Child protection and vulnerable adults guidance

East Dunbartonshire Council is committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all vulnerable groups using their premises; this includes all children, young people and vulnerable adults.

This page provides guidance to support individuals and organisations providing activities for vulnerable groups in public venues under East Dunbartonshire Council ownership.

East Dunbartonshire Child Protection Committee (EDCPC) is an inter-agency strategic partnership responsible for the design, development, publication, distribution, dissemination, implementation and evaluation of child protection policy and practice across the public, private and wider third sector. The role of the CPC is to provide leadership and direction for the management of child protection services across East Dunbartonshire including:

• Continuous Improvement
• Strategic Planning
• Public Information & Communication.

The CPC works in partnership with East Dunbartonshire’s Chief Officers’ Groups and the Scottish Government to take forward child protection policy and practice across Scotland. Membership of the EDCPC includes representatives from:

• Social Work Child and Families Service
• Police
• Health
• Education
• Housing
• Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA)
• Procurator Fiscal Department
• Local Authority Legal Services
• Voluntary organisations
• Social Work Adult Services
• Social Work Criminal Justice Service.

Further information on the Child Protection Committee is available on the Public Protection website. Additional information is available from the West of Scotland Child Protection Procedures website and the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland document via the Scottish Government’s website.

East Dunbartonshire’s Adult Protection Committee (APC) takes a central role in the overview of adult protection activity and makes recommendations to ensure that adult protection activity is effective. APCs have a range of duties, which include:

• Reviewing adult protection practices
• Improving co-operation
• Improving skills and knowledge
• Providing information and advice
• Promoting good communication.

As with the CPC, the APC works in partnership with the Chief Officers’ Group to take forward Adult Protection practice and policy. Membership of the APC includes:

• Adult social work services
• Police Scotland
• Health.

Further information on the Adult Protection Committee is available (NEEDS LINK TO HSCP). Additional information is available via the Scottish Government’s Adult Support and Protection web page.

In the context of this guidance and as defined in Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003, an organisation means:

• A body corporate or unincorporated
• An individual who employs or otherwise gives work to other persons.

For the purpose of this document, a sole trader is a person who works alone to provide activities and/or services for financial reward or on a voluntary basis.

In the context of this guidance, organisations and sole traders will be referred to as ‘providers’.

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 defines a child as someone who has not yet attained the age of 18 years. However, it is recognised that, for the purposes of Child Protection, different legislation may apply to young people aged 16-18 years depending on individual circumstances and providers should follow appropriate advice from Social Work Services and Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration to ensure compliance with the Children’s Hearing (Scotland) Act 2011as necessary.

Within the context of this document, the definition within the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 is applied. This defines ‘adults at risk’ as those of 16 years and older who:

• Are unable to safeguard their own well-being, property, rights or other interests,
• Are at risk of harm, and
• Because they are affected by disability, mental disorder, illness or physical or mental infirmity, are more vulnerable to being harmed than adults who are not so affected.

NB: You will note an overlap in the above definitions. For the purposes of child protection please refer to the definition of ‘a child’ and seek guidance from social work services.

The Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003 provides a definition of a person working in a childcare position that applies to paid and volunteer workers. A childcare position is defined as:

“A position whose normal duties include caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of children.”* Some examples of a childcare position are posts that involve:

Caring for children and young people 

• Care worker
• Befriender
• Advocate
• Nurse
• Home help
• Crèche worker.

Training children and young people

• Sports leader
• Tutor
• Music group leader.

Supervising children and young people

• Classroom assistant
• Life guard
• Pool attendant
• Leader of uniformed organisation
• Volunteer helper (including a parent helper)
• Sole charge of children and young people
• Youth worker
• Domiciliary care worker
• Sunday school teacher.

*(See Protecting Children: The Next Steps Towards Securing Their Safety, Scottish Executive, 2001 or Schedule 2 of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003).

The Scottish Government’s information on Protecting Vulnerable Groups (pvg) Scheme 2011 provides clear guidance on the types of work with adults that are regulated. This includes:

• Caring for protected adults
• Teaching, instructing, training or supervising protected adults
• Being in sole charge of protected adults
• Providing assistance, advice or guidance to a protected adult or particular protected adults which relates to physical or emotional well-being, education or training.

It is the responsibility of providers to decide whether a person doing a particular role is doing regulated work and should be a member of the PVG Scheme.

The Council, in the discharge of its duty in respect to the Protection of Children and vulnerable adults will:

1. Seek to ensure that all let applications are processed efficiently and in-line with the procedure set down in the Terms and Conditions
2. Seek to ensure that organisations working with children and vulnerable adults have access to the Child Protection Interagency Guidance (East Dunbartonshire Child Protection Committee) and Adult Support and Protection Procedures (East Dunbartonshire Adult Protection Committee)
3. Seek to ensure that appropriate information is made available on the responsibilities of the statutory child and protection agencies in East Dunbartonshire
4. Seek to ensure that organisations understand the importance of directing any concerns/disclosures of abuse/harm to the statutory child protection agencies for further advice, information and support
5. Inform organisations of opportunities to participate in child protection training and, through existing information and communication networks operating across the local authority, inform organisations of any relevant local and national training opportunities.

This guidance should be accompanied by the Terms and Conditions. Please refer to this for information on how to apply for a let.