The Department for Education (DfE) is consulting on creating a new public body to improve child protection.
As part of Government reforms to strengthen England’s child protection system, the DfE is proposing a new Child Protection Authority. The public body would be ‘tasked with identifying emerging threats and driving accountability across the system.’
The body would help protect children from: sexual exploitation, abuse, domestic violence, trafficking, organised crime and other complex risks. The current proposal (under consultation) is that the body will work closely with inspectorates, healthcare professionals, social workers and police to improve practice, and hold those involved in safeguarding to account on child protection.
The DfE is seeking views on the Child Protection Authority’s (CPA) functions, governance and interaction with existing bodies – and would like to hear from those working in children’s services, the police, health, youth justice, probation and education – as well as safeguarding partnerships, voluntary and community sector organisations working with children and families, inspectorates and regulatory bodies with a role in child protection, organisations and sector bodies who provide improvement training and support, families with lived experience of the child protection system and their networks, and anyone else who cares about improving child protection.
In the consultation description, the DfE states that:
“We propose the CPA to be an expert, accurate and decisive body. It will make the multi-agency child protection system clearer, more unified and ensure there are ongoing improvements through effective evidence-based support.”
Why is the DfE proposing the creation of the CPA?
- To provide national oversight.
- To ensure vulnerable children are not failed by the authorities who are supposed to protect them.
- To tackle underlying systemic issues (such as the safeguarding failures that allowed grooming gangs to operate in many towns and cities).
- To get agencies responsible for child protection to work together more closely.
- To improve the sharing of information and front line expertise.
- To provide strong leadership to ensure consistent good practice.
- To address issues such as fragmented intelligence on harms, patchy data analysis and lessons being slow to translate into practice.
- To ensure no child falls through the cracks.
The CPA will also deliver on a key recommendation from the Independent inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s (IICSA) report and the problems identified in the Casey Audit into group-based sexual exploitation. The CPA will also sit alongside the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs that was announced by the Home Secretary on the 9th December. Strengthening child protection is a factor of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which includes requirements such as mandatory sharing of information between public authorities and enabling the use of Single Unique Identifier to help link data across safeguarding agencies.
Responding to the proposal of the CPA, the Centre of Expertise of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) shared:
“We welcome the government’s progress in implementing IICSA’s recommendations and, if carefully designed and implemented, the new Child Protection Authority will play a key role in this, supported by specialist bodies such as the CSA Centre. The number of children supported through a child protection plan due to concerns of child sexual abuse has fallen from 25% to an all-time low of 3.5% in the last 30 years, so today’s publication of new, more detailed data, is a welcome first step in better understanding the reasons for that startling decline.
“Better data and analysis will also enhance the CSA Centre’s implementation of evidence-based resources into practice, including our Response Pathway, with initiatives such as our practice leads programme, so we can support professionals to better identify and respond to concerns of child sexual abuse.”
References
- Gov.UK (2025) ‘Press release: New national Child Protection Authority announced’. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-national-child-protection-authority-announced (Accessed: 15th December 2025)
- Gov.UK (2025) ‘Open consultation: Establishing the Child Protection Authority in England’. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/establishing-the-child-protection-authority-in-england (Accessed: 15 December 2025)
