Every school and college in England must have a designated safeguarding lead, and it is not a job you can quietly add to someone’s existing duties. Keeping Children Safe in Education — statutory guidance, not advice — sets out who the DSL should be, what the role carries, and how often their training must be refreshed.
The most common failure is not appointing the wrong person. It is appointing the right person and then not giving them the time, seniority or cover the role actually needs.
Where the requirement comes from
Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) is issued by the Department for Education and updated annually. Schools and colleges in England must have regard to it — it carries statutory force, and Ofsted inspects against it.
It sits alongside Working Together to Safeguard Children, the multi-agency statutory guidance, and the safeguarding duties in the Children Act 1989 and 2004.
KCSIE requires governing bodies and proprietors to appoint a designated safeguarding lead who takes lead responsibility for safeguarding and child protection, including online safety. This responsibility cannot be delegated away — deputies can carry out activities, but the lead responsibility stays with the DSL.
The DSL should be a member of the senior leadership team. That is deliberate. The role requires authority to challenge, to commit resources, and to escalate over the heads of colleagues when necessary. A DSL without standing cannot do the job when it matters most.
What the role actually involves
- Managing referrals — to children’s social care, to the police where a crime may have been committed, and to the Channel programme where there are radicalisation concerns
- Working with other agencies — attending or contributing to strategy discussions, child protection conferences and inter-agency meetings
- Being the expert in the building — the person staff come to, who understands thresholds, local procedures and when a concern becomes a referral
- Training and supporting staff — making sure everyone knows how to recognise and report, and that new starters are inducted properly
- Raising awareness — keeping policy current and making sure it is understood rather than merely published
- Managing child protection files — secure, separate from the main pupil file, and transferred securely when a child moves school, which is a routinely mishandled step
- Availability — during school or college hours for staff to raise concerns
Training: what KCSIE actually requires
Two separate obligations that get conflated:
| Requirement | Frequency |
|---|---|
| Formal DSL role-specific training | At least every two years |
| Knowledge and skills refreshed — e-bulletins, safeguarding networks, reading updates, meeting other DSLs | At least annually, and more often as needed |
Deputy DSLs must be trained to the same standard as the DSL. This is where schools most often fall short — a deputy who has done a lower-level course is not a deputy in KCSIE terms, and cover collapses the moment the DSL is absent.
KCSIE is updated annually, usually taking effect in September. A DSL whose training predates the current version needs to have caught up on what changed.
Where DSL training should come from
This is the part buyers most often get wrong, so it is worth being blunt.
The formal two-yearly DSL training is normally expected to come from — or be aligned with — your local safeguarding partnership or local authority, because a substantial part of the role is knowing local thresholds, referral routes, contacts and procedures. Those differ between areas, and no national online course can teach them.
CPD-accredited online courses, including ours, support that. They do not replace it. They are genuinely useful for underpinning knowledge, for refreshing between formal renewals, for deputies building up, and for wider staff — but a school that presents an online CPD certificate alone as its DSL training has not met the expectation, and an inspector will say so.
Buy the local partnership training for the DSL and deputies. Use CPD training around it.
Safeguarding children and safeguarding adults are different regimes
The phrase “designated safeguarding lead” is used in both, and they are not interchangeable.
- Children — KCSIE, Working Together, the Children Acts. Applies to schools, colleges and education settings.
- Adults at risk — the Care Act 2014, Safeguarding Adults Boards, and different thresholds and definitions built around the six safeguarding principles and the concept of an adult at risk.
Organisations working with both — further education, some care and community settings — need people competent in both, and should be clear which regime a given concern falls under.
The devolved picture
KCSIE applies to England. The other nations have their own frameworks:
- Wales — Keeping Learners Safe, and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014
- Scotland — the Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) approach and national guidance for child protection
- Northern Ireland — Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland arrangements and Co-operating to Safeguard Children and Young People
Do not apply KCSIE terminology or thresholds outside England without checking.
Six failures inspectors find
- Deputy not trained to the same standard. Cover is nominal.
- DSL not on the senior leadership team, so lacks authority to escalate or commit resources.
- Training out of date — past the two-year point, or predating the current KCSIE.
- No protected time. The role added to a full teaching timetable with no release.
- Child protection files not transferred securely when a child moves, or not kept separate from the main pupil record.
- Staff cannot name the DSL. If they do not know who to go to, the arrangement does not exist in practice.
Further reading
- DfE — Keeping Children Safe in Education
- DfE — Working Together to Safeguard Children
- NSPCC Learning — Safeguarding and child protection
- Care Act 2014
Safeguarding lead training
Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (Children) course covers the statutory framework, the DSL role, thresholds, referrals, record keeping and working with other agencies. For adults at risk, Designated Safeguarding Lead (Adults).
For wider staff: Safeguarding Children Level 1 · Safeguarding Adults Level 1 · Safer Recruitment in Education
£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100 % online, verifiable e-certificate on completion. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18.
Important: this is a CPD-accredited course and general information, not legal advice, and it is not an Ofqual-regulated qualification. It supports but does not replace the formal DSL training expected by Keeping Children Safe in Education, which should be obtained from or aligned with your local safeguarding partnership, because a substantial part of the role depends on local thresholds, referral routes and procedures. Always work to the current version of KCSIE and your own local partnership’s arrangements. If a child is at immediate risk of harm, call 999.