BASPCAN response to:

Reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect–government consultation, England.

The current child protection system

1. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements about the current child protection system?

Strongly / Agree / Neither / Disagree / Strongly / Don’t
agree / agree nor disagree / disagree / know
Child protection training for practitioners should be improved so that they are better qualified and able to provide the right help at the right time to keep children safe. / x
More needs to be done within the child protection system to encourage new and innovative systems to better protect children. / x
Organisations with child protection responsibilities need to work better together. / x
Practitioners and organisations with child protection responsibilities sometimes recklessly fail to take proper action (including reporting) to stop or prevent child abuse and neglect. / x
Child abuse and neglect is generally under-reported by practitioners involved in children’s lives. / x

Other measures that could be introduced

It is important to consider fully the consultation materials before answering the questions in this section. In order to inform your answers to these questions, you will need to balance evidence of potential positive impacts of mandatory reporting or a duty to act against possible risks and issues that may be associated with their introduction.

Reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect Government consultation

The introduction of a mandatory reporting duty

The following questions seek your views on of the possible introduction of a mandatory reporting duty.

2. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

Strongly agree / Agree / Neither agree nor disagree / Disagree / Strongly disagree / Don’t know
Mandatory reporting will generate more reports of suspected and known cases of child abuse and neglect. / x
Increased reporting may divert attention from the most serious child abuse and neglect cases. / x
Increased reporting could mean that abuse and neglect would be captured at an early point in a child’s life. / x
Mandatory reporting could have an adverse impact on the child protection system (e.g. impacting recruitment and retention of staff, creating a culture of reporting rather than acting, negatively impacting the serious case review process). / x
Mandatory reporting could dissuade victims from disclosing incidents of abuse and reduce ‘safe spaces’ for children. / x
Mandatory reporting could lead to greater prevention and awareness of abuse and neglect. / x
The introduction of a mandatory reporting duty would not in itself mean that appropriate action would be taken to protect children. / x

Reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect Government consultation

Strongly agree / Agree / Neither agree nor disagree / Disagree / Strongly disagree / Don’t know
A mandatory reporting duty would ensure that those best placed to make judgements about whether abuse or neglect is happening – i.e. social workers – do so. / x
  1. To what extent do you agree that the introduction of a mandatory reporting duty would directly improve outcomes for children?

Strongly agree / Agree / Neither agree nor disagree / Disagree / Strongly disagree / Don’t know

BASPCAN believes that mandatory reporting in isolation is unlikely to directly improve outcomes for children and in the present context of stretched resources could have unintended negative consequences for children and families. There is currently an absence of convincing evidence of the effectiveness of mandatory reporting.

  1. Please outline any risks or benefits regarding the introduction of a mandatory reporting duty that haven’t been articulated in the consultation.

Benefits

  • Respects the views and concerns of survivors of abuse whose voices were not heard when they experienced abuse
  • Sends a message that abuse is taken seriously
  • Challenges those who think child protection is not their responsibility
  • Possibly, improvestransparency, accountability and therefore confidence in the child protection system
  • Increases likelihood of reports being made on behalf of pre- or non-verbal children who are not able to tell anyone about their abuse
  • Gives hesitant/reluctant professionals an even stronger imperative to report than currently exists
  • Empowers and incentivizes individuals to report if/when their organization tries to silence them

Risks

  • Diversion of scarce resources into handling increased reports, assessment and investigation, with fewer resources for attending to the needs of maltreated children
  • Diversion of resources from prevention
  • Raised thresholds and reduced access to services if reports increase and resources remain unchanged. Gate-keeping by LAs could mean that increased reporting makes no difference to children
  • Encourages a blame culture and climate of fear which conflicts with a learning culture
  • Negative impact on morale of staff in key services from threat of prosecution and criminal sanctions
  • Encourages a buck passing approach between agencies instead of one of shared responsibility and collaboration
  • Could make professionals more anxious and reactive and less willing to monitor carefully when they have suspicions and then make timely better-informed reports. This could lead to more families being referred inappropriately, with attendant stresses
  • Children often need time to disclose abuse and could be silenced by over-hasty reporting
  • Could discourage use of professional discretion and increase more bureaucratic approaches
  • If introduced without a proportionate increase in resources, training, improved support, front line services could be put under intolerable strain

The introduction of a duty to act

The following questions seek your views on the possible introduction of a duty to act.

5. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

Strongly agree / Agree / Neither agree nor disagree / Disagree / Strongly disagree / Don’t know
A duty to act could strengthen accountability on individuals and organisations in protecting children from abuse and neglect. / x
A duty to act could have an adverse impact on the child protection system (e.g. impacting recruitment and retention of staff, and negatively impacting the serious case review process). / x
A duty to act on child abuse and neglect would be more likely to lead to better outcomes for children than a duty focused solely on the reporting of child abuse and neglect. / x
Strongly agree / Agree / Neither agree nor disagree / Disagree / Strongly disagree / Don’t know
A duty to act allows professionals discretion to decide what action should be taken to best protect children in each case. / x
The focus of sanctions for the duty to act on deliberate or reckless failures would ensure that those responsible for the very worst failures in care would be held accountable. / x
  1. To what extent do you agree that the introduction of a duty to act would directly improve outcomes for children?

Agree this could improve outcomes for children, provided implemented with necessary training, support, supervision, leadership, access to child protection expertise and enabling organizational cultures. However there are concerns about how the duty to act is interpreted given the complexity of much decision-making; the multi-agency nature of the work, which makes defining individual responsibility challenging; and resource-related constraints which affect the provision of services.

  1. Please outline any risks or benefits regarding the introduction of a duty to act that haven’t been articulated in the consultation.

Benefits

  • Gives a strong message to victims and survivors of abuse that appropriate action must be taken to protect children from abuse and neglect
  • Gives strong message to all professionals that they have a responsibility to act appropriately and this does not simply or solely mean reporting concerns.
  • Could empower individual professionals to act in face of organizational barriers/resistance, including by using whistle-blowing mechanisms
  • Encourages exercise of professional judgmentand reflection(which in turn requires highly trained professionals and enabling organizational cultures)
  • Affects all points in system not just initial reporting
  • Covers wide spectrum of safeguarding activity. System tends to be front-loaded with more attention going to referral handling and assessing families. Could encourage proportionate attention being given to treatment and support for children and families

Risks

  • Difficult duty to define and interpret, especially given multi-disciplinary nature of task
  • Individuals are unfairly held to account for organizational failures. Individual’s ability to act appropriately can be significantly constrained by organizational priorities and resources
  • May make no difference to those professions which already have professional duty and robust processes for dealing with professional misconduct through professional bodies
  • Will not make any significant difference unless staff are well qualified, trained, supported and supervised and services are adequately resourced
  • Could lead to a greater difficulty in recruiting staff to take on lead/designated child protection roles.
  1. Having considered the issues outlined in the consultation and your answers above, which of

the following would be most preferable? Please choose one option only.

Please tick
Allowing the package of reform measures focused on improving how the whole system responds to child abuse and neglect to be implemented before considering the introduction of additional statutory measures.
The introduction of a mandatory reporting duty focused on increasing the reporting of child abuse and neglect.
The introduction of a duty to act, focused on taking appropriate action in relation to child abuse and neglect, with sanctions for deliberate and reckless failures.

Scope, accountability and sanctions

This section is optional and relates only to the possible introduction of a mandatory reporting duty or a duty to act.

9. If a new statutory measure is introduced, do you agree with the following elements of the proposed scope?

A new statutory measure, should, if introduced:

Please tick
Apply to all forms of child abuse and neglect (including online abuse and grooming). / x
Apply to both suspected and known child abuse and neglect. / x
Apply to abuse or neglect encountered during the course of a practitioner’s day-to- day role only.
Apply to abuse or neglect within the home and within organisations or institutions, e.g. boarding schools. / x
Apply to present day abuse and neglect only (i.e. it would not apply retrospectively).
Apply to children under 18 only.
Be triggered if a practitioner had “reasonable cause to suspect” a child was being abused or neglected, or was likely to be abused or neglected. / x
  1. If there are aspects of the proposed scope that you disagree with, or you would like to provide further information to support your answer to question 9, please do so here:

BASPCAN considers that if mandatory reporting is introduced it should apply not only to present day abuse, but also to abuse that took place in the past. This is necessary in order to protect other children who may be at risk from the same abuser. It also a recognition that many individuals are unable to speak out about their abuse until they are adults and have a right to access to justice and to support. This is recognized in countries such as Canada where there is no statute of limitations with respect to reporting. It allows alleged offenders to be brought to justice for crimes they may have committed in the past.

A new duty to report abuse or neglect and to act appropriately, if introduced, should also apply to young people over the age of 18 who have developmental delays and/or mental health issues. This is in recognition of their increased vulnerability, the additional difficulties they face in accessing help and the potential risks from their abuser to other children or vulnerable adults. There is a risk that individuals who are developmentally delayed fall through the cracks and are not adequately protected.

  1. If you believe new statutory measures should extend to adults, please provide further information, taking into account the existing wilful neglect offence.

No further comment

  1. Should the proposed activities outlined in paragraphs 65–68 of the consultation and table 1 be included if a new statutory measure were to be introduced?

Yes

  1. Please provide your views, noting if any activities listed should be removed, and if there any other activities that should be included.

If introduced, BASPCAN considers that a duty to report should be widened to include juvenile justice, the faith sector, the military, and the sports sector. Universal reporting, with different sanctions applying to professionals and the public, should also be considered – see attached supporting evidence. This would however require considerable investment in awareness raising and training to maximize the accuracy of reports and an increase in the capacity of services to respond.

  1. If a new statutory measure is introduced, where do you think accountability should rest (see paragraphs 69–70 of the consultation)?

Please tick
At an individual level.
At an organisational level.
At both an individual level and an organisational level. / x

26

Reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect Government consultation

  1. If a new statutory measure is introduced, what do you think the type of sanction should be if it is breached (see paragraphs 71–74 of the consultation)?

Please tick
Existing practitioner and organisation specific sanctions only.
Existing practitioner and organisation specific sanctions plus additional sanctions involving the Disclosure and Barring Service (available only at an individual level).
Existing practitioner and organisation specific sanctions plus criminal sanctions.

BASPCAN considers the specific sanctions should depend on the nature and severity of the breach and the attendant circumstances/context. This requires detailed discussions with professional bodies. We believe the vast majority of those working with children and families are well intentioned and do their best to protect children and that the criminally reckless and willfully negligent are relatively few in number. We do not want to criminalize individuals who are striving to protect children or to create an unhealthy climate of fear in which to operate. This would not be in children’s best interests.

  1. Please provide further information about the reasons for your answers to the above questions on scope, accountability and sanctions, if you would like to do so.

Additional information

17. Please detail any additional information that you feel should be taken into account in this consultation. This could include, but is not limited to:

the operational impact of introducing a new statutory measure including on small businesses such as nurseries or children’s homes;

how the new duty should interact with the existing FGM mandatory reporting model; and

any additional research/evidence not referred to in the consultation document.

The operational impact of extending either of the statutory measures to vulnerable adults

Additional evidence

BASPCAN would like to draw your attention to some additional evidence in relation to mandatory reporting. BASPCAN is a multi-disciplinary membership organization for professionals working in the field of child protection in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with well established international links. As such we are able to draw on a wide range of experience and perspectives.

Since plans were announced to consider the introduction of legislation in England to require the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect, BASPCAN has engaged in a discussion about the potential merits and consequences of such legislation. This has included a formal consultation with our membership on reporting and duty to act, including written submissions with supporting evidence;discussion amongst the BASPCAN Trustees at two Board meetings; a vigorous debate among delegates at Congress in 2015; consideration of experience and evidence from other countries.

Over the past decade there has been a growing acceptance that many children and young people have suffered from abuse or neglect that was known to others - family members, community members and individuals in positions of both trust and power who could, and should, have acted to protect these children. Some of these individuals, and the organisations for whom they work, also had specific statutory responsibilities to safeguard children and young people. Some of the strongest calls for action and accountability have come from survivors of abuse whose confidence and trust in the system has been badly affected.

The reviews and inquiries that have taken place into non-recent and recent abuse, whether in institutions, or related to child sexual exploitation, have raised a number of significant issues:

  • how able were individual adults to recognise that children were being abused or at significant risk of experiencing harm
  • to what extent did individuals feel a duty, moral or legal, to act on concerns about the safety and well-being of children
  • what has been the role of organisations in supporting children and adults individuals to raise concerns, and to ensure that these concerns are appropriately addressed
  • what guided individuals and organisations in making decisions about how to act
  • what stopped individuals and organisations from acting in the best interests of a child.

It is recognised that mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect is common in many European and anglophone countries. There has been a presumption in these countries that mandatory reporting will result in better identification and response to child maltreatment, however the effects of introducing these changes have not been systematically evaluated. A recent research study from the USA (Palusci, V., 2016 - attached) has thrown doubt on this presumption, showing that while additional reports may be made, more maltreated children will not necessarily be found.

Where mandatory reporting legislation has been introduced it can be differentiated by:

  • to whom the legislation applies (eg all community members or individuals in specified roles or organisations)
  • what is required to be reported (eg all suspicions, or only concerns related to specific acts or types of harm)
  • to whom concerns should be reported
  • the penalties for not reporting
  • the protections for referrers when concerns have been reported in good faith

Proponents of mandatory reporting argue that introducing such legislation will have two key benefits. Firstly, it sends a clear message to society that child abuse and neglect will not be tolerated, and that society must act in the interests of victims, rather than perpetrators of abuse or Institutions. Secondly, it removes any ambiguity for individuals and organisations about their need to act. The penalties for not acting are primarily designed to be inducements to encourage individuals to act, and for organisations to support staff in acting.