UK charities have committed to strengthening their leadership, culture and capacity around safeguarding, and their progress is to be monitored over the course of the year.

Tracey Crouch, minister for civil society, said: ‘Safeguarding must be at the heart of every charity’s culture and a central priority for its leadership. I have been clear to the sector that they must make safeguarding a key priority. It is crucial that the sector addresses this issue urgently to protect vulnerable people and rebuild the public’s trust.’

The Charity Commission and the Office for Civil Society at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have hosted two summits, one focused on charities working internationally, and the most recent on charities working in the UK together with their regulators and other agencies, as well as independent safeguarding experts.

Attendees committed to working together to lead a meaningful response to safeguarding concerns facing the domestic charitable sector, and to achieve the highest standards of safeguarding.

A number of themes were agreed for priority action. These were leadership, culture and values; law, regulation and the statutory framework; capacity and capability in charities around safeguarding and responsibilities and reporting, accountability and transparency.

Attendees agreed to develop action plans for each of the themes and reconvene in two months’ time, to commit to implementation and discuss early progress in delivering change. Charity regulators in Scotland and Northern Ireland will be leading their own action plans. This work will feed into a wider safeguarding conference planned for later in the year.

Helen Stephenson, chief executive of the Charity Commission, said: ‘I am encouraged by the commitment shown by UK charities to lead and drive improvements around safeguarding. That commitment must be followed by firm action, and we as regulator will work with and support charities in developing practical, workable changes.’

The Charity Commission has confirmed that reports of serious incidents on safeguarding have nearly doubled since revelations of sexual exploitation by Oxfam staff in Haiti emerged at the beginning of February. The regulator has established a new taskforce to deal with increased serious incident reports, and to undertake proactive work to ensure prompt and full reporting of serious safeguarding incidents by charities.

That taskforce is also undertaking a ‘deep dive’ of existing serious incident reporting records to ensure any gaps in full and frank disclosure are identified and responded to.

Report by Pat Sweet