Political party safeguarding policies
IICSA · Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse Linked to Westminster Investigation Report · Issued 25 February 2020 · Addressed to: Political Parties
Government responseCabinet Office: Accepted in part (Sep 2020)
DeliveryCabinet Office says in progress (Sep 2020)
Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, E
All political parties registered with the Electoral Commission in England and Wales must ensure that they have a comprehensive safeguarding policy. All political parties must also ensure that they have procedures to accompany their policies, in order that politicians, prospective politicians, staff and volunteers know how to enact their party's policy, which must be published online. All political parties must update their policies and procedures regularly, and obtain expert safeguarding advice when doing this. The Electoral Commission should monitor and oversee compliance with this recommendation.
IICSA, Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse Linked to Westminster Investigation Report · 25 Feb 2020 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
AI-generated evidence summary
The Inquiry recommended that political parties publish safeguarding policies overseen by the Electoral Commission. In September 2020, HM Government agreed that political parties should maintain child safeguarding and whistleblowing policies alongside procedures, advising parties to consult experts and publish their policies online (Cabinet Office response, Sep 2020). However, it stated that the commission lacked expertise in child safeguarding legislation and was not an appropriate regulator of these procedures (Cabinet Office response, Sep 2020; Cabinet Office, Sep 2020). It added that transparency would support public scrutiny, reflecting its position that individual parties should establish codes of conduct setting expectations for member behaviour (Cabinet Office response, Sep 2020). The record holds nothing dated later than the response of September 2020 (Cabinet Office response, Sep 2020).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 19 Oct 2026.
Government response
●Cabinet Office · Accepted in part · 18 Sep 2020
The government agrees that political parties should have in place a comprehensive child safeguarding and whistleblowing policy alongside the appropriate procedures. However, the Electoral Commission – whose remit is focused on electoral law – has no expertise in child safeguarding policies or legislation and is therefore not an appropriate regulator of the quality of these procedures. The government recommends that individual political parties work with child safeguarding experts to review their own policy and procedures, and that they publish those policies online on their websites to ensure that these details are accessible to the press and public. Such transparency will help ensure public confidence and scrutiny of such policies. This reflects the broader stance the government has taken in response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2018, that each political party should draw up their own Code of Conduct to set clear expectations about the behaviour of their members, both offline and online.
Extract from: Government response to the IICSA Westminster report
Delivery
●Cabinet Office says in progress · 18 Sep 2020
The government agrees that political parties should have in place a comprehensive child safeguarding and whistleblowing policy alongside the appropriate procedures. However, the Electoral Commission – whose remit is focused on electoral law – has no expertise in child safeguarding policies or legislation and is therefore not an appropriate regulator of the quality of these procedures.
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The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.