**Care Inspectorate Announcement**

Telling us about Protection

We have updated our protection procedures and made changes to how we manage protection notifications (previously called allegations of abuse). As you will know, some changes were introduced in April 2025, and we have since made further minor updates. These improvements will help ensure we receive accurate information and reduce the need for unnecessary follow-up where details are missing.

As part of these improvements, we have clarified when a service should notify us of a protection concern relating to a child.

Services must notify us when:

• A formal protection concern has been identified and
• The service has made a protection referral to the lead agency.

This applies even if the incident did not occur within the service, provided the service made the referral to the lead agency. For example, a referral being made in response to a child disclosing an incident that happened at home. Where the incident did not happen within the service, please only share a brief overview of any key information. Do not share personal details of other people involved (such as family members).

Services do not need to notify us when:

• The protection concern occurred when the child was not actively receiving a service, such as when the child was at home, and
• The service did not make the referral to the lead agency.
• Or, where there is additional information being shared concerning the safety and wellbeing of a child that is already under child protection or information that is part of a cumulative picture.

For example, we do not need to be notified that a protection referral has been made about a child by a third party or if a child using the service is under child protection.

Protection notification changes

Where you receive an email receipt from submitting a referral to a lead agency, you can attach a copy of this to the notification. However, please do not attach any photographs or copies of protection referral forms to the protection notification. If additional information is required, the inspector will request this directly.

The confirmation field indicating whether a protection referral has been made to the lead agency (Yes/No dropdown box) is now mandatory.

• If a referral has been made, you are now required to provide the name and job title of the staff member who submitted it.
• If a referral has not been made, you must provide an explanation.

These changes will provide us with robust assurance that concerns are being referred appropriately.

Providing accurate information supports our commitment to keeping people safe and maintaining the highest standards of practice. It is important to be aware that knowingly submitting false information to the Care Inspectorate may result in a report to the appropriate professional regulator.

Protection is one of our core assurances. This means that we look at this on every inspection to ensure that services are keeping people safe.

Incident notifications – children leaving premises

Our current guidance for Early learning and childcare services: Guidance on records you must keep and notifications you must make, highlights the importance of providing detailed information where an incident has occurred in your service. Recently we have had a particular focus on incidents of children leaving premises or being unaccounted for. Having reviewed the information you have shared with us, we can see that in many cases, service processes are working well to identify and respond to risk, ensuring children are kept safe. To take a proportionate approach to these cases, we thought it might be useful to provide some further guidance to support the definition of “serious adverse risk.”

It is important to recognise that any incident could become serious, so all incidents must be recorded and reviewed to reduce future risk. These records will be reviewed during inspections or through other regulatory activity, including complaint investigations.

You do not need to submit a notification only if all the following conditions are met:

• The child’s absence was identified due to staff vigilance and effective procedures.
• Staff realised the child or children were missing within 5 minutes.
• The child or children were found safely within the registered premises.
• The child or children were physically unharmed.

If all these criteria are met, a notification is not required.

Due to the higher level of risk, you must submit a notification for any of the following:

• A child has been left unaccounted for in an outdoor space.
• A child has exited the premises or designated outdoor areas.
• A child has accessed unregistered or restricted areas of the premises (e.g., kitchens, cleaning cupboards, staff rooms) where risks may be present.

From the information received through the notification process, we can see that children are more likely to go missing at times of transition. It is therefore particularly important that at these times staff are alert to children’s whereabouts and can account for all children.

This includes:

• Drop off and pick up times.
• Movement between outdoor and indoor spaces.
• Movement from main play areas to dining areas for snack and mealtimes.
• Unexpected movement such as fire alarms/drills when children may hide.

We hope this information is helpful to provide some assurance and clarity should you require to make a notification. We are currently updating our Guidance on records you must keep and notifications you must make, to reflect the changes that are being made with the introduction of our new digital systems and will include these changes into the latest version when published.