The CSSA judges Shrewsbury as ‘Results Being Achieved’ in safeguarding people.
9 July 2024
The Catholic Diocese of Shrewsbury, in the first audit of their safeguarding practice today, has been judged by the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) to be graded as ‘Results Being Achieved’. The regulatory agency for England and Wales report that the Diocese demonstrate clear evidence of working towards the eight national safeguarding standards. The Diocese was able to satisfy independent auditors from within the CSSA about how it keeps people safe.
Shrewsbury was strongest across three areas including: leadership and governance; how safeguarding messages are communicated and human resource management. These three standards were each graded ‘Comprehensive Assurance’, the second highest possible grading. All other standards received a grading of ‘Results being Achieved’ or ‘Firm Progress’. Crucially, auditors found evidence of a clear strong safeguarding culture, championed by the Bishop and other senior leaders.
The CSSA auditors identified further scope for development around capturing learning from cases. There is also work to be done around the training needs of some volunteers and lay employees who are likely to come into contact with children or vulnerable adults.
The CSSA’s recommendations for Shrewsbury include: to regularly review their safeguarding plans in response to the audit findings; to develop ways of getting feedback from victims and survivors of abuse; and training in the supervision of known, or suspected, offenders.
Steve Ashley, Chief Executive Officer, CSSA says: “These results show that Shrewsbury is achieving the standards expected, and they should be satisfied with their progress in helping keep people safe in their churches and communities across the Catholic diocese. They must keep improving. Only this way can they assure a wider public that everything possible is being done to help prevent harm.
“We know that for some survivors, what we find in our audit of today’s safeguarding, may not represent their past experience. We are acutely aware how painful this can be sometimes for individuals. Our door is open, and we will never compromise on scrutinising a church body’s commitment to survivors now or in the future. We are sorry where this causes pain to anyone based on their personal history with the Catholic Church.”
Having exceeded potential lower gradings (in a scale ranging from ‘below basic,’ ‘basic’ ‘early progress’ and ‘firm progress’) Shrewsbury have further work to do to achieve either of the two higher gradings possible (namely ‘Comprehensive Assurance’ and ‘Exemplary’). The overall grading of ‘Results Being Achieved’ represents a combination of the Diocese’s scoring across eight areas of work relating to safeguarding standards.
The CSSA publish the Executive Summary of safeguarding audits from every Catholic Church body in England and Wales. You can find the Executive Summary of Shrewsbury’s audit here.
ENDS
More information about the CSSA’s audit process can be found HERE.
Journalists: to speak with Steve Ashley, CEO, or Nazir Afzal, OBE, Chair, please initially contact Sarah Gleadall: sarah.gleadall@catholicsafeguarding.org.uk