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Alignment Accreditation (SIAA)
Demonstrating shared safeguarding responsibility in live education and early years environments.
Safeguarding responsibility is often shared across people, systems and decisions, particularly where external providers are involved.
The Safeguarding Interface Alignment Accreditation (SIAA) exists to support shared understanding and aligned practice at those points of overlap.
It is not about creating new rules.
It is about making responsibility clearer where it already exists.
Why this accreditation exists
In education and early years environments:
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DBS checks confirm who is suitable to work
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Health & safety schemes assess technical competence
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Policies describe expected practice
What is often missing is alignment on how safeguarding responsibility is held once work is taking place in live environments — where children are present, routines are active, and decisions are made across roles and systems.
This is where safeguarding risk most often emerges:
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not through lack of care,
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but through assumption, handover gaps, or unclear ownership.
The Alignment Accreditation exists to address that space.
What the Alignment Accreditation demonstrates
Accreditation confirms that an organisation understands and can demonstrate:
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What “safe working” means in live education and early years environments
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How safeguarding responsibility is shared, not transferred
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How decisions with safeguarding implications are:
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recognised
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communicated
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recorded
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reviewed
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How temporary measures, access arrangements and work sequencing are managed proportionately
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How systems and instructions reflect the reality on site
This is about defensible judgement, not rigid process.
Who the accreditation is for
The Alignment Accreditation applies to organisations whose work intersects with children’s environments, including:
On-site contractors and engineers
Those working directly in live settings, where proximity, visibility and supervision matter.
FM helpdesks and TFM providers
Teams who triage, schedule, prioritise and instruct work remotely — where safeguarding decisions are often made through systems.
Cleaning and routine presence teams
Roles characterised by familiarity, timing and repeated access — where clarity matters more than formality.
How schools and early years settings use the accreditation
Safeguarding in education and early years is well established.
Policies exist. Roles are defined. Practice is embedded.
What is less consistently held is how safeguarding responsibility is understood and acted on when it sits across organisations, systems and external activity.
The Alignment Accreditation is used by schools and early years settings to make those expectations explicit — particularly where responsibility is shared.
It enables settings to:
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Set clear safeguarding expectations for contractors and providers working in live environments
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Create a shared understanding of what “safe working” means beyond technical competence or DBS status
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Reduce reliance on assumption at boundaries between education, estates, systems and external teams
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Strengthen confidence in everyday decisions, including temporary measures, access, supervision and deferrals
In practice, the accreditation becomes a shared point of reference.
It gives schools and early years settings a clear, consistent way to articulate safeguarding expectations when responsibility sits across organisations, systems and on-site activity.
It allows them to say:
"This is how safeguarding responsibility is understood here — and what working safely in our environment means."
For contractors and providers, alignment demonstrates that this understanding is already in place — supporting trust, clearer working relationships and confidence at the point where decisions are made in live environments.
Where safeguarding responsibility is shared, alignment is increasingly the baseline.
What this is not
The Alignment Accreditation:
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Is not a replacement for DBS checks
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Is not a substitute for statutory safeguarding duties
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Is not a health & safety competency scheme
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Is not an inspection, audit or enforcement mechanism
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Is not about blame, fault or restriction
It exists to support clarity, consistency and confidence where responsibility is shared.
Safeguarding does not fail because standards are absent.
It fails where responsibility is shared but not aligned.
The Alignment Accreditation exists to create a common understanding of safeguarding responsibility in live education environments — supporting compliant practice where decisions, systems and external activity intersect.
For schools and early years settings, it provides confidence that safeguarding expectations are understood beyond policy. For contractors and providers, it demonstrates readiness to work safely and appropriately in environments where safeguarding responsibility is shared.
Alignment is what allows compliance to hold, not just exist.