Agenda item

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education attended the meeting to introduce the report presenting the Tackling Child Exploitation Strategy to the Committee. Also in attendance to provide additional detailed information was Ailsa Barr, Director for Children’s Integrated Services, John Matravers, Head of Safeguarding, Quality and Assurance and Chief Inspector Paul Lefford, Nottinghamshire Police. During the presentation the following points were highlighted:

a)  The Child Exploitation Strategy has been developed by the Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire Children’s Safeguarding Board partners and a range of other stake holders to create a single, whole system response to child exploitation aiming to reduce exploitation, and extra familial harm and protect communities.

b)  The Strategy reflects the need for a cross boarder approach and the language used has been amended to reflect the need to see children as children and to ensure that all children under 18 are treated as children first and foremost. This change in language is important to ensure the victims of exploitation are not made to feel implicit in their exploitation, and to remove possible suggestion of blame on the child. Guidance from the Children’s Society has been important in creating this shift in language as has feedback from children.

c)  The Tackling Child Exploitation (TCE) Steering Group is driving the work of the Strategy and meets quarterly. On the group there are representatives from the children’s safeguarding partners. The Steering Group regularly considers the work of the Strategy using the reflection tool specifically developed to assess progress on imbedding the 8 principles into local safeguarding practices. The tool also helps the group to identify areas for additional focus and improvement.

d)  Work to implement the Strategy is based on principals from research in practice tackling child exploitation which sets out how to work with children and their families and gives a basis for strategic oversight of practice and planning across the Partnership. The 4 P’s, Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare, developed from the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy 2023 have also been adopted and integrated into the work of the strategy supporting the creation of a whole system response.

e)  As awareness of exploitation is increased, partner organisations and the public become more confident in reporting issues and the number of reported cases will increase. This initial increase in numbers is confirmation that awareness is increasing and that the messages from the partnership are being communicated efficiently. 

f)  In response to the development of the Strategy, Nottinghamshire Police have restructured teams to better respond to child exploitation issues, with more Police staff embedded into Social Care teams, and an additional Disruption Team created to work with partners proactively around the nightime economy and target centres of concern. There are improved links into strategic multi-agency meetings and increased representation on multi-agency investigation teams.

g)  Joint training has been developed so that all partners have access to the same training materials, and can benefit from experiences of other organisations and practitioners when learning. A multi-agency joint training event has been developed to tie in with National Exploitation Awareness Day.

During discussion the following questions were raised and additional information provided:

h)  Committee members asked whether the right resources for relationship and sexual education are available to schools to help keep children safe. Schools are one of the most important partners in ensuring the greatest number of children are reached and have information and resources to help keep themselves and their peers safe. Some awareness sessions are carried out in schools to inform children of how to spot signs of potential exploitation, how to act to avoid it, what to do and how to report it if they have concerns. Schools work with parents and carers to share information with some schools having a wider reach than others. Work has also started with reaching into early years settings. It is not currently possible to say what percentage of the population is being reached through schools, and increasing reach is a key part of the Strategy. 

i)  Committee members asked what the Partnership did once exploitation had been identified. When a child comes to the attention of the partnership a multi-agency approach and assessment is launched to ensure that the child and their family have the most appropriate support in place. Each organisation sets out what support they can offer and a unique package is put into place for the child and family.

j)  Committee members questioned why the Strategy document was only 2 pages long given its importance. The Strategy document presented to the Committee in the published papers is the public facing, easy access document, and there are internal operational documents that underpin that. The performance against targets is managed and overseen by the TCE Steering Group with each partner organisation reporting regularly on progress. The Steering group then reports up through the Safeguarding Partnership governance structure with ultimate oversight held by the Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Council Safeguarding Children’s Board.

k)  Committee members questioned the number of children referred through the national referral mechanism. The information was published by the Home Office and states that the Council had referred just 25 children during 2023. There was a consensus that this was too low for it to be an accurate representation of children in the City suffering from exploitation. It was explained that over the last year 175 multi agency meetings were held to assess cases of exploitation and 69 risk meetings were held. From these only 22 met the thresholds for referral through the national referral scheme. The Partnership is not complacent and recognises that more children are at risk than are identified and work to encourage and empower communities and individuals to report concerns.

l)  Committee members requested more information on what information was available for communities, how awareness was being promoted and what work was being done to involve community organisations in implementing the Strategy. National Exploitation Day is in its infancy but more work is being done to promote it annually and to bring awareness to the general public. The Partnership is working with the office of the Police and Crime Commissioner to identify funding for activities, and literature and materials will be produced in a range of languages and easy read formats. This campaign is in its infancy, but the Partnership has a strong track record of delivering consistently strong messages. Work is already well underway with the nighttime economy, hotels, taxi drivers and others in a position to notice concerns early.

m)  Committee members asked how the partnership ensured that children not in school were kept safe. Exclusion from education does increase the risk that some children may be more vulnerable to exploitation and an Education Sub-Group has been developed within the Partnership. Given the fractured nature of the education system with numerous different trusts operating in the city it has been difficult to have one education representative that can speak for all trusts, so this Education Sub-Group allows educators from across the city to have a voice that is fed into the rest of the Partnership. All children excluded from education are identified at this sub-group. The Council is notified of all children on school roll and works to develop vulnerable learner pathways to identify additional support needs earlier and allow earlier intervention with those at risk of exploitation. This along with better joined up working with police and social care staff alongside educators is working to reduce the risk.

n)  Committee members asked what was being done to improve the performance around return home interviews for children who had been missing. Since the Ofsted inspection this element of the service has been improved. And those interviews have increased from 40% complete within three calendar days to 82% within three calendar days. There is a challenge with a small team that work Monday to Friday, but improvements have been made and sustained. The diversity of the team has been questioned but again with a small team with specialist skills it can be difficult to find representation for a wide range of communities. A number of different measures are used to assess the effectiveness of the interviews, including repeat missing figures and a quality assurance process that scrutinises how data is presented. 

o)  Committee members asked what co-production of resources and service development was taking place. A training package has recently been put together that is delivered through a VR headset and is a series of scenarios shown from the child’s perspective. Children and their families were heavily involved in the production of this material and has helped those who have participated to understand situations from a child’s perspective. The child’s voice is sought at all stages through involvement with them to ensure that the Partnership and its approach is child friendly and child orientated. It remains the case however that some children are not ready to share their experiences until much later in their life.

p)  Committee members asked about unaccompanied asylum seekers and how the Partnership helped to protect them and ensure settled status by the time they reached adulthood.  Any child who comes to the country and is placed in Nottingham is taken into care and work is undertaken to ensure that their asylum claim is progressed and that settled status is achieved in childhood. Where this is not possible the Leaving Care Teams takes up the work and provides support until the person is aged 25.

q)  Committee Members asked to what extent did schools consider the impact of exclusion on risk of a child being exploited when making decisions to exclude. Schools do need to understand the risk, and decisions around exclusion need to be trauma informed. More work needs to be done with schools across the City to develop this understanding and approach to decision making although some schools have started to develop a better understanding. Work is also underway in terms of making Nottingham a Child Friendly City.

Resolved to:

1.  Request that the Committee receive a list of the Key Performance Indicators and other measurables which the Steering Group will be using to measure success, and to ensure public accountability, that these be reported back to the Committee at a future meeting.

2.  Recommend that the Council and partners ensure that they are using the appropriate mechanisms and support available to children identified at risk of exploitation. The Committee’s view was that the number of NRM’s made by the Council and Police were too low for them to be an accurate representation of the likely number of children suffering from exploitation. These figures are outlined in table 9 of the NRM statistics provided by the Home Office.

3.  Request that the Committee receive the meaningful data from the missing from home interviews once they have been reported in July.

4.  Request that the Committee receive the waiting times for children who are referred to services as a result of exploitation.

5.  Request that the Committee receive further information on how many children in care are leaving without settled status and the reasons why.

6.  To request that the Committee receive examples of partnership working with the County Council in respect of services and service delivery.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:08 to allow a technical issue to be resolved prior to the start of the next item. The meeting reconvened at 11:14.