Durham Cathedral Safeguarding Audit - please share your feedback

Published: Tuesday 14 January 2025

At Durham Cathedral, it is important to us that safeguarding is at the heart of everything we do and we need your support with an upcoming safeguarding audit.

At Durham Cathedral, it is important to us that safeguarding is at the heart of everything we do.

With this in mind, we are asking for your help preparing for an independent audit of safeguarding at Durham Cathedral through an online survey.

To make sure cathedrals and dioceses are doing all they can to create environments where everyone feels safe, valued and respected the INEQE Safeguarding Group have been commissioned to carry out independent safeguarding audits of the Church of England. In May 2025, an audit will take place of safeguarding at Durham Cathedral and Durham Diocese.

As part of the audit process, feedback is being sought from across the community who support and are served by Durham Cathedral including worshippers, volunteers and children and young people. If you feel this may apply to you, we kindly encourage you to complete a survey. You may find that you are part of more than one of these groups so, in this instance, please fill out all the surveys that apply to you.

The surveys are both anonymous and confidential so that you can be open and honest with your responses and we encourage everyone, including victims and survivors of abuse, to give feedback. The survey results are received directly by INEQE’s Audit Team and not by the Church of England or the Durham Cathedral team.

At Durham Cathedral, our culture is one of recognising existing good practice whilst seeking continuous improvement, and we are looking forward to engaging with the INEQE audit process as an opportunity to live out this culture.

The audit process will happen in the week commencing 6 May 2025, at Durham Cathedral and the Diocese of Durham.

With the aim of reaching as many people as possible with this communication, we anticipate some people may receive this request more than once, from either Durham Cathedral or Durham Diocese.

Thank you for your time to support this process.