Consents and delegated authority

For a looked-after young person, consent has to record who gave it and on what basis — not just that someone said yes. That is what this record is for.

Open the young person, then Consents under Care, health & education.

Standing or specific

Every consent is one of two things:

• Standing (delegated authority) — what the home is authorised to decide day to day. This comes from the placement plan; record the person or body holding that authority in Delegated authority holder, which only appears for a standing consent.
• Specific — a point-in-time permission for one activity, photo, trip or procedure.

Record a consent

Select Record consent. The modal is headed Record a consent: "Capture who consented, on what basis, the scope, and validity dates." Fill in:

Consent type, category and who consented are all required. Save with Record consent; on an existing consent the modal is headed Update consent and saves with Save consent.

Status is worked out, not chosen

A consent with no expiry date stays active until it is withdrawn.

Withdrawing

Use the withdraw control on an active consent — the cross icon, labelled Withdraw consent — and confirm "Mark this consent as withdrawn?". Any member of the home can do this — it is not a manager action. On a withdrawn consent ARC no longer offers Update; it shows Withdrawn [date] by [name].

Withdrawal does not delete anything. It stamps the time and who withdrew it, and the record stays on file. ARC refuses a second withdrawal with "This consent has already been withdrawn."

Manager countersign

A manager sees Countersign on an active consent that has not been countersigned. (Opened through Update, the same action is the Sign off button at the foot of the modal.) It records that the consent has been reviewed, and can only be done once — ARC refuses a repeat with "This consent has already been signed off." The record then carries a Countersigned badge and Countersigned by [name].

If the consent changed after the manager opened it, ARC refuses and asks them to reload: "This record has changed since you opened it. Reload to see the latest version before you sign it off or send it back."

Countersigning is not what makes a consent valid. The consent is active from the moment it is recorded.

Sending a consent back, or undoing a countersign

A manager has two more buttons on a consent record.

• Send back — opens Send back to staff. The manager chooses Send to (a member of the home; the person who created the record is pre-selected) and writes What is needed?. Both are required. That person gets an email, a notification and a dashboard alert, and the alert stays until they resubmit. They edit the consent and select Submit for review again. While it is with them it cannot be sent back again. The note is shown to the person it was sent to and to managers, not to other staff.
• Undo sign-off — opens Undo sign-off and asks Why are you undoing the sign-off? (required). The consent goes back to awaiting review, and the signed-off version is kept in its version history.

Send back is offered on a consent that has not been countersigned; Undo sign-off on one that has. ARC refuses a send-back on a signed-off record ("This record is signed off. Undo the sign-off first, then send it back."). The person it was sent to, or a manager, can resubmit it.

Nothing signed is overwritten: each step is recorded as a version with who did it and why. Edits made after a countersign are allowed, and managers see "Edited since it was signed off — the changes are in its version history."

The missing-consent warning

When no active consent in the Activities and outings category exists, an amber banner appears on the young person's profile: "No active activities and outings consent is recorded for this child", with a Record consent link.

It is a warning, not a block. ARC will not stop you logging an activity. An expired or withdrawn consent counts as missing, because the check is on an active one.