'We've got a long way to go to tackle child sexual exploitation'
The former Children's Commissioner for England says we should be 'under no illusion' that now is not the time to relax
The former Children's Commissioner for England tells us we should be 'under no illusion' that now is not the time to relax when it comes to tackling child sexual exploitation.
She says we should be 'immensely worried' at how limited some of our services are, who deal with the reports.
Earlier this week, we exclusively revealed how the legal system is struggling to deal with the number of cases, with just over 1% of reports this year resulting in a charge or summons.
Yesterday (23rd November), we exclusively revealed almost 25% of reports made over a year ago still haven't received an outcome.
We put our data to the former children's commissioner of England, Anne Longfield.
She said:
"Any child that's reported this, and hasn't got the conclusion they need to be able to move on, is something we should all worry about.
"It's been 6 or 7 years since everyone had the shock of Rochdale and of Rotherham, and undoubtedly things have got better, but we should be under no illusion, that it's not at the place yet where we can relax.
"We still do ask children to go visit a doctor, and in various parts of the country, that can be 20 or 30 miles away for appropriate doctors, we ask them to wait months, if not years for a criminal justice system to work or to get into action."
Anne spoke to us about the cuts to both children's service and councils and the impact that has had:
"Which ever part of the system you look at, there's always going to be the possibility that children are over looked.
"Some have 50-60% cuts in their budgets, and that means there's a limit in how far and swiftly children's services can step in, so, whilst with the best intentions in the world, some may not have the capacity to do that, and that's an immense worry."