In May 2023, the government published its response to the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The press notice is available here.

One of the recommendations made by the Inquiry was for government to introduce a new mandatory reporting duty for child sexual abuse. The Department launched a 12 week Call for Evidence (May - August 2023) which sought views on how implementing a duty to report child sexual abuse is likely to impact children, organisations, and affected workforces and volunteers; and how different aspects could be implemented.

Further to this call for evidence, the government launched a further public consultation (November 2023) to set out proposals for delivering a mandatory reporting duty and to test opinion on a small number of undecided policy questions.

A single government response addressing both of these consultation exercises will be published as soon as possible.