Work of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre - Home Affairs Committee Contents


Examination of Witness (Questions 1-34)

JIM GAMBLE

12 OCTOBER 2010

Q1   Chair: Can I call to the dais Jim Gamble? Mr Gamble, thank you for coming to give evidence to this Committee. This evidence session looks at the work of CEOP and, in particular, the recent developments, including your resignation as the Chief Executive.

Could you just clarify this issue: you are still the Chief Executive, though you have announced that you are resigning and you are still working at the organisation for a period of four months? Is that correct?

Jim Gamble: That is correct.

Q2   Chair: That is a situation that the Government have accepted?

Jim Gamble: I'm unsure as to whether or not that's the situation as accepted, and I plan to cover some of this in an opening statement, if that would be permissible?

Chair: Well, is it a long opening statement?

Jim Gamble: No, several minutes at most, maybe two or three.

Q3   Chair: Well, I think what might be better, Mr Gamble, is if we ask you questions. I'm sure they will be covered. We're not great fans of opening statements, I'm afraid. Let us move to your resignation and the reason for your resignation, which you have not discussed with any other agency, or the press, but you have come to the Select Committee to tell us, in particular, about. You have obviously written to the Home Secretary, and she was very glowing in her response to you about the work that you have done for CEOP, which must be greatly pleasing to you. Why have you resigned?

Jim Gamble: I have resigned because I'm concerned about the direction of travel that CEOP is moving in. I am deeply concerned that it is not going to be best for children, because I believe you either begin from a position of what is best for policing or a position of what is best for children themselves. I am concerned that the advice that we have given from our mixed-economy multi-agency staff, through the response to the consultation, the responses from the Children's Commissioners, the NSPCC, the Association of Directors of Children's Services, ACPO and APA, that all of that is not being taken into account, as the NCA business case is being developed at speed and in a direction that I think is fundamentally wrong. I resigned to remove myself from the equation so that there could be no misperception that I have a vested self-interest in this, and I resigned in order that the issue that we focus upon would be what is best for child protection, not what is best for Jim Gamble or those within CEOP, but what is best for children.

Q4   Chair: What kind of consultation did you have? Obviously, we have a new Government, so new Governments are entitled to put forward new proposals and the Home Secretary was very clear that she wanted a National Crime Agency. Although we do not have details of this—the Bill is not coming out until next year—have you had any consultations and discussions with Ministers about where CEOP is going to be, because it could be that your views are misplaced, that CEOP is going to survive, albeit within a different structure?

Jim Gamble: I think there are two issues. The first is: I applaud any Government, of whatever hue, which builds policy on an evidence basis. That is why I was deeply concerned when the announcement was made as it was before Parliament with no pre-consultation with myself—as the Association of Chief Police Officers' lead on child protection or as the Chief Executive of CEOP—who has overseen the build and development, nor with any of the child protection experts that I am aware of in the field. There was an arbitrary announcement that we were to move into the NCA, as you have highlighted, with no understanding of what that would be, but a 50 or 51 page document where we are mentioned once and child protection is mentioned once, and where the focus and objectives are about organised criminal enterprise. We are no more related to organised crime than organised crime is related to domestic violence. We are about public protection at a local level.

So there was no evidence basis, and I have asked officials and others to present to me the rationale that says we will be improving the lot for children by moving CEOP into this environment. It is not about where CEOP sits in the hierarchy of issues around this. It is about where CEOP sits and the appropriate governance that makes sure that we continually focus on what is best for children, that we're not fighting for airtime among drugs, counter-terrorism, organised crime, guns and gangs because, having been the Head of Counter-Terrorism in Belfast and the Deputy Director-General of the National Crime Squad here in London, I can tell you that you do not sit as easy bedfellows. When you are categorising and prioritising what goes where and who does what, children do not come up the list in that company.

Q5   Chair: But the reason why the Committee is concerned generally is that there doesn't appear to be a plan. That is why the Committee is inquiring into the National Crime Agency and, indeed, our report will be published in due course before the Government's Bill comes to fruition. You have not seen a master plan as to where CEOP would fit into the new NCA, or have you?

Jim Gamble: Well, what I would like to say is there was no consultation question.

Chair: Yes, we get that point.

Jim Gamble: Even within the Government's document, "Policing in the 21st Century", there was no consultation question on CEOP. So, if we are seeking the opinion of others outside, it would be useful to have asked a question on that. That is concerning. Since that time we have been engaged—and I had a very constructive engagement with the Home Secretary and a very constructive engagement with James Brokenshire. As the process has gone on, I was invited to sit on the National Crime Agency design group. I was concerned at that because I was invited to sit on that group on 10 September and of course the consultation was still ongoing. I was concerned that if we were going to sit on those groups, that driving ahead without considering the expert submissions from professionals might not be the best thing to do. I was more concerned when I received the first copy of the draft business case on 16 September, four days prior to the end of the public consultation, and even more concerned when I saw that the view was that in whatever form the National Crime Agency takes—and I have been reminded recently that these documents are confidential, so I am not talking about detailed content; I am talking about direction of travel—that CEOP was apparently a good fit in any one of the three scenarios.

So I had the first iteration of the business case and we wrote in saying, "This cannot be right. We are not serious organised crime. We don't fit the HMI definition, the UN trans-national crime definition or any other." The second iteration came out. We were still green. In the third iteration, they have redefined the fact that organised crime will now include the work of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. Redefining it in that way does not mean we fit, and that drove me to a point, when I took into account the lack of pre-consultation, the lack of consultation question and the emphasis in the developing business case towards making us fit, that something had to happen.

Q6   Chair: Yes. Why are the internet companies quite pleased that you are going?

Jim Gamble: I think it depends on which internet company you speak to. At the end of the day, I have had one of those jobs that is about balancing a lot of interests, some of it vested. I don't think Microsoft will be happy that I'm going. In fact, I have a quote here from Microsoft. They feel it will be extremely unlikely that they will be able to continue their philanthropic support for CEOP. Our relationship with Facebook was difficult at the beginning—it was challenging—but there's an ethical mutual interest in making children safe, in a respect. There are some entities within the industry who are not happy, for example, that I ask that we don't be charged to resolve IP addresses for children who are at risk. Ironically, by moving us into the NCA—and I have this from the Chief Executive of the company concerned—they will begin charging us for that which we previously got for free, because we'll be part of a multi-million—if not billion pound—National Crime Agency.

Chair: Yes, thank you. David Winnick has a supplementary question.

Q7   Mr Winnick: Mr Gamble, to be the devil's advocate for the moment, I can understand your very strong feelings, but wouldn't it have been wiser, if I can put it that way, to have accepted the Minister's decision—which is going to happen, it appears—that the organisation will be within the National Crime Agency, and use your dedication and expertise to make sure that it is not lost within the wider organisation?

Jim Gamble: I think the difficulty is I would be adding a veneer, or pretence, that CEOP in fact remained the same because the sign was still on a door somewhere. This isn't my opinion. The HMI carried out an inspection of CEOP for 2007-2008. They identified that the governance relationship between CEOP and SOCA was tortured, that there was an inappropriate disconnect between governance that was about organised crime, and operational delivery, which was about child protection. They called for an independent review carried out by Stephen Boys Smith and then a further review, which was carried out by the Cabinet Office, OGC Gateway 5. Both of those reviews said that we should be independent. There is an inherent risk in the relationship with SOCA because it adds levels of bureaucracy. It doesn't mitigate them. It doesn't allow us to be flexible. It will cost more in the long run.

Q8   Mr Winnick: Did you meet the Minister and put this to her in person?

Jim Gamble: Yes, I did on 30 July.

Mr Winnick: And her reaction?

Jim Gamble: Well, the Home Secretary very kindly said that she would consider what we had said. Her view was that we would move into the NCA but she would be willing to listen. I am not sure of the advice that's being put forward at the minute, but I've seen the developing business case and it fills me with woe and concern. I have a staff, who go in every day to do an extremely difficult job with potentially corrosive material, who we are struggling to retain because of the uncertainty. These are child protection professionals and when people say, "Well, you work where you are with SOCA" that is simply not true. We haven't exposed the inherent flaws, yet that means the bureaucracy that is applied—because SOCA will want us to take SOCA officers instead of child protection officers at a time when we are understaffed—creates a difficulty.

Chair: Yes. We will explore these in further questions and Bridget Phillipson will move on to the issue of funding.

Q9   Bridget Phillipson: Obviously, police forces across the country are facing funding cuts. That may lead to a reduction or the scrapping of certain specialist units within those forces. What is it about the work that you do that you feel you should be regarded as a different case, or a separate case?

Jim Gamble: I think my colleagues in ACPO agree with me on this, and certainly the statement that they have published and the submission that they have made to the Home Secretary reinforces it: we are not simply about policing. If we were this would be an issue about de-cluttering the police landscape. That is not what we are about. It is about what is best for children. What we know from the Laming Review, the update from serious case reviews across the country, is if you are going to deliver child protection it must be child-focused and child-first. We listen to children. We've developed a bespoke and holistic service, which means in local communities we engage local teachers, local NGOs and local police forces. We have empowered 6.6 million children to today, using a network of over 50,000 local volunteers going out to schools to make them safer. So we don't deliver policing in isolation; we deliver protective services in collaboration. That is what is the key here and that is what we are likely to lose. My concern is we do all of that and 30% of it costs the Government nothing because we represent big society.

Q10   Chair: Could you do your budget for us so we know what is the cost to the taxpayer of CEOP?

Jim Gamble: At the moment, CEOP costs about £12.5 million a year. Just over £6 million will come from grant-in-aid funding. There will be support provided by the shared service provision, which we piggyback from the Serious Organised Crime Agency. That makes sense.

Q11   Chair: So you get £12.5 million from the taxpayer?

Jim Gamble: Not from the taxpayer—30% of the £12.5 million year on year will come from our entrepreneurial partnerships, so Microsoft, AOL and Visa Europe and many others. We used to have vehicles that we were able to drive up to schools.

Q12   Chair: I realise you have lots of points to make. You have a budget of £12.5 million. Of that, how much comes from your partners and, therefore, not the taxpayer?

Jim Gamble: Year on year, an average of £3 million from our partners.

Q13   Chair: So basically the taxpayer gives you £9 million a year?

Jim Gamble: Yes, and we generate about £1 million through the programmes of work that we charge for, so the courses that we run.

Q14   Chair: How many people do you employ?

Jim Gamble: At present today 122.

Q15   Chair: Obviously, that is a much smaller budget than the SOCA budget, which is £0.5 billion.

Jim Gamble: It is, but we are able to leverage it because our principal aim is delivering more competent local services, so that local people are confident in the child protection community that serve them.

Chair: Bridget Phillipson, do you have any more questions?

Bridget Phillipson: No, thank you.

Chair: Thank you. Mark Reckless is going to explore the relationship with SOCA, which you have raised.

Q16   Mark Reckless: In terms of the relationship with SOCA, you have touched on some of these issues, and I wonder if I could explore them. You said you raise £1 million from charging and then about another £3 million from philanthropists—from Microsoft and Facebook, for instance. I wondered with any of these financial relationships whether there are ever any issues of conflict or difficulty that arise for you, operationally, in terms of that financing?

Jim Gamble: There are. The fact that we are affiliated to SOCA will create a conflict of interest when companies—for example, like Detica—who will deliver pro bono work for us, at the same time will want to bid for paid-for business within SOCA. It is the same for the likes of Serco. That creates a conflict for them, which does not encourage them.

Q17   Chair: Do you mean there will be a conflict if you are merged, rather than there is a conflict now?

Jim Gamble: There is a conflict at present. It's a conflict that we manage with a degree of sensitivity, because it's very difficult, through an independent partnership committee who also have made their views known through the consultation process, and they support the position I am espousing today. The issue for us with SOCA—and let me say this, SOCA have been very benevolent and they have been great supporters to allow the concept to develop—from the beginning it was a temporary arrangement. They face one direction doing a particular type of work, focused on a particular type of criminal target, and we face a fundamentally different one with a holistic view around child protection.

I am not criticising SOCA but when we have a recruitment issue, the issue with SOCA is the bureaucracy that is applied, that applies pressure to us at an additional layer so that we go through the SOCA accounting officer. That does not allow child protection to flex in the way that it needs to and must, and take the risk that we have and share it with SOCA. So if, during one of the periods when we were unable to recruit, a child had been on the shelf because we hadn't managed to get to that report yet, and that child had been exposed in public, that we had failed to act in an appropriate fashion, I wouldn't be resigning; I would have been given the sack. I would have been called, quite rightly, before you and none of the excuses about the bureaucracy that lies behind it would have been acceptable. So what I am doing is highlighting now that it doesn't work where it is.

Chair: Mark Reckless.

Q18   Mark Reckless: We have CEOP as a relatively independent organisation. There are conflicts but you have an independent partnership committee that run this. I am still a bit concerned with some of these relationships and how those conflicts are managed, and also your role compared to other organisations. One that I am familiar with in this context is the Internet Watch Foundation, and I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about how your role juxtaposes with them, and how that might be influenced by the change that is proposed and what impact that has on the conflicts and their management?

Jim Gamble: I think the Internet Watch Foundation, in essence, operates as an NGO or charity but it operates with the support of direct funding from industry as an industry representative to help them manage content, not behaviour, on the internet. So that is how they maintain a list from reports that are made about URLs, pages on the internet, which may contain child abuse images or other areas in their remit. The actual investigation of that, the engagement around anything to do with behaviour falls to us. So it is a very useful tactic, blocking. We support the IWF. They are strong partners of ours. But what they do is different, in that we engage through education; we engage through local children's services; and we engage through local policing to target the root cause of the issue, which isn't actually the image itself; it's the predator who will capture the image, who will lure a child, who will groom a child, capture the image then share it with like-minded paedophiles, perhaps using the internet or not. So, we are very different. We have a fundamentally broader platform, a fundamentally broader range of relationships, and they complement the work that we do and vice versa.

Q19   Chair: How many children have you dealt with since the creation of this organisation, or on average how many do you deal with every year?

Jim Gamble: To date we have safeguarded 762 children, have been responsible for the arrest of 1,338 offenders. We have over 50,000 volunteers cascading our information out to schools and, up to today, they have engaged with 6.671 million children, and that is in local villages, local towns and local cities. That is big society—it is social return—and we use the support that we get from Microsoft and others to deliver this. Missing children is supposed to be coming to us, and the Home Secretary has reaffirmed that. When it does, building it on a platform that is child protection focused is how we're going to better engage those children.

Chair: Yes. Nicola Blackwood is going to explore this further.

Q20   Nicola Blackwood: I understand that one of your specialist units is child trafficking, something which concerns all of us on the Committee here. As I understand it, we were led to believe that there wasn't going to be any loss of focus by the merger of the UK Human Trafficking Centre and the Met Police's specialist Human Trafficking Unit. It didn't lose focus doing that. So why are you concerned that you are going to lose focus by going into a larger unit, specifically in child trafficking?

Jim Gamble: First of all, I think trafficking is a good issue. The UK Human Trafficking Centre has been merged into the Serious Organised Crime Agency, not the Metropolitan Police. The UKHTC is now fundamentally a part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. That merger is appropriate because what they are doing is targeting the criminal enterprise that engages with the crime of trafficking. We look at this from a child's perspective and, from a child's perspective, it's better understanding the journey of the victim, the experience of the victim, and how we ensure the criminal justice system does not re-victimise them. So having the independent platform to advocate on behalf of children is critically important. One of the problems with child trafficking is it's seen as invisible because it's lost within the criminal justice infrastructure. If we speak to any commentators in the field they will say that.

The move of missing children to CEOP means that we will treat trafficked children for what they are, missing children. If you go on the Missing website today you will find that out of the children that have been missing in the last 12 months, 90%-odd of them will be Vietnamese or Chinese. Do you know what that tells us? That tells us these children are lost out there; they've been trafficked. What we will do through social media, through our partnerships with a broader NGO community, to reach them, to support them and to reintegrate them into a safeguarded environment, will be fundamentally different. Those children will not engage the National Crime Agency. Putting the CEOP badge within that, when the three reviews have said it's not appropriate, when we carry the risk that we do, when we're struggling to maintain partners in this austere environment anyway, is not going to help trafficked children. We must retain our focus and, from 2007, we have been telling people about how many children are trafficked, what their experience has been, what their journey has been, independently advising the CPS, SOCA, the Metropolitan Police and others.

Q21   Nicola Blackwood: Don't you think that women who are trafficked are equally victims and should be treated in those kinds of lines as well? So don't you think there would be some kind of value to the way in which the UK Human Trafficking Centre deals with women victims could be informed by your expertise with children, and dealing with the organised crime side could be informed by their expertise on that side? Aren't you both coming at the same problem from slightly different angles?

Jim Gamble: I think it's important that we do come at the same problem from different angles. I agree with you, there will be lessons to be learned about how we deal with vulnerable children and how we deal with women who have been oppressed, enslaved and trafficked, but we do not need to be subsumed. We have an operating platform at the minute of 122. It's a mixed economy. We've got social workers working alongside people from NGOs, working alongside police officers, working alongside other specialists from industry and elsewhere. In that mixed economy, the thing I'm most proud of in my tenure is it has a single culture: children first. That is what we care about.

Pushing us into a National Crime Agency, where the culture will invariably be different, is not going to be best for children nor other vulnerable victims who find themselves part of these crimes. Last year, only 7% of the crimes that we dealt with had any financial benefit accrued to it, whatsoever, and very little of that, you would say, is organised crime. Making us fit is going to cost the taxpayer more. We are going to lose valuable specialist staff; we're going to add bureaucracy; and children will not be as well served. If I didn't believe that I would not be leaving a job that I love, working with people that I admire, doing something I think is of value.

Q22   Nicola Blackwood: Thank you. I think that we all share a concern that someone of your expertise, and obvious passion, is leaving this job. Can I ask if you intend to go on and continue working in this area in some other post at the moment?

Jim Gamble: I have no other post on offer at the moment. I have no other job to go to. I will always have an interest in child protection and I will always try and advocate. If someone had said to me 10 years ago, when I was head of Special Branch in Belfast, that I would be resigning over a child protection issue I would have laughed at them. If they'd said it to me when I was Deputy Director General of the National Crime Squad, dealing with serious and organised crime, I would have laughed. This is different; it's fundamentally different. What I would ask the Government to do, and implore—the same as Ernie Allen, the President of NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United Sates, has asked them—reflect on this, think about it. It's not the right direction of travel. If you don't want to make CEOP independent, move it on to the Department for Education. The policing will still stick, the local policing, but make sure that the child remains at the centre, because otherwise we will lose the model that we have built.

Nicola Blackwood: Thank you.

Chair: Aidan Burley had a supplementary on this.

Q23   Mr Burley: My question is the same as Nicola's last one. You may be aware that there is a rumour going round that you have another big job lined up. Is there any truth in that rumour? Have you got anything planned, anything on the table, any offers, and that is the real reason why you're going?

Chair: The rest of the Committee don't know about this offer, so it would be nice to know what it is.

Jim Gamble: I haven't yet. What is it?

Q24   Mr Burley: I'm saying that you say you're resigning because of Government policy. There is a rumour going round that you have another big job offer on the table and that may be having an influence as well. Is there any truth in that or is that completely malicious?

Jim Gamble: There is no truth in that, whatsoever, and anyone who believed that I would resign from this job to go to another—there is not a year that has gone by when I haven't had an offer of work from some of my friends, or perhaps not so friendly participants in industry. There is not a year has gone by in this job that I haven't had the opportunity to do something else.

Q25   Chair: Of course this is not about you, is it? It is about the organisation.

Jim Gamble: Exactly.

Chair: Lorraine Fullbrook.

Q26   Lorraine Fullbrook: Thank you, Chair. Mr Gamble, given your obvious passion for this subject and what you have already said to the Committee, what do you think would need to be done in order to preserve CEOP's unique characteristics within a National Crime Agency?

Jim Gamble: Drop the word "crime" from the title. If you want to subsume CEOP within something else then you need to make sure that it's about protective services. If you subsume it within a criminal justice infrastructure then our focus will become offender-focused. We'll begin to deal with offenders only and not with the broader issues that make children safer. My difficulty with the work streams beginning before the end of the public consultation is—my question is—if the NSPCC, the Children's Commissioners, myself representing ACPO Child Protection and a range of other experts in the child protection field are saying to the Government, "Don't do this", why would you? If it's bureaucracy, we can undermine that, because you're simply adding bureaucracy. If it's money, you're going to cost the taxpayer more, so why go down that road?

Quango was the term that I've heard bandied about with this, and that's unfortunate because that's all about public waste. I would invite the Committee to visit CEOP, identify any public waste that you can, because with 122 people we have delivered the results that I have earlier outlined to you and I challenge anyone to replicate them. This is a very finely balanced environment where children come first. We're working with the educators, with children's services and local policing about local issues. You will not be able to sustain that in the National Crime Agency, no matter what you do or no matter who you bring in.

Q27   Lorraine Fullbrook: That was going to be my next question. Why can't you do that and retain your unique characteristics within a National Crime Agency, or another agency if you want to drop the word "crime"? Why can't you continue to do that?

Jim Gamble: If the other agency was under the Children's Minister, and what this was about was reducing—and I don't know what level of bureaucracy we'd be reducing, or whatever else—then of course you would have a greater potential to retain most of what CEOP does, but you won't retain it all. What I cannot understand is why colleagues in Government don't see you have a national centre that is recognised worldwide. It delivers a cost-neutral move to a non-departmental public body. The Prime Minister in July, when making his statement about non-departmental public bodies, made it clear that there are three circumstances whereby they are appropriate: about independence, about transparency, about needing to be arm's length from Government, to advocate on perhaps a technical issue. You know what: we meet all of those, not just one of them.

So I have not offered my resignation lightly. Because that's what I did, I offered my resignation to the Home Secretary to separate the two issues. Is this about saving children or saving face? The National Crime Agency is not right for CEOP. It's not right for CEOP because it will not work for children, but it won't work for the National Crime Agency either. I have already alluded to the fact that I've had a senior role in counter-terrorism and organised crime. If you want the new National Crime Agency to have the focus that it needs to deliver an improved service against organised crime assets, then you cannot use it like a Christmas tree and hang different baubles on to apparently de-clutter the police landscape.

Q28   Chair: To be fair to the Home Secretary—and I know you have been and you said you had a constructive discussion—there is no plan A at the moment. Although there is a wish that, for example, SOCA, the NPIA, CEOP and the Human Trafficking Centre goes into this organisation, surely it's still up for grabs. An argument could be put—which is what you are doing by presumably your resignation, and by continuing to work in the organisation for four months in a constructive way—that some of these organisations maybe should not fit into the NCA. At the moment, we have not seen a master plan, and that is why we are going to inquire into it. Do you think there is a possibility of further discussions and engagement with the Government, maybe robust discussions or whatever, which will meet your concerns that it will not be lost within the new NCA but will also meet the Government's concerns to ensure that if there is a cost-saving device in all this then it can be adopted? Surely it's not all finished; we can still carry on with this dialogue?

Jim Gamble: Of course it's not all finished, and the reason I have resigned, at the time that I have, is because I have seen the speed and direction of travel going ahead, regardless of the advice that has been given. I think if there is only one destination, and that is the National Crime Agency, then the discussion and debate is a moot point—it is about saving face not about saving children—if we're going to deliver this. I have not spoken to the press. I did not publicise my resignation. I do not intend to speak to the press. I intend to behave as a responsible public servant for the four months that I have of my notice, so that I can stabilise the CEOP platform.

Q29   Chair: We're grateful for that, and also grateful for the fact that you have come to this Committee to tell the public, for the first time, your views. But the game isn't over yet. This Committee has not started its inquiry into the National Crime Agency. The Bill is not to be published till next summer, so there is an opportunity to influence the debate. I agree with you, in my dealings with the Home Secretary, I have always found her to be extremely helpful in listening to good suggestions and good advice. The Committee will take up your offer to come and visit CEOP because, clearly, in our previous reports we talk about the good work you have done. We will do that but all I hope—I think I am saying this on behalf of all Members—is that this dialogue continues, in the four months you have, to see if we can preserve what you are saying.

Two quick points: is it right that other countries are trying to copy the template of CEOP and develop CEOPs of their own—for example, the United States and Canada? Is that correct?

Jim Gamble: There are organisations that largely mirror what we do. I think we tend to learn from one another. I wouldn't want to say that they are simply copying what we do, but we do learn from one another in this very specialist environment.

Q30   Chair: Secondly, the use of the word "quango", you are not a quango. Do you have commissioners and people of that kind? Explain to us the operation and management, not the work of yourself, which we understand fully, but how you are managed. Would you be described as a "quango" or an agency or what?

Jim Gamble: We're affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency and therefore fall under their umbrella. They are a non-departmental public body and therein lies the problem: if we simply move one problematic and high-risk relationship to another in the National Crime Agency, we exacerbate issues. But no, I don't believe we are a quango in the sense that you describe.

Q31   Chair: I will bring in Mr Michael in one second. Just going back to Nicola Blackwood's line of questioning on child trafficking. You gave us some very interesting figures on children in general. On child trafficking, how many children, who have been trafficked, have you tracked down?

Jim Gamble: We don't track down the children who are trafficked. We are providing a better understanding of the nature of their journey. So, for example, in 2007 we identified that we could say with some probable certainty—if that's not a conflict in itself—that about 325 children have been trafficked.

Q32   Chair: So the 760 children are children who have been sexually exploited?

Jim Gamble: Sexually exploited.

Q33   Chair: And the 1,300 criminals who have been prosecuted have been prosecuted for crimes against children?

Jim Gamble: For grooming; crimes against children.

Chair: Right. Mr Michael.

Q34   Alun Michael: I just want to come down to the absolute essence of what you are saying. Is it, as I understand, twofold: first, that the focus is on children and protection of children and not on crime; and secondly, in effect, this is a partnership that is owned, not just by yourself and police organisations but the other partners who work with you in trying to protect those children? Are those the two essential elements that you are seeking to protect?

Jim Gamble: There are a few essential elements but the way we seek to protect them is about the over-arching governance. If we listen to Lord Laming, if we listen to the lessons of serious case review, there needs to be child protection focus from the top to the bottom. In our current configuration, with SOCA, that does not exist and that has been highlighted. What I have said is, absolutely, CEOP—in whatever shape or form—should take the shared services, which save the public purse, from whatever this new agency is. We should engage in the support and co-ordination platform when local policing needs to flex on this particular issue, but not to the exclusion of others. The governance must be separate and independent so, thereby, the focus remains critically child-focused.

Chair: Mr Gamble, it is the wish of the Committee to visit at some stage. We are going to visit SOCA, and all these other organisations, when we begin our inquiry into the NCA. I think it is also our hope that you will continue—in the period that you have—to work in the organisation, and bring to it the expertise that you clearly have, in ensuring that the exploitation of children is properly policed and those who are responsible for the exploitation of our children are brought to justice. So we hope you will continue to do that in the four months you have left, but we will take up your invitation to come and visit you. We are very grateful to you. I haven't read anything in the press about the matters that you have mentioned today. Thank you for coming to this Committee to share with us your views. Thank you.


 
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