Allegations Against Staff: The LADO Process Explained

A practical guide for headteachers, principals, proprietors, governors, trustees and designated safeguarding leads

Most school leaders will deal with an allegation against a member of staff only a handful of times in a career. That’s exactly why it goes wrong. The process is unfamiliar, the pressure is immediate, and the decisions taken in the first hour shape everything that follows.

Many leaders tell us their instinct was to find out what had happened before troubling the local authority. It’s an entirely understandable instinct and it’s the wrong one, and it’s the single most common early error we see.

What we’d say to any leader facing this is that the process exists to take some of the weight off you. You aren’t expected to establish the facts before you pick up the phone.

In this guide we’ll explain what the local authority designated officer does, what triggers a referral, what happens on day one, and what your obligations are afterwards. How it fits alongside everything else is in our guide to school investigations.

Who Is the LADO and What Do They Do?

Every local authority must have a designated officer, or team of officers, involved in the management and oversight of allegations against people who work with children. They’re usually referred to as the LADO.

The LADO provides advice, liaises with the police and children’s social care, and monitors the progress of cases so they’re dealt with as quickly as possible. They don’t investigate. The investigation is carried out by the police, by children’s social care or by the employer, depending on the nature of the allegation.

Two points leaders often miss. The LADO covers anybody working with children in the setting, including volunteers, contractors, agency and supply staff. And you can contact them for a consultation before you’re certain a referral is needed, which is almost always the right first call.

Your own safeguarding advisers are a useful second call, not a substitute for the first. Establish which authority is yours before you need it. It’s the authority where the school is located, and for a school taking placements from twenty authorities that isn’t always the one people assume.

What Is the Harm Threshold for a LADO Referral?

A referral is required where it’s alleged that a person who works with children has behaved in a way that has harmed, or may have harmed, a child; possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to a child; behaved towards a child in a way that indicates they may pose a risk of harm; or behaved, or may have behaved, in a way that indicates they may not be suitable to work with children.

That last limb is broader than people expect and it’s where a great many cases sit. It covers conduct outside work as well as inside it.

If you’re unsure whether the threshold is met, ring the LADO and ask. That consultation isn’t a referral and it’s what the service exists for.

Concerns falling below the threshold are low level concerns, and they have their own process which isn’t the same as doing nothing. We cover it in low level concerns in schools.

What Should a School Do in the First 24 Hours?

Order matters and speed matters.

Report to the headteacher or principal immediately. Where the allegation concerns the headteacher, it goes to the chair of governors, the chair of trustees or the proprietor instead, and not through the headteacher. Where the proprietor is the subject, it goes straight to the LADO. We cover the routing in when safeguarding concerns involve a senior leader.

Contact the LADO within one working day. This is the expectation and it isn’t conditional on you having established the facts.

Don’t start investigating first. Interviewing the child, questioning the member of staff or gathering statements can contaminate evidence and prejudice a police or social care investigation. Establish only enough to make the referral.

Consider the child. Immediate welfare and support, and any steps needed to keep them safe while the matter is looked at. Consider whether other children may be affected.

Consider the member of staff. They should be told as soon as possible, unless doing so would prejudice an investigation, and the LADO will advise on timing. Tell them what support is available.

Record everything, at the time, including the times of calls and the advice received.

Should We Suspend the Member of Staff?

Not automatically, and this is where schools most often overreach.

Statutory guidance is clear that suspension mustn’t be the default. It should be considered where there’s cause to suspect a child is at risk of significant harm, where the allegation is so serious it might be grounds for dismissal, or where it’s necessary to allow a proper investigation.

Alternatives must be considered first. Redeployment away from direct contact, additional supervision, a change of duties. Where suspension does happen, record the reasons and keep it under review.

The decision sits with the headteacher, or with the chair or proprietor where the matter concerns them, and never with the person investigating. There’s a fuller account in suspending a member of staff during an investigation.

What Happens After a LADO Referral?

The LADO will usually convene a strategy discussion or an allegations management meeting, involving the school, children’s social care and, where relevant, the police. That meeting decides which route the matter follows.

A police investigation, where a criminal offence may have been committed. The school doesn’t investigate in parallel and mustn’t do anything that could prejudice the enquiry.

A children’s social care enquiry, where the child may be at risk of significant harm.

An employer investigation, where the matter is one of conduct rather than crime or child protection, or once the other processes have concluded.

Many cases run through more than one of these in sequence, and the school’s own disciplinary process usually waits until police and social care have finished. That can take months. Plan for the operational reality of it, including who’s leading the school if a senior person is absent. We cover the process itself in HR investigations in schools.

What Do the Five Allegation Outcomes Mean?

Allegations are recorded as substantiated, malicious, false, unsubstantiated, or unfounded.

The distinctions matter and schools frequently use them loosely. Unsubstantiated means there’s insufficient evidence either way; it isn’t the same as false, which means there’s evidence the allegation didn’t happen. Recording a case as malicious requires evidence of deliberate deception.

The outcome affects what goes on the personnel file and what appears in a future reference, so getting the terminology right isn’t pedantry. It’s the difference between a fair record and an unfair one, and the person it describes may see it.

Do We Still Have to Refer if They Resign?

Yes, and this is the duty most often missed.

Where a person is removed from regulated activity, or would have been had they not resigned, and the harm test is met, there’s a legal duty to refer to the Disclosure and Barring Service. A resignation doesn’t remove the duty and a settlement agreement can’t override it.

A referral to the Teaching Regulation Agency may also be required where a teacher’s conduct may amount to unacceptable professional conduct, conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute, or a conviction for a relevant offence.

Never agree a settlement limiting what you can say in a reference about safeguarding, and never omit a substantiated concern from one, and make sure the departure is reflected on your single central record. Finish the process as far as you reasonably can, record the outcome, and make the referrals.

From Our Experience

The error we see most often isn’t a school failing to take an allegation seriously. It’s a school taking it so seriously that it starts investigating immediately, before making the call.

Establishing the facts isn’t your job at that stage, and doing it can damage the case irreparably. Many leaders tell us nobody had ever said that to them plainly.

We often see schools where the process was handled well and the record keeping was thin, so that two years later nobody could evidence when the referral was made or what advice was given. Contemporaneous notes with times on them are what protect the school, and they take minutes.

Schools that manage this well have one thing in place beforehand. The LADO’s contact details somewhere every senior member of staff can find them in ninety seconds, and a named alternative route if the concern is about the person who normally holds them.

A Common Misconception

“They resigned, so the matter is closed.”

It’s an understandable reading, and it’s the position that causes the most serious harm.

Ceasing an investigation because somebody resigned is specifically discouraged, because it allows a person about whom there are concerns to move to another setting. The duty to refer to the DBS applies whether the person resigned, was dismissed, or left before the process concluded.

The reason to finish it isn’t procedural tidiness. A member of staff who leaves quietly with an unresolved allegation behind them will be working with other people’s children within a term, and the only thing standing between those children and a repeat is whether somebody completed a referral.

Questions for Leaders and Governors

• Does every senior member of staff know how to contact the LADO today?
• If an allegation concerned our headteacher, does everybody know it goes to the chair or proprietor?
• Have we ever started investigating before making a referral?
• Do our records show the time of every call and the advice received?
• Are we recording outcomes using the correct five terms?
• Have we made every DBS and TRA referral the duty required, including after resignations?

Our Perspective

The allegations process exists because the adults working closest to children are, occasionally, the source of the risk. That’s uncomfortable, and the discomfort is precisely why it needs a clear procedure that runs the same way every time rather than being reinvented under pressure.

Handled properly it protects the child, and it also protects the member of staff. Most people who face an allegation have done nothing wrong, and they’re entitled to a process that establishes that fairly rather than one that leaves a question hanging over them.

Every school’s circumstances are different, and the ones that get this right aren’t the ones that never receive an allegation. They’re the ones that pick up the phone on day one, write down what they were told, and see it through to the end.