to know about the ability of the ISI to protect the pupils at the school.

Parents. Know this. You are utterly on your own.

The Child Protection Policy - 19

It doesn't get much better over the next two paragraphs.

24. External agencies: Whether or not the School decides to refer a particular complaint to the SSD or the police, the parents and pupil will be informed in writing of their right to make their own complaint or referral to the Social Services Department or the Child Protection Unit of the police and will be provided with contact names, addresses and telephone numbers, as appropriate.

Remember, this is a policy which has supposedly been changed by the school to be "fully compliant" with regulatory requirements described in the ISI report, which required that "no case of substance is investigate and dealt with under the school’s internal procedures". But this paragraph remains, which suggests that a complaint about a child protection matter made presumably a by a pupil or his parents may not be referred by the school to Social Services.

25. Monitoring of Low Level Child Protection Concerns in School

All concerns a teacher has regarding a child protection issue must be discussed with the Designated Teacher (with the exception of concerns about the Designated Teacher, where the Headmaster should be approached instead). There may be insufficient grounds or evidence to suggest referral to an outside agency. However, it must be stressed that this is not sufficient reason to ignore a concern. In case of doubt the Designated Teacher will contact either the duty social worker or the duty education welfare/social worker/LADO to seek clarification on what action should be taken.

Now, I do accept that there can be cases where a teacher quite properly brings a vague concern to the Designated Teacher - for instance a change in behaviour of a child which might conceivably be an indication of abuse but may well have a perfectly innocent explanation. Some degree of judgement does have to be exercised in deciding whether and when to make a referral. But this paragraph goes way beyond that. This paragraph talks about concerns about the designated teacher, and from the context it is clear that the paragraph also applies to concerns about other members of staff. If there is a concern which is sufficiently specific that it is about a particular member of staff, then it is unlikely that by the ISI's requirement such a case is appropriate to be managed internally within the school.

And yet this paragraph remains, with only minor changes relative to the September 2009 version of the policy. "Fully compliant"? I don't think so.

The Child Protection Policy - 18

And it gets worse...

23. Referral guidelines: A referral to the SSD or police will not normally be made where

• a referral would be contrary to the wishes of a pupil complainant who is of sufficient maturity and understanding and properly informed, and contrary also to the wishes of the complainant's parents; and
• the case is one that can be satisfactorily dealt with under the School's internal procedures, the parents being kept fully informed, as appropriate.

However, if during the course of the internal procedures and the procedures required under paragraph 5, it appears that the situation is more serious, the Designated Teacher will again consider whether a referral should be made in accordance with paragraph 22 above.

This is one of the few paragraphs that has been substantially changed in the May 2010 version, relative to the previous version published in September 2009. What used to be the first bullet has been deleted. The existing bullets used to be the 2nd & 3rd of this section, while the first bullet used to say this

• the complaint does not involve a serious criminal offence; and

What this means is that in the September 2009 version of the policy, a referral would be made if the complaint involved a serious criminal offence, irrespective of whether it was against the wishes of the child or parent. By deleting that bullet, the school has actually made it easier not to refer complaints, even in cases of serious criminal offences! This is heading in absolutely the opposite direction from what the ISI report demanded.

But we know from the ISI report that the school just doesn't refer cases involving staff or trustees to the authorities, irrespective of that the policy says. By making this change, the school appears to be thumbing its nose at the ISI.

The ISI report required that "no case of substance is investigated and dealt with under the school’s internal procedures". But the policy hasn't been changed to implement this. The second bullet of paragraph 23 is still talking about the school's internal procedures.

And the final sentence of paragraph 23 only promises that the Designated Teacher "will again consider whether a referral should be made" if the matter appears more serious, not that a referral will actually be made.

And if you find that this paragraph seems to cover much the same territory as paragraph 22, but saying slightly different things in a different way, you would be right. It all makes it that much easier for the school to find ways of not making a report to the authorities, they can pick and choose which version of the procedure they will apply - if in fact they bother to follow the procedure at all.

The Child Protection Policy - 17

Next we come to the procedures to be followed by the Designated Teacher on receipt of a report from another member of staff.

22. Action by the Designated Teacher: The action to be taken will take into account:

• the local inter-agency procedures of the Ealing Safeguarding Children Board;
  
  
• the nature and seriousness of the suspicion or complaint. A complaint involving a serious criminal offence will always be referred to the SSD or the police without further action within the School;
  
  
• the wishes of the pupil who has complained, provided that the pupil is of sufficient understanding and maturity and properly informed. However, there may be times when the situation is so serious that decisions may need to be taken, after all appropriate consultation, that override a pupil's wishes;
  
  
• the wishes of the complainant's parents, provided they have no interest which is in conflict with the pupil's best interests and that they are properly informed. Again, it may be necessary, after all appropriate consultation, to override parental wishes in some circumstances. If the Designated Teacher is concerned that disclosing information to parents would put a child at risk, he or she will take further advice from the relevant professionals before making a decision to disclose
  
  
• duties of confidentiality, so far as applicable;
  
  
• the lawful rights and interests of the School community as a whole including its employees and its insurers, whilst ensuring that a child’s interests are paramount;
  
  
• if there is room for doubt as to whether a referral should be made, the Designated Teacher may consult with the Local Authority Designated Officer or other appropriate professionals on a no names basis without identifying the family. However, as soon as sufficient concern exists that a child may be at risk of significant harm, a referral will be made within 24 hours. If the initial referral is made by telephone, the Designated Teacher will confirm the referral in writing to SSD within 24 hours. If no response or acknowledgment is received within three working days, the Designated Teacher will contact Social Services again.

I'm afraid we have utterly plumbed the depths again here. The first line really says it all. It says that bullets below describe what will be taken into account, not procedures for what will actually be done. This really isn't good enough.

The ISI supplementary report states the requirement very simply.

in the case of a disclosure or suspicion of abuse:

(i) the investigations are to be carried out by the local safeguarding children board or in case of doubt the advice of such an agency is to be sought;

(ii) the child’s interests are paramount;

(iii) referrals are made not only where a case is considered by the school to be serious and criminal;

(iv) no case of substance is investigated and dealt with under the school’s internal procedures.

So, let us make it clear what this means. Every allegation of any substance must be reported to the local safeguarding children board. The school must not investigate any case at all by itself.

There is a very good reason with this. The local safeguarding children board is not going to know the alleged perpetrator, and so is not going to be burdened with the belief that Mr. X or Father Y is a splendid chap who would never do such a thing. Also, the local safeguarding children board is not going to have a commercial interest in finding that there is nothing in the allegation. Paedophile cases are such bad business for a school, it frightens the parents something terrible to think that somebody might have been getting at little Johnny or Jemima.

And there is potentially a conflict of interest between a child who has been abused and the safety of the other children at the school. In many cases in different schools, parents have been persuaded that it is not in their child's best interest to make a formal complaint to the police or social services, because of the trauma of police questioning and the possibility of having to appear in court as a witness. So the parents are quietly promised that the teacher will be kept out of the way of their child, no action is taken against the teacher, everything is hushed up, and the teacher remains free to abuse other children.

But if no formal complaint is ever made, then the child can't be assessed to see what his or her needs really are. Because the local social services aren't informed, there is nothing done even to assess the continuing risk to that child. So the parents are gulled into thinking they are acting in the best interest of their child, when in fact the opposite is the case, and they never know because they have been kept away from the sources of advice that would enable them to make an informed decision about their child's welfare.

Now, I can't tell from merely reading the Child Protection Policy for St. Benedict's whether this scenario has occurred here. All I can say is that the policy as currently written would make it very easy for this to happen. Even though the policy states that "a serious criminal offence will always be referred to the SSD or the police" few parents will know the law well enough to know what kinds of acts involve a serious criminal offence. A large proportion of child sex abuse cases involve grooming the child before any serious physical contact is made, so that the child is drawn into complicity in the act. Unless the parents know the law well, it is possible to pass off almost anything short of rape or forcible buggery as not being a serious criminal offence, and a groomed child isn't going to be thinking that he or she has been the subject of a forced physical assault.

Also, the mention of duties of confidentiality in the policy can easily be manipulated to suggest that the school cannot make a report to social services without the consent of the child and the parents, and then the school goes about persuading the parents that in the interest of their child they ought not to consent.

Again, from the document I can't tell whether these kinds of games have been played by the school - they are certainly things that can and do happen elsewhere. All I can say is that the language of the policy looks designed to enable it.

The ISI commented in its report that "the school’s written policy for dealing with allegations and suspicions of abuse was focused on investigation by the school rather than speedy referral to outside agencies". Such investigation by the school is inherently bad safeguarding practice, and is open to the most serious abuse. That is why the ISI report required that "the investigations are to be carried out by the local safeguarding children board".

Once the local safeguarding children board has done an investigation (aided or not by the police as appropriate), there will be one of three possible outcomes.

1. The allegation is decided to be without foundation.
   
   
2. A criminal charge should be brought against the alleged abuser.
   
   
3. If the alleged abuser is a member of staff or a governor, and the allegation has substance but does not involve a criminal offence, the matter is referred back to the school to undertake whatever disciplinary action is appropriate.

It is notable that the school's policy is entirely silent on what to do when social services refers a case back to the school under the third of these possible outcomes. The policy appears to treat a referral to social services as the end of their involvement.

Or more likely, the school has nothing on this subject because they never refer an allegation against staff or trustees to any outside agency. And in fact, the ISI report makes it clear that this is in fact the case.

The allegations against Fr DP were referred to social services by the school following disclosure by a pupil. The school’s safeguarding records since 2003 do not mention any other report to social services in connection with concerns related to staff, volunteers, trustees or monks.

On the occasion that they referred the allegations against Father David Pearce, the school had already lost the civil case against "C" (who had been awarded £43,000) and was at the time the subject of a Statutory Inquiry by the Charity Commission whose report was yet to be published, and had made a promise to the Charity Commission inspectors that Father David would be prevented from having access to children in future. I suspect that if the Charity Commission had discovered the case for themselves without it having been reported by the school, then the Charity Commission would have seriously considered deregistering the Trust as a charity.

The Child Protection Policy - 16

We now move on to the paragraphs collectively titled "Procedures". This is a bit strange, since some of the previous paragraphs have also been describing what staff are supposed to do in various circumstances.

Paragraphs 18-21 describe what a teacher hearing an allegation is supposed to do. I'll quote the whole of these four paragraphs together.

18. Initial complaint

A member of staff suspecting or hearing a complaint of abuse:

• must listen carefully to the child and keep an open mind. Staff should not take a decision as to whether or not the abuse has taken place;
• must not ask leading questions, that is, a question which suggests its own answer (“was it your father?” or “did this take place on Tuesday when you were away?”);
• must reassure the child but not give a guarantee of absolute confidentiality. The member of staff should explain that they need to pass the information to the Designated Teacher who will ensure that the correct action is taken;
• must keep a sufficient written record of the conversation. The record should include the date, time and place of the conversation and the essence of what was said and done by whom and in whose presence. The record should be signed by the person making it and should use names, not initials. The record must be kept securely and handed to the Designated Teacher.

19. Preserving Evidence: All evidence (for example scribbled notes, mobile phones containing text messages, clothing, computers), must be safeguarded and preserved.

20. Record

• Make brief notes as soon as possible after the meeting. This may be possible in the meeting itself.
• Write up your notes in full and include time, date, place and signature.
• Describe observable behaviour e.g. was shaking, continued to cry, constantly moved around the room. (Do not interpret these features)
• Record the actual words spoken by the child wherever possible.

21. Reporting: All suspicion or complaints of abuse must be reported to the Designated Teacher, or if the complaint involves the Designated Teacher, to the Headmaster or other Deputy.

Paragraph 18 isn't at all bad. The steps to be taken are broadly the ones required by good safeguarding practice. I would quibble a bit about the phrase "sufficient written record" - sufficient for what? Basically the record should contain everything the teacher can reasonably remember about what the child has said and about the child's behaviour at the time.

Paragraph 19 is a bit more of a problem in the way it is written. Mobile phones and computers not already the property of the school cannot be taken from their owners without consent, even if they contain evidence of possible abuse. To do so is theft. In the event that evidence is contained within such items, the safeguarding of evidence must consist of copying the information and promptly returning the device to its owner. Furthermore, in the event of an allegation or suspicion of a crime, it is not the task of the school to investigate, but instead to immediately refer the matter to the police and/or Social Services, who have both the duty and authority to obtain and safeguard evidence in the way described.

Paragraph 20 is a more extended version of the record-keeping part of the last bullet of paragraph 18.

Similarly, paragraph 21 is an extended version of the reporting requirements of the last bullet of paragraph 18. There is some contradiction here. Paragraph 18 requires that the report is provided to the Designated Teacher, while paragraph 21 qualifies this, in the case where the Designated Teacher is the subject of the complaint, in which case the report is provided to the Headmaster or other deputy.

In fact, good safeguarding practice should have a slightly more formal reporting chain than this, unambiguously covering all possible cases. The report should be made to the Designated Teacher if the concern involves the conduct of a volunteer, visitor, governor, trainee or another young person or child, or somebody from outside the school. If the concern involves the conduct of a member of staff, the report should be made to the Headteacher. If the concern involves the conduct of the Headteacher, the report should be made to the governor or trustee who has been designated as having responsibility for child protection. In the absence of such a designated governor, the chairman of trustees (i.e. the Abbot) automatically assumes that role.

For all that these paragraphs are about the best-written of the document so far (not all that much of a commendation admittedly), they still give the impression of not really having been read and edited for consistency and organisation. Something this sloppily put together doesn't inspire confidence in the care with which it has been written or will be implemented.

The Child Protection Policy - 15

On whistleblowing:

17. Whistleblowing

All staff are required to report to the Designated Teacher, any concern or allegations about school practices or the behaviour of colleagues which are likely to put pupils at risk of abuse or other serious harm. In exceptional cases such reports should be made to Ofsted. There will be no retribution or disciplinary action taken against a member of staff for making such a report provided that it is done in good faith.

This is another paragraph that has a misleading title. Reporting an allegation made against staff to the Designated Teacher is not whistleblowing by any commonly understood meaning of the term. Whistleblowing is where the reporting of abuses within the chain of authority has failed to bring about action and somebody decides to raise the matter in public.

There cannot be any procedure on whistleblowing, as it will only happen when the procedures have broken down. To have a paragraph in the procedures on whistleblowing is meaningless and can only be designed to fool parents into thinking that staff have the freedom to raise issues outside the chain of authority without retribution. If the procedures have in fact broken down, then any such assurances are without any value.

OFSTED in any case is not an appropriate recipient for reports. Reports of adult-on-child abuse should be made to the Local Authority Designated Officer for child protection, part of Social Services, and reports of child-on-child abuse should be made to Children's Services.