A method of controlling communications within a wireless communications network is provided. The method comprises in advance of transmitting the data by a child node to a donor node, configuring, by one of the donor node and a parent node, a Buffer Status Report, general BSR timer for the child node, the general BSR timer being common and synchronised among at least a subset of a plurality of infrastructure equipment, receiving, at the parent node, subsequent to expiry of the general BSR timer, a signal comprising a BSR from the child node indicating an amount of uplink data that the child node has ready to transmit to the parent node, and scheduling, by the parent node, in accordance with the BSR received from the child node, communications resources of the backhaul communications link to the child node in which the child node is to transmit the uplink data.