Ahead of the forthcoming consultation on introducing mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in England, the UK Government should take heed of the controversy raging in South Australia, where mandatory reporting has been established for some time.
7 News reports
that South Australia’s premier, Jay Weatherill, has said that mandatory
reporting is swamping the state’s child protection system with tens of
thousands of unanswered and abandoned calls. He believes that this is putting
children experiencing abuse at even greater risk.
The UK Government should take note. Mandatory reporting could
have precisely the opposite of intended consequences.
