Section 5: Risk Assessment

This core pathway must be followed for all allegations except for those in Pathway 4C (Managing risk in the Church Community) and Section 4D (Managing posthumous allegations).

It must be read alongside specific considerations in each of the other Pathways.

Guidance

5.1 – 5.10 Risk assessments

Risk assessments play an important role in making Church communities safe for all those who participate in them. The purpose of a risk assessment is to assess, or to contribute to the assessment of, risks of harm to children, young people or vulnerable adults, that may be presented by a respondent. Such risks are considered within the context of the respondent being a member of a Church Body, in relation to their specific role within the Church, and considering the ability of a Church community to manage such risks.

Each assessment helps to achieve the following:

• the identification and evaluation of risks of harm to children, young people or vulnerable adults, in terms of their likelihood and impact in the church context;
• how risks may be addressed or managed, and what safety would look like for individual children, young people or vulnerable adults in the church context;
• a shared understanding and common approach by those with safeguarding responsibilities to the management and reduction of risk; and
• a plan which seeks to ensure the safety of children, young people or vulnerable adults, and to address the safety of the person who presents a risk.

The Church’s approach to risk assessment is underpinned by the following principles:

• a commitment to a just, fair and proportionate process;
• a non-discriminatory approach to risk assessment and risk management;
• an approach to risk assessment which is evidence-led and objective; and
• communicating well and including respondents in the process, which is done with their involvement, rather than to them.

A risk assessment will generally be carried out by the Safeguarding Officer.  In some instances, involving members of clergy only, the Safeguarding Officer in consultation with the SCMG, might decide that a risk assessment needs to be carried out by an external assessor and must then appoint an external assessor from the list of approved assessors maintained by the NST.  External risk assessors are professionals who hold proven qualifications, experience and expertise in carrying out risk assessments.

The Safeguarding Officer, in consultation with the SCMG, should prepare the Terms of Reference of a risk assessment, in line with the relevant regulations and canon law, which should include estimated timelines. Where an external risk assessor is involved, the Safeguarding Officer should share the Terms of Reference and any other relevant information with the external assessor.

Additional guidelines on the Church’s approach to risk assessment can be found on the Safeguarding Learning Portal. These highlight the need to embrace a systemic approach to risk assessment, which challenges the professionals involved in a case to look beyond lineal causal explanations that seek to apportion blame. Instead, professionals should consider the factors that can impact their thinking about risk and seek to understand what each person involved in a particular situation is doing to sustain a problem, and what can be changed to achieve safety. The emphasis here is on contextualising risk and analysing it, rather than merely describing it. The key considerations that a risk assessor must take into account when carrying out an assessment include:

• What is the nature of the risks identified?
• In what circumstances would they occur? (when, why, how)
• How likely are the risks to occur?
• Who would be involved or affected, and what would be the severity of the impact?
• What are the specific circumstances within the given Church context in which the risks identified might become issues?

The guidelines also emphasise the need to be comfortable with a degree of safe uncertainty, in which professionals recognise that not everything can be known about a situation, but that enough efforts must be made to obtain information that can help make the situation safer.

The Safeguarding Officer must use the Church’s approved standard risk analysis and risk management form when carrying out a risk assessment.

When a risk assessment is completed, the report that is prepared should set out the risk assessor’s opinion on the nature and likely extent of any safeguarding risk, and their recommendations on how to address or manage any such risk.

The assessment process

In line with the relevant regulations and canon law, when commissioning a risk assessment, the Safeguarding Officer should supply the respondent with a written statement which:

• sets out the Terms of Reference of the assessment;
• gives the reason for requiring the assessment;
• confirms whether the assessment will be done by the Safeguarding Officer or by an external assessor, and gives the name of the external assessor, if applicable;
• explains how the assessment will be carried out;
• for clergy only, reminds the respondent of their right to request the President of the Tribunals to review the direction to undertake a risk assessment; and
• refers to the possibility that a copy of the final risk assessment, in full or redacted form, may be shared with other individuals involved in the management of the case or for the purposes of risk management, including relevant statutory partners.

In line with the relevant regulations and canon law, a respondent has a right to see a draft of the risk assessment report, which may need to be redacted to remove information about third parties. They then have 14 days to ask questions and make submissions, in writing, to the assessor. The assessor then has 14 days to reply, followed by 14 days for the respondent to come back with responses. These timescales may be extended by the Safeguarding Officer if they consider this to be “reasonable in all circumstances”. A respondent should also receive a final version of the report, in full or redacted form.

Sharing the risk assessment report

Past experiences have shown that it is extremely important for all SCMG members to have the same information when they advise on risk management. To this end, the Safeguarding Officer should ensure that all members of the SCMG receive a copy of the risk assessment report. Where the report includes references to third parties who have not given their consent for their names and information to be shared with the SCMG members, a redacted version of the report may be shared. Similarly, there may be instances in which a report contains detailed information about a respondent’s personal life, which may not be of significance for the ongoing management of risk. The collection of such information should be avoided in the first place, however, if the Safeguarding Officer has deemed it appropriate to include, then they should consider sharing a redacted form of the report with the SCMG members.

The Safeguarding Officer may also be required to share the report with others involved in the management of risk – for instance, with any relevant statutory partners or with the relevant bishop. In such cases, a redacted version of the report may also be shared. Legal advice should be sought and any information shared should be proportionate and meet the requirements under data protection legislation.

External Risk Assessments Quality Assurance

Risk assessments carried out by Safeguarding Officers will be quality assured by regional Safeguarding Leads, in line with the Quality Assurance Framework1 .

Previously, concerns have been raised regarding the quality of risk assessments carried out by external assessors. To address this, a quality assurance function has been embedded in the Code. This will involve the NST reviewing a dip-sample of external risk assessments every year to check for depth, consistency and other quality markers.

• 1This framework is currently being developed as part of the project focused on implementing Recommendation 8 of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.