Allegations against staff: the steps inspectors most often find missing

When a child says a member of staff has hurt them, sworn at them or behaved wrongly towards them, the home has to act quickly. It also has to do things in the right order. Most managers know this, and most homes have a written procedure that sets it out.

Those procedures are usually good. Every council has an officer who looks into allegations against people who work with children. This person is called the local authority designated officer, often shortened to LADO. We read three procedures that are published openly, and all three say the home must refer an allegation to this officer within one working day.

Even so, inspectors keep finding the same failures. We read a sample of 658 full inspection reports in detail. In that sample, inspectors criticised how a home handled an allegation against staff 159 times, in 143 different homes. Nearly three out of four of those criticisms (72%) became a requirement. A requirement means the home has broken the regulations and must put it right by a set date.

The steps homes most often miss

For each criticism, we noted which step the home had missed. Many criticisms named more than one step, so the percentages add up to more than 100.

The most common failure is not a missed deadline. It is that nobody outside the situation checked how it had been handled. This came up in almost half of the criticisms.

The second most common failure is the written record. Inspectors found records that were too brief, spread across different places, or impossible to find on the day.

The third is the referral to the designated officer. In more than a third of criticisms, the referral was late or was never made. That happens even though every procedure we read sets the same one day deadline.

The ten steps we suggest

Taken together, the evidence points to ten steps. We have put them in the order they need to happen.

1. Whoever hears the allegation tells the manager straight away. They write down what the child said before they talk to anyone else about it. If the allegation is about the manager, they tell the deputy or the responsible individual instead.
2. Decide that day what happens to the member of staff. They might be suspended, moved to other duties or supervised. Write down what you decided, why you decided it, and the time.
3. Refer the allegation to the designated officer within one working day. Do this even if you think the allegation is untrue.
4. Tell Ofsted. Regulation 40 says Ofsted must be told about any allegation of abuse against someone working in the home. Keep a copy of what you sent.
5. Tell the child's social worker and the council that placed the child on the same day.
6. Keep one record of events, in one place. Write down every conversation, every decision and the reason for it.
7. Keep the child informed and supported. Remind them that they can have an independent advocate to speak up for them.
8. Make sure the person who checks the handling was not involved in it.
9. Record the outcome using the official categories, and act on it. If the member of staff is dismissed, you may need to refer them to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
10. Every three months, look at all allegations and smaller concerns together. Look for patterns, such as the same member of staff or the same shift coming up again.

The steps themselves are simple. Homes tend to go wrong in the detail, and the rest of this post explains that detail.

What Ofsted says good looks like

Inspectors grade every children's home against a published guide. It is called the social care common inspection framework, or SCCIF for short. For each of the three grades a home receives, the guide describes what a good home does. Inspectors use those descriptions as their benchmark.

Allegations against staff come under the grade for how well children are helped and protected. This is what the guide says about them:

“Investigations into allegations or suspicion of harm are shared with the appropriate agencies and are handled fairly, quickly and in accordance with statutory guidance. Children are supported and protected. Support is given both to the person making the allegation and the person who is the subject of the allegation.”

This grade carries extra weight. If a home is graded inadequate for helping and protecting children, its overall grade will always be inadequate too.

Two of the ten steps also count towards the grade for leadership. The first is telling Ofsted. The guide expects the registered person to make sure that “notifications of all significant events that relate to the welfare and protection of children living in the home are made to the appropriate authorities.” The second is the check by someone who was not involved. Here the guide simply says that “proper investigations are carried out.”