Conducting Section 47 Enquiries
Last updated: January 7, 2009
Table of Contents
1. Duty to conduct section 47 enquiries
1.i Significant harm threshold
Where a child is suspected to be suffering, or likely to suffer significant harm, the local authority is required by section 47 of the Children Act 1989 to make enquiries, to enable it to decide whether it should take any action to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child.
Decisions about significant harm are complex and should be informed by a careful assessment of the child’s’ circumstance, and discussion between statutory agencies and with the child and family.
1.ii What is abuse and neglect?
Abuse and neglect are forms of maltreatment – a person may abuse or neglect a child by inflicting harm, or by failing to act to prevent harm.
Physical Abuse
This may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child or young person. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer fabricates the symptoms of, or deliberately induces, illness in a child.
Sexual Abuse
Involves forcing or enticing a child or young person to take part in sexual activities, including prostitution, whether or not the child or young person is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including penetrative e.g. rape, buggery, oral sex or non penetrative acts. They may include non contact activities such as involving children in looking at or in the production of, sexual on line images, watching sexual activities or encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.
Emotional Abuse
It may be that the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effect on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to a child or young person that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. These may include interactions that are beyond the child’s developmental capability as well as over protection and limitation of exploration and learning, or preventing the child from participating from normal social interaction. It may also involve serious bullying, causing children to frequently feel frightened or in danger such as where persistent domestic abuse [another procedure] between parents or carers is witnessed by a child, or the exploitation or corruption of children. Some level of emotional abused is in involved in all types of maltreatment, though it may occur alone.
Neglect
Neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development. Neglect may occur during pregnancy as a result of maternal substance misuse. Once a child is born, neglect may involve a parent or carer failing to:
- provide adequate food, clothing and shelter [including exclusion from home and abandonment]
- protect a child from physical harm or danger
- ensure adequate supervision [including the use of inadequate care givers]
- ensure access to appropriate medical care or treatment.
It may also include neglect of, or unresponsiveness to, a child’s basic emotional needs.
Responsibility for undertaking section 47 enquires lies with the local authority in whose area the child lives or is found. For purposes of these procedures the local authority in which the child lives is called the ‘home authority’ and the local authority in which the child is found is the child’s ‘host authority’. The term ‘found’ means the physical location where the child suffers the incident of harm or neglect or identified to be at risk of harm or neglect e.g.:
- day nursery
- school [day or boarding]
- hospital
- specific location such as fairground
- holiday home
- outing
- private foster home
- child looked after living with carers.
