Ever felt like keeping up with safeguarding regulations is like trying to complete a 1000-piece puzzle in the dark?
In an ever-evolving regulatory landscape, staying compliant with UK safeguarding regulations isn't just about ticking boxes – it's about ensuring the genuine safety and protection of vulnerable individuals. With significant changes on the horizon for 2025, including the new Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill and updates to Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) safeguarding requirements, organisations need to be more vigilant than ever.
Step 1: Conducting a Safeguarding Audit of Your Practices
Before diving into regulatory requirements, it's crucial to understand where your organisation currently stands. Our previous blog goes into this in considerable detail so we will just provide the basics here. A comprehensive safeguarding audit serves as your foundation for compliance and improvement.
Key areas to assess include:
Current safeguarding policies and procedures
Staff training records and competency levels
Incident reporting mechanisms
Documentation systems
Risk assessment protocols
Digital safeguarding measures
Pro tip: Use a structured audit checklist that covers all aspects of your safeguarding framework. The NSPCC's safeguarding checklist provides an excellent starting point and we also created a handy risk assessment template as well.
Step 2: Reviewing Regulatory Requirements for Your Sector
This critical step requires systematic approach and careful documentation. Here's how to make this complex process manageable
2.1First,establish your regulatory landscape.
Recent updates and upcoming changes make this step particularly crucial in 2025. Key regulations to review could include:
You also need to inspect any governing bodies that oversee your organisation as well. With the above being updated they may also refer to these to update their own policies so it might be worth reaching out to them ahead of making any changes.
2.2 Practical Steps for Review
Create a digital folder for each regulatory area and download the latest versions of all relevant guidance. You can also set up automatic alerts for regulatory updates (use services like GOV.UKemail alerts)
Break down the requirements and create a spreadsheet with columns for:
Regulatory requirement
Source document/section
Last update date
Next review date
Responsible person
Current compliance status
For those that really like to be organise, include prioritisation ratings based on:
Critical (must have)
Important (should have)
Advisory (nice to have)
2.3 Making Sense of Complex Regulations
A useful hack we like is the "Three-Pass" System:
First Pass: Quick scan for major changes and requirements
Second Pass: Detailed reading with highlighting key points
Third Pass: Implementation planning
This can feel like a lot of reading and hard work, so consider creating or searching for summary documents such as one-page overviews of key requirements and quick-reference guides. Consider creating visual flowcharts for complex procedures as this may help you as many people are visual learners.
Whilst AI may seem scary the advances and benefits it brings can help you summarise what can be very large documents. AI is still in its infancy, it’s at the model T Ford stage of the evolution of car industry so to speak. So we advise using it as a guide and then focus in on the areas of specific interest in the original document to check it’s been summarised correctly. You can also use AI to explain what is being meant as quite often overly 'engineered' language is used, ie. legal jargon!
If you’ve any questions, don’t be afraid to ask. There are plenty of free resources out there to help including our own LinkedIn group. You’re unlikely to be the only person with that question so sharing within this group will get you the answer but also help others.
Step 3: Conducting a Gap Analysis of Your Safeguarding Practices
You can now use your initial audit to compare your current practices against regulatory requirements using a systematic approach. Your evidence gathering, including all your checks, interviews with staff etc can all now be used again to compare with your regulatory updates.
Create a comparison matrix that shows current practice vs. Required standard, which could have the following columns
Regulatory Requirement
Current Practice
Evidence Available
Gap Identified
Risk Level (High/Medium/Low)
Action Required
Resource Needs
Timeline
Responsible Person
We’ve, unsurprisingly, come across organisations that haven’t updated their policies for some time, they’ve been written and forgotten about. There are also examples of DBS checks for current teachers being 20+ years old. This is the sort of thing an audit will pull out and allow you to measure where you are against expectations. Here are some other common gaps to look out for:
Insufficient staff training documentation
Outdated policies not reflecting new digital risks
Inadequate record-keeping systems
Gaps in recruitment safeguarding measures
Interpreting and expectations
We've also seen interpretations of what was meant in the original regulations might have changed over time. For example, the Department for Education state that an ‘online background check should take place when recruiting new teachers'. Firstly, the definition of ‘online’ will have dramatically changed since this was written. It’s not just a case of googling their name any more, there are multiple social media platforms to consider. Also, the word ‘should’ is somewhat ambiguous and if you were to ask them now they’ll tell you to interpret that as ‘must’. So it’s a great opportunity to check you’re meeting the required standards across a number of areas and identify what needs updating.
Step 4: Making Recommendations for Improvement
Transform your gap analysis into actionable improvement, prioritise changes based on the risk level and implementation a timeframe. You’ll may have to manage yourself carefully as we realise that in a lot of instances, you’re probably the only resource working on these so you won’t be able to do everything in one go.
Consider professional support for complex areas or anything you’re not confident in delivering yourself. Particularly if you need to do major regulatory changes or it’s a specialised sector. Our Safeguarding Collective partners Cornerstone Safeguarding can help you with any elements when you’ve identified your gaps and prioritised your actionable updates.
Keeping On Top of Safeguarding Regulations Summary
Stay ahead of changes through:
Regular policy reviews (2 or 3 a year)
Subscription to regulatory update services
Active participation in sector forums
Consult with experts to ensure you've not missed anything
Remember: Effective safeguarding is an ongoing journey, not a destination. Regular reviews and updates are essential for maintaining best practices and ensuring compliance.
Would you like more specific information about any of these sections or guidance on implementing particular aspects of the review process? Please contact us