A CULTURE change is needed within the Salisbury Diocese when it comes to safeguarding vulnerable children and adults, an independent audit has found.

The audit, carried out by The Social Care Institute for Excellence, said there was a lack of a clear diocesan safeguarding strategy, safeguarding was not fully integrated into the diocesan culture and there was a lack of willingness of parishes to answer safeguarding policy questions.

While auditors said they were impressed with steps taken in recent years which included an increase in the hours of the diocesan safeguarding advisor (DSA) and the use of Disclosure and Barring Service checks on staff and volunteers, it said more work was needed to ensure safeguarding was recognised as being "everybody's business".

The report, published in January, states: "Such cultural change will need overt leadership and for this to be cascaded through all levels of the church."

Its concerns included evidence that the DSA was not consistently informed by senior clergy of the arrival within the diocese of known offenders and there was sometimes a focus more on the needs of the perpetrator rather than the victim, citing an example where senior clergy provided character references to the court without taking sufficient advice from the DSA.

Monitoring of safeguarding performance was an "undeveloped area" with only 109 out of 452 parishes answering a question about having a safeguarding policy and only 70 of the 109 confirming they had one.

It highlighted issues within management, saying there were reports of individuals who did not want to attend a training day or who felt there was too much safeguarding training.

And it said there were no local complaints or whistleblowing procedures in place other than the national policy.

Publishing its action plan this month, the Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam said: “Safeguarding must be at the heart of everything we do. We must have the right procedures and policies in place in every parish – this is not an optional extra, for any part of the Church.

“We also need to maintain a healthy culture of safeguarding in every parish and organisation. That means that everyone needs to accept a shared responsibility for ensuring that children and vulnerable adults in our care are safe. Among other things, that means that we all need to be prepared to think the unthinkable and raise any concerns we have appropriately.

“Dealing with safeguarding issues can feel difficult at parish level, but essentially involves good pastoral care with the addition of the correct formal procedures.

"One aim of this action plan is to raise the level of training and advice to help parishes deal with safeguarding correctly and feel confident that they are doing so.

“We have submitted this action plan to the National Church Institutions, but the real value of it will be in the changes it drives here in the Diocese of Salisbury.”

The action plan includes the Bishop leading a diocese-wide archdeacons' visitation in the cathedral to underscore the importance of robust safeguarding procedures, the creation of a new diocesan safeguarding procedure and the development of parish audits.

Every Church of England Diocese is being audited to help them improve safeguarding processes. Salisbury was one of four dioceses which volunteered to be part of the pilot project.