The Diocese will develop a child safeguarding plan to assess the effectiveness of the steps it is taking to keep children safe. The purpose of this plan is to set out what, how, who and in what time frame key elements of child safeguarding practices and procedures are going to be met by the Diocese.

The child safeguarding plan includes the following:

Specific objectives linked to each of the safeguarding standards.

The specific objectives are set in line with the child safeguarding standards, any previous annual audit recommendations and any review recommendations by the NBSCCCI. The objectives are broken down into actions. The training plan and communications plan are included under Standards 5 and 6.

Resources.

Specific and realistic objectives are linked to identified allocated resources.

Implementation.

The Diocese, through the safeguarding committee, will identify clear time frames for implementation, which take account of the completion of the local safeguarding audits (3.3; S4.44).

Review and evaluation.

The three-year plan sets clear dates for review of each specific objective outlined in the plan. These review dates will be addressed by the SCC to ensure that they are achieved on an annual basis. Reviews will take account of the outcomes of the annual local safeguarding audits (3.3), and, if appropriate, of the annual report made by the DLP to the Bishop (3.4).