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Our approach to accountability

We continually strive to improve

Accountability means we take responsibility for using our resources efficiently and achieving measurable results.

It also means we must answer to our supporters, donors, partners and, most of all, to children.

Open communication

At Save the Children we understand that to become a more accountable and transparent organisation, first we must openly and transparently share information about our activities.

Secondly, we must ensure we proactively engage anyone with an interest in our work, providing mechanisms for feedback and complaints, so anyone with an interest in or affected by our work has the opportunity to input and influence our activities.

For more information, see our Key Reports page.

Child safeguarding

We do everything we can to ensure children’s experience of our organisation is, before a positive and supportive experience, one that is completely free from any form of exploitation or abuse, and that children feel respected and safe.

Anyone representing our organisation must declare they have read, understood and will adhere to our child safeguarding policy at all times, both in their private and professional lives, to ensure the highest standards of behaviour towards children, young people and their families.

This is clearly stated in our Code of Conduct and Child Safeguarding Policy, where we have a zero tolerance approach to the exploitation and abuse of children.

Accountability to children and communities affected by disasters

As part of our commitment to collaboration and continuous improvement, we played an active role in the development of the Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS) which was launched by the CHS Alliance in December 2014.

Bringing together more than two decades of experience in quality, accountability and people management, the CHS Alliance forms one of the largest and most influential networks of organisations committed to improving humanitarian responses through the application of a universal core humanitarian standard.

Accountability to our supporters

Our supporters are critical to our success. In recent years we have been able to deliver real change on a bigger scale than ever before, but only because of the generosity of our supporters. Without you we simply wouldn't be able to help children at home or abroad. That’s why we’re committed to being fully transparent and accountable to you and sharing information with you that is tailored to your interests. Read more about our Supporter Promise here.

Child in South Sudan

Accountability to donors and partners

As part of our accountability to institutional donors and corporate partners, we are committed to building capacity in the countries in which we operate and to establishing productive and mutually accountable relationships with our corporate partners, institutional donors or sector peers. As part of this commitment we are also committed to transparency around aid spending and have backed the Etherington government-commissioned review of fundraising in the third sector.

Accountability to our staff and volunteers

In addition to our 877 staff we have more than 3,900 volunteers giving their time across the UK in a variety of roles. As part of our accountability to our staff and volunteers we are in the process of developing a people promise, so that we can better support and enable our people to achieve more impact for children.

Furthermore, to improve our volunteers’ experience of volunteering, we have a volunteer management portal that shares knowledge, news and all the latest volunteering opportunities. We are also introducing annual volunteer surveys which will help us understand more about and provide support for the needs of our volunteers.

Your feedback

It’s important to us to know what you think and how we could do things better. We welcome feedback about our approach to accountability and transparency.

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