05 - Bury College DSL Submitted Inaccurate Safeguarding Referral — Then Failed to Correct It

At the heart of the recent employment tribunal involving Bury College is a troubling revelation about the safeguarding process led by the College’s own Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), Sarah Walton.

The Tribunal heard that Walton submitted a safeguarding referral to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) containing factually incorrect information about a teacher. Critically, this referral was made after the teacher had already been suspended, so it played no role in the suspension decision. However, what followed is central to understanding how the case progressed and why it may have gone so badly wrong.

The LADO’s conclusion was clear: the harm threshold had not been met. Under Keeping Children Safe in Education 2023 (KCSIE), when concerns fall below this threshold, they should be addressed under the College’s low-level concerns policy, which supports early intervention without escalation to formal procedures.

Despite this, the College took no action to cancel the suspension, implement a low-level process, or revise its approach. Instead, it ignored the LADO’s finding entirely and pressed ahead with a gross misconduct process that ultimately led to the teacher’s dismissal.

The Tribunal also heard that at the time Walton submitted the referral, she had not yet received the official meeting notes from the investigation meeting held several hours earlier. She acknowledged under cross-examination that she was instead relying on her own memory and, crucially, on personal notes that she did not disclose to the Claimant or to the Tribunal.

These previously unknown notes, mentioned for the first time during Walton’s Tribunal testimony, formed the basis for a safeguarding referral that contained inaccurate statements. Yet even after receiving the official meeting notes and recognising the discrepancies, Walton took no steps to update or correct her submission to the LADO.

This failure is deeply significant. As DSL, Walton had a professional duty to ensure the accuracy of safeguarding information shared with external agencies. Submitting an unverified account, failing to disclose the notes that supported it, and then failing to correct the record after discovering it was wrong, represents a breakdown in both transparency and safeguarding integrity.

Even more concerning is the fact that the LADO’s decision was entirely disregarded. The threshold was not met, meaning there was no assessed risk of harm; yet the College treated the teacher as if a serious safeguarding breach had occurred.

The Tribunal must now weigh whether this conduct amounts to procedural unfairness. With Walton’s mishandling of the referral, the College’s failure to act on the LADO findings, and the lack of transparency surrounding critical evidence, serious doubts remain about whether the process, and the ultimate dismissal, were lawful or fair.

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