We need safeguarding from safeguarders

What does it mean, in practice, to say that reporting child abuse should be mandatory? It sounds appropriately severe, but it begs the question of what must be reported. It is rarely blindingly obvious that abuse has been committed or who has committed it: it is an iniquity that lives in the shadows. If the proposed law means that one must report every accusation or suspicion of child abuse, this would create an insane burden both on those who report and those – presumably chiefly the police – who must receive the report. Alexis Jay’s IICSA recommendations called for mandatory reporting of any child abuse ‘disclosure’; but surely personal judgment is needed about what, if anything, is being disclosed. Must every rumour, or even every direct accusation by alleged victims, automatically be passed on without further enquiry? If so, malicious or unbalanced persons will use the opportunity to make false accusations. The person reporting would then be driven by compliance, not conscience. He/she would just shove the accusation through and consider his job done. As DPP, Sir Keir Starmer, perhaps panicked by the Jimmy Savile saga, institutionalised the doctrine that ‘victims’ must be believed without establishing the facts. This helped create an unmanageable system, of which IICSA was a symptom. Now his government promises to legislate on mandatory reporting, not because it believes it to be right, but because it fears opprobrium for appearing to do nothing.

Behind this problem lies that conceptual hubris of ‘safeguarding’. Yes, children have been badly safeguarded in many institutions of church, state and education. It does not follow that those in charge of safeguarding must be given ultimate authority. ‘The protection of institutions must never be put before the protection of children,’ says Yvette Cooper. Perhaps, but the truth is that one protection should assist the other.