The CSSA judges Portsmouth as ‘Results Being Achieved’ in safeguarding people.

10 June 2024

The Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, 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 demonstrates 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.

Portsmouth was particularly strong on three specific areas, achieving their highest grades in these standards: safeguarding being embedded in their leadership and culture, robust human resource management and training and support for safeguarding. The Diocese was consistently strong against all other five standards.

Crucially, the Bishop was seen to be leading on safeguarding, delivering safeguarding messages, having clear expectations on clergy in terms of safeguarding training, and evidencing strong working relationship with the Head of Safeguarding. The committee shows evidence of consistent oversight of safeguarding policy and practice. Clergy regularly demonstrate the pastoral standards in ministry they are expected to maintain. There was a commitment from interviewees in various roles to learn from survivors, to improve safeguarding practice.

The CSSA’s recommendations for Portsmouth include to further strengthen survivor engagement by creating a mechanism to capture feedback. The Diocese should also improve learning by sharing with Parish Safeguarding Ministers (PSM’s) reflections from reviews into safeguarding practice. Other recommendations include reviewing the support available for those against whom allegations are made, to ensure their needs are being met.

Steve Ashley, Chief Executive Officer, CSSA, says: “Portsmouth 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 not compromise in 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’) Portsmouth 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 Catholic Church bodies in England and Wales. You can find the Executive Summary of Portsmouth’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