Professionals who fail to act on CSE face five-year jail term

The new sanction will be introduced by extending a new criminal offence of “wilful neglect”, which was initially designed to address safeguarding failings by adult health and social workers, to apply to child sexual exploitation (CSE) cases as well. 

As part of a range of steps being taken to improve responses to CSE, Cameron also announced:

• A national whistleblowing helpline so public sector workers can report bad practice relating to CSE
• A CSE taskforce of professional troubleshooting experts in social work, law enforcement and health that will support local services
• A new system for “clawing back” exit pay-offs for senior staff who leave a post for failing to protect children, but are “quickly re-employed” in a similar role
• Child sexual abuse will be prioritised as a “national threat”, meaning police forces will have a duty to collaborate across force boundaries
• An additional £14m will be given to organisations supporting victims of sexual abuse (£7m in 2014/15 and £7m in 2015/16)

Cameron said the “culture of denial” that led to children in Rotherham and elsewhere being ignored, and issues being “swept under the carpet”, 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 said.

“Offenders must no longer be able to use the system to hide their despicable activities and survivors of child sexual abuse must be given the long-term therapeutic treatment they need to rebuild their lives."

Cameron said he wants to ensure that professionals charged with protecting children – council staff, police officers and social workers – “do the jobs they are paid to do”.

“We owe it to our children, and to the children who survive horrific sexual abuse, to do better and ensure the mistakes of the past are never repeated again,” he added.

But The College of Social Work (TCSW) has said it is worried about the proposed new criminal sanctions.

Brigid Featherstone, chair of the college’s 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 [of child abuse], 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."

Featherstone highlighted a need to support and train staff at all levels on how to recognise, report on, and help stop child abuse, and also called for “the severe lack of investment in child protection services” to be addressed.

David Simmonds, chair of the Local Government Association children and young people board, said there needs to be a culture change in the way the grooming and abuse of young people is recognised by both professionals and members of the public, so that anyone who comes into contact with it has the confidence to report their concerns.

“Families and communities need to feel reassured their children are not at risk," he said.

"We need to feel certain everyone in society recognises that teenagers cannot consent to their abuse and are victims of sexual crime.

"We need a million eyes and ears to look out for our young people but to do this, everyone must be aware of the complexities of child sexual abuse.”

Last week, Labour announced that, should it gain power at May’s general election, it will create a cross-government Child Protection Unit to tackle child abuse.

CYP Now will be hosting a conference, Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation: Multi-Agency Child-Centred Practice, on 25 March.