Your dashboard has been upgraded in three important ways:
- New dashboard lights have been added to your dashboard.
- You can now see the progress your parish is making towards the National Safeguarding Standards.
- Your progress score towards the Mandatory Requirements will be revised.
Further information about each of these changes can be found below.
Why has the dashboard been upgraded?
If you've not seen this short video, please watch it now.
New dashboard lights
When the Safeguarding Dashboard was first launched in 2018, it was based on the requirements found in the Parish Safeguarding Handbook.
As part of the 2024 Upgrade, new lights are being added to bring the dashboard up to date with the latest safeguarding requirements. Some of these lights are mandatory requirements, and others are good practice.
Safeguarding standards
In October 2023, the Church of England published the National Safeguarding Standards and Quality Assurance Framework, which asks all parishes to assess their safeguarding work against five standards:
Standard 1 - Culture, Leadership and Capacity
Standard 2 - Prevention
Standard 3 - Recognising, Assessing and Managing Risk
Standard 4 - Victims and Survivors
Standard 5 - Learning, Supervision and Support
The upgraded dashboard clearly shows the progress that has been made towards each of the five standards.
Furthermore, we will soon be providing a single-page report that will help you to share this information with your PCC.
Progress score towards mandatory requirements
Your progress score towards mandatory requirements has been temporarily hidden while we explain to parishes the reason why it's going to change.
Given that the upgraded dashboard has more lights, it's inevitable that progress scores will be lower than before.
This will be true for every parish, and it doesn't mean that parishes are now less compliant. It simply means that there are more lights that need to be turned green.
This revised scores will be displayed at the end of October, but In the meantime, please familiarise yourself with the new dashboard lights at Levels 2 and 3.