On 20th July 2022 Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson tabled a Private Members Bill : Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill [HL]
The Bill ran out of time but what it revealed was just how lacklustre the IICSA recommendation was for mandatory reporting in principle.
We are optimistic there will in future be further opportunities to table legislation.
Mandate Now is an evidence led pressure group. For sometime we have been aware of the attendant risks of including physical abuse and neglect in our legislative objectives. Without evidence that clearly demonstrates physical abuse and neglect are positively addressed by the introduction of law, we have amended our objectives to mandatory reporting of suspected and known child sexual abuse only. The depth of evidence supporting the introduction of well-designed law applied to prescribed ‘Regulated Activities’ is significant. The key extract in our updated legislative proposal is here :
Our submission to IICSA of 27.9.18 in advance of the MR seminars, revealed the direction of travel which today is crystallised in this update.
From evidence given to IICSA , the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Hart Inquiry and the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, it is apparent that personnel working in Regulated Activities who do the right thing and adhere to discretionary ‘guidance’ and in some cases professional ‘expectation’ to report known or suspected child sexual abuse, often do so at great personal cost. We have heard of reporters being bullied, alienated from work colleagues, isolated and often forced out of the workplace through a variety of means including constructive dismissal.
To address this practice we took legal and academic advice and have updated our legislative proposal for the introduction of well-designed Mandatory Reporting by those employed in Regulated Activities such as teachers, sports coaches, clergy, healthcare personnel and many more.
The revised draft legislation can now be downloaded here.
For quick reference there are three new clauses to address ‘detriment’ which we feature below :
With mandated reporting of defined concerns supplemented by protection from ‘detriment’, our proposed legislation would put England and Wales on a par with the majority of jurisdictions in the rest of the world.