5.3.6 Recording Sexual Abuse Allegations

Following on from the Bichard Enquiry into the Soham murders and the Sexual Offences Act 2003, Working Together 2006 (paras 5.17 to 5.30) deals with the issue of responding to welfare concerns where there is, or may be, an alleged crime involved, and in particular, allegations of child sexual abuse and underage sexual activity. Essentially, Family Services staff should always discuss all cases where there is or may be a criminal offence against a child with the police at the earliest opportunity. Other agencies must in similar circumstances consider sharing their information with Family Services or the police. The guidance on underage sexual activity makes it clear that “intimate sexual activity” involving under 13 year olds is likely to be harmful (including cases where both parties are under 13), and that the presumption should be that these will lead to a strategy meeting; there is a checklist of factors to consider in coming to a decision as to whether to involve the police in such cases.

The DfE specification for the Integrated Children’s System states that we are required to keep a record every time we receive an allegation of child sexual abuse. All records of allegations on a child’s file need to be searchable within ICS to enable us to monitor and report on how all allegations have been dealt with.

We are required to record the following details about all sexual abuse allegations:

The detail of any allegation of sexual abuse and the date the allegation was made.
What decision was made about how to deal with the allegation, the reason for that decision, and the date the decision was made.
If, as will be the norm, the allegation is either referred to the police CAIT, or discussed with them, the reason for this must be recorded
If the decision was that the police should not be contacted, then the reasons for this must be clearly recorded on the child’s file.

How should sexual abuse allegations be recorded in ICS?

All allegations of sexual abuse must be recorded on a contact sheet in ICS. The practitioner should select 'Sexual abuse allegation' from the contact drop down list. All sexual abuse inquiries, should lead to Section 47, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Details (as outlined above in the bullet points) about how the allegation has been dealt with should then be recorded on the contact sheet/event
In this way the system will support a retrospective audit and allow us to focus on the number of allegations made, whether or not they were referred to the police and the justifying reasons for decisions made. This will also enable us to track the way sexual abuse allegations are handled, and whether they result in child protection conferences etc.

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