Corporate report

Safeguarding Annual Report 2022-23 (agenda item 7)

Published 22 December 2023

Applies to England

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland
• Publication for Wales

Paper 12/23

Executive Summary

This report covers Forestry England, Forest Services, Commissioners Office and Forest Research for the period 1 April 2022 to the end of 31 March 2023.

There have been three safeguarding incidents reported during the year, with learning actions completed or in progress. As a result, we have further strengthened procedures with specific teams to ensure we can meet our moral and statutory duties and better support colleagues dealing with challenging situations. There have also been updates completed to the Safeguarding PPG and supporting guidance, around PREVENT and counter Terrorism.

Further progress has been made in embedding safeguarding principles across the Forestry Commission over the last 12 months, although it is recognised there is more to do in embedding policies, practices and specifically heightening awareness of safeguarding reporting. Heightening awareness of safeguarding reporting, and specifically the nature of what needs to be reported, will lead to a more accurate reporting and a fuller picture being available for management review.

The rollout of both the mandatory and level 2 child and adult safeguarding training courses have had a strong uptake across the organisation, by both staff and volunteers. Over this reporting period a total of 394 training engagements have been completed for these courses. The provision of training continues to be reviewed to maintain its relevance and effectiveness to a variety of staff groups, such as the social prescribing teams.

The challenge of previous years around completing enhanced Disclosure Barring Checks (DBS) for staff has been resolved, and HR are now supporting units to implement these checks with all relevant staff.

Introduction / context

The Safeguarding Policy sets out how safeguarding of children, young people and adults at risk of harm or abuse will be achieved across the Forestry Commission and is supported by operational guidance.

Safeguarding means protecting a person’s right to live in safety, free from abuse and neglect. All staff within the Forestry Commission have a duty of care to safeguard people within their teams, volunteers, contractors, agency staff and visitors to the nation’s forests, with extra care taken to protect those who are least able to protect themselves. Children, young people and vulnerable adults, can be at particular risk of abuse or neglect.

Forestry Commission continues to fulfil our legal and moral duties to protect vulnerable children and adults, through applying PPG 16 – Safeguarding in conjunction with legal requirements, this is further supported with guidance and toolkits for managers.

• The Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) is responsible for providing the overarching direction in safeguarding for the Forestry Commission
• The Senior Responsible Owner for safeguarding is responsible for ensuring that the Forestry Commission complies with its statutory duties
• The safeguarding SRO will have oversight across Forestry England, Forest Services, Forest Research and will produce an annual review of the system and whether we have met our statutory requirements
• All employees must follow the processes identified in the escalation flow diagrams for reporting
• Training at the appropriate level must be renewed every three years as a minimum;
• For staff, volunteers, contractors & agency workers, ensure that the appropriate pre-engagement DBS checks are completed for the role they are to undertake
• Staff and volunteers to notify their supervisor of any convictions which they may receive which may impact on their role
• All staff, agency staff, contractors and volunteers in roles must have an appropriate level DBS check for their role. All roles identified to need a standard or enhanced check must be renewed every three years as a minimum
• Require that third party/permissions individuals and organisations have the appropriate safeguarding procedures in place to enable them to deliver a safe and effective programme
• Forestry Commission supports ex-offenders to take up employment and volunteer roles across the Forestry Commission. Convictions will be reviewed against the specific role with the support of HR.
• Ensure personal details are held securely in line with GDPR.

Taking forward the Safeguarding Policy during the year

Forestry England, Forest Services, Forest Research and Commissioners Office

1). Implementation of required Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) Checks for staff and volunteers is being conducted, as required based on individual’s role within Forestry Commission.

A new contract has been established to enable staff enhanced DBS checks to be completed more efficiently, with 88 staff now checked, and over 50 further staff, currently working though the checking process. This is good progress, based on our original analysis of prospective staff whose job roles require an enhanced DBS check. Further analysis of individuals roles has been done by managers, prior to completing checks with the support of the national safeguarding leads where required.

Forest Services have identified a small number of roles which will now require enhanced DBS checks, as increased public engagement programmes are implemented. Work is underway to implement the relevant checks.

2). Recruitment of a Technical Safeguarding Advisor for Forestry England. This new permanent post has been secured as part of the 2023 / 24 business plans and is currently being recruited for. This role will support the National Safeguarding leads, to further embed safeguarding across Forestry England and support the wider federated departments as appropriate. This will significantly enhance our corporate capacity and capability to support the delivery of Safeguarding.

3). Rollout of Safeguarding training to staff and volunteers based on their job role.

Monitoring uptake of the all-staff mandatory training continues to be challenging, as we are currently unable to receive completion data from Civil Service Learning. Requests to colleagues to update their personal learning records has been communicated, but data continues to be unreliable. Discussions are underway to look at alternative provision for this level of training through the Forestry eLearning platform, in line with the volunteer training. Moving away from Civil Service Learning would enable full capture of training update data and enable targeted actions to ensure compliance with PPG16 which are not currently possible.

Level 2 Safeguarding training has received good uptake, and positive feedback on the delivery of the course content. There has been 180 public facing staff and volunteers participating in the training over this reporting period. As we review this against the number of individuals completing enhanced DBS checks, and previous years engagement in the training, we feel we have strong uptake on this training. Demand for the training remains strong, and further courses are being scheduled throughout 2023, with a blend of in person and virtual training courses to be provided.

Senior leader training in Safeguarding has been scoped, as per last year’s report aspirations. This will be taken forward when the new Safeguarding Technical Advisor has been recruited.

4). Updates to the PPG and Guidance has been completed relating to PREVENT and Counter Terrorism and released to the business. Development work is also underway for a toolkit, focusing on safeguarding on digital platforms. This will be finalised on the recruitment of the new Technical Safeguarding Advisor, and then rolled out to the business.

5). Forest Research - There has been good progress made towards the priority areas identified in the Safeguarding policy at Forest Research (FR). Actions include communication to all staff and supporting general awareness around safeguarding. FR deliver training on the policy at staff centre meetings on an annual basis.

Safeguarding incidents

Incidents, concerns or near misses.
Forestry England, Forest Services, and Commissioners Office

The monitoring of Safeguarding incidents, concerns or near misses is now being completed via Airsweb. Work has been completed to ensure that the appropriate permissions are in place to enable confidential reporting of the incidents and appropriate investigation.

Reporting permissions for Safeguarding on Airsweb are now in place for all Forestry England staff, Forest Services and Forest Research.

The national safeguarding leads have worked closely with district leads to raise awareness for reporting process, along with including as part of the level 2 Safeguarding training, but we suspect some missed reporting, which we are working to rectify, via communications and training.

Forestry England

Over this reporting period there have been three safeguarding concerns or near misses reported within Forestry England. Each case has been supported by the national safeguarding leads, to review and where appropriate report to the relevant authorities and or record and cascade lessons learned. A summary of these incidents can be found in Appendix 1.

Forest Research, Forest Services and Commissioners Office
No safeguarding incidents, concerns or near misses to report for this period.

Performance measures

Training

The following section outlines the number of employees of the Forestry Commission and volunteers within Forestry England who have completed relevant training in Safeguarding.

As outlined earlier in the report, data relating to the update of all staff mandatory training continues to be unreliable, as this requires employees to manually update their learning records once completed. Discussions are underway to look at alternative provision for this level of training through the Forestry eLearning platform, in line with the volunteer training. Moving away from Civil Service Learning would enable full automated capture of training update data and enable targeted actions to ensure compliance with PPG16 which are not currently possible.

Engagement with the level 2 Safeguarding training, when analysed against the number of individuals requiring an enhanced DBS, check would indicate a strong engagement both from the individuals themselves and their managers.

Mandatory safeguarding training

Employee’s – 164 individuals have recorded on their personal learning record. Volunteers – 50 participants

Level 2 safeguarding training

Employee’s and Volunteers – 180 participants

Senior managers training

This training has been scoped and supplier identified. This will be developed and rolled out when the Safeguarding Technical Advisor is in post.

Disclosures completed

This section outlines the number of Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) checks which have been completed across Forestry Commission over the past 12 months. This includes, new employees, changes in role and renewals.

Based on initial analysis work of job roles across Forestry England, we identified a possible 291 individuals who may require an Enhanced DBS check. Further analysis work was then completed, to review the specifics of jobs with the support of the individual and their managers, prior to checks being completed. In the 6 months since we initiated the new contract for enhanced DBS checks, 88 individuals have completed checks, and a further 50 are currently being processed, representing a strong start. We will continue to actively require completion of the check for existing members of staff / volunteers whose roles require it, monitoring uptake, to ensure we are meeting the requirements set out in PPG16.

Due to challenges relating to existing contract for employee checks there has been a historic delay in completing enhanced checks for both new and existing staff in Forestry England. This has now been resolved, with a separate contractors put in place to complete enhanced checks for staff as above.

Disclosure Barring Service Check level (England classifications)

Business Area	Basic	Standard	Enhanced (with or without barred list)
Forestry England	252	0	88
Forestry England: Volunteers	27	0	54
Forest Services	160	0	0
Forest Research	4	0	0
Commissioners Office	9	0	0
TOTAL	452	0	142

Priorities for the year ahead

Forestry England, Forest Services & Commissioners Office:

• Recruitment and onboarding of the Safeguarding Technical Advisor
• Establishment of a safeguarding lead forum, to provide improved communication and support
• Development and rollout of senior leader safeguarding awareness training
• Establish mandatory safeguarding training for all staff and volunteers, on Forestry eLearning
• Development of additional manager toolkits as outlined above
• Ongoing monitoring of incidents, concerns and near misses relating to Safeguarding. Ensuring we take action to change processes and systems where needed and share best practice across the organisation
• Communications plan, to further enhance awareness and understanding for Safeguarding of children and adults and the 14 areas of harm

Forest Research

FR will continue to communicate the safeguarding policy via newsletters on the Internet and at staff centre meetings. Monitoring of the Airsweb reporting system for any safeguarding incidences will be carried out and ensuring all safeguarding incidences are investigated as per policy. The delivery of safeguarding awareness remains a key priority at FR, with the requirement that all staff are provided with the appropriate level of awareness, according to their role and responsibilities. The delivery of Safeguarding awareness will ensure that every member of staff is aware of their safeguarding responsibilities, recognises abuse and knows what to do about it, as the minimum requirement.

Mike Seddon, Chief Executive, Forestry England & FC SRO Safeguarding