Every Child Matters - Education and Skills
Select Committee
Submission from the Association of Chief
Police Officers (ACPO)
1. ACPO are grateful for the opportunity to contribute
to this overview inquiry.
2. ACPO and the police service are committed
to protecting children and young people, encouraging their positive
contribution to society and preventing children and young people
from turning to a life of crime or antisocial behaviour. Accordingly,
ACPO and the police service are committed to the provisions of
the Children Act.
3. The below comments are made without the benefit
of a full appreciation of the questions to be posed at the Select
Committee and accordingly, ACPO reserve the right to expand, clarify
or add to their submission as needed to respond to the needs of
the Select Committee.
4. This submission will set out areas where ACPO
feels further work needs to be done to ensure the police role
is fully appreciated and integrated into the 'new' provisions
and will draw clear conclusions for the Select Committee to consider.
5. The police service has two clear links to
the proposals within Every Child matters:
i. Child protection, and;
ii. Preventing children and young people becoming
victims of crime, criminals and/or turning to antisocial behaviour
(ACPO term this as 'youth issues').
6. Arguably, given the history of child abuse
and the close working relationships between the police and the
partner agencies that make up the 'Children Services', the child
protection role of the police and its relationship to other agencies
is well defined and understood. Accordingly, the broad provisions
and proposals within Every Child matters in the child protection
area are acceptable in principle to ACPO. However, there are some
concerns about some of the detail, which will be commented on
later in this submission.
7. In the area of 'youth issues', is it suggested
that there is not such a clear understanding of the role of the
police service and the contribution it can make to Children Services.
Although, Every Child Matters brings a 'duty to collaborate'
upon the police service, the police are not seen as one of the
main agencies within the 'new' proposals. It is the view of ACPO
that the position of the police service, as far as it relates
to 'youth issues', needs re-consideration for the following reasons:
i. ACPO have a comprehensive youth strategy that
covers six specific areas:
- Engaging with children and young people:
building and maintaining positive relationships with children
and young people;
- Children and young people as victim and
witnesses: providing children and
young people and their parents and carers with support and information
to avoid crime and disorder and to deal effectively with any crime
or disorder they may experience.
- Pre-crime prevention - helping those in
need: taking a lead in helping those
children and young people at greatest risk of becoming involved
in antisocial behaviour or criminality before they enter the criminal
justice system.
- Post-crime reduction - active intervention:
dealing quickly and effectively with
children and young people in the youth justice system, having
consistent and effective processes and graduating policing responses
to those young offenders who are at greatest risk.
- Post-crime detection and deterrence - targeting
prolific offenders: deterring and
detecting serious and prolific young offenders in partnership
with other agencies.
- Human Resource development -
towards a qualified workforce: ensuring that staff
that have specific contact with children and young people have
appropriate skills to perform their role.
ii. The Audit Commission report, 'Youth Justice
2004', had a clear recommendation that, "all police forces
should develop a dedicated strategy for tackling youth offending".
Currently, a number of police forces have a comprehensive youth
strategy similar to that set out above whilst others will be developing
such a strategy in accordance with their local needs.
iii. The police service are often one of the
first agencies to be alerted to 'risk factors' that are as relevant
to all aspects of Every Child Matters as they are in relation
to crime and disorder, some examples are set out below but this
list should not be seen as exhaustive:
- Domestic violence.
- Missing from home.
- Drug misuse.
- Alcohol misuse.
- Mixing with offending peers.
- Criminal family member.
- Disruptive/antisocial behaviour.
- Unreported criminal behaviour.
- Early age criminality.
- Truancy.
- Abusive parent/s
- Suspected child abuse
iv. As part of the wider ACPO youth strategy set
out above, the role of the police service is changing in relation
to schools. There are now almost 500 Safer Schools Partnerships
(SSP) [where full-time police officers are working as operational
police officers in an operational role within secondary schools
and their feeder primary schools]. Work continues to define a
graduated model for police in schools that recognises the more
traditional school liaison role and the new SSP role. However,
the police are working far closer with partners in this new role
and although evaluation of the SSP model is inconclusive at this
time (given the pace at which it was established and the likely
longer-term outcomes), there are a range of strong indicators
to show that there are considerable benefits in this 'new' approach.
More specific issues
8. There are a number of more specific issues
directly related to the proposals within Every Child Matters
as set out below:
i. Common Assessment Framework (CAF): Whilst
welcoming the development of a CAF there are some concerns about
the resource commitment required of the police service to use
and support the CAF. The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), in
their response to the formal consultation on the CAF have estimated
that they are likely to require 90 additional police officers/staff
to meet their commitment to the CAF. It may be that the MPS estimation
is inaccurate but as the police service were not one of the very
many agencies involved in the initial CAF Working Group, the actual
resource commitments cannot be clearly known at this stage. It
is accepted that much work needs to be done until the final CAF
is agreed and its application to the key agencies is resolved
but until this clarity is resolved this remains an area of concern
for the police service.
ii. Child Indexes and IT systems:
The Home Office and the police service are working towards the
development of a national police intelligence system. There is
a need to ensure that any IS/IT developments for children and
young people within Every Child Matters has full regard
to compatibility and the need to transfer data and information.
This must apply to both child protection and 'youth issues' matters
and must lead to the ability to transfer data and information
securely and electronically.
iii. Information Sharing: ACPO,
the Youth Justice Board and the Home Office Legal Department,
supported by independent Counsel's advice, have developed clear,
practical guidance (based on a simple and realistic case-study),
to show that personal and sensitive information about children
and young people, even before they have entered the youth justice
system, can be shared within the law and without consent, to prevent
such child or young person becoming involved in crime. This guidance
clearly shows how 'risk factor' information can and should be
shared to the benefits of the child or young person to enable
early and effective intervention to prevent them from entering
a life of criminality. ACPO are keen to ensure that the clarity
and simplicity of this work is not lost in the development of
future guidance.
iv. Children Trusts (CTs): The
police service are not currently seen as active partners in CTs.
However, Essex Police, with the consent of the partner agencies,
have seconded a full-time police officer into the Pathfinder CT
at Braintree, Essex. Consideration of the objectives of the Braintree
CT shows that around 80% of the objectives relate closely to the
role of the police (particularly the 'youth issues' work), some
examples are shown below (the 'short-hand' used is to provide
an indication and does not reflect the full extent of the objectives):
- Improving awareness between CT agencies of their
role and functions.
- Reducing structural barriers for better service
delivery.
- Professionals to use a common language and common
assessment framework.
- Robust information collected and shared.
- Develop an outreach model of service to enable
greater access to those at risk.
- More responsive services to target support to
children and families out of hours.
- Better co-ordination and promotion of early intervention
services.
- Increased accessibility of school based support.
- Provide enhanced support to 8 to 14 year olds
at risk of being looked after by the local authority.
- Reduce the level of victimisation of children
and young people.
- Enhance support to children at risk of exclusion.
- Provide support to children and young people
subject of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs) and ASBOS.
- Increase the level of support to children and
young people exposed to violence within the home.
- Improve the level of awareness of the impact
of domestic violence for children and young people amongst police,
social services, social care and health.
- Engage parents and carers who have attended programmes
to develop skills, etc.
The emerging view of the role of the police officer
in the Braintree CT is very positive and, although, local evaluation
is taking place it is too early for specific outcomes (the police
officer was only seconded in September 2004).
ACPO have made the point that there is a need to
consider a police officer as an active member of CTs from the
outset. There are obvious resource implications that have yet
to be considered and if there was a need to have a police officer
in each CT this would mean in the region of 600 to 700 police
officers needed to fill such posts nationwide.
v. Youth Green Paper - a
Youth Green Paper is to be published in January or February 2005
which is likely to have considerable connections to the 'youth
issues' aspects of the work of the police service. It will be
important for ACPO to be early contributors to the thinking and
the detail of this green paper to ensure future developments are
compatible with existing practice and developments. It would be
unhelpful for any future proposals not to have regard to the extensive
work that the police service are undertaking with children and
young people in the area of child protection and prevention. The
comments in relation to the Youth Green Paper reflect the issues
raised at 7 (i) to (iv) above.
Conclusions
9. The following conclusions flow from the above
comments:
i. The police service is committed to supporting
Every Child Matters.
ii. The role of the police service, as far as
'youth issues' are concerned, needs re-consideration as part of
'Children Services'.
iii. The role of the police within Children Trusts
needs to be re-considered.
iv. An 'impact assessment' of the role of the
police needs to be undertaken between the Home Office, Department
for Education and Skills and ACPO, to determine the likely future
resource requirements for the police service.
v. ACPO must continue to be closely involved
both from the child protection and 'youth issues' perspective,
in the detail of future developments to enable the police perspective
to be properly considered.
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