AccessNI Vetting

In Northern Ireland, the police checking body is called AccessNI. This is a department of the devolved government in Northern Ireland, based in Belfast. Just as in Scotland, England and Wales, there are the three levels of checking. Individuals can only apply for basic checks. Employers and other registered bodies can ask employees for standard or enhanced checks depending on the job. Unlike the system in other parts of the UK, Northern Ireland gives the option for having your identity verified by a police officer in a police station instead of to a designated person in the registered body. Basic checks can be done online, or through the post. If you are applying for other types of check, only the online route is available.

An enhanced vetting check can disclose non-conviction information or ‘soft intelligence’ if the police consider it is relevant to the role. This could include a complaint or incident that did not go to court, or information about an ongoing police investigation. An enhanced check also includes a barred list check for anyone applying to do paid or voluntary work that is a regulated activity. A barred list check involves checking whether the individual is part of barred lists of people who are prevented from doing certain types of work.

Regulated activity

A regulated activity with children could be “any form of teaching, training or instruction of children”, “any form of care for or supervision of children”, or “any form of advice or guidance provided wholly or mainly for children, if the advice or guidance relates to their physical, emotional or educational well-being”. 

However, the activity is only regulated if “it is carried out frequently by the same person” or if the person carrying out the activity “does so at any time on more than three days in any period of 30 days” or “does so at any time between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., and the activity gives the person the opportunity to have face-to-face contact with children.”

Accommodating minors for a single overnight stay would be considered a regulated supervision of children, taking place within the restricted night hours. This means that an overnight event such as a summer camp would require AccessNI vetting of all the leaders and volunteers involved, whereas an occasional daytime activity (e.g. less than three days in any period of 30 days) would not. However, if a minor is 16 or 17 and is being trained “in the course of his employment” for the purposes of a leadership volunteering role, this restriction would not apply.

The vetting of persons to be engaged in regulated activities involves the employer obtaining an AccessNI Check for that person, unless that person is being supervised in the regulated activity by another person who has been vetted.

This would involve the Prelature applying via an umbrella body (with a service level agreement) for AccessNI checks in respect of any leaders who regularly organise activities for minors in NI.

Church Bodies

It was the accepted opinion and recommendation of the Northern Ireland Disclosure Programme Board, Northern Ireland Office, PSNI, AccessNI and Public Protection Arrangements Northern Ireland (PPANI) that the structure best suited to support the protection of children and vulnerable adults was for organisations to centralise their vetting function. 

The bishops of Northern Ireland have established a Central Northern Dioceses Vetting Office, which processes all Church vetting applications to AccessNI.  The Northern Dioceses Vetting Office of the Catholic Church in Ireland operates from 120 Cliftonville Road, Belfast, BT14 6LA and is responsible for processing pre-employment checks on behalf of the Northern Dioceses on all individuals wishing to work with children and vulnerable adults. Checks are processed in line with current legislation and under the authority delegated by the Northern Bishops. The general guiding principle of the Bishops is that all those who can be checked should be checked. 

In relation to Church bodies, those who work (paid or unpaid) in a regulated activity will require vetting. Legislation allows for the Church to carry out vetting checks for those who are in day-to-day line management of those in regulated activities, and who must also be vetted. An application is completed by the local safeguarding representative and forwarded to the Central Northern Dioceses Vetting Office for processing. Decisions regarding risk and suitability of an individual to work with children or vulnerable adults are taken by the Vetting and Barring Coordinator. These decisions are based on the information disclosed during the Enhanced Disclosure Check along with any further enquiries seen as necessary. 

Other Church bodies should consult with the Central Northern Dioceses Vetting Office about the requirement to vet employees or volunteers and the processing of applications, by emailing vetting@soddc.org or calling 0044 28 9049 2783. Guidance and forms on making vetting applications are available on the website hosted by the diocese of Down & Conor.

Church bodies who are active in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland must ensure that Church personnel who meet the legislative requirements in each jurisdiction and are active in both jurisdictions are vetted both in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The roles and responsibilities of key agencies, organisations and professionals specifically relating to safeguarding children and young people are outlined in this section. 

Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI) 

The SBNI was established under the Safeguarding Board (Northern Ireland) Act 2011 (the 2011 Act). The 2011 Act establishes a statutory objective for the SBNI, attributes a number of functions to it and imposes a number of duties upon it. The primary aim of the SBNI is to co-ordinate what is done by each person or body represented on the Board for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Northern Ireland. The 2011 Act requires member organisations to co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in Northern Ireland. 

The SBNI is supported by a number of Sub-Committees including five Safeguarding Panels. These panels are located within the geographical area of the five HSCTs. They are independently chaired, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary committees of the SBNI. Safeguarding Panels facilitate safeguarding and child protection practice at a local level and are responsible for implementing the SBNI’s strategic vision at a local level. 

The SBNI reports to the DoH as the sponsor Department for the discharge of its statutory functions and acts in accordance with Guidance to the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland, published by DoH. Among other statutory functions of the SBNI, it is required to develop operational policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people which must be adopted and implemented by member organisations across Northern Ireland. Operational policies and procedures should reflect the policy guidance set out in this document. The SBNI has a particular strategic focus – it is not an operational body. It sets strategic direction relating to safeguarding with the agreement and participation of its member bodies. 

Under Section 10 of the 2011 Act members of the SBNI and its statutory committees and subcommittees have a statutory duty to co-operate contained in the exercise of their statutory functions. Mechanisms to underpin and support effective cooperation, collaboration and joint working between member bodies of the SBNI in operational practice must also be in place. 

Health and Social Care (HSC)

The Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 (the 2009 Act) reformed the current structure of Health and Social Care service delivery in Northern Ireland. The Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) commissions a comprehensive range of health and social care services required in Northern Ireland from Health and Social Care Trusts (HSCTs) and other organisations. The HSCB manages the performance of HSCTs and seeks to improve performance through the exercise of its functions. The Public Health Agency (PHA) has functions in health improvement and health protection, contained in section 13 of the 2009 Act. The 2009 Act defines the parameters within which each HSC body must operate, including their duty to meet and promote the universal health and social well-being needs of all children and young people.

Health and Social Care Board (HSCB)

The HSCB is the ‘authority’ designated by the Children Order. The HSCB delegates its child safeguarding and child protection functions to HSCTs under legally binding arrangements known as ’Schemes for the Delegation of Statutory Functions’. The HSCB Director of Social Care and Children has lead responsibility for ensuring compliance with legislative safeguarding duties on behalf of the HSCB. This includes the duty to assess the service requirements of, and plan for the delivery of services to children and families in need under Article 18 (see section 2) and in conjunction with Schedule 2 to the Children Order.

Under Schedule 2, the HSCB is required to review services for ‘children in need’ and their families and publish an annual children’s services plan in consultation with a range of named agencies. This responsibility is met through the Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership (CYPSP) through the publication of the CYPSP Action Plans. 

The HSCB must ensure robust arrangements are in place in Northern Ireland to safeguard children and young people and promote their welfare by:

• providing effective safeguarding services;

• ensuring robust HSC child protection processes are in place;

• ensuring safeguarding policy and procedures are in place as they relate to the HSC including policies and procedures relating to referrals, assessment, service planning, case planning, case management and record keeping; and

• monitoring and auditing the effectiveness of HSC policy, practice and service provision in achieving specified outcomes for children and families.

The HSCB provides for a designated doctor role to take the lead role in child safeguarding by providing support to medical colleagues in the development and implementation of safeguarding policies, liaising with the named doctors within the HSCTs as required.

Health and Social Care Trusts (HSCTs)

The HSCB commissions the HSC services required to meet its legal obligations from five HSCTs, and under agreed schemes for the delegation of statutory functions, delegates its statutory duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children under the Children Order to HSCTs. On behalf of the HSCTs, the Executive Director of Social Work within each Trust has lead responsibility for the effective discharge of all statutory functions under the Children Order. 

The HSCTs work in partnership with other statutory agencies and with the community and voluntary sector to ensure that children and young people are safeguarded and their welfare is promoted. In particular HSCTs work closely with Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) given their shared responsibility for child protection investigations. 

Where a potential risk to a child has been raised, it is the responsibility of the Gateway Service or Children’s Services in the relevant HSCT to assess the risk to the child and his/her needs and determine what response is required. 

HSCTs must ensure that children and families are informed about support available and how they can access it. This includes family support services to children in need and their families, including services for children with a disability, child protection services and services for children who are ‘looked after’ by the HSCT. In all cases, it is the responsibility of the HSCT to ensure that the assessed needs of the children and young people are met as fully as possible, that their best interests are effectively served and risks to them are being effectively managed. 

As a minimum, each HSCT should appoint a named paediatrician and a named nurse with defined responsibilities for providing a lead safeguarding role for the medical, nursing and midwifery professions. HSCTs should work in collaboration within and across disciplines to provide additional ‘named’ roles, where those professions consider such a role necessary to deliver effective safeguarding. Those fulfilling a ‘named’ role must be highly skilled and experienced in children’s health and development generally and child safeguarding, including child protection, specifically. The named individuals must ensure that their Trust’s child safeguarding policy and procedures are complied with in full by their professions. HSCTs should ensure clear lines of accountability to the relevant Executive Director.

In terms of governance, HSCTs must ensure that:

• All Directors are clear about their individual and corporate responsibilities and receive mandatory training in their role as ‘corporate parents’ and their statutory duty to safeguard children young people and promote their welfare;

• Non-Executive Directors seek assurances from Executive Directors that the HSCT’s delegated statutory functions and safeguarding duties and responsibilities are being fulfilled;

• Sufficient resources are available to enable the HSCT to fulfil its statutory duties to safeguard children and promote their welfare and respond to families deemed to be in need, and exercise their duty to protect children;

• Information needed to determine the level of resource required is routinely collected, collated, validated and analysed and made available to the HSCB.

Role of Social Workers

Social workers within HSCTs are the lead professionals for safeguarding children and young people. As a profession, social workers and their managers have responsibility to safeguard children and young people, including the management and maintenance of the Child Protection Register, its associated systems and for ensuring that all statutory functions delegated to HSCTs in respect of safeguarding and protecting children are satisfactorily fulfilled. 

An unbroken line of professional governance and accountability must exist from front-line social workers in HSCTs through their Director of Social Work, to the HSCB Director of Social Care and Children, to the Chief Social Work Officer within the DoH. Social workers and / or their managers within HSCTs must ensure they are fully aware of their duties and powers under the Children Order, and must comply with legislative requirements, this policy, operational policies and procedures, published guidance and standards relating to child safeguarding. 

Social workers are required to use professional knowledge to make informed judgements about the needs of the child and their family, and to inform decisions on how these needs can best be met. This includes a decision about whether a child has suffered or is likely to suffer significant harm, and if a child protection investigation is required (see section 6). Social workers have lead responsibility for all Child Protection Investigations, and should liaise with other professionals and agencies, including the PSNI, to achieve as full an understanding as possible of the child or young person’s family circumstances.

There are social workers based within organisations outside of the HSC sector who provide safeguarding services to children, such as those within the Education sector or those working in some voluntary organisations or in independent practice. These social workers must liaise closely with HSCT social workers as necessary to ensure the children and young people they work with are effectively safeguarded. 

Role of Health Professionals 

The universal nature of health provision means that health professionals are well placed to prevent harm occurring through early identification of need and risk and through provision of support to children, young people and families in need. They are often the first to identify that families are experiencing difficulties or to uncover evidence of harm. All health professionals, including those in the independent sector, must be able to recognise the signs of harm. They must play their part in family support planning and providing on-going support for as long as is deemed necessary within the remit of their profession, contributing to and participating in the assessment processes in respect of children in need, including child protection planning and case conferences. 

Role of Independent Guardian 

The HSCB, in accordance with Section 21 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act 2015,  must arrange for the appointment of an Independent Guardian who is responsible for supporting separated or trafficked children and young people. The Independent Guardian advocates on behalf of separated and trafficked children until such times as their long term care arrangements are determined and may continue to have a role into leaving care and aftercare arrangements. It is essential that such children and young people are afforded appropriate support and advice, including bespoke legal advice to assist with an asylum application. 

Public Health Agency (PHA)

The PHA is a multi-disciplinary, multi-professional body which has four key functions:

• Health and social wellbeing improvement;

• Health protection;

• Public health support to commissioning and policy development; and

• HSC research and development.

PHA is required to create better inter-sectoral working, including enhanced partnership arrangements with local government, to tackle the underlying causes of poor health and reduce health inequalities. 

The PHA provides for a designated nurse role to work across all HSCTs providing leadership and support in the development, implementation, monitoring and review of services provided for children and young people, including appropriate supervision and learning opportunities in respect of safeguarding children and young people.

Voluntary, Charitable, Faith and Community-based Organisations

Voluntary, charitable, faith and community based organisations play a key role through their contribution to safeguarding children and young people generally, as well as providing more tailored support to children, young people and their families to assist them in keeping their children safe. 

It is essential that all voluntary, charitable, faith and community based organisations have child protection policies and procedures in place and that their staff and volunteers receive training and support in their use. 

Organisations providing support to children, young people, or their families or carers should recognise the importance of keeping appropriate, accurate records of the work they are undertaking, and have systems in place to share information with the appropriate statutory agencies where they have information or concerns regarding the welfare or safety of a child or young person. 

Organisations which provide services to children or young people must have policies and procedures in place which put child safeguarding at the heart of the organisation’s ethos, governance and practice, and which reflect the aims of this policy. Each organisation's policies and procedures must be owned at all levels within the organisation and should be in line with good practice guidelines as set out in Keeping Children Safe: Our Duty to Care  – Standards and Guidance for Safeguarding Children and Young People – November 2016.

When receiving services, children need to be and feel safe, and parents need to have confidence that they will be kept safe. Organisations must foster openness with parents, to provide all necessary assurances that the services provided to their child or young person are ‘safeguarding sound’. In particular, all organisations that provide services to children and young people which fall within the definition of ‘regulated activity’ must ensure they comply fully with the requirements of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups (Northern Ireland) Order 2007 as amended by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. However, this must be done in a balanced, common-sense way which does not prevent individuals or groups from engaging with children and young people on the basis that safeguarding is considered too difficult.

Formation activities given principally by or on behalf of the Prelature as such (e.g. study circles, recollections, doctrinal talks) to anyone under 18 years in Northern Ireland involve the responsibility of the Prelature as a Church body and (in addition to civil responsibilities) are subject to the Standards and Guidance of the NBSCCCI, as in the RoI. These standards are therefore incorporated into the Local Safeguarding Policy - Ireland for the NWE Region of the Prelature.

Diocese of Down & Conor

See for example the Safeguarding Guidelines for the Diocese of Down & Conor

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international human rights treaty setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the child. It provides the overarching framework to guide the development of local laws, policies and services so that all children and young people are nurtured, protected and empowered. Each of the 41 Articles in the Convention detail a different type of right, all of which interact to form one integrated set of rights for children and young people. All Articles of the Convention are important and inter-relate to each other: those Articles with particular relevance for this policy include:

• Article 3 (Best Interests of the Child) the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration for all actions concerning children taken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies. This includes ensuring the child is given the protection and care necessary for their well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of others towards them. Organisations, services and facilities responsible for the care or protection of children must conform to appropriately set standards.

• Article 4 (Protection of rights) Governments have a responsibility to take all available measures to make sure children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. This involves assessing their social services, legal, health and educational systems, as well as funding for these services. Governments must help families protect children’s rights and create an environment where they can grow and reach their potential. 

• Article 12 (Voice of the Child) A child who is capable of forming his or her own views has the right to express those views freely in all matters which affect them, those views being given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity. This is particularly the case for any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting them. A child can either give their views directly, or have their views represented appropriately on their behalf.

• Article 19 (Protection from all forms of violence): Governments should ensure that children are properly cared for and their right to be protected from harm and mistreatment is upheld.

• Article 20 (Children deprived of family environment): Children who cannot be looked after by their own family have a right to be looked after properly by people who respect their ethnic group, religion, culture and language. 

• Articles 34 and 36 (Exploitation): Governments should protect children from all forms of exploitation.

• Article 39 (Rehabilitation of child victims): Children who have been harmed should receive help to recover and reintegrate into society.

Children and young people have the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate. The child’s views, however, will not necessarily determine the course of action to be taken, as ultimately, those with parental responsibility are responsible for keeping the child safe and must act in the best interests of the child. The Convention obliges States to encourage and support parents to exercise their parental responsibilities. However, if parents neglect their responsibilities or are unable to provide a satisfactory standard of care, the State is obliged to intervene to make decisions and take actions to safeguard children and young people when it is necessary to do so.