Terminology

Please find definitions and information below for the terminology used in the return, following the changes to Safeguarding introduced in the Care Act (2014). Flowcharts are also included to accompany the information below.

For the purposes of the SAC a safeguarding concern is a sign of suspected abuse or neglect that is reported to the local authority, or identified by the local authority.

The Local Government Association (LGA) and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), as part of the Care And Health Improvement Programme (CHIP), have set out a suggested framework, published in 2020, to guide all agencies in determining what should be referred to the local authority as a safeguarding concern.

We are aware that not all local authorities have adopted this framework, or agree with it and that adopting this framework is voluntary. We are including it here to add further detail to the description of safeguarding concerns in an attempt to help improve the quality, consistency and reliability of data collected in the SAC.

A key section of the framework is reproduced below to set out when a safeguarding concern should be raised with the local authority. 

The framework suggests that where anyone raising a safeguarding concern with the local authority has reasonable cause to suspect that the first two criteria set out in S42(1a and b), Care Act (2014), are met, and where the local authority has checked that reasonable cause has been determined, a safeguarding concern will be reported in the SAC. These concerns may be identified by any organisation, the adult concerned or a member of the public, or by the local authority itself.

This may well be before information gathering under S42(1) progresses beyond initial stages and before the S42 duty can be fully applied to make a decision about how to proceed in practice.

Therefore this approach means that the number of safeguarding concerns in the SAC is most unlikely to match the number of safeguarding enquiries triggered within the S42 duty. In this way early work will be acknowledged and valued as part of safeguarding responses, even though the SAC simply records the number of concerns raised with the LA and does not capture further detail on the nature of concerns (more detailed information is reported on completed S42 enquiries). Having an accurate reflection of the numbers of concerns raised that do not proceed to an enquiry can act as a can opener to exploring local information as to what happens in those circumstances.

Note that the SAC captures information about concerns that were raised during the reporting year, that is, the date the concern was raised with the local authority falls within the reporting year, regardless of the date the incident took place.

As mentioned above S42 is the environment within which local authorities operate when a safeguarding concern is raised. It ensures support to keep people safe who may be at risk of or experiencing abuse/neglect.

LGA¹ and ADASS² have developed another framework to support local authorities in making decisions on the duty to carry out Safeguarding Adults enquiries. This framework was developed in response to the range of different practices around safeguarding, in part evidenced through the large variations seen in the SAC and the responses to the Survey of Local Practice 2018.³

Whilst this framework has been developed to support safeguarding practice it also offers clarity on elements of reporting in the SAC around S42 enquiries. The framework was published in August 2019.

The framework clarifies that the S42 duty on the local authority exists from the point at which a concern is received. This does not mean that all activity from that point will be reported under the duty to make enquiries as a Safeguarding Enquiry in the SAC.

This is because the S42 duty is carried out under two parts of the Care Act 2014, S42(1) and S42(2), and it may turn out that the S42(2) duty is not triggered because the concern does not meet the S42(1) criteria. This is explained in more detail below and in the accompanying flowchart taken from the framework.

(called Section 42 Safeguarding Enquiries in the SAC)

The S42(1) criteria state that where there is reasonable cause to suspect:
(a) the adult has needs for care AND support (whether or not the authority is meeting any of those needs)
AND
(b) the adult is experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect
AND
(c) as a result of those needs is unable to protect himself or herself against the abuse or neglect or the risk of it.

Then, where ALL the S42(1) criteria are met, the enquiry and decision on what action to take (including taking no action) will follow under the duty to make enquiries described in S42(2) and should be reported as a S42 Safeguarding Enquiry in the SAC.

Information gathering is done under the duty described in S42(1). The S42(2) safeguarding enquiry that is triggered when the S42(1) criteria are met is set out in the Care Act as follows:

'The local authority must make (or cause to be made) whatever enquiries it thinks necessary to enable it to decide whether any action should be taken in the adult’s case (whether under this Part or otherwise) and, if so, what and by whom’ (Care Act, 2014, S42(2)).

An enquiry could range from a conversation with the adult to a more formal multi-agency plan or course of action. The duty to make enquiries under S42(2) is not a prescriptive process in the way it was before the Care Act (2014) but consists of activity to inform decision-making and the actions to be taken.

Those enquiries where an adult does not meet all of the S42(1) criteria but the local authority considers it necessary and proportionate to have a safeguarding enquiry should be reported as an Other Safeguarding Enquiry in the SAC.

Whilst each local authority has the jurisdiction to decide what safeguarding activity they undertake for adults who do not meet the S42(1) criteria, some examples could include safeguarding to promote an individual’s well-being as related to the areas in Section 1 of the Care Act, or for activity in respect of carers who do not qualify for S42.

A safeguarding enquiry is triggered when the initial information gathering has established that there is reasonable cause to suspect that all three of the S42(1) criteria are met, or where the criteria are not met the decision has been made that it is necessary and proportionate to respond as a safeguarding enquiry (Other Safe guarding enquiries). We expect that for the purposes of the SAC the date the safeguarding enquiry starts will be the same date that the initial information gathering establishes whether or not the S42(1) criteria were met.

In practice the decision-making needs to be dynamic. Practitioners might change their mind as information unfolds about whether or not the situation meets the statutory criteria for undertaking an enquiry under the S42(2) duty.

There is no fixed point during the early phase of an enquiry when a practitioner must determine how to report activity within the SAC return. It may be that this is determined, and therefore recorded and reported as a S42(2) enquiry, after the practitioner has already done part of it. Reporting and recording reflect practice decisions.

All enquiries that commence must eventually be logged as concluding at some point.

A safeguarding enquiry is concluded when all of the necessary information gathering is complete and all of the necessary actions have been agreed. The enquiry does not need to stay open until the person has been made safe, just when the actions have been agreed.

The description and tables which use ‘Concluded Enquiries’ is included in the Data Dictionary.

Paragraphs 14.110⁴ and 14.111 of the Care and Support Statutory Guidance (DHSC, 2018) support this judgement. The Enquiry outcome might include the formulation of agreed action for the adult. Examples are set out in 14.111.⁵