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Mandatory Reporting

by Alan Collins of Hugh James Solicitors

The Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill is due later this month to have its second reading in the House of Lords .

For  convenience it is the bill designed to put the mandatory reporting of child abuse into law.

IICSA had recommended mandatory reporting in its final report.

The argument or case is that mandatory reporting is an essential safeguarding tool. It is one that is already in place in many countries in the west.

Baroness Grey-Thompson in 2024  presented to the House of Lords a bill to mandate those providing and carrying out regulated or other activities with responsibility for the care of children to report known and suspected child sexual abuse; to protect mandated reporters from detriment; to create a criminal offence of failing to report prescribed concerns; and for connected purposes.

The bill contains a list of regulated activities which is interesting for those included but also for those that are not. As one would expect schools are seen as regulated activities and so a teacher would be required to report, but on my reading the scouts for example  appear to be excluded which strikes me as an odd omission.

I have by chance discussed the bill with a senior social worker who has an academic interest in training those coming into social work. She is of the opinion that the bill is unnecessary and if enacted would result in the system being swamped with reports. I pointed out that initially that’s what happened in Australia but the system settled down, and appears to work. The point is that culture surely needs to change so that a blind-eye to child abuse is not turned? She disagrees being of the opinion that good safeguarding comes down to good training and experience. Her concern is that experienced social workers are leaving the profession because of the burden of the work they are expected to carry, and the bill if enacted would simply be a cross too heavy to bear.

If IICSA ‘ recommendation that there should be a mandatory reporting law is to come about the brief observations I have made are probably a foretaste of the arguments that will need to be successfully overcome.