Agenda item

Report of the Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services

Recommendations:-

1.      That the Rotherham Safeguarding Children Partnership’s Strategy to Tackle and Prevent Child Exploitation be endorsed and the key priorities which will drive partnership working to tackle Child Sexual Exploitation and Child Criminal Exploitation over the next three years be noted.

Consideration was given to the report outlining the Strategy to Tackle and Prevent Child Exploitation 2019 - 2022 which had been developed by the multi-agency partnership under the auspices of the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership (RSCP), which had replaced the former Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Board (RSCB).

The Strategy replaced the previous three year strategy to tackle Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham known as ‘The Way Forward for Rotherham 2015-2018’.

The Strategy set out how the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Board, Adults Safeguarding Board and Safer Rotherham Partnership would work together to tackle and prevent Child Sexual Exploitation, Child Criminal Exploitation and recognised the links with children going missing, radicalisation, human trafficking, honour based violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM).

The Strategy reflected the most up-to-date approach to Safeguarding and incorporated the lessons learnt from the past three years around what worked in relation to CSE and how partners could utilise this learning to support the Authority to tackle and prevent future Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE).

Superintendent Steve Chapman from South Yorkshire Police and Chair of the Child Exploitation Delivery Group, spoke briefly on the four-year strategy and its six key themes which was clearly about protecting children, support for victims, witnesses and survivors and learning from good practice.   It was also about effectively targeting perpetrators and where intelligence was identified it was brought forward quickly and dealt with effectively.  Early intervention was much improved since Operation Stovewood and there were clear complex abuse procedures that as a partnership were responded to and tackled abuse together.

The Strategy focused on partnership working, but reflected the professional challenge.  The joint partnership meetings took place on a weekly basis and any intelligence was shared and dealt with promptly.  From a Safeguarding and children's perspective some really good work had also taken place with Barnsley and Doncaster around Child Criminal Exploitation with understanding about threats and risks.

Information was also shared on the work, current investigations and reviews of the Child Exploitation Delivery Group relating to past and future victims and survivors of complex abuse, which all linked into this Strategy with learning and improvement.

Rebecca Wall, Head of Safeguarding, Quality and Learning, highlighted the progress with the work plans, which would be due for review in April and then annually thereafter.  KPI’s had also been established for baseline data to better understand the partnership impact to not only achieve, but deliver tangible benefit for young people.

With increased awareness and a greater level of referrals, performance would provide the initial indicator and the Quality Assurance Framework would look to make sure the referrals were receiving the right plan at the right time for young people.

Cabinet Members welcomed the Strategy, the development of the timeline and the links in working together with schools.  It tied together what was happening in the Borough and highlighted the progression in understanding which was embedded in this document.

The Safer Rotherham Partnership had considered the Strategy in terms of child exploitation and welcomed the challenge and approaches amongst partners on the exploitation and abuse of children.  Partners were also encouraged to use the term “exploitation and abuse of children” rather than “county lines” as it could mask the work in more isolated towns and where there were more significant problems.

Government funding received had supported the development of a joint strategy with Barnsley and Doncaster, but as this was one-off the problems needed to be addressed and the problems would not just disappear.  In fact the weekly meetings had already seen the terms of reference changing to reflect the new Strategy to look at active intelligence and provide a visible partnership in those areas.  This would continue in all three areas post-April, 2020.

Superintendent Steve Chapman also provided an update on how perpetrators were being brought to justice, the use of Abduction Notices, Sexual Harm Prevention Orders and clear guidance on what and was not presented to the Crown Prosecution Service. 

More work was to be done on the safeguarding children element and to look at ways of gathering intelligence from communities around some of the threats and risks posed.  From a South Yorkshire Police perspective the introduction of the Connect app had seen innovative development of the intelligence, case management and custody function.  The system had matured and improved data collection; in Rotherham there were 1,800 active investigations, 4 of which did not have a suspect identified, 207 have outstanding suspects and only one of those was a suspect that had been outstanding for more than 12 weeks. 

It was noted that independent advocates were available who could act on someone’s behalf should they be from hard to reach groups like young people with learning difficulties who were being exploited.  The work with schools, education providers and communities would bring greater understanding to recognise and take great positive conversations forward.  An event was also taking place involving the Council and the Police with BME women to discuss their experiences which may lead to changing conversations and enabling more people to be able to come forward and share information about child exploitation with assurances that they would be listened to.

The Head of Safeguarding, Quality and Learning, also reiterated the recognition of each agency's contribution to the learning of their staff whilst ensuring there was a Rotherham emphasis.   The training and engagement pathway with agencies and the sharing of intelligence would ensure that the delivery of training to staff, whether this was in a school, a G.P. surgery, or a community group was understood and the approaches were clear.

A competency framework and a safeguarding self-assessment toolkit would be distributed to all community partners and professionals and agencies to ensure they could check to ensure the gold thread was embedded on how abuse was dealt with.  In-house training and expertise was recognised locally and this would deliver some Level 3 master classes for members of the Partnership that dealt with these matters on a regular basis.

There was also to be a refresh of the “See Something, Say Something” campaign around awareness.

The Cabinet welcomed the assurance with regard to how the agencies were working together and the challenging of each other.  However, the Borough must not be complacent given the scale of the criminal challenge that was continuing to be faced.  Agencies were able to respond and take action where necessary.

Resolved:-  That the Rotherham Safeguarding Children Partnership’s Strategy to Tackle and Prevent Child Exploitation be endorsed and the key priorities, which will drive partnership working to tackle Child Sexual Exploitation and Child Criminal Exploitation over the next three years, be noted.