Children’s Act 2004

The 2004 Children’s Act was introduced as a development and extension of the same act from 1989. The main way in which the 2004 Children’s Act differentiates from the 1989 Children’s Act is in its focus on ensuring that all people (both individuals and organisations) that are working with children have a responsibility for safeguarding children and promoting their welfare.

The ultimate aim of the Children’s Act 2004 is to ensure that all children living in the UK are kept safe and protected, but the way in which the Act did this is different from the Acts that preceded it. Here is everything you need to know about the Children’s Act 2004, including what it is and why it was introduced:

What is the Children’s Act?

The Children’s Act is an Act of Parliament in the UK that was introduced in 2004 to cement the safeguarding of children into UK law. The Act also allowed for the introduction of an overarching Children’s Commissioner to report to Parliament, as well as each local authority needing to appoint a director of children’s services.

The role of the Children’s Commissioner is a significant one, with the primary function of the individual within the position being to promote and protect the rights of children in the UK. The Commissioner will also promote awareness of, and seek, the views of interests of children in the UK, treating children as individuals and seeing the value in their opinions. The Children’s Commissioner’s role involves offering advice to anyone engaged in working with children, ensuring that they act and treat each child appropriately whilst also advising the Secretary of State on the rights and views of children within the UK. Both the Children’s Commissioner and the Secretary of State can then bring any of these most important matters to the attention of the Houses of Parliament. Finally, the Children’s Commissioner fulfils the role of implementing the United Nations Convention Rights of the Child legislation within the UK, and when matters need to be investigated under this section, they should publish a report on the matter, however, the Children’s Commission cannot conduct an investigation of the case of an individual child in the discharge of the primary function.

Why was the Children’s Act 2004 Introduced?

The Children’s Act 2004 was introduced to revise the Children’s Act 1989. The new act was introduced with a series of important goals. The most significant of these was to give boundaries and help to local authorities, schools, and other entities involved in the care of children to better regulate official intervention in the interests of children in the UK. The bodies that are affected and impacted by the Children’s Act 2004 include: Children’s services in the UK, Children’s trust boards, local safeguarding children boards, safeguarding partners for local authority areas and local authority administration.

The reason that the Children’s Act 1989 was considered to be no longer fit for purpose, and the Children’s Act 2004 was introduced instead was the result of an inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie. Eight-year-old Victoria Climbie was tortured and murdered by her great-aunt and her boyfriend in 2000, leading to public outrage and calls for a public inquiry. The result of this inquiry was the Children’s Act 2004 and major changes in the way that child protection policies were implemented in the UK.

The two papers that preceded the Children’s Act 2004 and led to its creation were the Keeping children safe report (DfES, 2003) and the Every child matters green paper (DfES, 2003). The purpose of the act was to:

• Create a Children’s Commissioner to oversee the care of children in the UK
• Ensuring that services are put in place to ensure that all children and young people within the UK is cared for adequately by the local authorities and other persons of authority
• To include Wales in nationwide legislation, ensuring that advisory and support services in regards to family proceedings were provided
• Covering all manners relating to the care of children, including dealing with private fostering, child minding and daycare, adoption assessment panels, the explanation of reasonable penalty, the making of allowances as respects children and families, child safety orders, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales
• Allowing for the publication of material in connection to children dealing in legal cases and the release by the Inland Revenue of data relating to children, and creating an overarching umbrella for this material to be published under

The main areas in which the Children’s Act 2004 intends to positively impact the lives of children in the UK are:

• Being Healthy. This includes reducing the childhood obesity level, lowering the rates of teen pregnancy in the UK (the UK currently has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe) and minimising the impact of suicide on young people. According to the World Health Organisation, the UK had the lowest rate of deaths by suicide amongst the 26 countries sampled, but suicide is still responsible for 20 per cent of young deaths in the UK
• Staying Safe. This includes protecting children that are in care (a figure that currently sits at 59,700 children), supervising and caring for those children on child protection registers and reducing the number of children involved in crime, or being targeted as the victim of crime
• Enjoying and Achieving. This relates to academic achievements and ensuring that all children attend school and meet minimum educational standards. In 2002, more than half of the 15-year-olds got a minimum of five GCSEs at grades A*-C, a rise of more than 6 per cent since 1997. The goal is to ensure this figure continues to rise, with particular attention on ensuring academic success is consistent through diverse ethnic groups. School non-attendance should also be minimised and targeted through this act
• Economic Well-being. Ensuring that children living in poverty or in working-age jobless homes are afforded the same opportunities as other children is a vital element of the Children’s Act 2004. For this reason, the Children’s Act 2004 established a Children’s Fund which is aimed to support the abolition of poverty and economic difficulties felt by disadvantaged children or those whose family’s monetary conditions leave them deprived

Principles of the Children’s Act 2004

The main principles of the Children’s Act 2004 are effectively concerning ensuring that children in the UK are as safe and happy as possible. More specifically, the role of the Act is to ensure that:

• Children living in the UK are healthy
• Children in the UK are given the freedom they need to be happy and enjoy their lives
• Children in the UK spend time in safe and protected environments
• Children living in the UK are provided with the tools they need to succeed in life
• Children living in the UK are raised in environments that are as economically stable as possible
• The main principle of the act is to make a positive and significant contribution to the lives of children living in the UK

As each of these points has already made clear, the well-being of the UK’s children is the primary concern of the Children’s Act 2004. The most significant and well-known section of the act concerns the maltreatment of children: what can be done to prevent it, and how the maltreatment of children can be reported to the relevant authorities.

Other principles of the act that you should be aware of are the creation of Children’s Trusts. A Children’s Trust is a body that has been established and operated independently. They are not usually affiliated with Health and Social Services and other government agencies. A Children’s Trust aims to build cooperation between children and their trusts, as well as their teachers, parents and guardians. Building relationships between families and Children’s Trusts is essential, particularly amongst families and communities that historically don’t welcome intervention in their family life from outside sources.

The final principle of the Children’s Act 2004 is a financial one. The Children’s Act 2004 also includes a Fund, with the aim of minimising poverty and economic hardship amongst children. The principle is that those children with disadvantaged financial circumstances should not be disadvantaged in the educational arena because of these circumstances. The primary aim of the Act’s fund is to help children ages 5-13 maintain attendance at school.

Of all of these principles of the Children’s Act 2004, the most important one is to ensure that children are happy, protected, and always receive the highest-level standard of care. Protecting the interests of children is the main concern, and anyone working with children has the responsibility of ensuring that the principles of the Children’s Act 2004 are upheld.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2018

Another act that it’s important to be aware of, and that is often discussed in conjunction with the Children’s Act 2004, is the Keeping Children Safe in Education Act 2018. The Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2018 is a formal document that provides statutory guidance for schools, colleges and other institutes of education and it’s put together by the Department of Education. This is a wide-reaching document that applies to all school staff as well as to governing bodies, management committees and proprietors, and as a result, every member of staff within a school must read the document (or part of the document, depending on their job role). The document provides guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment. For this reason, no member of staff within a school (whether working or volunteering) is exempt from the guidance.

The KCSIE document is updated every 1-2 years, so although it was first introduced in 2018, the most up-to-date version of the document was created in 2021 and came into force on 1st September 2021. No matter what your role in school may be, it is a firm requirement for all school and college staff to read Part 1 and Annex A of Keeping Children Safe in Education. Some staff may be asked to read the rest of the document, and this can be very useful, but it is not a legal requirement. When your school is visited by Ofsted inspectors, they will want to see evidence that every member of staff and teacher in your school has read and understood Part 1 and Annex A of Keeping Children Safe in Education 2018. Failure to evidence this could lose your school valuable marks during an inspection, so it is important to have a robust process in place to ensure not only that each new member of staff reads this document but also that it is recorded appropriately. Some of the key elements of the document that you need to be aware of include:

• The importance of each school having their own safeguarding policy. This cannot be a generic policy, and when it comes to safeguarding there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. The safeguarding policy that your school puts in place should be specific to the school and take into account any locational and societal issues that are unique to that school
• When collecting personal information for each of their pupils, schools are now required to gather the details of two emergency contacts per child, to ensure that someone can always be reached in a moment of need
• Most schools carry out an enhanced DBS check on all of their volunteers, but it is a myth that this is a legal requirement. Rather, schools should carry out a risk assessment to decide if this is required
• Additional pastoral support should be provided to children with disabilities or special educational needs (SEN) as not only may their behaviour, mood, and likeliness to incur injury differ from other children, but it is also important to ensure that these children are not being exposed to abuse.
• Schools not only have a requirement to educate children and to protect them, but also to ensure that they attend school and adhere to an appropriate behavioural standard. To ensure that these requirements are met, each school should have a behaviour policy and a Children Missing Education (CME) policy in place. These should be shared with each child and their parents before they begin attending school
• When children do miss school, this should be viewed as a sign that there may be a safeguarding issue in play. Some examples of these include abuse, child sexual exploitation or forced marriage. For this reason, every unrequested school absence should be followed up