Mandatory Reporting in Child Welfare:
Developments in England
Professor Nigel Parton
NSPCC Professor in Applied Childhood Studies Centre for Applied Childhood Studies
University of Huddersfield Huddersfield HD1 3DH
England
2
▪
Since the ‘public enquiry’ into the death
of Maria Colwell, whilst under the
supervision of local authority social
3
These issues came to a head with the
publication of the public enquiry, chaired
by Lord Laming (2003), into the death of
Victoria Climbie in 2000.
The government responded with the
publication of the Green Paper ‘Every
Child Matters’ (2003) and the Children Act
2004 which will fundamentally reconfigure
the organisation and delivery of all
4
Victoria, born and brought up in the Ivory Coast, had been known to 5 Social Services Departments, 2 hospitals, 2 police child protection teams, and one voluntary child
protection agency in the 9 months she lived in London with her ‘aunt’ after her arrival from France.
The enquiry argued that there were at least 12 occasions when Victoria could have been saved but on each
occasion there was a failure to ‘share information’ so that the signs of her abuse were never recognised.
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The issue of the most appropriate balance between ‘family support’ and ‘child protection’ has been central for child welfare policy and practice since the late 1980’s.
The current changes are the most radical ever developed to response to this issue and – in my opinion – are the most radical anywhere in the Western World.
To understand why this is the case it is important to
recognise that the changes currently being implemented have a much longer genealogy than responding to the death of Victoria Climbie.
The changes aim to take forward the idea that it is important to intervene at a much earlier stage in children’s lives in
order to prevent a range of problems in later life, particularly in relation to educational attainment, unemployment and
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Underpinning the changes outlined in the Green Paper are two basic assumptions concerning the nature of recent social change and the current state of knowledge.
First, over the previous generation children’s lives have
undergone ‘profound change’.
While children now have more opportunities than ever
7
Second
, the Green Paper also asserted
that these changes have come about at
a time when we now have increased
knowledge and expertise and therefore
are in a better position to respond to
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‘we have a good idea what factors shape children’s life chances. Research tells us that the risk of experiencing negative outcomes is concentrated in children with
certain characteristics and experiences’ (p17).
These include:
Low income and parental unemployment
Homelessness
Poor parenting
Poor schooling
Postnatal depression amongst mothers
Low birth weight
Substance misuse
Individual characteristics, such as intelligence
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The other area where knowledge and expertise has grown and which is seen as vital to take policy and practice
forward, is in relation to the major changes that have taken place in relation to ICT. The age of ‘e-government’ is seen as having major implications for the reform and
development of children’s services.
Not only would this provide the potential for identifying problems and enhancing attempts to intervene at an
earlier stage, but it would allow different organisations and professionals to share information in order to ensure that children’s problems are not missed and children do not fall through ‘the net’. The introduction of more integrated
10
As the title of the Green Paper -
Every Child
Matters
– implies the changes apply to all
children as all are seen as being potentially
vulnerable at some time in their lives.
It is seen as important to ensure the
integration of universal, targeted and specialist
services, so that universal services are
11
A key element of the changes aimed to improve
integration is the need for a wide range of health,
welfare, education and criminal justice agencies
to share information where there is ‘a cause for
concern’ concerning a child’s health and
development.
In effect – and for the first time – England is
introducing a mandatory reporting system, based
not on evidence or risk of child maltreatment, but
upon the notion of ‘a cause for concern’ for a
12
Section 12 of the Children Act 2004
empowers the Secretary of State to
establish and operate databases about
children. The national database will be
called the Information Sharing Index (IS
Index) and all 150 local authorities in
13
The database will contain:
The child’s name, address, gender and date of birth;
A number identifying the child;
The name and contact details of any person with parental responsibility or who has care of him/her at any time;
The name and contact details of any educational institution, primary medical services, or any specialist or targeted service which is, or has been, provided to the person by, or on behalf of, a local authority;
The name and contact details of a lead professional for that child (if appointed); and
If Child Benefit is being claimed, the name and address of the claimant.
14
Section 12 also allows for the inclusion of any
other information, excluding medical records or
other personal records, as the Secretary of State
may specify by regulation.
For sensitive services (i.e. those relating to
sexual health, mental health, and substance
abuse) information will only be included on the
database with the consent of the person or
young person.
The lack of consent can be overridden in certain
circumstances to be specified in future
regulations, but will include cases where there
are genuine child protection concerns.
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In addition to the information about services in contact with the child, Section 12 allows for the inclusion of ‘information as to the existence of any cause for concern in relation to him (the child)’.
While the current regulations do not specify how this will operate current government guidance is that professionals will have a facility to enter an ‘indication’ on one of three criteria:
To show that there is information to share
An assessment has taken place
Action has taken place
The degree to which entering an ‘indication’ will be
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A benefit for the government in making
entering data on the database mandatory
is that it becomes compliant with the Data
Protection Act 1998 which allows for
information sharing if there is a statutory
duty to do so.
17
Whether or not entering an ‘indication’ is
mandatory, it will involve professional judgement in
determining whether a case meets the criteria.
Therefore, the precision of the definitions of the
criteria will be crucial in determining the efficiency
and reliability of the reporting system.
A ‘cause for concern’ includes concerns about
abuse and neglect but such concerns are not
treated any differently from other problems or
18
A major effect of the changes will be to fundamentally
reconfigure the relationships between the state, professionals, parents and children for new and wide-ranging systems of
surveillance are being introduced. England is in the process of introducing a mandatory reporting system but not based on any notion of child abuse but on the basis of a ‘cause for concern’, which is not defined in legislation.
The accumulation and exchange of information about children takes on a key role to ensure that children do not fall through the various ‘nets’ designed to protect them from social exclusion, delinquency, or poor educational achievement and ensure they receive early help and thereby fulfil their potential.
Abuse becomes only one of many causes for concern.
