Julie Morgan MS, Deputy Minister for Health and Social services
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, has today published its final report.
This has been a landmark inquiry into historic abuse and whether public bodies and other non-state institutions in England and Wales took seriously their responsibility to protect children from sexual abuse.
Over the course of the last eight years, the inquiry has undertaken investigations in 13 distinct areas; held numerous public hearings and seminars and heard directly from thousands of victims and survivors – many of whom have spoken about their experiences for the first time.
We have supported the inquiry’s work throughout, providing more than 30,000 documents to the team from our archives and have taken part in nine hearings, giving evidence about the work we have done in Wales in response to cases of child abuse. More than 300 Truth sessions were held in Wales.
I want to place on record my thanks to our team, which provided this support and commitment. The inquiry’s legacy website will include a statement acknowledging the contribution of the Wales Reference Group and the work the inquiry has done with the Welsh Government. I also want to thank the inquiry team for its dedication, engagement with Wales and commitment to the Welsh language.
This is a very important report, and the recommendations will now be given full and proper consideration. I make a further statement about how these will be taken forward once we have had a chance to consider them in full.
While we have fully supported and participated in IICSA’s work, we have also strengthened our work to prevent abuse in Wales. In 2019, the national action plan on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse was published. We will provide an update about progress next month.