Home Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence from The Children’s Society [LCG 17]

1. Introduction

1.1 The Children’s Society provides vital help to the most vulnerable children, young people and families in our society. We support over 48,000 children and young people every year through our specialist services and children’s centres. Our priority is children who have nowhere else to turn, such as young refugees, children at risk on the streets, disabled children and children in trouble with the law. We seek to give a voice to children and young people and influence policy and practice so they have a better chance in life.

1.2 Our submission is based on evidence submitted to the joint APPG inquiry into children missing from care that we supported1 and evidence from our nine projects working with young people who run away from home and care and children who experience, or are at risk of, sexual exploitation and localised grooming. As a result, in our submission we focus particularly on the strong relationship between children who run away or go missing and child grooming.

1.3 We welcome this important inquiry into localised child grooming which aims to overcome the challenges in bringing successful prosecutions against individuals involved in the localised grooming of children for sexual exploitation.

2. Summary of Key Points and Recommendations

2.1. Evidence from our services working with young people who run away and have been or are at risk of sexual exploitation and evidence submitted to the APPG inquiry into children who go missing from care highlighted the following key points:

2.2. Running away and going missing from home or care is a key indicator that a young person may be being groomed for sexual exploitation. Our evidence highlights that all too often professionals in social services and care homes as well as the police are not aware of the risks involved in running away and the links between running away and sexual exploitation. Often this is exacerbated by professionals perceiving young people who run away and/or experience sexual exploitation as “promiscuous” and “streetwise.”

2.3. Our practitioners report that services for young people who have been sexually exploited or run away are failing to adequately safeguard these children, including through court proceedings. They identify a number of barriers such as higher thresholds for referrals to social services for children in need and a lack of support during prosecutions.

2.4. Evidence received by the APPG inquiry and our services also show that local authorities are not adequately adhering to their responsibilities to protect children who run away or are being sexually exploited.

2.5. We recommend that the following changes are needed to improve safeguarding responses to children at risk of grooming and sexual exploitation:

2.6. Social care services should assess referrals jointly with the police to ensure that there is a shared understanding of thresholds for intervention and that they work together to safeguard children in their local area.

2.7. Special measures such as giving evidence by live link and more choice about how they give evidence should be used where appropriate and desired by the child. These should also include access to support before, during and after the court process.

2.8. The obligation for homes to notify agencies of “Involvement or suspected involvement of a child accommodated at the home in prostitution” under Schedule 5 of the Children’s Homes Regulations 2001, which relates to “Events and Notifications”, should be changed to “suspicion that a child accommodated in a home is at risk of abuse or child sexual exploitation”.

2.9. Children’s home staff should receive training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, why young people may have been sexually exploited and how to better support young people who have experienced sexual exploitation. This should be continuous tailored training due to the high turn over staff in care homes.

2.10. All police staff should receive awareness raising training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, why young people may have been sexually exploited and the actions that need to be taken if they come across a young person who may have experienced, or be at risk of, sexual exploitation.

2.11. All frontline professionals or staff that work with children (such as GPs, hospital staff, parents, landlords, judges, magistrates, teachers, church leaders, youth workers, pub landlords and public venue security staff) should receive tailored training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, and the actions that need to be taken if they come across a young person who may have experienced, or be at risk of, sexual exploitation.

2.12. Hotel front of house, domestic and security staff should receive training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, and the actions that need to be taken if they come across a young person who may have experienced, or be at risk of, sexual exploitation.

2.13. Guidance2 should be amended so that all children in care have a statutory right to independent advocacy as part of care reviews and placement planning, not just as part of complaint processes.

2.14. All Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCBs) should establish a multi-agency missing and child sexual exploitation (CSE) subgroup involving the police, social services and the voluntary sector which should work to joint protocols and appoint a lead individual responsible for co-ordinating work in this area.

2.15. The revised Children Who Run Away or Go Missing From Home or Care guidance should state that every child or young person who runs away from home or care should receive an return interview from a responsible adult the child or young person is comfortable speaking with and disclosing information to, within 72 hours of a missing incident.

2.16. An additional evaluation of the ACPO pilots that assesses the safeguarding and risk assessment procedures in place when a child is classified as “absent” should take place before the new definitions of missing and absent are rolled out nationally.

2.17. All LSCBs should establish a multi-agency CSE and missing subgroup that collects data and intelligence on sexual exploitation and missing episodes to help monitor cases, direct resources and gather evidence for prosecutions.

2.18. Local authorities should be supported by central government and ACPO to set up a local multi-agency information sharing process, for instance a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) to ensure that information is shared between agencies on individual running away and CSE incidents and patterns of running away in the local area.

2.19. The Department for Education should change relevant regulations to allow Ofsted to share information on the names and locations of children’s homes with local police forces.

3. The proportion of child victims in local authority care or otherwise known to social services

3.1 We are aware from our services that local authorities are unaware of the true scale of child sexual exploitation (CSE) of children in their care. The joint APPG inquiry into children who go missing from care found that a significant minority of young people coming into the care system are targeted and groomed for sexual exploitation. Perpetrators target children’s homes specifically because of the high vulnerability of the children there and how easily they can make contact with the children.

3.2 Our practitioners and research, as well as the APPG inquiry all report that going missing is a clear indicator of sexual exploitation. A study by the University of Bedfordshire into child sexual exploitation showed that over half of all young people using child sexual exploitation services on one day in 2011 were known to have gone missing (a quarter went missing over 10 times), and 22% of these were in care.3 Some young people go missing as a consequence of sexual exploitation; others are at risk of being targeted by perpetrators who groom them for sexual exploitation. Vulnerable young people in care often go missing repeatedly when they meet people who show them the attention and affection that they crave but do not receive from care staff or their family.

3.3 Our research has found that in many cases children who run away are being actively targeted and groomed in public places such as parks, bus stations or city centres, not just by adults but increasingly by their peers. Project workers say they are seeing children making connections with their peers from the other side of cities or in different areas altogether, either through spending time on the streets, or because looked after children know each other from various placements. “It’s not just ‘boyfriend’ grooming, you see other girls and boys grooming young people, and taking other young girls to sex parties or parties where they can get drink and drugs.” A project worker in the Midlands4

3.4 Our practitioners and the APPG inquiry have found that social services and care staff often have a lack of awareness of the signs of sexual exploitation. Professionals often perceive these young girls as “promiscuous” and “streetwise”. These were the perceptions of the social services staff in Rochdale which we know resulted in horrific consequences. For more information on these points, see Section 6 on the ability of frontline agencies to identify victims.

4. Whether the current criteria for triggering involvement by social services in individual cases take adequate account of the signs of localised grooming

4.1 Our projects have reported a lack of response to child sexual exploitation from children’s services in some areas of the country and higher thresholds for accepting referrals and intervention. Staff are finding that more stringent criteria is being set for defining children in need and there is increased gatekeeping. Previously they would have accepted a referral from our projects to work with a child who had run away and had particular needs relating to drugs, alcohol or mental health. Crucially they are finding that running away is not being considered as a key indicator that a child is being groomed despite evidence to the contrary. One practitioner reports that they have experienced social care questioning the decision to call a strategy meeting because a young person would not disclose what happened when she was missing, despite intelligence and information from several professionals raising serious concerns.

4.2 Our practitioners report that there is a very poor understanding of the processes of grooming. If the offence or harm is not “spelt out” and clear to see, there is often no interest or urgency in interrupting and interfering with grooming. Practitioners report being told that “there is nothing we can do about it” by social care with one social care manager saying that his job was to deal with rapes and deaths and anything below that was nothing to do with them. In certain circumstances the response from social care has been that if a voluntary sector service is providing support, and if there is a lead professional and a Team Around the Child, they will not provide any additional support despite clear safeguarding concerns raised by our projects.

4.3 In Newcastle, social care jointly assess referrals for children and young people with the police as the police defined threshold for intervention from their service is lower than social services. This means a “Child Concern Notice” is sent to social services by the police for any incident relating to domestic abuse, sexual exploitation, missing incidents, substance misuse or assault of a child. The two agencies then discuss and share information around these referrals to ensure that an appropriate safeguarding response is taken.

4.4 Social care services should assess referrals jointly with the police to ensure that there is a shared understanding of thresholds for intervention and ensure they work together to safeguard children in their local area.

5. The support provided to victims and witnesses by a range of agencies such as the Crown Prosecution Service, Police and voluntary agencies

5.1 Investigations into child sexual exploitation and localised grooming are very complex and it is therefore often very difficult to obtain sufficient evidence to convict the perpetrators. Convictions also remain rare. It takes a long time for young people who have been groomed to trust professionals, because sometimes at first the young people believe in the innocence of the perpetrators (which is part of the grooming process), they are often perceived as “liars” who have changed their story and therefore cannot be relied upon.

5.2 As a result our services report that many victims who report allegations of serious sexual violence find that “No Further Action” (NFA) is taken on their case. A large number of cases are discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Practitioners tell us that young people often report feeling “dropped” once a case is NFA’ed. Initially there is a lot of interest in what happened and they find themselves having to tell their story to many strangers and agencies/professionals they did not even know existed. Once the case is not going forward or it is dropped in Court, most professionals withdraw and young people often feel that they have been left to deal with the consequences of talking (both psychological and physical) on their own.

5.3 Current law enforcement responses to child sexual exploitation cases remain primarily reactive rather than proactive. The prosecution heavily relies on the young person to make a complaint and give evidence in the court against their exploiter. The process of grooming which children are subjected to and the use of threats and coercion makes it extremely difficult for them to go through the criminal justice process. Our projects find that young people are not given adequate support before, during or after the court process to enable them to give evidence. They find the current prosecution system is not supportive to achieving prosecutions for perpetrators of child sexual exploitation.

5.4 Case study: Joey (aged 14) met another young man online and they soon became quite close. When they met, Joey realised the man was older than he had initially said but they still began a sexual relationship. Joey believed he was in love and that they were in a loving relationship. Soon he realised he was not the only one and that this man was even older than he had claimed to be. The relationship became violent. After the case was reported to the police, Joey felt overwhelmed by the amount of professionals wanting to talk to him about what had happened and he began to refuse to engage. Joey refused to do an ABE interview (Achieving Best Evidence interview where the child is asked to say what happened to them in their own words.) The police asked The Children’s Society in Lancashire to become involved and to visit Joey. Through our work with him, Joey was able to tell his story and find support for all the confusion and mixed feelings he had. Joey chose to make a statement and with this the police were able to continue the investigation and collect enough evidence to put the case forward. 

5.5 The CPS did a thorough job, not only based on evidence provided, but also by requiring files from professionals working with Joey in order to better prepare the case. Joey felt that they were taking him seriously. Through our worker, the police kept Joey and his family informed of each stage and what it meant. Because they felt supported, Joey and his mum were able to pass on extra information and evidence that helped with the case. We also arranged for Joey to visit Court in preparation for the trial. Joey felt extremely distraught and anxious when confronted with the reality of his case going to court. However, due to the positive collaboration in this case and the quality of evidence provided, the offender changed his plea to guilty and is being sentenced on Monday.

5.6 Our projects also report that the use of harbouring notices by the police in certain areas helps break the contact individuals have with children and collect evidence for prosecution. Our practitioners report that these could be used more effectively and widely.

5.7 We provided intensive support to many of the young people groomed as part of Operation Mansfield. Our involvement was crucial in supporting the young people through the extremely traumatic process of the operation and also helped the police to gain more evidence about the perpetrators, their actions, other victims involved and ultimately secure convictions.

5.8 Special measures such as giving evidence by live link and more choice about how they give evidence should be used where appropriate and desired by the child. These should also include access to support before, during and after the court process.

6. Whether front-line agencies are adequately equipped to identify victims and intervene at an early stage

6.1 As mentioned above, we have found that frontline agencies—social and voluntary services, care home staff and the police are often not adequately equipped to identify victims of grooming and intervene at an early stage to protect these vulnerable young people from harm.

Attitudes to young people at risk of sexual exploitation and grooming

6.2 The APPG inquiry heard that in many cases where children are at risk of sexual exploitation, they are seen by professionals in social services as “promiscuous” and making an active choice to become involved in a particular lifestyle. Our practitioners report that professionals therefore think is nothing they can or need to do to support them because it is just who they are. Indeed, the inquiry was told that some professionals see sexual activity between a child under 16 and an adult as acceptable as the young person has “consented” rather than as a child protection or sexual exploitation concern.

6.3 This attitude is also ingrained within the child protection system—for example care home staff are required to notify the placing authorities, the police and the local authority of “involvement or suspected involvement of a child in the care home in prostitution”.5 In the last five years Ofsted has received 631 notifications of these instances.6

6.4 A practitioner from The Children’s Society working with children at risk of CSE told us that after disclosing a sexual transgression, a young person’s social worker commented, “well if she won’t stay in then that’s what will happen to her.” His evidence goes on to say, “these may be isolated examples, but are indicative of a rudimentary lack of understanding on the complex nature of CSE, why young people go missing, and the psychological manipulation experienced by the young people at the hands of deviant adults. These young people do not choose to be sexually exploited, it is not a lifestyle choice they consciously opt into and clearly some professionals show little empathy to victims of a heinous crime.”

6.5 The obligation for homes to notify agencies of “Involvement or suspected involvement of a child accommodated at the home in prostitution” under Schedule 5 of the Children’s Homes Regulations 2001, which relates to “Events and Notifications”, should be changed to “suspicion that a child accommodated in a home is at risk of abuse or child sexual exploitation”.

6.6 The issue of some professionals’ attitudes towards children who go missing from care, and the prevailing culture around child protection responses to older children was raised consistently with the APPG inquiry. It is not only seen as a major concern, but indeed a key obstacle to keeping children and young people safe. Research we published in partnership with the NSPCC and the University of York7 showed that some professionals perceived older children to be more competent in dealing with maltreatment than younger children; including being able to escape abusive situations and seek help. The research also found that a lack of resources in children’s social care can negatively affect older children whereas younger children in similar circumstances are identified as requiring a safeguarding response. The research identified a lack of services for young people over 14 years of age, which may deter professionals from making referrals.

6.7 As mentioned above missing is a key indicator of sexual exploitation and a sign that they are at risk of harm. However the inquiry found that many care home staff do not adequately understand the signs of sexual exploitation when it is occurring. The APPG inquiry received evidence of a young girl who “whilst in care was going missing repeatedly for up to eight days at a time. During these periods she was hardly given any food, virtually nothing to drink, nowhere to wash, she was repeatedly raped. She said she would emerge covered in sores, very thin, smelling and in a filthy state. But nobody asked what was happening to her.”8

6.8 The APPG inquiry found that the lack of awareness of the risks of running away and the signs of abuse was exacerbated by the variable quality of staff in children’s homes. The current low levels of training for children’s homes staff who are dealing with vulnerable children were highlighted as a key factor in the current low standards of care by many witnesses. The poor level of training is exacerbated by the lack of consistency of staff in children’s homes. Due to low staff pay and an over-reliance on agency workers, turnover of staff can be very high. Witnesses told the APPG inquiry that more specific training of children’s home staff is needed in areas where young people are being targeted for sexual exploitation.

6.9 Children’s home staff should receive training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, why young people may have been sexually exploited and how to better support young people who have experienced sexual exploitation. This should be continuous tailored training due to the high turn over staff in care homes.

Attitudes and awareness of the police towards young runaways and victims of child sexual exploitation

6.10 Our services find that the police often view children who go missing repeatedly as “streetwise” and requiring less of a professional response rather than more. ACPO told the inquiry that: “the police response to repeat runaways is not consistent across all forces” and “forces acknowledge that there has been a perception in the past that repeat runaways are occasionally viewed as ‘streetwise’ therefore misguidedly not considered vulnerable”.9

6.11 Many missing children also present to the police as perpetrators of crimes and this can stop the police from thinking of the child as a vulnerable young person who needs support. One practitioner from The Children’s Society told the inquiry “The response from professionals towards young people at risk of CSE varies dramatically. On the whole dedication to help can be witnessed and the willingness to protect and safeguard can be observed. However there have been several occasions in which the young people report they feel victmised, problematised and ultimately not listened to. One girl commented that she has been called “slag‟ and “white trash” by a beat-officer, another said she was one told after disclosing a sexual transgression “…what do you expect dressed like that, you’re looking for it…” It is vital that operational policing and other professionals “on the front line” are properly trained and informed of the facts to ensure they understand this also.

6.12 Our Check Point project in Torquay has been delivering awareness raising training to police officers on what actions to take if they come across a young person that has run away and/or been sexually exploited and how to identify risk indicators. Police can also do a two week placement with Check Point to gain greater understanding on the links between running away and CSE and how to address these.

6.13 All police staff should receive awareness raising training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, why young people may have been sexually exploited and the actions that need to be taken if they come across a young person who may have experienced, or be at risk of, sexual exploitation.

Lack of awareness and information sharing from other frontline professionals to identify victims of child sexual exploitation

6.14 Our projects have found that some professionals are not sharing information about children who may be victims of CSE or reporting them through the appropriate systems. In particular health professionals are seen to be reluctant to share information with children’s services and other agencies. Our services report that there is a lack of questioning when a young person presents to Accident and Emergency about how they have sustained injuries which might have been as a result of exploitation. One of our project reports that a young women they were working with presented at her GP and disclosed that she had been raped. She was asked whether she had shared this with children’s services and the police; to which the young person replied that she had. However, no further action was taken by the GP despite having a responsibility to share the information with children’s services.

6.15 All frontline professionals and staff that work with children (such as GPs, hospital staff, parents, landlords, judges, magistrates, teachers, church leaders, youth workers, pub landlords and public venue security staff) should receive tailored training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, and the actions that need to be taken if they come across a young person who may have experienced, or be at risk of, sexual exploitation.

Lack of awareness of hotel staff

6.16 Our project in Coventry has become aware that hotels have unwittingly been used as a venue for sexual exploitation for children who have been groomed. As a result, we have developed the Say Something If You See Something campaign with the National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People. As part of this we have developed several partnerships with national hotel chains and local hotels. We provide them with information such as leaflets and posters and are developing a responsible kite mark. We are also delivering training jointly with the Coventry Community Safety Partnership and the West Midlands police for security, front-of-house and reception staff on how to recognise the signs of sexual exploitation and to report any suspicious incidents to the police and relevant services.

6.17 Hotel front of house, domestic and security staff should receive training on how to identify the warning signs of grooming, including running away, and the actions that need to be taken if they come across a young person who may have experienced, or be at risk of, sexual exploitation.

Increased risks for cross-boundary children

6.18 In 2011, nearly 22,000 of the 65,000 children who were in local authority care were living in placements in a different local authority. Almost 8,000 were placed over 20 miles away from their authority.10 Children placed in residential children’s homes are particularly vulnerable, they are older and have more complex needs, and many of them have had multiple placements or may be placed there because of a placement breakdown.11 Many of these children may been sexually exploited or will be at risk of sexual exploitation, particularly if they go missing.

6.19 The APPG inquiry found that placing a child outside of their local authority area a long way from family and friends is often a factor in causing them to run away and cross-boundary placements often have a detrimental impact on the young person. In addition, the increased physical distance between a child placed out of borough and their social worker means that the child is not provided with the same level of support and contact. Local authorities were often unaware if a child in their care but placed in another local authority had gone missing due to lack of notifications between “placing” and “host” authorities. This severely limits the ability of social workers and local authorities to carry out their safeguarding duties to all children living within its boundary.

6.20 Young people in care, particularly those placed out of area, have told us that they do not feel listened to and are not provided with any information about where they were being placed. As a result, running away is one of the only ways that the young people felt that they could exercise control over their lives. Research shows that when children are listened to and they get clear explanations about decisions made about their care, they are more likely to be happy about their placements, to achieve stability and to share information. This is particularly important for children placed out of their local area who have little contact with their family and friends and less contact with social worker due to physical distance. Advocacy is instrumental in ensuring that children are supported to participate in decisions and adults are better able to understand their feelings. This is vital for adults to more effectively support a young person who might be at risk of or experienced sexual exploitation. Although the right to be supported by an advocate is included in statutory guidance, one third of local authorities do not report spending anything on this service.12

6.21 Guidance13 should be amended so that all children in care have a statutory right to independent advocacy as part of care reviews and placement planning, not just as part of complaint processes.

7. The extent to which Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) have implemented key aspects of national guidance on child sexual exploitation, including the quality of partnership working between LSCBs, care services and police within and between local authority areas

7.1 Findings from the University of Bedfordshire’s research on Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCBs) responses to CSE have found that less than a quarter of LSCBs have a protocol for child sexual exploitation and only a quarter have a specialist service.14

7.2 These findings are backed up by findings from our services that responses to runaway and missing children and young people have been downgraded. The government’s statutory guidance on children who go missing from home or care is clear that protocols should be put in place, which include having a named person responsible for children who go missing and run away.15 Despite this, some of our practitioners report that some local authorities do not have a protocol or named individual responsible for leading responses to children who run away and may have been sexually exploited.

7.3 The Children’s Society has been instrumental in setting up a number of multi-agency forums on CSE and missing locally which involve social and voluntary services and the police. We believe these forums should exist within the LSCB structures and be accountable to the chair. The purpose of these forums is to share information between agencies and use the information strategically to identify patterns of running away and sexual exploitation. This helps ensures that local services are able to respond appropriately to reduce incidents of running away and sexual exploitation, as well as identify children at risk.

7.4 Within the meetings of the multi-agency forums, professionals work together to identify the vulnerability of children and young people while they are running away or missing by sharing information about where they went missing or were sexually exploited, what happened while they were away and where they were found. By bringing together a number of local agencies who are all working with vulnerable young people, the forum can be used to piece together aspects of the young person’s vulnerability. In our experience this has been vital in identifying complex abuse cases where a number of children where found at the same address, or have been exploited by a group of perpetrators.

7.5 For example, Lancashire have a Pan-Lancashire CSE and missing from home group which is a subgroup of the three LSCBs (Lancashire, Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen). It brings together representatives from the six police divisions, representatives from the LSCBs, the local authorities, health and The Children’s Society. This group has developed an Action Plan responding to the National Action Plan on CSE and to the recommendations of recent government reports and guidance both on CSE and missing from home. It monitors the volume in CSE referrals and missing reports and it oversees the strategic response to these issues across Lancashire. Each division also has smaller subgroups that meet regularly and that bring together the partners on the ground.

7.6 All LSCBs should establish a multi-agency missing and CSE subgroup involving the police, social services and the voluntary sector who should work to joint protocols and appoint a lead individual responsible for co-ordinating work in this area.

7.7 The particularly strong relationship between Lancashire Constabulary and The Children’s Society has been key to this partnership working and is particularly aided by the fact that the two organisations are co-located in the same office. Both The Children’s Society and social services have staff who work out of offices in each of the four Lancashire divisions. The presence of a police Missing from Home Co-ordinator within these multi-agency teams is of paramount importance in identifying the links and recognising the early signs of CSE in young people who are reported missing. The county is currently in the process of developing a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) on CSE and missing.

7.8 As a result, The Children’s Society in Lancashire has worked hard with the police to develop innovative ways of responding to the different patterns of emerging need (eg work with young men as victims of CSE; work with young men at risk of becoming perpetrators of CSE and how they are now involved in challenging other young men; night-time outreach in partnership with police operations working in red light districts).

7.9 Local authorities should be supported by central government and ACPO to set up a local multi-agency information sharing process, for instance a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) to ensure that information is shared between agencies on individual running away and CSE incidents and patterns of running away in the local area.

7.10 A key aspect of the statutory guidance on children who go missing from home or care is that all children who run away should have access to an independent return interview. This can help establish why they ran away, for example as a result of grooming, and identify the most effective type of follow up support they should receive. It can also help social services and the police identify potential perpetrators and hot spot locations for grooming which can save time and resources for both the local authorities and police. This can prevent future missing episodes as well as reduce further risks to young people at risk of sexual exploitation.

7.11 The revised Children Who Run Away or Go Missing From Home or Care guidance should state that every child or young person who runs away from home or care should receive an return interview from a responsible adult the child or young person is comfortable speaking with and disclosing information to within 72 hours of a missing incident.

8. The circumstances under which care services report missing children to the police

8.1 Evidence seen by the APPG inquiry highlighted higher levels of reporting of missing incidents from children’s homes compared to those from family or foster homes. According to the Metropolitan Police, for example, 80–90% of young people reported missing are from the care system. However, rather than indicating genuine running incidents, these high rates often reflect the fact that carers are more likely to report children and young people as missing, even in cases of unauthorised absence or if the child is simply late home.

8.2 The APPG inquiry also heard how staff in care homes were less likely to have tried to search for young people who go missing than family members were and were often uninterested in the outcome of the missing report. This was felt to be due to risk aversion and lack of resources. Evidence from the police reported that in a small number of cases, particularly related to private care homes, that they were getting a number of inappropriate reports where care homes had not searched for children who were reported missing and they were filling a vacuum in resources in these homes.

8.3 Yet the APPG inquiry found some children are not being reported missing when they should be. Some local authorities were not reporting children unless they went missing overnight. However, our experience tells us that a child can be very seriously exploited and abused in a short period of time.

8.4 This is a difficult area to negotiate for agencies. As patterns of grooming for sexual exploitation and other harms such as drug taking or involvement in gangs often involve relatively short periods of being away from the care placement, it is crucial that care staff and other local services are alert to these dangers and informed when a young person’s pattern of behaviour indicates risk. Yet an over-reporting of missing incidents to the police runs the risk of a downgrading of the response from local forces as they tire of being used as a “taxi service” for children’s homes. Our practice and the APPG inquiry has found that better partnerships on the ground between local police and care home staff can work to improve relationships and reduce over-reporting whilst ensuring adequate safeguarding.

8.5 New definitions of “missing” and “absent” are being piloted by the (Association of Chief Police Officers) ACPO and the Home Office in West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Staffordshire police forces. Unofficial pilots are also taking place in other police forces. As a result of changes to the definitions some children may be classified as absent—“not at a place where they are expected or required to be”—if they are not considered to be at risk.

8.6 This will greatly affect the circumstances under which care services report missing children to the police and how the police respond. We are concerned that children who go missing repeatedly but who are not considered to be at risk will not receive an adequate safeguarding response. Research has clearly shown the links between frequent missing episodes and grooming and sexual exploitation. However, professionals may be unaware that a child is at risk of sexual exploitation even if they are aware of their whereabouts. In addition, if data about “absent” children is not regularly collected, analysed and acted upon by the police and local authorities, these children may not receive support early enough to prevent and protect them from any further risks or abuse, involvement in crime, drugs or sexual exploitation.

8.7 An additional evaluation of the ACPO pilots that assesses the safeguarding and risk assessment procedures in place when a child is classified as “absent” should take place before it is rolled out nationally.

9. The quality of data collection, data sharing and research on child victims of localised grooming

9.1 Our practitioners report that there is great variety between the quality of data collection, sharing and research on child victims of localised grooming in the areas where they work. Data collection on grooming is not streamlined between social services and the police unless areas have a subgroup on CSE and/or missing children.

9.2 With the abolition of National Indicator 71 (a national indicator which measured local areas performance in relation to runaway children) and no standardised reporting from local authorities, it has become difficult to monitor local data collection on runaways and CSE and to build a national picture. The APPG inquiry found that there were serious shortcomings and inconsistencies in the data collected by local authorities on children who go missing from care. Some of our services also report that local authorities collect little or inadequate data about runaway children and the assessment children receive following a running away episode (such as an independent return interview) which could be a sign that they are being groomed. Information on return interviews is crucial to capture why young people might be going missing and whether this is as a result of being groomed for sexual exploitation.

9.3 Data collection and sharing is essential in order to understand the level of running away and child sexual exploitation in the local area. This information can then inform local service provision and ensure the right procedures are in place to respond to young people. In addition, the capturing of information by every agency about children in a standard format that can be used by the police in prosecution cases is vital. There is a need for the police to train local agencies in what information they can use and how this should be written. This will enable evidence to be gathered by the police and be used in prosecutions against perpetrators of children sexual exploitation.

9.4 In Newcastle, the M-SET (Missing/Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Group) is a subgroup of the Newcastle LSCB. The group produces annual Missing Persons data reports collating information on monthly figures for the total number of children reported missing to the police in Newcastle and compares this to other areas within the Northumbria Police Force Area. The report analyses repeat missing incidents, demographic data and whether they are looked after. This information is used to provide an informed response to missing, sexual exploitation and trafficking across Newcastle.

9.5 All LSCBs should establish a multi-agency CSE and missing subgroup that collects data and intelligence on sexual exploitation and missing episodes to help monitor cases, direct resources and gather evidence for prosecutions.

9.6 The APPG inquiry also found that one of the barriers to monitoring the safety of children in care was the lack of proactive data sharing by Ofsted with other agencies. Currently Ofsted does not share the names and locations of children’s homes with local police. This greatly reduces the police’s ability to effectively safeguard children and target children’s homes and hotspots of sexual exploitation, as well as share information on missing incidents in children’s homes.

9.7 The Department for Education should change relevant regulations to allow Ofsted to share information on the names and locations of children’s homes with local police forces.

The Children’s Society

November 2012