In October 2022, IICSA published its final report following a seven-year inquiry. It revealed a harrowing reality: institutions often prioritised their reputations over the welfare of children. The report described the scale of abuse as “horrific” and emphasised the urgent need for child protection to become a national priority.

The report included 20 essential recommendations, representing the most significant reforms to the UK’s child protection system since the Children Act 1989. Based on 2.5 million pages of evidence and testimony from over 7,300 survivors, its central message was clear: child protection must be a much greater public priority.

In January 2024, Act on IICSA hosted a parliamentary event alongside Jess Phillips (now Minister Phillips) and then-Home Secretary James Cleverly MP. During this event, the Home Secretary affirmed that the government was taking “concerted action” on several of the Inquiry’s recommendations.

By September 2024, we had launched our manifesto, outlining the cultural changes needed in three critical areas: Prevention , Protection , and Respect for those with lived experience of sexual violence. The manifesto highlights the barriers survivors face in accessing support and fulfilling their potential and outlines solutions to overcome these challenges.

Two years after the publication of the final report, none of IICSA’s recommendations have been implemented nationally. However, the new government, in place since July 2024, has expressed a commitment to improving child sexual abuse prevention and reducing violence against women and girls (VAWG) by half within the next decade.

In November 2024, we hosted a webinar to present the case for a Child Protection Authority (CPA), a pivotal IICSA recommendation, and answer questions from stakeholders. The recording is available here .

Approximately 500,000 children are sexually abused annually in the UK—a conservative estimate that underscores the enormity of the issue. Despite this, responsibility for safeguarding children remains fragmented across various government departments, including the Department for Education, the Department of Health, and the Ministry of Justice.

The Act on IICSA group believes the creation of a CPA is a critical first step in addressing the systemic failures exposed by the Inquiry. A CPA would act as a single, non-departmental body to support, inform, and monitor the professionals tasked with child protection.

Once established, the CPA would facilitate the implementation of the remaining 19 recommendations from the IICSA report.

This is a recommendation of IICSA, based on 8 years’ worth of detailed evidence taken by the Inquiry.

The role of the CPA should be to:

• improve minimum standards for child protection by institutions, including statutory agencies;

• provide advice to government in relation to policy and reform to improve child protection, including through the publication of regular reports to Parliament and making recommendations to government; and

• to inspect and enforce standards in institutions as it considers necessary.

Child abuse comes under this banner. A Child Protection Agency will help the government achieve its goal of reducing VAWG by 50% by 2034.

The inquiry found most institutions looking after children didn’t follow good practice in safeguarding and when confronted about it either failed to follow good practice the issue or tried to cover it up, e.g. church institutions, schools, councils.

Regulators such as Ofsted, Independent Schools Inspectorate and Charity Commission failed to take ownership of problems and failed to take action against offending organisations.

Many settings are hard to regulate for instance churches, the BBC, football, out of school clubs, uniformed youth organisations,  nurseries, unregulated schools, house churches. Reputational damage is a strong driver of safeguarding failure.

The IICSA final report commented “Despite successive policy initiatives to work better together, the statutory agencies have not always collaborated efficiently or effectively. On occasions, this has been marked by an absence of collective leadership by statutory agencies”.

Two years after IICSA there’s a real risk the call for improved standards will be unheard and children are suffering needlessly.

The CPA will develop and enforce procedures for organisations and will enforce good practice.

The CPA will be influential and will have powers. It will make recommendations to government to implement the other 19 recommendations. Mandatory reporting, data sharing and improvements to vetting were designed to be complimentary. Implementation of these other core needs will be the CPA’s priority.

The CPA will work with the commissioners to promote good practice in safeguarding.

Some figures suggest child sexual abuse is costing £16bn pa. The question is how much do we value the protection of children from harm.

The Child Protection Authority will have a CEO who will be a crown appointee. It will have directors accountable to the CEO. It will devise target initiatives and be measured against them. It will contribute to the government’s goal of halving VAWG by 2034.

Regulation is failing. Successive governments are not ensuring multi agency working is effective or that regulators are robust. The CPA will identify failing regulators and gradually absorb their responsibilities.

The CPA will:

• improve minimum standards for child protection by institutions, including statutory agencies;
• provide advice to government in relation to policy and reform to improve child protection, including through the publication of regular reports to Parliament and making recommendations to government; and
• to inspect and enforce standards in institutions as it considers necessary.

It won’t be a “big bang”

The CPA will identify the best staff, consult and create basic minimum standards of safeguarding for organisations looking after children and will eventually enforce those standards.

It will gradually soak up the jobs of various regulators so we have a centralized, standardised plan on safeguarding.

It is likely to have one central base with directors and staff living and working around the country.

The Child Protection Authority can be the gateway to the other 19 recommendations.

Practically we stand more chance of improving child safeguarding overall if we focus on this one request from government.

Many MPs and sector organisations are asking for all 20 recommendations. We are just suggesting this is the place to start.