FOI release

FOI Pride in Surrey - investigations and safeguarding

Case reference FOI2026/00424

Received 22 February 2026

Published 1 April 2026

Request

1. Internal safeguarding inquiries/reviews.
All recorded information concerning any formal or informal safeguarding inquiries, reviews or due diligence commissioned or undertaken by Guildford Borough Council into the operations, personnel or safeguarding policies of Pride in Surrey.

2. Cross-Agency Investigation and Reports.
All recorded information, including correspondence and reports, related to any joint or cross-agency investigation, review, or meeting involving Guildford Borough Council and external statutory agencies such as the police or social services, regarding the safeguarding policies and practices of Pride in Surrey. If such an investigation occurred, please specify:

a) Which agencies were involved.

b) Any final or interim reports produced by Guildford Borough Council or shared with Guildford Borough Council.

3. Requests for Pride in Surrey Internal Documentation. All recorded information detailing any requests or demands made by Guildford Borough Council to Pride in Surrey for the provision of:

a) Evidence of Pride in Surrey's current safeguarding policies and practices.

b) Records of any internal investigation or policy review conducted by Pride in Surrey following the March 2025 convictions.

Response

Please find the answers to your queries below:

I request that you search your records for recorded information pertaining to the Council's due diligence, safeguarding and oversight activities concerning Pride in Surrey for the period covering March 1st 2025 to the date of this request. Please provide all recorded information relating to the following matters:

1. Internal safeguarding inquiries/reviews.
All recorded information concerning any formal or informal safeguarding inquiries, reviews or due diligence commissioned or undertaken by Guildford Borough Council into the operations, personnel or safeguarding policies of Pride in Surrey.

Guildford Borough Council takes all safeguarding matters extremely seriously. To this end, we have worked through our Safety Advisory Group (SAG), which incorporates key safeguarding partners, as well as been in contact with both Surrey Police and Surrey County Council to ensure that we are kept abreast of any information these organisations may have in relation to any safeguarding concerns, or incident reports, regarding Pride in Surrey.

All these organisations confirmed that they had neither safeguarding concerns nor incident reports to share with us. They have also verified that should any safeguarding reports regarding Pride in Surrey be received by them in the future, then this information would be shared with us directly via the appropriate channels.

I have attached redacted copies of the email exchanges between Guildford Borough Council and Surrey Police and also Guildford Borough Council and Surrey County Council, as well as confirmation that no issues had been flagged via the SAG.

We have no other correspondence referring to safeguarding in relation to Pride in Surrey.

Please see above.

a) Which agencies were involved.

Please see above.

b) Any final or interim reports produced by Guildford Borough Council or shared with Guildford Borough Council.

Guildford Borough Council has not and does not provide any funding, or any support-in-kind, to Pride in Surrey and therefore at this time no formal review has been conducted

3. Requests for Pride in Surrey Internal Documentation. All recorded information detailing any requests or demands made by Guildford Borough Council to Pride in Surrey for the provision of:

a) Evidence of Pride in Surrey's current safeguarding policies and practices.

Pride in Surrey were required to provide us with a copy of their safeguarding policy in relation to their application to hire Stoke Park for the Pride in Surrey march in 2025. The safeguarding policy is publicly available and can be found on their website:

https://www.prideinsurrey.org/about

Pride in Surrey have also been required to work with Guildford Council’s Safeguarding Advisory Group (SAG) in relation to the Pride in Surrey event held in 2025, in order that an event management plan and risk assessment were prepared in advance to ensure that the events were carried out safely for all those in attendance.

They were also required to provide an Event Management Plan, which I have attached.

b) Records of any internal investigation or policy review conducted by Pride in Surrey following the March 2025 convictions.

Please find attached a formal statement that we have received from Pride in Surrey regarding the March 2025 convictions, in which they advised that they would be commissioning an independent review of their current safeguarding policies and systems. They advised that this review would be led by external professionals and that its findings would be published in full once complete. They have also advised that they would introduce a publicly available complaints procedure on their website, which can be found via the following link:

https://www.prideinsurrey.org/externalcomplaints

Yours sincerely,

FOI Team

Guildford Borough Council

Documents

This is Guildford Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.

You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.