I recently received this letter from Edward Timpson, Minister for Children and Families. Mr Timpson appears to miss the point entirely – he says he does not think that ‘mandatory reporting would necessarily have helped in the Daniel Pelka case and, by implication, in many others’… he says he does not ‘believe a shift to mandatory reporting would make it easier for professionals to identify the signs of abuse and neglect’.

Surely the point is that staff at Daniel’s school identified and internally documented his abuse – but they failed to report it.

Serious case reviews show time after time that staff are aware abuse is occurring and yet they fail to report it.Mr Timpson goes on to assert his confidence in the ‘expectation and accountability provided by the existing guidance’.

We know there is no accountability at all in ‘existing guidance’.

I am disappointed with the continued opposition, but interested to observe that Mr Timpson finally […]

This is the letter I received from Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, in response to the 50,000 signature petition I delivered to 10 Downing Street in support of Daniel’s Law. None of issues Mr Gove raises against Mandatory Reporting in Regulated Activities are credible – see my response for counter-arguments.
 
CLICK HERE TO READ THE LETTER FROM MICHAEL GOVE
 
This is my response to Michael Gove’s assertion that Mandatory Reporting in Regulated Activities is ‘not the answer’. My letter is written with the support of the Mandate Now coalition of charities and is copied to supporting MPs, along with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling as co-recipients of the petition for Daniel’s Law.
 
CLICK HERE TO READ MY RESPONSE