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All organisations working with children have both a legal and moral duty of care for those children. 

These are defined by the following pieces of legislation and government guidance.

The Children's Acts (1989 and 2004)
These define children as anyone under the age of 18 years.
Working together to safeguard children (2018)
This provides government guidance for organisations working with children.

It includes explicit mention of sport and the requirement that all funded sports organisations should achieve the CPSU Safeguarding Standards.
Every child matters: change for children (2004)
This outlines the five key outcomes for all children:

Be healthy - physical and mental health and wellbeing

Stay safe - protection from harm and neglect

Enjoy and achieve - education, training and recreation

Make a positive contribution - the contribution made by them to society

Achieve economic wellbeing - social and economic wellbeing
Children and Social Work Act (2017)
This includes reference to changes of Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards to “local safeguarding arrangements”, which could include sports organisations.
Data Protection Acts (1998 and 2018)
They provide guidance around safe storage and sharing of information including safeguarding information. 

The latter refers to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Information sharing guidance for safeguarding practitioners (2015)
This provides guidance around what, how and when to share safeguarding information, including the seven golden rules of information sharing.
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006)
This introduced the offence of an employer knowingly employing someone in a regulated position if they are barred from doing so, and for an individual who has been barred to apply for a regulated position (one which involves spending regular time working with children).
Protection of Freedoms Act (2012)
This reduced the scope of "regulated activity" by focusing on whether the work is unsupervised (in which case it counts as "regulated activity") or supervised (in which case, organisations can request an enhanced criminal records check, but this will not include a check of the barred list). 

The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 created a single, new, non-departmental public body called the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

Safeguarding in sports organisations

  • If you're an organisation providing sport or leisure for children - whether voluntary, private, charity, social enterprise or faith based organisation - this toolkit will help you to ensure that you have the appropriate safeguards in place for children and young people.
  • Further information on the topic is also available from the Sport and Recreation Alliance
  • If you're a leisure provider (local authority or private/Trusts providers), the Child Protection in Sport Unit can help you out
  • For more information about the DBS, these guidance leaflets will provide advice and more information about wider safer recruitment
  • For information on a range of safeguarding training, including access to free webinars on various safeguarding topics, the CPSU has a list available.
  • If you need to deal with a concern about a child you can find information and guidance on the CPSU website about safeguarding links to national governing bodies and Active Partnerships. 
  • You can also call the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000.