Section 11 Audit
A Section 11 Audit is proposed to help organisations in Merton undertake their own quality assurance processes in regard to safeguarding and child protection, and will provide an updated baseline of safeguarding awareness and practice across Merton as well as highlight areas of improvement and good practice.
The Merton Safeguarding Children’s Partnership has agreed the process for carrying out a Section 11 (s.11) audit in 2023/24. More details can be found below.
Section 11 (S.11) of the Children Act 2004 places duties on a range of organisations, agencies and individuals to ensure their functions, and any services that they contract out to others, are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The s.11 audit would allow the MSCP to hold agencies to account in terms of their safeguarding arrangements and practices and inform business planning and training needs.
The s.11 Audit is proposed to help organisations in Merton undertake their own quality assurance processes in regard to safeguarding and child protection. S.11 Audits are recommended at least bi-annually. The Audit will provide an updated baseline of safeguarding awareness and practice across Merton (since the last s.11 in 2021) and highlight areas of improvement and good practice.
Compliance with s.11 is a statutory requirement for the following:
- Local Authorities
- NHS organisations include NHS England and Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts.
- The Police
- British Transport Police
- Probation Service (National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies)
- Governors / Directors of Prisons and Young Offender Institutes
Directors of Secure Training Centres; and - Principles of Secure Colleges; and
- Youth Offending Services
Organisations that are commissioned to provide a service on behalf of one of the agencies listed above should also be compliant with Section 11. Schools would not be included as they are already completing s.175 audits as part of their statutory safeguarding duties.
If you are required to complete an audit for the MSCP on behalf of your organisation you should receive a link via email to alert you of your needed response for a new audit and the completion date.
There will be a link within the email that takes you to an Auditing Tool that has been created by Phew to enhance your ability to complete audits in a simple, less time consuming manner.
To assist with completing the audit please refer to the Respondent User Manual, available below, which covers:
Logging in
Navigating the site
Responding to audits
Reviewing audits
Managing your team
Assigning team members to audits
Click here to downloaded the PHEW auditing tool respondent manual
The MSCP undertook a Section 11 audit during 2021-22. Please see below our overview report with key findings: