The 2024 update of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) is statutory guidance for schools. At its centre is the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), who develops, implements and oversees safeguarding policies and procedures.

Below: the DSL's nine core responsibilities, the KCSIE 2024 changes that affect the role, and further reading on each area.

Key Responsibilities of the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL)

1. Strategic Leadership and Oversight

  • Develop and implement the school’s safeguarding strategy, ensuring it aligns with statutory requirements.
  • Ensure policies are embedded, regularly reviewed, and understood by all staff.
  • Act as the primary safeguarding expert, offering guidance and support across the school community.

2. Staff Training and Development

  • Deliver induction safeguarding training for all new staff.
  • Provide ongoing professional development to ensure staff are up to date with safeguarding practices.
  • Ensure annual safeguarding updates, including online safety training, are completed by all staff.

Further Reading on Safeguarding Training:

  • Safeguarding Training Quiz Template

3. Effective Communication and Multi-Agency Collaboration

  • Maintain strong partnerships with local authority children’s social care, the police, and health services.
  • Ensure timely and appropriate information sharing while following data protection regulations.
  • Represent the school in multi-agency safeguarding meetings.

Further Reading on Multi-Agency Safeguarding:

  • Working Together to Safeguard Children Checklist

4. Recognising and Assessing Risk

  • Identify signs of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, including online risks.
  • Conduct risk assessments to determine safeguarding concerns and appropriate interventions.
  • Stay informed on emerging safeguarding challenges, including county lines, radicalisation, and peer-on-peer abuse.

Further Reading on Risk Assessment in Schools:

5. Early Help and Referrals

  • Identify children who may need early intervention and ensure timely support.
  • Lead on referrals to local authority children’s services when a child is at risk of harm.
  • Support staff in understanding referral pathways and safeguarding protocols.

Further Reading on Early Help Strategies:

  • Prevent Duty Guidance Checklist

6. Accurate Record-Keeping

  • Maintain confidential, accurate safeguarding records of all concerns and actions taken.
  • Ensure compliance with data protection laws, securing sensitive information appropriately.
  • Make safeguarding records accessible to authorised personnel when necessary.

Further Reading on Safeguarding Documentation:

7. Supporting Children and Families

  • Act as an advocate for vulnerable children, ensuring their needs are prioritised.
  • Provide guidance and resources to families regarding safeguarding concerns.
  • Promote a school culture where children feel safe and able to speak up about concerns.

8. Policy Development and Review

  • Regularly review and update safeguarding policies to reflect legislative changes.
  • Ensure policies align with current statutory requirements.
  • Monitor the effectiveness of safeguarding policies and adjust strategies as needed.

Further Reading on Safeguarding Policy Development:

9. Promoting a Safe and Inclusive Environment

  • Embed a culture of vigilance, ensuring safeguarding is a whole-school responsibility.
  • Promote open communication about safety and well-being.
  • Ensure all safeguarding measures support an inclusive and protective school environment.

Further Reading on Inclusion and Safeguarding:

Key Updates in KCSIE 2024 Relevant to the DSL

1. Strengthened Focus on Early Help

  • Greater emphasis on providing early intervention before concerns escalate.
  • Encourages schools to work proactively with families to address issues early.

2. Clarification on Safeguarding Definitions

  • Expands the definition of safeguarding to include maltreatment both inside and outside the home, including online risks.

3. Enhanced Role of Online Safety

  • DSLs are required to oversee the school’s approach to online safety, ensuring staff and pupils understand digital risks.
  • Online safety policies must be embedded within the broader safeguarding framework.

Further Reading on Online Safety:

4. Reinforced Multi-Agency Working

  • Greater focus on coordinated safeguarding efforts between schools, social care, police, and health professionals.
  • Requires DSLs to ensure efficient communication and record-keeping when working with external agencies.

What changed for the DSL in KCSIE 2026

Added 13 October 2026, from KCSIE 2026 (in force 1 September 2026), Annex C summary of changes.

  • Cover when the DSL is unavailable. Schools should put robust cover arrangements in place for illness, leave or other absence, for example a confidential shared mailbox, so concerns are received, monitored and acted on without delay (para 129; Annex B). Any deputy should be trained to the same standard as the DSL (para 130).
  • Filtering and monitoring. The review of effectiveness happens at least once every academic year, carried out by the SLT member responsible with the DSL and IT support, with checks on all internet-connected devices and a record kept (para 173).
  • Information sharing. Annex B adds further information-sharing guidance, updated child criminal and sexual exploitation indicators and Operation Encompass duties.
  • Early help terms. KCSIE now refers to "universal services and community-based early help" and "the targeted early help level of Family Help", with a section on referrals to Family Help.
  • Volunteers. Volunteers who teach, train, instruct or supervise children frequently, on more than 3 days in a 30-day period, or overnight are now in regulated activity and need an enhanced DBS check with barred list information (para 383).
  • Nudes and semi-nudes. All incidents of sharing nude or semi-nude images need a safeguarding response, whether consensual or not (para 530).

Full summary: what changed in KCSIE 2026. Checklist: Designated Safeguarding Lead Checklist (KCSIE 2026, Annex B).

Next steps

KCSIE 2024 put early help, online safety and multi-agency working at the front. To act on it:

  • Check your safeguarding policies are applied in practice, not only written down.
  • Give staff the training and resources the role sets out above.
  • Make vigilance and inclusion part of everyday school culture.

Further Leadership Resources on Safeguarding:

  • Working Together to Safeguard Children Checklist

Updated 12/03/25