The Church of England is simplifying safeguarding admin by enabling the main safeguarding systems to communicate with each other.
The automatic sharing of information between safeguarding systems is:
- More accurate - because it removes the risk of information being misread or mistyped
- More efficient - because certificates don’t need to be printed, and information doesn’t need to be manually entered
- Quicker - because church records can be updated instantly
DBS records
Once enabled by a diocese and then a parish, DBS records can be sent directly from a DBS provider to a Safeguarding Hub. This feature is currently available for the following DBS providers:
- Thirtyone:Eight
- APCS
Safeguarding training records
Work is underway to send training records directly from the Safeguarding Training Portal to a Safeguarding Hub. This feature will be be available towards the end of 2026 or early 2027.
How is this funded?
The national Church of England and 25 dioceses contributed to the Safeguarding Systems Together (SST) Project, which has funded most of the initial development work.
From 2027 onwards, dioceses that choose to use the new SST features will pay an Annual Fee that covers license fees, hosting, maintenance and support.
The cost of support will be reviewed towards the end of 2027.