The Crime and Policing Act received royal assent in April 2026. While the legislation is now officially law, its various provisions will be implemented on staggered dates determined by the government.
Here is a summary of some of the new measures being introduced by the Act that will be of particular interest to schools, along with practical recommendations for how they will impact your policies, processes, and daily practice.
New Measures Under the Act
1. Enhanced Safeguarding & Child Protection Duties
- Mandatory reporting of Child Sexual Abuse: Following recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), a new statutory duty in England requires adults working in education and childcare to report child sexual abuse (including historical cases and all CSA offences including the sharing of child sexual abuse images) to the police and Children’s Services. In schools, staff can fulfil this by reporting via their Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL).
Note: Exceptions apply to consensual sexual activity between children over the age of 13.
- New Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) offences: The Act introduces specific criminal offences for child criminal exploitation, ‘cuckooing’, and internal concealment. The intention is to consistently identify and treat children as victims of CCE rather than perpetrators of criminality.
- Grooming as an aggravating factor: A new statutory aggravating factor will apply when sentencing individuals for sexual offences against children.
- Preservation of social media data: To support coroners' investigations into the death of a child, requirements surrounding the preservation of a child’s social media data have been strengthened.
2. Safer Recruitment & Vetting
- Enhanced DBS Checks: Everyone in regular close-contact roles with children (paid or voluntary) falls under regulated activity and requires an Enhanced DBS check with a check of the Children's Barred List. This does not include children on work experience.
What counts as "regular"?
Defined as more than three days in a 30-day period, or overnight. Therefore, parent helpers at one-off events or supervised trips who are not regular will not require an enhanced DBS.
- Restricting registered sex offenders: The police now have expanded powers to manage registered sex offenders, explicitly restricting their ability to change their name where there is a risk of sexual harm.
3. Digital Safety & AI Harms
- Nudification tools and intimate image abuse: The Act criminalises the creation, supply, or distribution of tools or services designed to generate purported intimate images. It also creates new offences for taking, recording, or copying intimate images without consent.
- AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM): AI models optimised to produce CSAM are explicitly banned, and laws are expanded to criminalise "manuals" instructing users how to use AI to generate such material.
- AI Chatbots: AI chatbots are now brought into the scope of the Online Safety Act so they can be better regulated to protect children's safety and wellbeing.
4. Knife Crime & Pornography Restrictions
- Weapon restrictions and penalties: The Act increases the maximum penalty for selling dangerous weapons (such as knives and crossbows) to under-18s, tightens online age verification checks for their delivery, and introduces a new offence for possessing a bladed article with the intent to cause harm.
- Youth Diversion Orders: In counter-terrorism contexts, voluntary pre-court interventions will keep young people who commit low-level or first-time offences out of the formal criminal justice system through youth justice team support.
- Pornography bans: The Act criminalises the possession and publication of pornography portraying strangulation or suffocation, simulated/step-incest, and adults roleplaying as children under the age of 16.
Recommendations for Schools
While implementation timescales vary, these measures will undoubtedly work their way into future iterations of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE). School leaders should start considering and implementing these five recommendations now:
1. Policy Updates
Review and amend your statutory and non-statutory policies to ensure they reflect actual school culture and practice:
- Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy: Integrate the new statutory mandatory reporting duty for staff and update definitions to include the specific new criminal offences of CCE and internal concealment.
- Online Safety and Acceptable Use Policies: Document the prohibition of the creation, possession, or distribution of AI-generated intimate images and the use of nudification tools.
- Behaviour and Anti-Bullying Policies: Update to reflect the widened scope of hate crimes, which now include aggravated offences related to hostility toward disability, sex, sexual orientation, and transgender identity.
Download our free policy templates to help you at safepolicies.lgfl.net.
2. Staff Training & CPD
Support all school staff (including teaching assistants, administrative staff, governors, and trustees) to understand their legal responsibilities:
- Mandatory Reporting Duty: Refresh staff knowledge on child sexual abuse, making it clear that reporting is now a statutory legal obligation for professionals, not just internal best practice.
- Spotting Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE): Deliver specific training on the signs of criminal exploitation and internal concealment. Training and resources can be found at cce.lgfl.net.
- Understanding Digital Harms: Ensure staff know how to handle disclosures regarding deepfakes, AI nudification tools, or non-consensual image sharing. Use scenario-based activities to test confidence.
Find Gen AI support at genai.lgfl.net
3. Curriculum Revisions (RSE, PSHE, and Computing)
Integrate updates regarding pornography, AI harms, and weapons laws into the curriculum for older children (primarily Key Stages 4 and 5):
- Relationships and Sex Education (RSE): Explicitly teach older students the legal consequences of extreme pornography. Use the criminalisation of strangulation/suffocation imagery to anchor essential lessons on consent, boundaries, and the dangers of imitating violent online content.
- Digital Literacy and Computing: Teach the legal and social consequences of using AI tools to alter or create intimate images of others, making it clear this is a digital abuse offence, not a harmless prank.
Access hundreds of curated curriculum resources at saferesources.lgfl.net.
4. Vetting & Safer Recruitment
- Enhanced DBS & Single Central Record: Ensure all staff, regular volunteers, or contractors working in supervised roles undergo the updated, stricter enhanced DBS checks, and that your Single Central Record (SCR) is updated accordingly.
- Rigorous Alias Checks: Vetting processes and application forms must strictly demand a clear declaration of all previous names and aliases.
5. Operations & Strategy
- Counter-Terrorism: DSLs should familiarise themselves with the newly introduced Youth Diversion Orders. Access training resources at prevent.lgfl.net.
- Data Preservation: Establish a clear process to help families or coordinate with authorities to ensure vital digital evidence is not automatically deleted by social platforms in the tragic event of a student's death.
- Strategic AI Management: Ensure your school has a robust approach to Generative AI. This includes setting up filtering systems to only allow specific, pre-approved AI tools, training staff, and supporting parents to understand and mitigate AI risks.
Find free guidance at genai.lgfl.net.