Safeguarding Hubs
The Safeguarding Hubs are a suite of tools to help a parish with safeguarding by storing recruitment information relating to current and past church members in line with GDPR.
You can now also choose to connect the Safeguarding Hub to your safeguarding dashboards, and once connected you will no longer need to answer dashboard questions about DBS checks of safeguarding training. Instead, the dashboard will automatically get the relevant information directly from the Hub.
In addition, parishes can link their Hub directly to 31:8. DBS applications can be administered directly from the Hub and if the result is unblemished, the Hub will automatically be updated with the certificate number and date. This will save the Hub owner the job of manually entering DBS records, and it will help to eliminate typing errors.
Parishes can allow their Diocesan Safeguarding Teams to view their Hubs, which will allow them to:
- Give systems support
- Offer safeguarding advice
- View safeguarding records so parishes do not need to complete an annual audit
Coming soon
It is planned that by Easter 2026, parish volunteers and employees will be able to link their account in the National Training Portal to their parish Hub. Once linked, the Hub will be automatically updated whenever training is completed through this portal. This will save the Hub Owner manually entering most training records.
Becoming a Hub owner
There are two ways to become a Hub Owner:
- You should find an invitation displayed on the homepage of your Safeguarding Dashboard
- If another owner from your parish has already accepted an invitation, you will need to ask them to send you an invitation to be a Hub Owner too. Please don’t hesitate to contact Sara Black if you have any questions.
NOTE
Parishes wishing to use their Hub must accept the Service Agreement on the Hubs dashboard before 1st December 2025. The Service Agreement helps to ensure that data processing complies with the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). After that time, parishes will have restricted access to their Hubs until they have signed the service agreement until 31st January 2026, when they will lose access completely and all data will be deleted as there will be no legal basis for storing it.
Support for parishes
The Hubs have been developed by Clearly Simpler Ltd, and they have provided some supporting information and “how to…” that you might find helpful