Key recommendations needed in child protection at Avon & Somerset Police
Inspectors say the force recognised child protection is a priority for senior leaders - and as an organisation they are committed to improving
Avon and Somerset Police say they are working to address the recommendations made by inspectors in a report into child protection, out today.
Earlier this year, 69 cases of vulnerable young people were reviewed, with nearly a third of those rated 'inadequate'.
However, inspectors recognised that child protection is a priority for senior leadership - and praised their work with safeguarding partners.
The findings, published by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), looked at cases between July 24 and August 4 this year.
Of these 69 cases, the child protection practices were deemed good in 17 cases, required improvement in 30 cases and inadequate in 22 cases.
Inspectors say they recognised child protection is a priority for the force's senior leadership team - and as an organisation they are committed to improving services for children.
They also said that officers and staff had developed strong professional relationships with safeguarding partners and other safeguarding agencies.
Despite some failing, it was found by inspectors that senior leaders know there are areas for improvement in the service, but they are acting to address these, describing their response as “positive”.
The report found:
- Good involvement of specialist child protection teams from the start of investigations
- Officers quickly contact children’s social care services emergency duty team about out-of-hours incidents
- Response officers are committed to locating missing children quickly
- Specialist investigators and offender managers use arrest and bail conditions to protect children from harm in most cases
Areas of improvement include:
- Officers and staff aren’t always recognising the broader risk to siblings in households or that other children are at risk of harm from perpetrators
- Officers aren’t always speaking with children and consistently recording the voice of the child
- The constabulary is over-reliant on children’s social care services in the initial stages of investigations
- The constabulary has inconsistent methods of making referrals to children's social care services
Remedial action already underway includes:
- Addressing a national gap in the number of trained detectives and specialist child protection investigators which is causing delays
- Training and accrediting more specialist officers, and ensuring that their supervisors are similarly qualified
- Restructuring their team of offender managers and rolling out further training and guidance
- Tackling factors which cause delays in the investigation of online child sexual exploitation
'There is a lot of good work happening across our organisation'
Assistant Chief Constable Joanne Hall said: “Children are some of the most vulnerable members of our society and everyone who works for Avon and Somerset Police fully recognises the important role we have in ensuring they are safe and protected.
“There is a lot of good work happening across our organisation which is protecting vulnerable children and ensuring they are fully supported and cared for when they most need and this is rightly recognised by HMICFRS.
“For instance, the inspectors praised the ‘high-quality child-centred investigations’ undertaken by our specialist child protection officers and commented on the work of our Child Exploitation Prevention Officer, who provides children across our policing area with age-appropriate training, saying they had ‘received significant positive feedback’.
“The inspectors also recognised we are actively taking steps to avoid criminalising children, that we’re keen to seek options to avoid arresting children and have a ‘culture of challenge’ to make sure children are only detained in custody when necessary.
“We can be proud of the good practice identified by HMICFRS, especially in light of what the inspectors make clear is an increasingly complex and demanding environment.
“To put this into some perspective, last year we investigated more than 6,300 child abuse offences while our dedicated Internet Child Abuse Team saw a 21 per cent year on year increase in their workload.
“However, as the report identified, we accept there are things we can do better to ensure we achieve the best possible outcome for all vulnerable children at risk of abuse, neglect or being exploited.
“In several cases the inspectors found we hadn’t sufficiently spoken to the vulnerable child or recorded their views, while we also need to get better at using the performance-related data we gather to understand the full extent of the threat and risk posed to children as this will help us determine whether our response is better protecting children from harm.
“One of our values is learning and we are committed to implementing all of HMICFRS’s recommendations, ensuring our child protection practices are both consistent and effective.”