Help centre / Registers & safeguarding / Keep your safeguarding register
Keep your safeguarding register
Open Governance, then Safeguarding. Record each DBS check with its level and a renew-by date, name your designated safeguarding lead, and log any concerns or incidents. The page flags checks that have lapsed or are due within 90 days.
Add a DBS check
- Go to Governance, then Safeguarding.
- Select Add check.
- Choose the person from your register, or type their name.
- Pick the Level of check. Add the Certificate ref and the date it was Issued if you have them.
- Set a Renew by date. DBS checks have no legal expiry date, so this is your own policy. Every 3 years is common.
- If the person is on the DBS update service, tick that box.
- For enhanced checks, record how many References received. Nobody in a role needing an enhanced check should start before at least one reference is in.
- Select Add check to save.
The register lists checks by renewal date and flags any that have lapsed or are due within 90 days, so you can act early.
Name your designated safeguarding lead
The lead's name sits at the top of the page, so everyone knows who to go to. Select Change, type their name and role, for example "Jane Smith (Chair)", then Save.
Log a concern or incident
- Select Report.
- Choose the Kind: a concern, an incident, a complaint or a serious incident.
- Give it a short title, say what happened, and add the date.
- Select Report it.
More people can report a concern than can read the register, so someone can raise one without seeing other cases.
Decide whether to tell the Charity Commission
Open an incident and select Do we report it?. You'll see the Commission's own examples of what to report and what not to for each category, so you're deciding against the regulator's line rather than a guess.
Record what the trustees decided. If you decide not to report, you must say why. That written reason is your record that you considered it properly. In some categories the Commission gives no exceptions, so "do not report" isn't offered.
Deciding "reportable" doesn't send anything. You still file the report with the Charity Commission yourself, then record the date you did it. When a case is finished, select Mark closed. It stays on the record.
Common questions
Where do data breaches go? In the data protection registers, not here.
What do trustees see for oversight? A board view with counts and statuses only. It shows that cases are being handled without exposing the details of any one case.
Can I break anything by looking? No. Nothing changes until you save a record, and every change is kept in a history.
The governance behind this: our free guide on charitycontrol.org explains the why in plain English.