Diocese of Portsmouth
The Church of England

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Audit of safeguarding in our diocese

One of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was that safeguarding policies and procedures in every Church of England diocese should be subject to an external audit. The INEQE safeguarding group was appointed by the Archbishops’ Council in 2023 to carry out these external audits, to make sure dioceses and cathedrals are doing all they can to create environments where everyone feels safe. So far, they have completed audits in 11 CofE dioceses, and the reports on each of those dioceses can be read here.

It is now the turn of the Diocese of Portsmouth and Portsmouth Cathedral to be audited. The audit involves two main elements: a safeguarding survey and an in-person visit.

Safeguarding survey

INEQE held an online survey that allowed all stakeholders to comment on safeguarding across our diocese. This was available from February to April 2025, but is now closed. It gives the auditors an idea of the culture relating to safeguarding in our parishes, and helps them to decide what questions to ask us during our in-person visit. 

In-person visit

The auditors will also make an in-person visit to our diocese between June 2-6. They will conduct some interviews with key people, and will also bring together some focus groups. Until the results of the survey have been analysed, they won’t know what kind of people they’ll want to gather in focus groups. There may, therefore, be an appeal for people to volunteer to be part of these groups nearer the time.

Publication

We are expecting the conclusions of this audit to be published on the INEQE website in August. Although it is an Ofsted-style audit, their conclusions will be more nuanced than ‘excellent’, ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. There are likely to be some recommendations for us as a diocese to implement.

Our ‘single points of contact’ for this audit are Head of Safeguarding Emily Hassan (for the diocese) and Canon Harriet Neale-Stevens (for the cathedral), so do contact them with any queries on INEQEaudit@portsmouth.anglican.org.