The ban on parents smacking their children in Wales has increased pressure on police and social services, the Welsh Government’s review has found.
The report, commissioned to assess the impact of the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Act 2020 three years on, concluded that it is “working well”, but did identify an increased workload “particularly in policing and local authorities”.
Westminster Education Minister Stephen Morgan has recently come under pressure to ban smacking in England and has said the UK Government will review the impact of bans in Scotland and Wales “before taking such a significant legislative step”.
Increased workloads
When reporting on the impact on workloads, the report found: “For some professionals, particularly in policing and local authorities, the Act was reported to have led to increased workloads due to more time-intensive processes and reclassification of low-level incidents as crimes.”
Local authority managers described an increase in child protection investigations “even for lower-level cases where it is sometimes ‘unnecessary’”, contributing “to temporary backlogs”.
Looking into the number of cases of physical punishment, the report found a large rise in police recording of cases of ‘common assault’ on children (the offence relating to smacking), identifying an increase – using data provided by three forces – from around 3,900 cases to 6,200 after the law change.
The report concluded with the claim that the law change “has been embedded largely as intended in supporting the core aim of upholding children’s rights whilst adopting an educating and preventative approach that avoids criminalising parents”.
Costing millions
Be Reasonable, a campaign group opposing government overreach into family life, responded: “During its passage, Welsh Government ministers claimed the new law ‘would not criminalise parents’. But it has now openly admitted that a small number have been taken to court, and a far larger number put through state re-education schemes.”
It stated that the report agreed with its findings that “over 350 parents have entered the criminal justice system” as a result of the law change.
Be Reasonable spokesman Simon Calvert said: “This law is costing the taxpayer millions, diverting police from serious crime and placing unnecessary strain on social services. Instead of focusing on neglect and abuse, professionals are being drawn into intrusive investigations of ordinary, loving families.
“We have long warned this would happen, and the Government’s own data is clearly showing it. It is impossible to reconcile the Welsh Government’s claim that implementation is ‘progressing well’ with the data it has produced.”
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