Resources · For managers
Raising a concern so that it protects you.
The concern itself usually turns out to have been right. What decides how the next six months go for you personally is who you raised it with, how you wrote it down, and what you can still produce a year later.
A concern raised in a corridor did not happen
Not because anyone is lying. Because two people remember a short conversation differently, and neither of them wrote it down.
Most managers raise a concern several times before they raise it in a way that leaves a trace. They mention it at handover. They say it in a supervision that is minuted as "discussed staffing". They send a message that says "can we talk about the second floor". None of that is retrievable later, and all of it feels at the time like having raised it.
The gap between having said something and being able to show you said it is where managers get hurt. When the matter is eventually examined, the record starts on the day somebody wrote a proper account of it. Everything before that is recollection, and recollection from the person with the most to lose carries the least weight.
So the discipline is simple and slightly unnatural: the first time you think something might be serious, write it down that day, even if you also intend to have the conversation in person.
Work out your position first
The position check plots what you are accountable for against what you can actually decide. It is confidential and it stores nothing. It is a useful thing to run before a difficult conversation rather than after one.
Three ways a good concern goes wrong
The substance survives all three. The person who raised it does not always.
It is written as a complaint about a person
Once a concern names a character rather than a practice, it becomes a dispute between two colleagues and gets handled as one. Describe what happened, when, and what the effect on people using the service was. Leave out what you think it says about anybody.
It goes to the person it is about
Sometimes there is no obvious alternative, and sending it upward feels like going over somebody's head. Send it upward anyway, and say plainly in the message why you have not sent it to the usual person.
It arrives after something else
A concern raised the week after a capability meeting is heard differently from the same concern raised three months earlier, whatever its merits. This is unfair and it is also entirely predictable. Raise things when you notice them.
How to write it
Short, factual, dated, and to a named person who can act.
State what you observed and when. Use dates and times rather than "recently" or "several times". If you are relying on something you were told rather than something you saw, say which it is.
State what you think the risk is, in one sentence. Then state what you are asking for. A concern with no request attached is easy to acknowledge and ignore.
Keep it to one issue per message. Bundled concerns get answered on the easiest point and the hard one quietly disappears.
Send it from an account you will still have access to, or forward a copy to one. Employment ends faster than these matters resolve.
If nothing happens, escalate in order and record each step. Line manager, then the responsible individual or nominated individual, then the regulator or the local authority safeguarding team. Say in each message what you have already done and when.
The awkward part, said plainly: raising a concern properly can still cost you. It can make working relationships difficult and it sometimes ends a post. Doing it badly costs you the same and protects nobody. If the concern is serious enough that you are weighing that up, get advice before you send anything — from a union if you are a member, from a solicitor, or from us.
What this guide is not
This is practical guidance on putting a concern on the record. It is not legal advice, and nothing here describes what protection you may or may not have as an employee.
If the question you actually have is whether you are protected, that is a question for a solicitor or your union, and it is worth asking before you act rather than after.
We are happy to talk through the practical side at any point, including anonymously.
Ring us before it is urgent. It is a much shorter conversation.
Thirty minutes, no charge, no obligation, and nothing said on it goes anywhere. Plenty of managers ring us while they are still deciding whether something is worth raising, and that is exactly the right time.
Text or WhatsApp
07426 919823If it is easier to write it down than say it out loud, send a message.