No criminal sanction for failing to report child sexual abuse under mandatory reporting plan

There will be no criminal sanction for failing to report child sexual abuse (CSA) under the government's plan to introduce mandatory reporting, despite home secretary Yvette Cooper appearing to have said previously that there would be.

Instead, the government has said that those under a duty to report "may be referred to their professional regulator (where applicable) or the Disclosure and Barring Service [DBS], who will consider their suitability to continue working in regulated activity with children".

It will also introduce an offence of of preventing or deterring a person from complying with their duty to report CSA.

The proposals, included in the Crime and Policing Bill, are broadly similar to those put forward by the previous Conservative government before it lost power last year.

Response to CSA inquiry recommendation

Both sets of proposals are responses to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse's (IICSA) recommendation to require anyone carrying out a regulated activity - those which a person barred by the DBS are prohibited from doing - or in a position of trust with children to report cases of CSA.

However, both the Conservative and Labour proposals differ from IICSA's in two key respects:

• There would be no requirement to report CSA in cases where recognised indicators of abuse were present. Instead, the duty would only apply where a person had witnessed CSA or a perpetrator or victim had disclosed it to them, which the inquiry found or implied were relatively rare.
• There would be no criminal sanction for anyone who did not report cases of witnessed or disclosed abuse. In relation to this, IICSA said that a failure by those in a position of trust over children to pass on information about CSA to the police or local authorities was "inexcusable" and "the sanction for such an omission should be commensurate".

Cooper comments interpreted as heralding criminal sanction

The absence of an offence comes despite Cooper having said, on announcing that Labour would take forward mandatory reporting, that there would be "professional and criminal sanctions to fail to report or cover up child sexual abuse".

This was taken as meaning that failing to report CSA, if you were under a duty to do so, would be criminalised.

For example, the House of Commons Library, which provides neutral briefings on parliamentary issues, drew a contrast between the Conservative and Labour approaches in a report on the issue, published in January this year.

"On 6 January 2025, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced the government would “make it mandatory to report abuse” through measures in the Crime and Policing Bill, to be introduced to Parliament in the spring," it said.

"She added that failing to report child sexual abuse would be “an offence, with professional and criminal sanctions”. This is different from the previous government’s proposals for mandatory reporting, under which failing to report would not have been an offence."

No offence of failing to report CSA

However, when the Crime and Policing Bill was published at the end of February, there was no such offence included.

The bill is now being scrutinised by a committee of MPs, who considered the issue last week, when Labour MP Matt Bishop raised the absence of an offence with crime and policing minister Diana Johnson.

In response, Johnson pointed to the fact that those subject to the duty would include volunteers and taxi drivers taking children to school, as well as professionals such as social workers and teachers.

She said IICSA's recommendations "were not about criminalising those individuals", which the government did not believe would be "appropriate".

"What we were very clear about - again, I think that [IICSA] made this point - is that if anybody tries to interfere with or stop that reporting, that is the criminal offence," she added. "That is the bit that we think is important to have in the bill."

Pressure group Mandate Now was heavily critical of both the absence of a criminal sanction and the fact that the duty to report applied only to witnessed or disclosed abuse, given research indicating such cases were rare.

'Never acceptable to turn blind eye to abuse'

For the NSPCC, head of policy Anna Edmundson said: “It is never acceptable for adults to turn a blind eye to child sexual abuse and essential they act immediately if they have any concerns that children or young people may be experiencing it."

She said that the "responsibility to report must be underpinned by adequate training", so professionals and volunteers can "spot the potential signs and indicators of child sexual abuse and respond with confidence".

“There should be consequences for failing to act in line with clearly established duties to report – including a range of professional and other disciplinary sanctions," she added.

Legislation 'a step in the right direction'

Lucy Duckworth, policy advisor at The Survivors Trust, said the legislation, though not going as far as the charity would have liked, was a "fantastic step in the right direction", in the context of a longstanding campaign to introduce mandatory reporting.

She said criminal sanctions for failure to report would not be effective because "people wouldn’t believe it would happen".

"The criminal justice system is not fit for purpose," she added. "What people are concerned about is their reputations. If that position of trust is threatened if people fail to report and you could lose your job, [that will have an impact]."

Duckworth said that though the trust - a membership body for specialist rape and sexual abuse services - would have liked to have seen a duty to report CSA when there were recognised signs of abuse, the Home Office's view was that "we don’t have a culture where we understand what indicators of abuse look like".