Policy regarding safeguarding referrals

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/26/004622/C

Version Date: 01/06/2026

The Performance Analysis Department and the Crime & Criminal Justice Department have provided the following information:

Following your response to 01/FIN/26/004471/F, in which you indicated that the force holds some relevant information but that the statistics questions would exceed the s.12 cost limit, I am resubmitting the policy-only elements of my original request.

Please provide copies of any current policies, procedures, protocols, or written guidance held by the Force relating to:

The identification and handling of safeguarding referrals (whether children's or adult) assessed as false, malicious, vexatious, or made in bad faith.

The criteria or process used to determine whether a referral may be false or malicious.

Any action taken when a referral is determined to have been made maliciously, including any referral to police or regulatory bodies.

No information is recorded regarding a policy or procedure relating to false or malicious safeguarding referrals. However, Dorset Police follows the resolution and escalation procedure which is available in the public domain, please see following link: dorset-multi-agency-resolution-and-escalation-procedure-v2-15042024.pdf

Dorset Police work closely with Children’s Social Care and Adult Social Care to encourage reporting and protect children and adults, not deter referrals. All concerns for children and adults must be taken seriously and assessed on their merits. We are trained to ensure we are professionally curious and to be aware of any bias, ensuring that assumptions about credibility are not made, especially at the initial point of referrals. Even if a referral later proves to be false, it must be properly assessed first. Not all referrals will be substantiated and can be mistaken, exaggerated, or even based on misunderstanding so we must again be cautious here and not frame such referrals as wrongdoing.

Although deliberate false or malicious reports can occur, the child or adult’s safeguarding must come first, so even if a report may be malicious, we must review and establish whether there is in fact any risk. If a referral / report proves to be malicious it can be dealt with under criminal law (wasting police time) and or partners complaint process, if applicable.

In MASH and the Safeguarding Referral Unit we adopt an approach of encouraging the public and our partners to raise any concerns they have, and we must act in good faith, avoiding a culture of fear of consequence for raising concerns that turn out to be unfounded.

Where a concern is reported and not proven, this would be recorded on a relevant occurrence (if reported to police) along with clear rationale.

The Local Authority complaints procedure can be found in the public domain, please see following link: Microsoft Word - Pan Dorset SCP Complaints-Procedure April 2020 V1

The retention period for safeguarding referral records where no further action was taken.

No information held.

Whether records of unsubstantiated safeguarding referrals are disclosed as part of future DBS checks, intelligence sharing, or MASH information-sharing.

No information held.

The right of a data subject to add a note of dispute, correction, or supplementary information to a safeguarding intelligence record.

No information held.

For each item: if held, please provide a copy.

Following your response to 01/FIN/26/004471/F, I understand that statistics on safeguarding referrals cannot be retrieved without a manual review of over 145,000 records, which exceeds the s.12 limit.
To help me understand what data is retrievable, please provide:

Does Dorset Police's crime recording system contain any structured (i.e. coded or dropdown) field specifically recording whether a safeguarding referral was assessed as false, malicious, vexatious, or made in bad faith? (Yes/No)

No

Does the system contain any structured field recording the outcome of a safeguarding referral (e.g. substantiated, unsubstantiated, no further action)? (Yes/No - if yes, what are the available outcome codes?)

No

For the most recent complete financial year, how many safeguarding-related occurrences were recorded on the crime recording system in total? (If this figure is available from a dashboard or published report, please provide the source.)

For the financial year 2025/26, there are a total of 4,252 occurrences with the safeguarding concerns field completed as ‘yes’.