Report finds improvement by Dorset Police to protect children and vulnerable young people
Dorset Police were given 8 recommendations by the HMICFRS
Dorset Police has made clear improvements in how it protects children and vulnerable young people according to a new post-inspection review report published.
Dorset Police was inspected by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) in April 2021 to determine the Force’s effectiveness in its interaction with children and young people, including when children become involved in the criminal justice process, are admitted to custody or involved in wider police investigations linked to child protection and safety.
The inspection found that Dorset Police and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner were committed to protecting children and those most vulnerable young people in our communities and praised the Force’s professional relationships with partners and its contributions to multi-agency working and safeguarding.
HMICFRS made eight recommendations to the Force in how it should continue to improve service delivery and safeguarding, including reports of children missing from home or care, longer-term problem-solving related to children and young people, working to improve prioritisation of online investigations and ensuring appropriate adults attend children when in custody as soon as possible.
Following a post-inspection review carried out in April 2022 in relation to the recommendations, the Inspectorate found that the Force had:
• Committed a great deal of resources, time and energy to improve outcomes for children in line with the recommendations.
• Formed a Gold Group led by a Chief Officer to manage the response and oversee ongoing improvements.
• Invested in learning and development throughout the organisation to provide, control room staff, frontline officers and specialist teams with the skills they need to recognise vulnerability, risk and provide an appropriate response.
• Continued to carry out inspection activity to review cases and incidents involving children and young people to identify areas of learning and ensure the ‘voice of the child’ is captured.
• Set up new multi-agency scrutiny panels that sit quarterly to analyse the joint response to some cases and shared wider learning through the safeguarding children partnership.
• Held two training events facilitated by HMICFRS specialists focussing on the response to missing children.
• Developed an intelligence portal that automatically identifies areas of risk to children.
• Made improvements to the quality of Police Protection Notices and liaison with children’s social care services, as well as the managing of sex offenders.
• Made some improvements to the way children are dealt with in custody.
The review also established that there is a clear commitment from senior leaders to improving our response to child protection.
Dorset Police Chief Constable Scott Chilton said: “We welcome this latest report following the post-inspection review. It clearly recognises the investment, commitment and focus to keep people safe to ensure we have the very best investigations, processes and partnerships in place to protect children and young people in all of our communities.
“I am really encouraged by improvements the force has made and confident of the plans we have in place, working with our partners to reduce harm caused to children and young people and continue striving to make Dorset the safest county.”
Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset David Sidwick said: “Child protection is an incredibly serious and important area of policing and I welcome this level of scrutiny from HMICFRS. Both I and my office will continue to work closely with the Dorset Police leadership team, to ensure that the areas for improvement highlighted in the report are addressed effectively and efficiently.”