The legislative, governance and organisational frameworks within and between institutions.
The Inquiry is concerned by the lack of professional registration for workers in care roles in children’s homes in England.
Improvements should be made to the vetting and barring arrangements in England and Wales.
Institutions should improve the way they respond to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Adult victims and survivors often face difficulties when trying to access records about their childhood.
There are a range of legislative and regulatory arrangements in place that are intended to assist institutions in keeping children safe from sexual abuse and responding to it appropriately when it does take place. This section describes the legislative and other regulatory frameworks that have been identified most consistently through the Inquiry’s work so far. It includes recommendations where the Inquiry has already identified steps that should be taken now to improve the way these arrangements operate.
Clearly, it is crucial that institutions do all they can to ensure that those working or volunteering within them are suitable for the work they do and do not represent a risk to children. It is worth noting that the Inquiry’s review of previous reports and inquiries has found that aspects of staffing (including practice, supervision and recruitment) were the most common areas of focus for recommendations. As a result, it is not surprising that issues relating to workforce regulation and safe recruitment have arisen frequently through the Inquiry’s work so far.
The Inquiry is considering the adequacy of existing arrangements to ensure that those known to be unsuitable to work with children are identified and removed from the workforce. The Inquiry’s consideration of these issues will continue but there are two areas where it considers action should be taken now.
First, victims and survivors participating in the Truth Project have told the Inquiry about the abuse they suffered in residential care homes. The Inquiry has also seen that children in residential settings are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse by adults working in those settings who are responsible for their welfare. Yet the Inquiry has noted that there are no professional registration requirements in place for staff, other than social workers, working in children’s homes in England, unlike in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Children’s homes in England must be registered with Ofsted and those working in care roles are expected to have a minimum level of qualification. But there is no requirement for individual care workers, other than social workers, to register with an independent body charged with raising standards within the profession and supervising their fitness to practise. Regulation of a care setting by an independent inspectorate complements effective professional workforce registration ‒ it does not replace it.
The Inquiry is very concerned by the absence of professional registration for those working in care roles in children’s homes in England ‒ particularly as the original Care Standards Act 2000 provided the legislative basis for the registration of these staff, but this aspect was never implemented in England and the Act was subsequently amended. It therefore recommends that the UK Government addresses this.
The Chair and Panel recommend that the Department for Education introduces arrangements for the registration of staff working in care roles in children’s homes.
Registration should be with an independent body charged with setting and maintaining standards of training, conduct and continuing professional development, and with the power to enforce these through fitness to practise procedures.
The Chair and Panel recognise that registration may require a period of phasing in, and therefore recommend that priority be given to professional registration of children’s home managers.
Second, the Inquiry considers that improvements should be made to the vetting and barring arrangements in England and Wales. These arrangements are managed by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
The DBS is responsible for issuing criminal record certificates to individuals seeking to work or volunteer in a wide range of roles, including with children. The DBS also considers the suitability of individuals to work with children (or vulnerable adults) based on their previous criminal convictions, police intelligence, and information received from employers and regulators. Where the DBS considers that an individual is unsuitable to work with children or vulnerable adults, it will bar them from such work. It is a criminal offence for an individual to work in a role from which they have been barred and for an employer to knowingly employ an individual in a role from which they have been barred.
The effectiveness of the vetting and barring arrangements depends on when and whether the DBS receives the information it needs. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 provides that the organisations responsible for maintaining registers of professionals working with children may consider whether to share information with the DBS and gives them the power to do so, but there is no duty to share relevant information.[1] This arrangement relies on the discretion of those organisations to share information about professionals who pose a risk or harm to children with the DBS ‒ and there is a risk that this important information is not being shared.
As a matter of principle, the Inquiry considers that there should be a legal duty for those maintaining professional registers to share information with the DBS where an individual has been removed from a register for reasons relating to the risk they pose to children.
The Inquiry also considers that the DBS should ‒ following receipt of such information from a professional register ‒ automatically bar the professional from working with children. This is subject to any representations that the individual would wish to make to the DBS if they considered a bar from working with children to be disproportionate or unfair.
The Chair and Panel recommend that the Home Office ensures that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 is amended so that, where a fitness to practise hearing has been conducted by the keeper of a relevant register and has resulted in removal of a practitioner from that register for reasons relating to harm or risk of harm to children:
the keeper of the register has a duty to refer that information to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), and
the DBS, on receiving the referral, has a duty to automatically bar the practitioner from working with children, allowing them the opportunity to make representations to the DBS if they consider the bar to be disproportionate or unfair.
Victims and survivors have told the Inquiry about the responses they have received after reporting the abuse they suffered ‒ often as an adult survivor, many years after they have been abused. While some have reported a positive response that involves sympathy and understanding, others have had a poor experience when approaching institutions.[2] Rightly, victims and survivors expect an institution to take responsibility for its conduct irrespective of how much time has passed.
The Inquiry’s work has led it to consider how police forces respond to complaints about how they have investigated child sexual abuse. All complaints about how police officers have conducted themselves should be handled by police forces in accordance with guidance published by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)[3] and based on regulations issued under the Police Reform Act 2002.[4]
These regulations state that police forces can approach the IOPC for permission to ‘disapply’ ‒ in other words, to not investigate ‒ a complaint where more than 12 months have elapsed since the incident to which the complaint relates took place and there is no good reason for the delay. Police forces can also refuse to investigate a complaint if it would result in an injustice.
The Inquiry is aware that the application of these guidelines has led to a complaint about an investigation into child sexual abuse being dismissed. It is well understood that victims and survivors can take years or even decades to disclose the sexual abuse they suffered, and some are wary of approaching the police ‒ particularly if they feel they were let down previously. As a result, the Inquiry does not consider this an appropriate response to a complaint about child sexual abuse.
The Inquiry recognises that the IOPC guidance must reflect the relevant legislation and that it must apply to all categories of complaint. The Inquiry’s recommendation is therefore directed to chief constables and asks them to ensure that police forces do not seek to ‘disapply’ complaints relating to child sexual abuse due to the length of time that has passed since the sexual abuse took place.
The Chair and Panel recommend that the National Police Chiefs’ Council ensures that complaints relating to child sexual abuse are no longer ‘disapplied’ by police forces on the grounds that the incident involved took place more than 12 months before the complaint was submitted.
The Inquiry will continue to consider how institutions can improve the way they respond to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. However, that should not prevent them from reviewing their existing procedures to ensure that they are appropriate and effective.
Many victims and survivors who have engaged with the Inquiry have reported difficulties accessing records relating to their childhood. The Inquiry’s review of previous reports and inquiries into child sexual abuse has also identified that recommendations relating to records’ management are the second most frequently identified area for change.
This is an important issue for those it affects. Often victims and survivors are seeking access to records to help them understand how the abuse they suffered happened or why it was allowed to continue. The Inquiry has heard of instances where records were not created in the first place or have now been lost or destroyed. This can be distressing to victims and survivors, and can lead to perceptions of cover-up by the institutions involved.
Our solicitor requested the police files of me … They couldn’t find them. They had disappeared. They even got a court order for them to get them, because files just like that don’t disappear … . They had absolutely disappeared … No, they had no records of them at all … . All the tapes, all the written statements.
Victim and survivor, the Truth Project
Difficulties in accessing records are not unique to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. Any adult trying to find documents held by institutions in the past will face the same challenges. However, the frequency with which this issue has been raised with the Inquiry demonstrates that it has a significant effect on victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
This is a technical and complex area of public policy. There are different rules for the retention of records across the different institutions covered by the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and the quality of record keeping also varies significantly. The rights of individuals to access their records are being strengthened through the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018. The Inquiry will consider whether it can recommend changes that would particularly benefit victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.