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The government has announced plans to establish a new national Child Protection Authority (CPA), intended to strengthen England’s child protection system and improve national oversight of safeguarding failures.
The proposals, published on 11 December, form part of a wider package of reforms aimed at protecting children from abuse, exploitation and organised harm, and respond to longstanding concerns raised by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and the Casey Audit into group-based child sexual exploitation.
According to the Department for Education, the new Authority will be tasked with identifying emerging risks to children, improving the use of data and intelligence, and driving accountability across agencies responsible for safeguarding. Ministers say the CPA will address weaknesses caused by fragmented information-sharing and slow translation of lessons from serious case reviews into frontline practice.
The government has pointed to high-profile safeguarding failures, including grooming gangs operating across multiple areas and the murder of Sara Sharif, as evidence of the need for stronger national leadership and oversight.
The Child Protection Authority is expected to:
• provide national oversight of child protection practice
• identify and respond to emerging safeguarding threats
• ensure learning from serious incidents is embedded consistently across local areas
• hold safeguarding partners to account, working alongside inspectorates
• strengthen responses to harms including sexual exploitation and abuse, domestic abuse, trafficking and organised crime
Frontline criminal enforcement will remain the responsibility of the police.
The proposals deliver on key recommendations from both the IICSA report and the Casey Audit, which highlighted systemic failures in identifying and responding to child sexual abuse, particularly in group-based exploitation cases.
The announcement sits alongside a broader legislative programme, including measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will introduce mandatory information-sharing between public authorities and enable the creation of a Single Unique Identifier to link safeguarding data across agencies. Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse was introduced earlier this year through the Crime and Policing Bill, and child safety duties under the Online Safety Act came into force in July.
An Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs, chaired by Baroness Anne Longfield, was also announced this week. The inquiry will examine the role of police, councils, social services and other agencies in responding to abuse, backed by £65 million of funding.
Children and Families Minister Josh MacAlister said the creation of the Child Protection Authority was intended to address “massive failings” exposed by previous scandals and serious case reviews, and that consultation with practitioners, experts, families and survivors would be central to shaping the new body.
The proposals have been welcomed by key safeguarding organisations. Alexis Jay, author of the IICSA report, described the consultation as a “positive step” towards implementing her recommendations, while the Chair of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel said the Authority would help ensure national learning leads to real change on the ground.
The government is consulting on the CPA’s powers, governance and organisational model. The consultation will run for 12 weeks, with responses sought from professionals working across child protection, including those in family justice.
For family law practitioners, the proposals signal a move towards stronger national coordination in safeguarding and may have implications for how child protection concerns are identified, escalated and scrutinised across care, private law and public law proceedings.
