PM: Staff and members to face criminal offence of 'wilful neglect' over CSE

The Government is to consult on extending the new criminal offence of ‘wilful neglect’ of patients to children’s social care, education and elected members in a bid to eradicate “the culture of denial”, the Prime Minister has announced.

The move is part of a response to events in Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxfordshire. It came on the day a damning serious case review into child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the latter area was published, with more than 370 children having been identified as at risk of CSE.

David Cameron told a summit at Downing Street of ministers, local authorities, children’s services leaders, health professionals, chief constables and experts in child protection that local areas must work more effectively to strengthen the systems in place to protect children.

A report, Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation (also published today), set out – in addition to the consulation on the new criminal offence – a number of measures which the Government said amounted to “a step change”. These included:

  • A new whistleblowing national portal for child abuse related reports that “will help to bring child sexual exploitation to light and will be able to spot patterns of failure across the country”;
  • A new national taskforce, and a centre of expertise, that “will support areas that are struggling to get it right”;
  • Giving child sexual abuse the status of a national threat in the Strategic Policing Requirement “so that this is prioritised by every police force”; and
  • To support survivors, provision of an additional £7m this year and in 2015/16 to organisations which support those who have experienced sexual abuse.

The Prime Minister said: “We have all been appalled at the abuse suffered by so many young girls in Rotherham and elsewhere across the country. Children were ignored, sometimes even blamed, and issues were swept under the carpet – often because of a warped and misguided sense of political correctness. That culture of denial which let them down so badly must be eradicated.

“Today, I am sending an unequivocal message that professionals who fail to protect children will be held properly accountable and council bosses who preside over such catastrophic failure will not see rewards for that failure.”

He added that it was a question of “making sure that the professionals we charge with protecting our children – the council staff, police officer and social workers – do the jobs they are paid to do”.

In addition to today’s new measures the Government pointed to previously announced measures aimed at helping protect children from sexual abuse. These include:

  • Legislation making it an offence to possess rape porn in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2014 and new provisions through the Serious Crime Bill to criminalise sexual communication with a child and the possession of ‘paedophile manuals’.
  • Legislation which will allow police to require hotels and similar establishments, in which they reasonably believe child sexual exploitation is taking place, to provide information about guests, “better equipping them to investigate sexual offences committed on the premises”. This is contained in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
  • New guidelines on prosecuting cases of child sexual abuse, which have established a new approach for dealing with cases of sexual violence against vulnerable people, “focusing on the credibility of the allegation rather than the credibility of the individual”.
  • A single, secure database of indecent images of children “which will provide law enforcement with effective tools to search seized devices for indecent images of children, reduce the time taken to identify such images, increase the ability to identify victims and allow industry and international partners to remove this material from the web”;
  • A further £10m for 2015 to 2016 to allow NCA-CEOP to create new teams to tackle online child sexual exploitation, and a joint NCA and GCHQ team that will use the latest techniques and expertise to track down online.

The College of Social Work said it was worried at the proposals for new criminal sanctions. Prof Brigid Featherstone, Chair of its Children and Families Faculty, said: “While we recognise that a strong response is needed to the deplorable practice of child sexual exploitation, threatening to jail frontline social workers is not the answer. We have been similarly clear about this in relation to mandatory reporting, for which there is no sound evidence.

“Not only will such a move reinforce an already persecutory climate for those struggling to deliver services in difficult times, but the proposals also fail to address the incredibly important safeguarding issues that recent Serious Case Reviews have raised.”

Prof. Featherstone added: “We need support and training of staff at all levels on how to recognise, report on, and help stop child abuse. We must also ensure a full and effective range of responses to different forms of abuse. We must address the severe lack of investment in child protection services, which has put organisations and systems under incredible strain and reduced their capacity for in depth work with children and their families.”

See also: Review finds 370+ children at risk of child sexual exploitation in Oxfordshire