Authors: David O Connor, Director, Learning and Innovation and Lloyd Fleming, Group Finance Director
SMT Sponsor: Adirupa Sengupta (Group Chief Executive of Common Purpose Charitable Trust)
Area of Governance: Board of Trustees
Date for Renewal: August 2022
Approved by: Common Purpose Board of Trustees
Geographical Scope: For all Common Purpose employees, volunteers and representatives worldwide, except in countries where the following policy contravenes local legislation. In these cases, local legislation must be followed with guidance from the Director, Learning and Innovation.This document will apply if Common Purpose policy is more stringent than local legislation.
Confidentiality: Public, additional guidelines and materials are available internally
Policy Statement
Common Purpose, for the purposes of this policy and procedures document, considers a Vulnerable Person as an adult who may be restricted in capacity to guard himself / herself against harm or exploitation or to report such harm or exploitation. Restriction of capacity may arise as a result of physical or intellectual impairment. Vulnerability to abuse is influenced by both context and individual circumstances.
A core governance responsibility is to ensure that safeguarding policies and procedures and associated practices are in place and appropriate to the activities provided.
Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to ensure that Common Purpose exercises its duty of care to safeguard children and vulnerable adults.
We also have a duty to protect our trustees, staff, volunteers and programme participants (including children and vulnerable adults) from any harm that may be caused due to their coming into contact with Common Purpose. This includes harm arising from:
The policy lays out the commitments made by Common Purpose, and informs trustees, staff and associated personnel of their responsibilities in relation to safeguarding.
This policy does not cover:
Scope
This Policy and Procedure applies to:
In cases where we are not the lead partner, then it is expected that we will encourage and advocate for our partners to either follow the Common Purpose Safeguarding Policy or develop their own.
Programme participants and members of the public are not within the scope of the policy. Programme participant behaviour is addressed through the Common Purpose Conventions and the terms of conditions of their specific programme.
Principles
All our policies and procedures promote welfare, reflect inclusion and transparency in the provision of activities, and promote a culture of safeguarding.
The practices and procedures within this policy are based on the principles contained in UK legislation and guidelines from the Charity Commission for England. They take the following into consideration:
Implementation
Responsibility for leading implementation of this policy and procedure rests with the Common Purpose Operations Team, namely the People & Operations Director.
The People & Operations Director will have overall responsibility for implementation of this policy and procedure within their administrative area, and, will ensure that each manager of relevant Common Purpose activities will undertake the following:
A full version of our Safeguarding policy is available here.