Incident reporting

We regard an Incident as any actual or attempted:

• Acts of child abuse and exploitation, this includes physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and wider exploitation (such as child labour and early marriage)
• Sexual misconduct
• Acts of modern slavery or human trafficking
• Acts causing harm or major detriment to a vulnerable group (as defined below)
• Acts of theft, fraud, bribery, money laundering, funding of terrorism, tax evasion and other forms of corrupt practice
• Instances where someone’s health and safety is, or believed to be, in danger
• Any forms of illegal activities not covered above
• Undisclosed or emergent major conflicts of interest
• Attempts to cover up wrongdoing
• Data protection breaches
• These include acts in relation to our direct work, as well as work funded by us.

The list above is not exhaustive. You should bring any form of unethical behavior to our attention.

• A whistleblower is anyone who reports a suspicion of an incident to us.
• Our policy is to treat all reports of incidents with the utmost seriousness and will respond to reports as soon as it is practicable to do so. This is normally within two working days of receiving a concern.
• We will protect the confidentiality of whistleblowers and prevent them from harm or detriment as a result of their report, as much as it is in our power to do so.
• Any concerns or issues can be reported anonymously. We will respect your anonymity as best we can. However, any investigations may be at a disadvantage if we are unable to contact you to discuss your concerns.
• We will acknowledge your report and may also request further information if an investigation is appropriate. We cannot state how long any investigation may take as this will be determined by the context of the incident, but we will keep you informed of progress as much as we are able to do so.
• During the course of any investigation, it may not be possible to keep details entirely confidential as we have legal duties to inform our donors and regulatory agencies in some cases. When this occurs we will inform you in advance, where we are allowed to do so, and work with you to prevent any harm or detriment.
• During any investigation it may not be possible to share all details that the investigation uncovers, however, we will keep you informed of progress as much as we can.
• Once any investigation is complete, we will inform you of the result of and any resulting actions. If you are not content, we will explain how to appeal and how to escalate to any relevant regulatory body.