Professionals must face duty to report child sexual abuse, says inquiry

Professionals must be under a legal duty to report child sexual abuse, and face criminal sanctions for not doing so, to tackle the systemic under-identification of CSA.

That was one of the key recommendations by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in its final report, issued today, seven years after it was set up in the wake of institutional failings revealed by the Jimmy Savile and other abuse scandals.

The inquiry said evidence it had received had shown that found that “allegations and indicators of child sexual abuse were under-reported by adults who ought to have reported them”.

It also urged the creation of Child Protection Authorities for England and Wales responsible for improving practice by statutory agencies and other institutions, advising government on policy and, where they consider necessary, inspecting organisations.

The inquiry further said that care staff working in residential settings in England, and youth custodial settings across England and Wales, should be subject to professional regulation, in the same way as social workers, a recommendation it had made previously.

It added that an independent body should be charged with setting and maintaining standards of training, conduct and continuing professional development, and with the power to enforce these through fitness to practise procedures.

Currently, in England, Working Together to Safeguard Children says anyone with concerns about a child’s welfare “should make a referral to local authority children’s social care”, doing so immediately in cases of suspected significant harm, such as child sexual abuse.

However, this is not a legal requirement, with the agencies bound by Working Together, such as councils, the police, NHS bodies and schools, being able to depart from it in exceptional circumstances.

There is a legal duty in Wales – under section 130 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales Act) 2014 – on specified public bodies to report suspected abuse, neglect or harm of a child to the relevant local authority. However, the inquiry pointed out that the Welsh approach left gaps in relation to who was required to report – leaving out independent schools and voluntary and religious organisations – and involved no criminal sanctions for a failure to do so.

Mandatory reporting previously rejected by government

The UK government rejected the case for introducing mandatory reporting of child abuse by professionals in England – with criminal sanctions for those who failed to do so – in 2018, following a consultation. It found the likely increase in referrals risked creating a “needle in a haystack” making it less likely abused children would be identified.

However, the inquiry said that evidence from other countries showed that the introduction of mandatory reporting led to a significant increase in the number of children identified as in need of protection, and that this figure was higher in jurisdictions with mandatory reporting than those without it.

While CSA referral rates to local authorities are not recorded in England and Wales, the inquiry said the evidence suggested they were small, because CSA was identified in just 6% of children’s social care assessments, with child sexual exploitation (CSE) identified in 3.4%.

The review acknowledged concerns that mandatory reporting could deter children from disclosing abuse or families from seeking help, for fear of the consequences for family members and a desire for privacy and confidentiality.

However, it warned that not requiring reporting risked allowing perpetrators to continue to abuse.

Councils ‘must be sufficiently resourced’

While the inquiry said, in most cases, reports would need to be made to local authorities – with the police notified in an emergency – and stressed they would need to be sufficiently resourced.

“To ensure the effectiveness of any mandatory reporting duty, the government must ensure that agencies receiving reports are sufficiently resourced to be able to respond to any increase in reports about child sexual abuse that mandatory reporting laws generate,” the inquiry added.

Besides mandatory reporting, its other recommendations included:

1. The creation of Child Protection Authorities (CPAs) for England and Wales, independent statutory bodies that would be repositories of expertise on child protection and tasked with improving practice, advising governments on policy and, where necessary, inspecting institutions. It said this would fill gaps in current inspection arrangements by subjecting non-statutory or unregulated organisations where children spend time and multi-agency child protection arrangements to checks. It also said the CPAs should be able to direct existing inspectorates, such as Ofsted, to carry out checks in certain cases.
2. Introducing the regulation of care staff working in children’s homes in England and young offender institutions and secure training centres in England and Wales. After the inquiry recommended registration of children’s home staff in England by an independent body in 2018, the Department for Education commissioned a review of the issue, which was inconclusive, though it told the inquiry it would keep it under review. The inquiry said this response was inadequate, and that workforce regulation was necessary to better protect children in residential settings. The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care also recommended extending workforce regulation for children’s home staff, starting with managers, and the DfE is currently considering its recommendations and is due to report before the end of the year.
3. A single redress scheme for victims of CSA and CSE connected to institutions in England and Wales, which would run for five years.
4. Giving children in care, or others on their behalf, the right to apply to the family courts to rule on whether they are at experiencing, or are at risk of, significant harm, with the court able to make orders mandating or limiting the local authority’s exercise of its parental responsibility. This would apply both to children experiencing harm in their placement or those who experience abuse or exploitation as a result of an inappropriate placement or inadequate supervision.
5. A guarantee of specialist therapeutic support for child victims of sexual abuse.
6. A ban on the use of pain compliance techniques on children in custodial institutions.
7. The creation of a cabinet-level minister for children in the UK government.
8. Improvements in the availability of data on CSA through the creation of a single dataset covering England and Wales, including information on the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators, factors that make victims more vulnerable to CSA or CSE and the settings and contexts in which abuse occurs. The data should be published regularly and collated nationally, regionally and locally.

Scale of abuse ‘horrifying and deeply disturbing’

Chair of the inquiry Alexis Jay said: “The nature and scale of the abuse we encountered were horrifying and deeply disturbing. As a society, we simply cannot file it away and consider it a historical aberration when so much of what we learned suggests it is an ever-growing problem, exacerbated by the current and future threat of the internet.

“The publication of this report is the culmination of seven years of work. To the victims and survivors who have made such an immense contribution to our work, we will be forever grateful. I urge the UK government, the Welsh Government and all other relevant institutions to implement the Inquiry’s recommendations as a matter of urgency. Unless we are prepared to accept a world where our children, and their children, are always in danger of becoming victims of this terrible crime, action must be taken immediately.”

In its response, issued before prime minister Liz Truss announced her resignation today, the UK government said it would respond to the inquiry within six months.

Newly installed home secretary Grant Shapps said: “I am incredibly grateful to the thousands of victims and survivors who have bravely come forward to share their experiences with the inquiry, their bravery will not be forgotten.

“I will keep their voices front and centre in everything I do and I will ensure that the findings of the inquiry, and their invaluable testimonies, are acted upon.”

Wales’s deputy minister for social services, Julie Morgan, said: “This is a very important report, and the recommendations will now be given full and proper consideration. I make a further statement about how these will be taken forward once we have had a chance to consider them in full.”