The 20 child abuse inquiry recommendations

In October 2022, child protection expert Prof Alexis Jay finished a seven-year inquiry into the countless ways children had been sexually abused in England and Wales.

She had presided over hundreds of days of evidence in which victims described their treatment and those who had the duty to protect them answered for their failings.

Her team had investigated abuse in churches, schools, custodial institutions, political parties, religious groups, and children’s homes.

She found that over decades, children had been harmed online, offline, in the UK and abroad, by individuals and paedophile networks, including grooming gangs, on the streets of British towns and cities.

Her conclusion: the nation had been scarred by an “epidemic that left thousands of victims in its poisonous wake”.

The abuse was often covered up by institutions that “prioritised their reputations above the welfare of those they were duty bound to protect”.

Her inquiry was not a court. No one will go to prison because of her findings, but she had the power to make recommendations for change and to monitor whether they happened.

There were 20 in the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The Conservative government was given the task of delivering them but lost last year’s general election. Now, 27 months on from the recommendations first being made, all remain outstanding. The new Labour government says it is “working at pace” to deliver them.

The biggest single reform Prof Jay recommended was for people in regulated jobs working with children to have the duty to report any abuse they witnessed or were told about by either the child or perpetrator. Not doing so would be a criminal offence.

The Conservative government agreed but, to the dismay of campaigners, decided the sanction would be less severe – a ban on working with children. A criminal offence would be committed only by those who actively prevented the authorities finding out about abuse. This policy was slated to go to Parliament in 2024, but the election was called before it could become law.

The Labour government has resurrected the issue, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper telling the Commons on Monday 6 January she would introduce criminal sanctions for both the cover-up of child sexual abuse and the failure to report it. The government says mandatory reporting will be part of the Crime and Policing Bill planned for this Spring.

The inquiry recommended a major effort to produce better data on child abuse, creating a single core set of figures covering the age, sex and ethnicity of victims and perpetrators, the places in which abuse happens, and the factors that make children vulnerable.

The Conservatives set up research projects in several government departments to improve the data. Suella Braverman, then home secretary, created what she described as a “grooming gangs taskforce”. The police disliked the grooming gangs description and rebadged it as the child sexual exploitation taskforce as it would also fight groups of abusers in institutions, families and online.

It provides intelligence and expertise to police forces through a variety of programmes, and has begun to gather consistent data. However, statistics on the ethnicity of abusers, a key issue in the grooming gangs debate, are hard to obtain.

Prof Jay’s inquiry found police were “not confident” about gathering this information. A suspect’s race can be identified definitively only after they have been arrested, by asking them at a time when they have a right to remain silent.

Latest figures show there is a long way to go. In 2023, police tackling organised abuse recorded the ethnicity of 34% of suspects and 47% of victims. Cooper says she is working to “improve the accuracy and robustness of the data and analysis”.

Prof Jay recommended the appointment of a new cabinet minister for children. Several junior ministers are responsible for aspects of young people’s lives, and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson attends cabinet, but there is no cabinet minister with the title envisaged by the inquiry.

A bigger change involves the recommendation for a child protection authority for England and Wales. The Conservatives preferred instead to make existing institutions work better.

The new government wants what has been described as a “fuller conversation” on a new authority. Setting one up would involve several government departments. Lucy Duckworth, from campaign group Act On IICSA, says it should operate like the Health and Safety Executive, providing training and support in protecting children.

The recommendation for a national public awareness campaign remains outstanding, though the government already funds a series of campaigns. Prof Jay wanted it to extend to content on TV and digital channels but also to use “positive role models” in creative media such as drama.

They include better registration of staff in children’s homes, as well as young offender institutions and secure training centres. She demanded more use of the vetting and barring list of approved employees, that the government took steps to improve compliance with it, and its extension to those working with children overseas. These measures were “in progress” according to a Conservative government update in 2023.

A related recommendation is to ban staff in institutions from using pain to get children to comply. The last government would not give a clear commitment to this, saying in 2023 there might be a need for it to prevent serious physical harm to a child or adult.

Ms Duckworth says banning the use of pain restraint is essential, saying it amounts to “legalising a form of child abuse”, and points out some perpetrators might deliberately seek out jobs where they can hurt children.

The last government was concerned about the implications of the proposal to change the Children’s Act to give courts powers over local councils when children are at risk. This has not happened.

During the seven years Prof Jay’s inquiry was investigating, abuse online was growing steadily. She recommended platform providers pre-screen for known child sexual abuse material.

The Conservatives passed the Online Safety Act. Ofcom now requires some internet companies to remove harmful images using databases that contain profiles for known child abuse pictures.

The act toughens the law on age verification online, another inquiry recommendation. Ofcom is due to publish new guidance for pornography sites. The inquiry’s demand covered a wider group of “online services and social media platforms”. In response, Ofcom said it will be expecting “much greater use of age-assurance” systems in future.

There were a range of recommendations for the courts, police and prosecutors. Prof Jay wanted an end to the three-year limit for victims of abuse to sue for damages, as it often takes them longer to feel able to disclose what has happened. The Conservatives launched a consultation but it ended shortly before the election.

The inquiry’s call for a single redress scheme for victims of institutional abuse to apply for a payment to reflect their experiences remains outstanding. It could cost billions, with central and local government footing the bill.

Changes to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme were recommended to expand the range of compensation to cover the mental health effects of abuse. Work is ongoing.

The proposal for a national guarantee of specialist therapy for child victims will be challenging for the government to respond to. The Jay Inquiry demanded it be “fully funded”, with councils delivering the service. Yet child mental health facilities are under pressure and local authorities are already struggling to deliver social care services.

Another big issue in historical cases has been access to records relating to child abuse held by authorities. The job of ensuring this is possible has been given to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

An investigation of whether the criminal justice system was complying with the Victim’s Code is being carried out. However, the inquiry first called for it in 2018.

The government has made consulting victims and survivors of abuse a priority. It has announced a panel to work with ministers on the delivery of the recommendations.

Prof Jay has said she is “frustrated” at the slow progress in delivering her reforms. That is partly because of the change of government.

Labour says it is committed to all the recommendations, but will not give a timetable for delivering them.

Just as the inquiry found child abuse touches many areas of life, the solutions involve a wide range of government departments and institutions, making the delivery of the recommendations a complex task.