Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse - Professional safeguarding training for the children's workforce

I’m amazed at how far we are into the autumn right now – time has flown and the leaves of the tree outside my window are already drifting down and collecting in the corners of my garden. I hope you have had a great start to the academic year. The last few weeks for me have mainly been spent delivering whole team safeguarding awareness training to a range of settings, including schools, CICs and charities. I don’t put an upper ceiling on the number of participants I train, and on the first morning of September I was speaking to a combined audience from four different schools, which I think was a record for me!

The first task of autumn for many safeguarding professionals is to update their understanding of the latest version of Keeping Children Safe in Education for registered settings. The most recent edition of this key piece of statutory guidance contains relatively little change (compared to previous editions) and, rather than going through those minor changes in detail, I am just going to recommend the summary document helpfully created by the NSPCC which I offer you here:

Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) 2025: summary of changes | NSPCC Learning

This newsletter, though, aims to given you prior knowledge of an important development in children’s safeguarding that will directly affect most of its workforce – the imminent mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.

People who have attended my training will already know about the mandatory reporting duty in place since 2015 relating to female genital mutilation (FGM). This duty to report specifically applies to health workers, social care workers and teachers and applies to FGM that has already been carried out. The sanction for non-compliance could result in a professional losing their professional registration. The law was passed because of the low report rate of the that form of abuse which has seen only one successful prosecution of a perpetrator of FGM (despite the estimate that there are 22,000 children at risk of FGM at any one time in the UK) – and up to now, was a singular anomaly in children’s safeguarding where reporting child abuse in the UK is for the most part a professional responsibility, rather than a legal one.

But things are set to change. A few years ago in October 2022, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) published its final report into child sexual abuse and exploitation in institutions in England and Wales. The report was the culmination of 7 years of work, including the interviewing hundreds of adults about their experiences of sexual abuse as children over the past sixty years. Victims had been abused in a number of different settings, including residential schools, secure units and the Church of England. It makes harrowing reading about the widespread scale and the nature of the abuse. Contributors described the long-term harm sexual abuse had caused to their education, employment, relationships, health and well-being over the course of their lives. Most victims described the enormous barriers they faced as children to disclosing the abuse they had experienced, including the feelings of shame, concerns about consequences, not recognising what happened as abuse, and not having the vocabulary to describe that abuse. The report also included another deeply disturbing theme. Those children who were able to overcome the barriers to disclosure and reported their abuse at the time did not experience protection or indeed justice as a result – many disclosures were ignored or not taken seriously by the adults who knew.

‘12. Often victims and survivors were accused of lying when they told someone that they were being sexually abused. Only 5 percent of Truth Project participants who disclosed child sexual abuse to an institution at the time of the abuse said that they were believed when they disclosed. Jaden mentioned in front of the police that he was being raped regularly in his children’s home. The police officer responded by saying “we don’t need to hear your fucking lies”. Peyton was sexually abused throughout her childhood during the 1990s and 2000s, starting when she was four. Although hospital staff had found bruising around her genitals and finger marks around her neck, she said a police officer accused her of causing the injuries to herself.

13. Some victims and survivors said that they were accused of lying because the perpetrator was considered by others to be a reputable person. RC-A494 said that when he disclosed that he had been abused, including being stripped naked and lashed with a leather strap, he was simply told: “Nuns wouldn’t do that. They are nice people”. Others felt that their background seemed to influence the chance of their disclosure being dismissed. Mercy grew up in a violent and neglectful home. She said that teachers saw her as a “problem child” and did not believe her when she told them she had been raped by multiple men. Survivors who were sexually abused in a healthcare context often said that they were labelled as “sick” or “crazy” when they told healthcare professionals that they were being sexually abused.’

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse 2022

IICSA made several recommendations that aimed to ensure that the same mistakes made in the past would not be repeated. And one of the key recommendations was the mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse (CSA), a recommendation that was favourably received by the government officially in May 2023. Mandatory reporting would compel adults who knew or were told about CSA to pass on that information or face a sanction – just like FGM. Since that time there was obviously a change in government and a series of delays. My enthusiastic pronouncements in my training about the imminent mandatory reporting of CSA in 2023 were very premature.

Happily, this year on 25 February 2025 the Crime and Policing bill was introduced into Parliament. It includes provisions to introduce a new statutory duty for individuals undertaking key roles with responsibility for children and young people in England to report sexual abuse when they are made aware of it. It also includes a new criminal offence of attempting to prevent someone reporting child sexual abuse. Instead of just affecting a small number of professionals like FGM, the duty will apply to any adult carrying out what is called regulated activity (RA) with children in England. Staff and volunteers are deemed in RA when their work generates an Enhanced DBS check with a barred list check.

The duty will require those taking part in regulated activity to make a report if they:

are told about child sexual abuse, either by a child or an adult involved
witness child sexual abuse in person
see or hear it in the form of images, videos or audio recordings.

The bill sets out specific conditions where exemptions will apply, including in relation to certain consensual activities between children and specified services where confidentiality is necessary for the safety and wellbeing of children.

If an individual does not carry out the duty, they may be referred to the Disclosure and Barring Service, who will assess their suitability to work or volunteer with children in the future. Anyone who prevents or attempts to deter someone else from reporting will face criminal charges.

Once the Crime and Policing bill has passed through Parliament, the government will develop and publish guidance on the mandatory reporting duty.