Government urged not to ‘pick and choose’ child sexual abuse inquiry recommendations

Senior members of the inquiry – including its chair Professor Alexis Jay – presented evidence to the education select committee on Tuesday 17 January around the recommendations made in the IICSA's final report, which investigated the extent to which state and non-state institutions had failed to protect children from sexual abuse.

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The IICSA’s final report, published in October last year, was the product of a seven-year review of evidence, including testimonies from 7,300 survivors.

It made more than 100 recommendations to better protect children from sexual abuse.

This included a recommendation for mandated reporting of suspected abuse, which urges the government to introduce legislation which would place certain individuals working with children under a statutory duty to report child sexual abuse. This proposal was previously rejected by government in 2018 following a public consultation.

Addressing the cross-party group of MPs, Jay described child sexual abuse as a “national epidemic”, adding: “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The findings of this enquiry must be taken forward.”

IICSA panel member Ivor Frank urged the committee to advocate for all of the report’s recommendations to be implemented by government, saying: “This is not a smorgasbord to just pick and choose what we like and what we don’t, or what is easy and what is not. This is an integrated package that is designed to protect children from serious crime.”

He added: “In respect to some of the rejections that we’ve seen, someone had not got that point on board.”

The government has responded in real-time to the inquiry’s recommendations over the last seven years, but is due to respond in full to the final report within six months.

Jay told MPs: “Child sexual abuse is vile and degrading, and its consequences are frequently lifelong for the victims, affecting education, employment, income, physical and mental health, and relationships.”

She added that the inquiry had uncovered a number of institutional failings, saying: “We found that institutional culture and complacency often demanded silence on the subject, and some institutions went to extreme lengths to avoid contact with statutory agencies when allegations arose, and did not always involve parents.

“We found that poor leadership, training and staff support in some care and educational settings left staff unaware of how to respond to concerns about child sexual abuse, or too afraid of potential consequences to act.”

Jay added that survivors who provided testimonies throughout the inquiry were “keen to continue pushing for recommendations to be implemented and wish to be actively involved on it".

The inquiry is due to disband in March, and has urged the government to facilitate continued involvement of survivors who contributed to the inquiry’s research.