LADO Investigations Explained (For Teachers)

What a LADO actually is

Every local authority in England is required to have a Local Authority Designated Officer, or LADO — sometimes a small team rather than a single individual, depending on the size of the authority. Their job is to be the single point of coordination whenever a safeguarding allegation is made against a person who works with children in a paid or voluntary capacity, teachers very much included. That coordination role covers giving advice to schools on how to handle a specific case properly, chairing or contributing to the initial strategy discussion that decides what happens next, and keeping an overview of how the case progresses so nothing falls through the gaps between the school, children's social care, and the police where relevant.

It's worth being precise about what the LADO is not. The LADO does not work for your school, does not decide whether you keep your job, and does not run your school's disciplinary process. They are a local authority safeguarding professional whose focus is specifically the child protection dimension of an allegation — making sure it's handled consistently, proportionately, and in line with statutory guidance, whether the person concerned works at a maintained school, an academy, or in another children's service entirely. Understanding this separation matters, because it explains why a LADO case and a school-led HR process can run at the same time without one overriding the other, and why LADO involvement is a process question, not a verdict.

What actually triggers LADO involvement

A LADO referral isn't triggered by any complaint that happens to involve a child — it's specifically for allegations that meet the recognised safeguarding threshold. In practice, a school is expected to consider a LADO referral where an allegation suggests a person who works with children may have:

• ✓ Behaved in a way that has harmed a child, or may have harmed a child
• ✓ Possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to a child
• ✓ Behaved towards a child or children in a way that indicates they may be unsuitable to work with children
• ✓ Behaved in a way that indicates they may pose a risk of harm to children outside of their professional role

That threshold is intentionally broad, because it has to capture everything from the most serious end (a suspected criminal offence) through to concerns that fall well short of that but still raise a genuine safeguarding question about someone's suitability to work with children. It's also why a wide range of allegations can technically meet the threshold for referral even though, on investigation, a substantial proportion turn out to have an innocent or misunderstood explanation — the threshold for referring a concern is deliberately lower than the threshold for actually substantiating one.

It's equally important to know what falls outside that threshold. A parent being unhappy with a mark their child received, a disagreement about classroom management style, or a straightforward complaint about teaching quality doesn't, on its own, indicate possible harm or unsuitability, and wouldn't normally trigger a LADO referral at all — those sit within ordinary school management, complaints, or capability processes instead. If you're unsure whether a specific process you're going through is safeguarding-led or not, that's a reasonable and important question to ask your headteacher or union rep directly, because the two tracks come with quite different procedures and protections.

LADO process vs your school's HR process

One of the most common sources of confusion — and unnecessary anxiety — for teachers going through this is not realising that two separate processes can be running at once, for two separate purposes.

• • The LADO-led safeguarding process exists to establish whether a child has been or may be at risk of harm, and to decide what safeguarding steps (if any) are needed. It typically involves the local authority, the school, and sometimes children's social care or the police.
• • Your school's HR or disciplinary process exists to establish whether, as your employer, the school needs to take any employment action against you — which could range from no action at all through to, in the most serious cases, dismissal.

These two processes are meant to run in parallel and inform each other, not replace one another. A school will usually wait for the outcome of the LADO strategy discussion, and sometimes the fuller investigation, before deciding how (or whether) to proceed with any internal disciplinary process of its own — partly to avoid taking separate, potentially conflicting steps, and partly because the safeguarding investigation may need to happen first, particularly if the police are involved. That's usually why a LADO case can feel like it's "on hold" from your side for a period — the safeguarding strand is working through its own required steps before anything else can sensibly move forward.

Crucially, a LADO referral is a required safeguarding step, not a school's judgement about your guilt or innocence — schools are expected to make a referral wherever the threshold above is potentially met, precisely so that the LADO (rather than the school alone) can advise on whether and how it should be taken further. Being referred says something about the nature of the allegation received, not about how likely it is to be true.

What actually happens, step by step

Your rights and support during the process

Being told a concern has been referred to the LADO is understandably unsettling, but there are concrete things you are entitled to throughout, and concrete things you can do straight away.

• ✓ Contact your union immediately — most cases benefit enormously from early union involvement, well before any formal meeting is scheduled
• ✓ Expect to be told, in reasonably clear terms, the nature of the allegation you're responding to
• ✓ Expect a named point of contact at your school for updates on process and timescale
• ✓ Keep your own written record of dates, conversations, and anything you're told, as you go rather than reconstructing it later
• ✓ Access to occupational health or an employee assistance programme, where your school or trust offers one, purely for your own wellbeing during a stressful period
• ✓ Avoid discussing the substance of the allegation with colleagues, pupils, or on social media while the process is ongoing, on your union's advice

How long a LADO case typically takes

There's no single fixed national timescale that applies to every case, because the right pace genuinely depends on the complexity of the allegation, whether the police need to be involved, and how quickly evidence (witness accounts, records, sometimes external reports) can reasonably be gathered. What you should expect, regardless of how long the substantive process takes, is a clear point of contact and a realistic sense of timescale that gets updated if circumstances change — not silence for weeks at a time.

It's honest to say that these processes can sometimes take longer than anyone involved would like, particularly where a police investigation is running in parallel and has to take precedence over the school's own timeline. That's genuinely difficult to sit with, and it's a fair thing to raise directly and repeatedly with your named contact and your union — asking for a timescale update is a completely reasonable request at any point, not something that risks being seen as uncooperative.

Possible outcomes of a LADO case

LADO cases are formally closed with one of a small number of recorded outcome categories. Broadly, these cover:

• ✓ Substantiated — there is sufficient evidence to support the allegation on the balance of probabilities
• ✓ Unsubstantiated — there is insufficient evidence to either prove or disprove the allegation
• ✓ Unfounded — there is no evidence, or credible evidence, to support the allegation having occurred at all
• ✓ False — there is sufficient evidence to disprove the allegation
• ✓ Malicious — there is sufficient evidence to disprove the allegation and evidence it was made with intent to deceive

Many cases referred to a LADO conclude as unsubstantiated or unfounded, with no further action taken against the teacher at all. It's worth genuinely internalising that: the existence of a LADO referral tells you an allegation met the threshold for a safeguarding response, not that it's likely to be proven. The process exists precisely to reach a fair, evidenced conclusion rather than to assume the worst from the outset.

Common misconceptions about LADO involvement

A lot of the anxiety around a LADO referral comes from a handful of assumptions that feel intuitively true but don't actually hold up. It's worth naming them directly, because unpicking them tends to make the whole process feel more manageable, even while it's ongoing.

• ✕ "A LADO referral means the school already thinks I did it." A referral is a required response to an allegation meeting a specific threshold, not a judgement on its likely truth.
• ✕ "Being suspended and being LADO-referred are the same decision." They're made separately, by different people, for different reasons — plenty of LADO cases proceed with no suspension at all.
• ✕ "If the LADO is involved, it will definitely go to a disciplinary hearing." Many cases close as unsubstantiated or unfounded, with no disciplinary process following at all.
• ✕ "I can't talk to anyone about it." You can, and should, talk to your union representative — that's a different thing from discussing the substance of the allegation with colleagues or on social media.
• ✕ "Once a LADO case is open, it will drag on forever." Straightforward cases are often resolved within weeks; the ones that take longer are usually the more complex minority, not the norm.

None of this is to minimise how stressful the experience genuinely is while it's happening — it's a serious process precisely because it exists to protect children properly, and that seriousness is appropriate. But understanding what the process is for, rather than assuming it already implies a conclusion, tends to make it easier to engage with calmly and constructively.

Preparing for a LADO-related meeting or interview

If you're asked to attend a meeting connected to a LADO case — whether that's an initial fact-finding conversation or a more formal interview as part of an investigation — a small amount of preparation makes a genuine difference to how the meeting goes and how you feel afterwards.

• ✓ Confirm your union representative can attend with you, and speak to them beforehand about what to expect
• ✓ Ask in advance, in writing if possible, what the meeting is specifically about, so you're not walking in cold
• ✓ Write down your own recollection of relevant events beforehand, while it's fresh, even if you don't take the notes into the meeting itself
• ✓ Ask for a short adjournment during the meeting if you need a moment — this is a completely normal and reasonable request
• ✓ Ask what happens next and roughly when, before the meeting ends, so you're not left guessing afterwards

It's also worth accepting, in advance, that you may not get every question answered in a single meeting — some information genuinely can't be shared partway through an ongoing investigation, particularly where the police are involved. That's a limitation of where the process has got to, not a sign that something is being deliberately withheld from you specifically.

What happens after the case closes

Where a case closes as unsubstantiated, unfounded, false or malicious, the expectation is that it should have no ongoing negative bearing on your employment — the case is closed, and any related school HR process, if one had been paused, should also be closed or should proceed on that basis. Where a case is substantiated, the outcome feeds into the school's own disciplinary process, which then determines what employment consequences (if any) follow, and — only in the more serious substantiated cases — whether a referral to the Teaching Regulation Agency is appropriate. Our guide on TRA prohibition orders explains that further, much less common, escalation route in detail, including why the large majority of school-level cases never reach that stage at all.

If your case has run alongside a period of suspension, it's worth reading our guide on what happens when you're suspended, which covers pay entitlement and what a return to work (or, in some cases, a negotiated exit) can look like once a safeguarding process has concluded.