Over the previous five years, participating National Governing Bodies (NGBs) managed a total of 3,823 safeguarding cases involving statutory services. This is according to research carried out by the CPSU and Loughborough University.
The safeguarding case data research project uses a standardised tool to collate information about concerns reported in sport.
The information is submitted by participating NGBs of sport in England and Wales and analysed to identify themes and trends.
These anonymised findings can then be used to inform future safeguarding work, campaigns and training, and identify the resources needed across the sector.
Below we highlight the key findings from the latest research.
Safeguarding concerns inside and outside sport settings
The research showed that 55%, or 2,102, child safeguarding concerns raised were from outside sport. This refers to abuse that has taken place in a different context to the sporting environment, but which relates to an individual who is involved in sport.
The remaining 45% of child safeguarding concerns were reported from within a sporting environment, which totalled 1,721 cases.
Child-on-child abuse
In the last 12 months, there has been a significant increase in cases of child-on-child abuse. Non-contact sexual abuse is now involved in 25% of such cases. The annual average from 2018 to 2022 was 2%. There was also a rise in child-on-child sexual abuse. The annual average from 2018 to 2022 was 3%, and in 2022 to 2023 the rate was 27%.
Online safety
The analysis showed that 33% of cases involved online activity. In particular, 87% of non-contact sexual abuse cases occurred online.
Lower-level poor practice concerns
There have been proportionally more cases classified as poor practice in the last 12 months. Between 2018 and 2023, poor practice concerns have seen a 13% increase, from 11% to 24% of all cases.
Adult cases
In the latest 12 months of data, cases which only involved adults were included for the first time. This included adults as both the alleged perpetrator and the victim. There was a total of 98 adult safeguarding cases, recorded by five NGBs, with 48% concerning behaviour inside sport, and 52% outside sport.
Contact sexual abuse was the most reported form of adult concern at 32%. Physical abuse made up 24% of reports, and 13% were reports of general welfare concerns, such as mental health and self-harm concerns.
What do these results mean for CPSU and the sector?
CPSU welcome this research to provide further information to inform practice, learning and campaigning around safeguarding children and young people in sport and physical activity. In particular, CPSU will take forward the following areas in response to the findings:
- Providing more learning opportunities around harmful sexual behaviour by young people, for those working in safeguarding in sport.
- Working with NSPCC colleagues to strengthen our guidance around online safety. We will also signpost to organisations who specialise in the online safety space for specific training and guidance.
- Integrating findings from this research within training and presentations.
- Supporting organisations to consider and manage lower-level concerns, in anticipation of the expansion of this project to encompass this area.