A report from the NSPCC warns that while neglect is one of the most common forms of maltreatment on Child Protection Plans, professionals “are frequently desensitised” to the warning signs – simply because it has become “so widespread”.
The report, which has been written by Eavan Mckay, a senior policy officer at the NSPCC, also warns that the response from social care to referrals concerning neglect is too often “inadequate and slow”.
Furthermore, when incidents do not meet the threshold for intervention – which is set locally under Section 17 (Children’s Act) – action is often simply not taken at all.
The study considers all forms of neglect, including physical, educational, emotional and medical.
Children of school age who have experienced neglect are more likely to suffer mental health problems including depression, PTSD and panic disorders. Neglect can also increase the risk of other forms of harm, including child criminal exploitation.
The latest Child in Need data shows that neglect is one of the most common forms of abuse, featuring in more than 82,000 Child in Need assessments in 2022/23 (DfE, 2023).
The NSPCC report draws on evidence from 700 multi-agency safeguarding professionals as well as focus groups with social workers, teachers, police and healthcare professionals and evidence from the NSPCC Helpline.
It report paints a picture of children’s services under immense pressure, which it says has led to increased thresholds and less spending on preventative work.
And while there is no direct link between living in poverty and neglect, poverty does heighten the risk for children because of its impact on factors like parenting capacity, housing, food and clothing.
The report states: “Children are experiencing neglect in the context of rising rates of poverty and a cost-of-living crisis which is making it harder and harder for many families, all the while resources to support them are at an all-time low. This combination is disastrous for children and families at risk of neglect.”
One teacher told researchers: “I see children living in absolute chronic poverty, who are hungry at times, whose clothes aren’t clean and housing situation is dire. But that’s not because of lack of information or education on the parents part, it’s that they’re doing their very best with very limited resources.”
The report adds: “Across all agencies polled – healthcare, the police, children’s social care and education – 54% said they’d seen an increase in neglect cases during their professional life with 90% saying they believed the rising cost of living and poverty rates was a driving factor and 76% saying a reduction in community support to parents was also a key factor in neglect increasing.”
The system seems to be so overwhelmed that many referrals are not being followed-up adequately: “Professionals are frequently desensitised to warning signs of neglect as it is so widespread. When individual incidents don’t meet the Section 17 threshold of harm for intervention … those polled told us action is often not taken. Referrals and assessments are made but, in the view of the professionals, they don’t necessarily lead to adequate follow-up.”
Teachers taking part in the study in particular reported that they sometimes have to make multiple referrals to children’s social care, often without receiving any follow-up information regarding action taken – indeed 52% of the teachers polled said children’s social care usually responded “slowly” to neglect referrals with an initial assessment and 43% said early help interventions following assessments were “slow to be put in place”.
Around 1 in 4 teachers (24%) felt that following a referral to children’s social care, the appropriate action was “never or rarely taken” to provide the necessary support for children and families.
The report concludes: “The slow pace of action are major challenges to tackling neglect.”
The report reveals that social care is much quicker to react to referrals requiring a child protection response (44%) rather than those flagged as “early help” (29%).
One teacher and designated safeguarding lead told researchers: “In our school we just feel like the response is not fit for purpose. We’re flagging safeguarding concerns about neglect and, whether it be an early help response or a response from children’s social care, it is frequently just not meeting the family’s needs. From a school perspective we feel like we’re left holding the baby but we’ve got no resource.”
Teachers in the study were confident in their ability to identify neglect (98%), however a key barrier identified in the report is that when neglect is the primary form of maltreatment it may not necessarily present as an individual incident that meets the threshold for serious harm: “Instead, it is often a patchwork of concerning lower-level reports built up over time to form a picture of cumulative harm.
“Neglect is a complex harm that requires a great deal of professional skill to assess its cumulative impact. For this reason, professionals in England are tasked with deciding when omissions in care reach the threshold of ‘persistent’ ‘serious harm’. This is difficult within a child protection system heavily skewed towards thresholds.”
The report calls on the government to introduce a National Neglect Strategy with improved guidance for professionals.
It also wants neglect to be considered as part of the government’s stated plans to address child poverty and the new Family Help model should address neglect as part of its support services, it says.
- DfE: Reporting year 2023: Children in need, 2023: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need
- Mckay: Too little, too late: The multi-agency response to identifying and tackling neglect, NSPCC, 2024: https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2024/too-little-too-late-identifying-and-tackling-neglect