Triaging Concerns & Referrals Follow
Standard Operating Procedure
Contents
2.1 Audience, Roles and Responsibilities
3.1 End to end process (illustrative only - to show connected process)
3.2.1 Concern / Information / Intelligence received through to Entry onto Clue
3.2.2 Assessing Case type and handling Low-Level and Threshold Concerns
1 Introduction
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) underpin The Cricket Regulator’s and England and Wales Cricket Board’s commitment to safeguarding and integrity by enforcing the consistent application of processes, systems and data capture.
The Clue application is central to managing incidents, recording intelligence and maintaining compliance with internal and external governance standards across key areas - anti-discrimination, anti-corruption, anti-doping, misconduct and safeguarding.
Adherence to Standard Operating Procedures is essential for the uniform handling of referrals/concerns across all counties and teams. It ensures accurate and complete data entry, supports defensible decision-making and enhances the long-term value of the Clue application. This is important, as with a growing and quality data set, Clue becomes increasingly powerful, enabling robust management information, faster triage and enhanced intelligence across safeguarding and integrity.
2 Scope of this document
This Standard Operating Procedure outlines the process to follow to Triage Low-Level, Threshold, Professional Game (Pro-Game) and Recreational Game Concerns and Referrals using the Clue application.
This procedure optimises referral handling through effective triage, allocation and management of cases between the Triage Support Officers, Serious and Complex Investigations Manager, Investigations Triage, Case Management teams, Cricket Organisations and Clubs.
2.1 Audience, Roles and Responsibilities
Triage Support Officer
- Reviewing Concerns raised, managing incidents by responding to complainant or triaging to Investigation Manager to review and allocate case ownership, When Clubs submit an incident tasking the County Safeguarding Officer and assigning to the relevant Owner team.
- Working with Clubs and County Safeguarding Officers to verify information (if applicable)
- Triaging concerns and channelling to the right course of action – Low Level Concern or Threshold or other
County Safeguarding Officers
- Understanding the Triage process to receive direction
- Working with the Club on the Low-Level Concern investigation and resolution
- Keeping Clue up to date with actions taken, Incident ownership and status
Serious and Complex Investigations Manager
- Reviewing suspected Threshold, Pro-Game and Recreational Game and discrimination cases and taking the appropriate course of action, channelling to the correct Case Management team or Serious and Complex Investigators.
Relevant Case Management Team – Pro-Game, Recreational Game, Safeguarding
- Investigating incidents including escalated or complex cases that meet Threshold.
3 End to end process
3.1 End to end process (illustrative only - to show connected process)
3.2 Process Steps
3.2.1 Concern / Information / Intelligence received through to Entry onto Clue
A Concern, Information or Intelligence can arise and be submitted through various channels:
- The Reporting Safeguarding Concerns Form - via the Club or Cricket Organisation
- The Raise a Concern Form from any member of the public or person in cricket
- The Report Discrimination form from any member of the public or person in cricket
- A phone call or email to a member of the Triage or Case Management team
- Dedicated email inboxes – Pro-Game, Anti-Corruption, Discipline – from Cricket Organisations, Leagues, a member of the public or person in cricket
- Crimestoppers or Law Enforcement.
- An email to the Diversity Matters inbox from any member of the public or person in cricket
For data quality and consistency, it is important that all concerns are directed to the correct reporting form where available, however some concerns or referrals are passed directly via email/phone call.
If the Concern comes through the Safeguarding Concerns Reporting Form or Report Discrimination Form, fields will be directly populated in a Clue Incident Record with the details of the incident stored as Notes.
The Raise a Concern form submission directly inputs data to an Information Record in Clue. The Triage Support Officer triages the information and determines if there is a need to take forward in Clue, or alternatively, if a response or forward to another internal team is the appropriate course of action. If there is no action required on the information provided, the Triage Support Officer will update the Information Record Status. If necessary, the Triage Support Officer will create an Incident to move through the Triage process.
If a Concern is raised to the Diversity Matters inbox the Triage Support Officer will review the information and assess if it needs to be taken forward in Clue and to Investigations Triage, if it is not adopted to move forward, the Triage Support Officer would take any required steps i.e. share with the relevant team Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).
Once within the Incident record the Triage Support Officer reviews the Concern, running any required checks (ECB Systems) and populates the relevant Clue fields with details provided in the form submission.
The Triage Support Officer links the Incident to any Organisations (i.e. Club) Persons, Communications or Addresses already within Clue, or creates new records to link accordingly.
The Triage Support Officer updates the Record Permissions to include edit access for the relevant Cricket Organisation where the incident took place or relates to.
The Pro-Game, Recreational Game and Safeguarding Threshold Concerns that come in via email, a phone call or one of the Case Management team inboxes the Case Management Team will often add an Incident to Clue directly, when necessary, then work with the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager to triage accordingly. If there is not a Concern to take forward they will take any other necessary steps, for example, share with another team, respond to the query or provide policy information.
See Safeguarding Concerns Reporting Form
See Share a Concern
3.2.2 Assessing Case type and handling Low-Level and Threshold Concerns
The Triage Support Officer will channel depending on if it is raised as a Low-Level Concern or a Threshold incident by assigning the correct Owner Team in Clue. All uncertain and Threshold are run through the Investigations Triage process and are triaged by the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager.
To determine the case handling, The Cricket Regulator Safeguarding Team has established clear case management thresholds to manage expectations and defensible decision making across the Cricket network.
See Cricket Regulator Safeguarding Investigation Thresholds
If a Club Safeguarding Officer raised the Concern and the Cricket Organisation / County Safeguarding Officer has had no visibility of the Concern raised, the Triage Support Officer will assign the correct Cricket Organisation Owner Team and select “County Decision to be Added” in the “Threshold or LLC” mandatory field. The Triage Support Officer will create a Task and email Notification for the Cricket Organisation / County Safeguarding Officer.
On receiving and reviewing the Incident the Cricket Organisation / County Safeguarding Officer decides whether it is a Low-Level or a Threshold Concern. If it is a Low-Level Concern they manage the process accordingly per the Raising and handling a Safeguarding Concern Standard Operating Procedure.
If they deem it is a Threshold Concern the Cricket Organisation / County Safeguarding Officer changes the “Subtype” field to Threshold and creates a Task assigned to the Triage Support Officer to follow the remainder of the Investigations Triage process.
NB Tasks and their Investigator Notes are visible across all users in Clue and should not contain any personal/sensitive information – you can link from a Task to an Incident and instruct – e.g. Please review this Incident and NOT “Please look into ‘Subjects Name’.”
Reviewing if the person is the subject of three or more Low-Level Concerns
As part of the Triage process the Triage Support Officer uses a Clue View to flag if a person is the subject of three or more Low-Level Concerns and as such the Threshold has been met.
If the Threshold has been met the Triage Support Officer creates a new Incident and links all existing Low-Level Concerns to that new Incident. They then assign the newly created Incident to the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager
For all suspected Threshold Concerns, the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager reviews and, as required, works with the Cricket Organisation, County Safeguarding Advisor and Safeguarding Case Management Team to determine if the Incident should be managed as a Low-Level or a Threshold Concern.
If the matter is identified as a Low-Level Concern, the Triage Support Officer or the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager records in the Investigator Notes the reasons for not accepting the referral, assigns any necessary actions to relevant Cricket Organisations, and updates the Owner Team. The incident will then proceed in accordance with the Raising and handling a Safeguarding Concern Standard Operating Procedure.
If it is a Threshold Concern the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager creates a Decision to pass to the Safeguarding Case Management team and changes the Owner Team to Safeguarding Case Management Team who will follow the Safeguarding Case Management Process.
Throughout, the Triage Support Officer and Serious and Complex Investigations Manager are documenting their actions taken and rationale in the Clue Incident Register and Incident Investigator Notes.
See Calculating Columns will support the reporting
See Creating and Linking Records
See Searching in Clue
3.2.3 Assessing Pro Game / Recreational Game - Discipline, Discrimination cases and assigning to the Case Management Team
Depending on how the Concern was raised it will either already be assigned and tasked to the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager by the relevant Case Management Team or the Triage Support Officer will perform any checks across systems, and then will assign and task the Serious and Complex Investigations Manager who will review and document any further case details or rationale to take forward.
The Serious and Complex Investigations Manager then changes the Owner Team to Pro Game Case Management Team or the Recreational Game Case Management team and creates a Task and notification assigned to one of the members of the team to (continue to) take forward under the relevant process - Pro-Game Case Management Process, Recreational Game Case Management Process.