Commentary on Sections General Section 11: Arrangements to safeguard and promote welfare
67.This section imposes a duty on specified agencies to make arrangements to ensure that their functions are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The aim of this duty is to:
	complement the general co-operation duty (section 10) in the specific area of children’s safeguards;
	ensure that agencies give appropriate priority to their responsibilities towards the children in their care or with whom they come into contact;
	encourage agencies to share early concerns about safety and welfare of children and to ensure preventative action before a crisis develops.
68.This duty is intended to ensure that agencies are conscious of the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare in the course of executing their normal functions. Exercise of this duty will require agencies that come into contact with children to recognise that their needs are not always the same as adults i.e. that they are children, and vulnerable, as well as being patients, offenders, or people who use local amenities.
	Subsection (1) sets out the persons and bodies to which the duty applies.
	Subsection (2) sets out the duty and makes clear that it continues to apply where the relevant body contracts out services.
	Subsection (3) excludes the application of the duty where section 175 of the Education Act 2002 applies. That section places a similar duty on Local Education Authorities, schools and further education colleges, i.e. to make arrangements for ensuring that their functions are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and to have regard to guidance issued for this purpose by the Secretary of State.
	Subsection (4) requires those exercising the duty to have regard to guidance from the Secretary of State.