The CSSA confirms safeguarding audit judgements on two religious life groups

2 February 2026

In the first audit of their safeguarding practice today, two religious life groups have been judged by the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) with the following grades:

Priory of Our Lady of Peace (Turvey Abbey) – Met

Unnamed Religious Life Group[1] – Results Being Achieved

The Inspectorate for England and Wales report that these two religious life groups demonstrate progress towards the eight national safeguarding standards.

They both offered evidence to independent analysts from within the CSSA about how they help keep people safe.

Steve Ashley, Chief Executive Officer, CSSA said: “These baseline results show satisfactory levels of safeguarding in both church bodies.

“They must both sustain progress and make improvement. Only this way can they assure the public that everything possible is being done to help prevent harm.”

CSSA safeguarding audits for larger religious life groups range on a scale from: ‘below basic,’ ‘basic,’ ‘early progress,’ ‘firm progress,’ ‘comprehensive assurance’ and ‘exemplary.’

For smaller religious life groups, grades range from: ‘not met,’ ‘met with recommendations’ and ‘met.’ In each case, the overall grading represents a combination of their scoring across eight areas of work relating to safeguarding standards.

The CSSA publish the safeguarding audit and inspection results from every Catholic diocese, religious life group and eparchy in England and Wales. You can find the audits for religious life groups HERE.

[1] Footnote:

[1] In accordance with CSSA practice, a redacted version of this report has been published in order to mitigate an identified risk of harm to individuals.

ENDS

 More information about the CSSA’s audit and inspection process can be found  HERE