UPDATE: On 16 July 2022 we updated our proposal for the introduction of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse. A few days later Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson tabled it in her Private Members Bill. Lady Grey-Thompson’s bill would have had a significant positive impact on institutional safeguarding unlike the lamentable IICSA final report recommendation of 20.10.22.
The Bishop of Manchester this week has been arguing in Parliament in favour of an exemption from the “Duty to report” child sex abuse for disclosures of abuse heard during confession. He seems to think that keeping secrets is a higher moral duty than protecting children from abuse.
Other mandatory reporting duties have been introduced in the past. For instance a mandatory duty to report suspected money laundering is in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. A duty to report certain crimes related to terrorist activity is in the Terrorism Act 2000. In neither case did the churches make any argument in favour of an exemption for confession, even though in these two cases failing to make a required report is actually a criminal offence and the non-reporter could go to prison for it.
One has to wonder why the churches are so interested in carving out an exemption for themselves specifically on child sex abuse, when they couldn’t be bothered to ask on these other topics which have been in law for more than 20 years without causing the churches any noticeable spiritual inconvenience.
But in fact, the Bishop of Manchester’s concerns are misguided for an entirely different reason. Any organisation which decides for religious or any other reasons to protect those who don’t report child sex abuse can do so with complete impunity.
Under the new bill, it’s not an offence not to report child sex abuse. So unlike money laundering or terrorism, nobody is going to jail for not reporting abuse.
The government has said that non-reporters may be subject to the sanction of being referred to the DBS. But DBS referrals don’t happen by magic, they have to be made by specific people. And under the new “duty to report” in this Bill, the only person who can refer a non-reporter is their employer.
Under the bill, the employer must refer someone to the DBS for non-reporting if they first either sack them or move them away from child-facing duties because of the failure to report. It will be an offence not to make a referral in this specific circumstance. But if the employer chooses to leave the non-reporter in their job, they legally can’t make a DBS referral, and there is absolutely nothing anybody else can do about it.
So the churches can simply have an unwritten policy that they aren’t going to sack anyone for not reporting abuse heard in confession (or for that matter nor reporting abuse heard at any other time), and therefore they legally can’t make a DBS referral about, and nobody can force them to change their policy.
Of course, this doesn’t apply just to churches. Any organisation can have this policy for any reason, and nobody can prevent them. This bill is not designed to help children.
At present the government’s “mandatory reporting” section of the bill is designed NOT to help abused children. These are some amendments which would convert it into an effective piece of legislation
Amendment
Replace Section 45(1) with the following text
that a child sex offence may have been committed (at any time).
Delete Section 47
Reason: For the duty to report to apply to suspicions and all reasonable grounds for suspicion that a child sex abuse offence has been committed, using wording similar to that which exists for instance in Section 330 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 relating to the mandatory duty on certain persons to report suspected money laundering.
For the duty to apply to Wales as well as England.
A court, when deciding whether a person has reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting child sex abuse, can take into account any published statutory guidance on the subject, documents such as “Working Together to Safeguard Children” and “Keeping Children Safe in Education”.
Amendment
Delete Section 45(5)
Amend Section 45(2)(c) to it reads as follows
(c) must be made as soon as practicable (subject to subsection (6));
Reason: Statutory guidance already recommends that a report is made as soon as practicable, and does not allow for a delay as described in Section 45(5), particularly in circumstances where there is a risk to the life or safety of a relevant child. Specifically, Keeping Children Safe in Education (2025). Page 93, para 366 states:
The initial response to an allegation.
Where the school or college identifies that a child has been harmed, that there may be an immediate risk of harm to a child or if the situation is an emergency, they should contact local authority children’s social care and as appropriate the police immediately as per the processes explained in Part one of this guidance.
There is no justification for making a statutory provision for a delay in such emergency circumstances.
Amendment
Insert the following subsections into Section 45.
(9a) A person commits an offence if they fail to fulfil the duty under subsection (1).
(9b) A person who commits an offence under this subsection (9a) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 of the standard scale.
Delete Section 54(2)
Reason: To introduce a criminal sanction for failure to fulfil the duty to report child sexual abuse, as recommended in Recommendation 13 of the IICSA final report, replacing the provision to require a DBS referral in certain circumstances.
Amendment
Insert the following subsections into Section 45.
(9c) A person who causes or threatens to cause any detriment to a person placed under the duty to report pursuant to subsection (1), or to another person, either wholly or partly related to the mandated person’s actual or intended provision of a report under this Act, is guilty of an offence.
(9d) Detriment includes any personal, social, economic, professional, or other detriment to the person.
(9e) A person guilty of an offence under Subsection (9c) is liable on summary conviction to a level 4 fine on the standard scale.
Reason: To protect mandated reporters from retaliation, by introducing a criminal offence of threatening or causing any detriment to a mandated reporter related to the act of reporting.
Amendment
In Section 52, delete subsections (2) and (3)
Reason: Beyond the “initial 7-day period” described in section 45(11), there is no justification for anybody attempting to persuade a person to delay making a report under section 45.
Amendment
In Section 45, add subsection (1a) as follows)
(1a) The duty under subsection (1) only applies if
Reason: To ensure that persons within the leadership or an organisation providing relevant activities are covered by the duty to report, and to ensure that persons within an organisation which engages in relevant activities but themselves do not supervise children (e.g. cleaning or catering staff) are not subject to the duty.
Amendment (only to be considered if the amendments to insert Sections 45(1b), (9a) and (9b) are passed, will be withdrawn otherwise)
Delete Section 52
Reason: If the duty to report, backed by a criminal sanction, applies equally to the leadership of organisations providing relevant activities as well as to those directly caring for children, there is no need for the separate offence of preventing or deterring a report.
Amendment
Add Subsection 49 (3) (c) as follows
(c) the age difference among all the persons involved, from the youngest to the oldest, is no more than two years.
Reason: The difference in maturity between a child who has just reached the age of 13 and one who is almost 18 is very great, and there is a serious reason to be concerned about the degree of consent given by the younger child in such circumstances. Therefore it is appropriate to limit the age difference for this exemption to the reporting duty.
Amendment
Amend Section 50 (1) (b) (i) to read
(i) A is a child aged 13 or over, and
Reason: To ensure that the exemption from reporting certain disclosures by children applies only to disclosures by children aged 13 or over.
The Labour government’s “mandatory reporting” section of the Crime and Policing Bill is designed to achieve nothing. It’s certainly NOT intended to help abused children.
We know this because of two things.
Let’s start with the word-for-word copy bit. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two measures.
On the left are the amendments proposed by the Conservatives to their Criminal Justice Bill. It didn’t pass last year because the general election.
On the right are clauses 45 to 54 and Schedule 7 of the Crime and Policing Bill. In the key parts, they are word-for-word identical.
The Conservative bill followed two rounds of public consultation. At the end of the second round, they published their preferred approach, i.e. for the duty to report abuse not to an offence with a criminal sanction (which is what the IICSA public inquiry recommended), and for there to be on offence of “Preventing or deterring” someone from making a report.
When the Conservative amendments were published, we explained why they were useless. This was the actual intention of the Conservative government! Along with the outcome of the consultation, they published an Impact Assessment Statement. The key part of it was Table 1.
The central estimate is that there are about 103,000 child sex abuse reports to the police per year, and this measure will increase that number by just 310. That is about one per year for each local authority in England. It’s nothing.
Labour has copied a Conservative Bill designed to achieve nothing. The only reason to support this measure is if you don’t want to protect children who are being sexually abused.
To convert the bill into an effective mandatory reporting measure, here are some amendments that would make a difference.
The places with the very worst safeguarding culture will be entirely unaffected by the government’s new “mandatory reporting” law. This is why.
There’s no criminal sanction for non-reporting.
The government makes a lot of the fact that someone failing to report might be referred to the DBS. That referral is done by the non-reporter’s own employer, and only if they sack the person first.
But at the worst settings, they are more likely to reward a nonreporter than sack them. If they don’t sack them, they don’t have to make a DBS referral. Simples!
So the DBS mechanism is entirely ineffective in the places with the worst safeguarding culture.
Preventing or deterring a person from complying with duty to report suspected child sex offence
Then there is the offence of “Preventing or deterring a person from complying with duty to report suspected child sex offence”. It has a huge loophole. It remains perfectly legal to persuade someone to delay reporting child sex abuse. there is no limit to the duration of the delay.
But even without that loophole, the offence will have little effect. In the John Smyth case, nobody was told to shut up about Smyth’s abuses. Nobody’s job was threatened if they went to the police about Smyth.
Instead there was a common unspoken consensus, reaching all the way up to Justin Welby, that keeping quiet about it all was the right thing to do. There was no specific instance of preventing someone that could be used as evidence for a prosecution.
IICSA identified quite a few places with that kind of unspoken consensus. These places, which have the worst safeguarding culture, are therefore safe from any risk of prosecution for “preventing or deterring” a report.
And the government has nothing else to offer. This is a recipe for the next Savile or Smyth.
There is a simple fix
All this is really simple to fix, if the government wants to. An effective mandatory law needs three things.
There is already a Private Member’s Bill before Parliament that does all this, the Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill. The government could adopt it wholesale tomorrow.
A year ago, we published an article “The Government’s useless Child Sexual Abuse Reporting law
Unfortunately, we now have to publish “The Labour Government’s useless Child Sexual Abuse Reporting Law”. Because the Labour government’s measure, in Sections 45-54 of the Crime and Policing Bill is almost identical to what the Conservatives proposed a year ago.
An effective mandatory reporting measure requires three things.
Child sexual abuse (being a private act) is very rarely witnessed. According to data from the ONS, children very rarely disclose sexual abuse to a person in authority – less than 10% will disclose rape or other contact sexual abuse to a person in authority at the time. And according to the NSPCC, those who do make some kind of disclosure are often indirect or incomplete in what they say, only half of disclosures are direct. So if mandatory reporting is limited to these cases, very few mandated reports will be generated. The great majority of cases documented by IICSA of abuse going unreported (sometimes for years or even decades) were of abuse that was suspected because of the behaviour of the abuser or of the victims, but where do direct disclosure was made by a child.
IICSA argued persuasively for mandatory reporting to apply to suspected as well known abuse, but lost its nerve in terms of including that in the final recommendation.
Neither the Conservative government nor the Labour government has included suspected abuse in its proposed mandatory reporting measure.
Recommendation 13 of the IICSA final report specifically recommended that the statutory duty be backed by criminal sanctions for failure to report. IICSA also recorded a considerable number of cases of institutional hostility to reporting abuse “Leaders were sometimes more focussed on controlling what information about allegations of abuse became public rather than on ensuring authorities were properly notified so that allegations were investigated.”
IICSA described how a great many cases are not reported where knowledge or at least clear suspicions existed. It described the “desire to protect an individual or institution from reputational damage”. IICSA concluded that nothing less than a criminal sanction would change behaviour. For instance, it noted that the Welsh government had enacted a duty for specified public bodies to report children at risk of harm, but that this duty did not involved criminal sanctions for individuals who fail to comply with the duty. IICSA found that “the introduction of the referral-reporting duty in Wales had not led to a substantive change in practice”.
The Conservative government, when deciding on its approach after conducting further consultations after IICSA had reported, decided against a criminal sanction for non-reporting. It knew and documented the fact that the measure would have almost no effect. The Impact Assessment published by the Home Office stated that the rise in report was expected to be 2% – a trivial number given that most abuse (probably 85%) goes unreported.
The Labour Government has copied the Conservative approach and chosen to have no criminal sanction for non-reporting.
The Labour measure does differ very slightly from the Conservative approach. The Conservatives claimed that people would be referred to the DBS if they failed to report, but included no legislative mechanism for this to happen. Labour has included a legislative mechanism, but it is unlikely ever to be used and so is not going to change behaviour.
At present, under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, if a regulated activity or an employment agency providing staff to a regulated activity (such as a school) believes that someone has harmed a child or is a risk to children, and decides as a result to sack them or move them from child-facing duties, or the person resigns first when they would have been sacked, then there is a legal obligation to refer that person to the DBS. Under the Labour bill, the same duty would apply if the person was sacked etc for not making a report of child sex abuse.
Some important things to realise about this
Those organisations that encourage proper reporting are unlikely to need to make a DBS referral for non-reporting. Those organisations that don’t are unlikely to want to make a DBS referral and so will engineer a situation where legally they don’t have to. Either way, this will have no effect.
Both the Conservative and Labour bills do a little better here. They make it clear that making a mandated report can’t be considered to be a breach of confidentiality or other restriction on disclosure of information, and provides for an offence of “Preventing or deterring a person from complying with duty to report suspected child sex offence”.
There are three serious problems though with the offence as it stands
In this, the Conservative and Labour bills are identical.
The Labour bill is just as useless as the Conservative bill. It will have almost no effect on reporting. The government knows this and doesn’t appear to care.
We now have the government’s legislative proposal in response to the IICSA public inquiry’s recommendation on mandatory reporting of child sex abuse.
It is utterly useless, and it is intended to be. You can read the legislative text here.
There are two main parts to the legislation. The “Duty to report child sex offences”, and an “Offence of preventing or deterring a person from complying with duty to report child sex offences”
Duty to Report
The key measure is the amendment Gov NC65 “Duty to report child sex offences”. Here’s the start of it.
Duty to report child sex offences
(1) A person aged 18 or over must make a notification under this section if, while engaging in a relevant activity in England, the person is given reason to suspect that a child sex offence may have been committed (at any time).
(2) A notification under this section—
(a) is to be made to a relevant chief officer of police or a relevant local authority director (or both);
(b) must identify each person believed by the person making the notification to be involved in the suspected offence and explain why the notification is made;
(c) must be made as soon as reasonably practicable;
(d) may be made orally or in writing.
(3) If the person making the notification believes that no relevant child resides in England and Wales, subsection (2)(a) applies as if it referred to a relevant chief officer of police only.
Note that it is framed as a “duty”. But there is no offence of failing in that duty. In the legislation there is no criminal or other sanction for failing to report. So even through it uses the word “must” there is no force behind it. This is not mandatory reporting. It is a waste of parliamentary time, putting new words on the status quo.
The Home Office claims that anybody failing to fulfil the Duty to Report is liable to be subject to a referral to the DBS. But the Home Office has provided no description for how that will be done, either in the legislation or anywhere else.
DBS referrals don’t happen by magic. They have to be sent by people to the DBS. Who will send them? In what circumstances are the required to make a referral? What sanction is applied to someone who does not make a required referral.
There is already a required referral mechanism where an employee is thought to be a danger to children. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act Section 35 (for regulated activities) and Section 36 (for personnel agencies) provides a duty to make a DBS referral about somebody through to be a danger to children, when you sack them or they leave when you would have sacked them had they stayed. Section 38 of SVGA 2006 makes it an offence (punishable by a fine) not to make a required referral.
But the government has been entirely silent on how and when DBS referrals will be made for failing in the duty to report. So until an enforcement mechanism is published, we have to assume that it simply doesn’t exist, and that there is no enforcement and no sanction, and that that Duty to Report is a waste of printer’s ink.
The next part of the section is very curious. Even in its non-mandatory unenforceable form, the government seems intent providing as many loopholes as possible to the Duty to Report, making sure that current excuses for not reporting will remain OK.
(4) The duty under subsection (1) does not apply to a person—
(a) if the person reasonably believes that another person has previously made, or will imminently make, a notification under this section in connection with the suspected offence;
(b) for such time as the person reasonably believes another person who engages in a relevant activity in England has made or will make a notification under this section on their behalf;
(c) for such time as the person reasonably believes that it is not in the best interests of each relevant child to make a notification under this section.
Section 4(a) is something of a problem in that it not only allows a person not to report if they know somebody else already has reported, but also allows them not to report if they believe that somebody else is about to report. It really ought to be only if you know that a report has already been made, and within a fairly strict timeframe e.g. 7 days or so.
Section 4(b) is similar but introduces a different issue, the idea that somebody else can make a report on your behalf. In effect, this is delegating what the government described as a legal duty. The weakness of the wording is that you can report internally to your designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and under 4(b) claim that you have a reasonable belief that the report has been sent on. But the DSL, only having the evidence second-hand, doesn’t have a legal duty to pass it on. Placing the duty at the organisational level rather than making people individually responsible greatly increases the risk that no report will be made at all. Professor Ben Mathews of the Queensland university of technology, who is the leading academic on this subject, gave evidence on this topic to the IICSA inquiry. He said of the Australian system:
The person under the duty to report is the person who themselves generates the knowledge or suspicion. If they are working with a more senior colleague, they can perhaps consult with that colleague, to check on whether they think that suspicion is well based. And if they’re working with a senior colleague in treating a child, they can certainly inform that colleague of their intended course of action and of their action.
The point is that internal communication is consultation and information, but in Australia the legal obligation is on the person with the knowledge of the matter directly to inform the external authorities. That obligation cannot be delegated.
But it is section 4(c) that really beggars belief. You can delay making your report for as long as you think it is in the child’s interest for you to keep quiet.
Teachers and others caring for children aren’t trained social workers and they are not remotely equipped to make that decision. The idea of having the discretion to delay reporting is entirely contrary to modern safeguarding practice and contradicts the government’s own Statutory Guidance. For instance if you take a look at Keeping Children Safe in Education and turn to Section one: Concerns or allegations that may meet the harm threshold, you don’t get very far down before you reach The initial response to an allegation and paragraph 360 immediately below.
360. Where the school or college identifies that a child has been harmed, that there may be an immediate risk of harm to a child, or if the situation is an emergency, they should contact local authority children’s social care and as appropriate the police immediately as per the processes explained in Part one of this guidance.
It says “immediately”. It specifically does not give anyone at the school the discretion to decide whether it is in the child’s best interests to wait a bit.
But when you have evidence that a child has already been harmed in a way that would trigger the Duty to Report, Section 4(c) does allow you to wait a bit, or wait a long time, or even wait for ever because there is no limit in the legislation to the duration of the delay. So anyone accused of failing in their duty to report can say “I didn’t fail to report, I was waiting for the moment when it was in the child’s best interest to report, and in my judgment it has not yet arrived.”
There is also no requirement to report if the potential reporter believes the activity is consensual sexual activity between children over the age of 13.
So, we have an unenforced non-mandatory duty to report with so many exceptions that even if it were mandatory it would have no effect.
But there’s more. There is a further section “Reasons to suspect child sex offence may have been committed” which describes the types of evidence that will trigger the duty to report. There are just four cases which qualify.
(1) For the purposes of section (Duty to report child sex offences), a person (P) is given reason to suspect that a child sex offence may have been committed in each of the following 4 cases (and no others).
(2) The first case is where P witnesses conduct constituting a child sex offence.
(3) The second case is where a child communicates to P something which would cause a reasonable person who engages in the same relevant activity as P to suspect that a child sex offence may have been committed.
(4) The third case is where another person (A) communicates to P something which would cause a reasonable person who engages in the same relevant activity as P to suspect that A may have committed a child sex offence.
(5) The fourth case is where P sees an image or video recording, or hears an audio recording, which would cause a reasonable person who engages in the same relevant activity as P to suspect that a child sex offence may have been committed.
The first case is if you actually witness a child being sexually abused. The IICSA report said this about witnessed abuse.
“Child sexual abuse almost invariably happens in private. The chance of the abuse being witnessed is therefore likely to be rare.”
The second case is disclosure of abuse by the child. This is what the IICSA report had to say about children disclosing their abuse.
Research by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse indicates that the average time for victims and survivors to disclose sexual abuse is 26 years.
An average delay of 26 years before something is disclosed is largely useless for safeguarding purposes. How many other children does an abuser have the chance to harm in the intervening period? It does happen sometimes that a child discloses the abuse while still a child, but all the evidence is that this is a small minority of cases. The children who are psychologically manipulated by their abusers into not disclosing deserve protection as well.
The third case is disclosure by the abuser. This is so rare that the IICSA report doesn’t mention any examples at all of it happening.
The last case is seeing an image or video of abuse or hearing an audio recording. This is essentially a variant of either witnessing abuse or disclosure by the abuser. Child abuse images are already subject to existing laws, and anybody who hangs on to one while waiting for the appropriate moment to report it is probably breaking much more serious laws than this one.
And that’s your lot. The only events triggering the duty to report are ones that are extremely unlikely to occur. This is designed to achieve nothing.
The many other indicators of abuse listed in the IICSA report do not trigger the duty. Here is a non-exhaustive list included in the IICSA report.
Some of the following signs may be indicators of sexual abuse:
- Children who display knowledge or interest in sexual acts inappropriate to their age;
- Children who use sexual language or have sexual knowledge that you wouldn’t expect them to have;
- Children who ask others to behave sexually or play sexual games; and
- Children with physical sexual health problems, including soreness in the genital and anal areas, sexually transmitted infections or underage pregnancy
Under the government’s own (non-mandatory) Statutory Guidance, all of the above should be subject to an immediate report to children’s services. In Australia all of this is subject to mandatory reporting. No other country has introduced a form of mandatory reporting based on such a deliberately narrow set of criteria for what triggers a “mandatory” report.
We know the government’s proposal is designed to achieve nothing because it is even weaker than the proposal put by government in a public consultation last November which at least suggested some possible professional sanctions. The government estimated in Table 3 of the accompanying Consultation Impact Assessment that the proposal would increase referrals to children’s services by between 1% and 3%, or between 780 and 2,300 children per year. That is about 2.5 to 7.5 children per local authority per year.
The IICSA report stated that 58,000 offences of contact CSA were reported in the year ending March 2020. IICSA estimates that the number of children abused each year is about 500,000. This means that only about 11.6% of offences get reported, and 88.4% of offences do not. If the maximum 3% increase in reporting expected by the government as a result of this measure, then the proportion of unreported offences would only fall from 88.4% to 88.1%. This is such a small number that it won’t even be noticed in yearly variations.
In comparison, studies have shown that proper mandatory reporting as implemented across Australia more than doubles the number of referrals from people working in their equivalent of Regulated Activities. In New South Wales, after the introduction of mandatory reporting, teachers referred 24% of all child sexual abuse cases. The government knows this, and has chosen bring in a measure that it believes will have almost no effect.
Offence of Preventing or Deterring a Report
Along with the non-mandatory “mandatory reporting” measure, the government also introduced an offence of “preventing or deterring a person from complying with duty to report child sex offences”.
Offence of preventing or deterring a person from complying with duty to report child sex offences
(1) A person commits an offence if they—
(a) know that a person is under a duty under section (Duty to report child sex offences), and
(b) engage in any conduct with the intention of preventing or deterring that person from complying with that duty.
This is completely backwards. It’s not an offence to fail to report child sex abuse but it is an offence to discourage someone else from reporting. I mean, how mad is this?
This is obviously the bit the government want to bring forward to show how performatively tough they are. You can always tell by the size of the sentences they wave around to display their manhood. In this case 7 years maximum.
(4) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years or a fine (or both).
But all is not quite as it seems. It’s apparently perfectly OK to encourage someone to delay reporting, just so long as you say it’s OK for them to report at some indeterminate point in the future when the time is right.
(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that the conduct that they engaged in consisted of making representations about the timing of a notification under section (Duty to report child sex offences) in light of the best interests of any person who they reasonably believe to be a relevant child.
(3) A person is taken to show the fact mentioned in subsection (2) if—
(a) sufficient evidence of the fact is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it, and
(b) the contrary is not proved beyond reasonable doubt.
There is no limit to the duration of the delay a person can try and achieve, just as in the Duty to Report there is no limit to the duration of the delay someone can choose by themselves.
Also there’s something else off about this. Even though government’s notes to journalists say that “anyone who seeks to obstruct a reporter from carrying out their duty to report will face the prospect of up to seven years’ imprisonment”. This section has a very peculiar limitation at the end of it.
(6) This section applies to persons in the service of the Crown.
The formal definition of servant of the Crown is “a person holding an office or employment under the Crown”. Broadly this means the armed forces, diplomats etc. It does not mean all government employees and it most certainly does not mean “anyone”. The effect of subsection (6) is that you have to read subsection (1) as if it says “A person in the service of the Crown commits an offence if they….”. It makes quite a radical change to the meaning of the phrase and the scope of the offence, especially as very few people in the service of the Crown will be involved in any kind of work with children.
This measure is clearly designed and intended never to be used. Even if it were rendered completely irrelevant by the limitation to crown servants, it would be largely useless anyway.
A large part of the reason child sex abuse is under-reported is self-censorship. For instance, people worry that they are going to wreck someone’s career if they are wrong. This happens a lot even without overt discouragement from anyone else. That’s why we need actual mandatory reporting, not to criminalise people who don’t report, but rather to get people who want to do the right thing actually to go ahead and do it. In the same way, seat belt laws aren’t there to criminalise drivers, they are there to get us to be safer wearing them and so less likely to be killed or injured if we are unlucky enough to be in an accident.
Also, institutional hostility to reporting abuse can easily be expressed in a very British series of nods and winks without anything obvious being said. Discouragement done this way would be pretty much impossible to prosecute.
There’s also no protection for reporters from subsequent retaliation by disgruntled employers. If someone is sacked after reporting abuse, everyone else will get the message loud and clear without anything needing to be said.
The government just wants to say “We’re being tough on child sex abuse! Look, seven year sentences!” Phooey.
If you want to see what a well-designed mandatory reporting law looks like in comparison to what has been served up by the government, take a look at the Private Members Bill which Baroness Tanni-Grey Thompson introduced in the House of Lords. Mandate Now helped with the drafting. It was based on all the best knowledge available of what works for mandatory reporting, particularly from the Australian studies. It got nowhere for lack of government support. Click the link below to see it.
The Home Office has finally revealed its thinking in this low-profile month long consultation from the 4th November until 30th November 2023.
The consultation makes proposals that, even according to the Home Office’s own impact statement, will deliver no improvement to safeguarding and importantly for the Government it seems, no discernible increase in referrals to the statutory agencies. The Home Office claims its proposal is “mandatory reporting” when in fact it is nothing of the sort. The claim eases the Government’s ability to sell it to a subject naïve public and assert it has fulfilled one of the key recommendations of the IICSA public inquiry.
Our submission to the consultation, redacted of personal details, is available here in .pdf format.
Our submission to the consultation, redacted of personal details, is available here in .docx.
Here is an extract from our submission:
As a consequence, it appears that government is prepared to leave abused children to their fate rather than take action that would lead to more crimes of child sexual abuse coming to the attention of the authorities.
This Home Office approach to safeguarding children is strikingly similar to this recent allegation made in the Covid inquiry:
The key difference between IICSA’s Recommendation 13 and the Home Office proposal (see further down) is marked in red in both cases. It is this difference which means that (whatever they might choose to call it) the Home Office proposal is not mandatory reporting.
IICSA’s Recommendation 13
| Recommendation 13: Mandatory reporting
The Inquiry recommends that the UK government and Welsh Government introduce legislation which places certain individuals – ‘mandated reporters’ – under a statutory duty to report child sexual abuse where they:
The following persons should be designated ‘mandated reporters’:
For the purposes of mandatory reporting, ‘child sexual abuse’ should be interpreted as any act that would be an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 where the alleged victim is a child under the age of 18. Where the child is aged between 13 and under 16 years old, a report need not be made where the mandated reporter reasonably believes that:
These exceptions should not, however, apply where the alleged perpetrator is in a position of trust within the meaning of the 2003 Act. Where the child is under the age of 13, a report must always be made. Reports should be made to either local authority children’s social care or the police as soon as is practicable. It should be a criminal offence for mandated reporters to fail to report child sexual abuse where they:
|
Home office Proposal
Who the duty should apply to
1. The duty should apply to any person undertaking regulated activity in relation to children (under the Safeguarding and Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, as amended) and any person in a role considered relevant to the duty. A list of these roles will be set out in due course.
2. Organisations which engage with children through the above categories should notify relevant individuals of their responsibilities under the duty.
What should be reported
3. Those subject to the duty must make a report when, in the course of undertaking regulated activity or one of the specified roles, they receive a disclosure of child sexual abuse from a child or perpetrator; or personally witness a child being sexually abused. The duty will not apply outside of the relevant activity or role, though in all cases best practice and / or relevant guidance on reporting concerns should be followed.
For the purposes of the duty, ‘child sexual abuse’ should be interpreted as any act that would be an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 where the alleged victim was under the age of 18 at the time the abuse occurred; and ‘witnessing’ child sexual abuse should include viewing indecent images of children.
A report will not need to be made under the duty if those involved are between 13 and 16 years old, the relationship between them is consensual and there is no risk of harm present.
Process for reports
4. Reports should be made to either local authority children’s services or the police as soon as reasonably practicable.
Territorial extent of the duty
5. The territorial extent of the duty to report is England only. Subject to the conditions of point 3 (above), abuse which relates to a child normally resident in other jurisdictions will be reported under the duty, though the subsequent action taken may follow different processes.
Consequences of breaching the duty to report
6. Breaches of the duty to report will be subject to referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service for barring consideration using existing arrangements under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. Barring decisions will take account of representations made by the individual.
7. All regulated professionals and teachers who are subject to the duty, including those working in private education and healthcare settings, will also be at a minimum subject to professional sanctions to be determined by the appropriate regulating body.
Preventing reports from being made
8. Anyone who obstructs or delays a mandated reporter from making a report under the mandatory reporting duty (or attempts to do so), for example through destroying or hiding evidence; applying pressure, threats, bribes or blackmail will be guilty of a criminal offence, which will be included on the list of automatic barring offences. As a result, all convictions will result in a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS); barring decisions will take account of representations made by the individual.
9. As above (point 3), a report will not need to be made under the duty if those involved are between 13 and 16 years old, the relationship between them is consensual and there is no risk of harm present.
Protections for reporters
10. The duty will set out that individuals are protected from any repercussions by their employer or wider organisation as a result of a making a report in good faith; or alerting appropriate authorities that a report which should have been made under the duty has been withheld.
11. We will also set out that reports made under the duty do not breach any obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure, or any other restriction on the disclosure of information.
Provided Mandate Now 22.11.23
IICSA’s final report first anniversary – the government is looking on and doing little
October 20th, 2023, brings the first anniversary of the publication of IICSA’s final report. The publication date coincided with the resignation of Liz Truss. As a result, it was largely wiped from media reporting on the day.
To mark this first anniversary, we have undertaken a review the Government’s progress on the recommendations in the last twelve months. (more…)
