Durham Constabulary responds to HMICFRS child protection inspection report

Chief Constable Rachel Bacon has broadly welcomed a report which found Durham Constabulary performs well in most areas of child protection, but still needs to improve in others.

Durham Constabulary has been rated Good for its work to ensure every member of the force, from the initial call handler to specialist detective teams, responds well to children at risk of harm.

The force was also assessed as Good for its work to share information with partner agencies to ensure vulnerable children are protected and offered the support they need.

But the force needs to improve the investigation of child exploitation offences, particularly ensuring officers and staff use all the powers available to them to deal with perpetrators who have harmed or pose a risk to children.

The findings of the independent Child Protection Inspection were published today by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.

The report rated Durham:

• Responding to children at risk – Good
• Working with partners to safeguard children – Good
• Leadership of child protection – Adequate
• Risk Assessment and referrals – Adequate
• Investigations – Requires improvement

The findings place Durham among the top performing forces in the country to have undergone inspection to date.

Chief Constable Rachel Bacon said: “No area of policing is more important than keeping children safe from abuse and exploitation and this was, as it should be, a very testing inspection.

“I am very pleased with many of the findings which were identified: our leadership; our strong working arrangements with partners and, especially, our response to children at risk of harm.

“That is testament to the dedication of our officers and staff to protect children and young people across County Durham and Darlington: protecting children from harm is everyone’s business”.

The HMICFRS report said that more work needed to be done to improve the investigation of child exploitation offences, particularly ensuring officers and staff use all the powers available to them to deal with perpetrators who have harmed or pose a risk to children.

However, inspectors pointed out that the force had “responded quickly and comprehensively” to the feedback.

Chief Constable Bacon added: “The Inspectorate is, quite rightly, challenging the whole of policing to improve our child protection arrangements – no force in the country has yet been assessed as being more than adequate in terms of investigating abuse and exploitation.

“It did find Durham was effective in responding to the sudden death of children, ensuring we have enough trained officers in place and that our specialist officers carry out good quality, child-centred joint investigations.

“However, they also examined some of our more specialist and highly complex investigations, which we accept need to improve.

“We have identified the need for more resources and better data analytics and we are putting those resources in place, but protection of children, especially online, is an ever-growing challenge.

“There will always be more to do and we have a plan in place to address those areas for improvement which have been identified”.

Durham Constabulary has a charging rate for child sexual abuse which is consistently well above the national average and over the last year 269 young people were taken into temporary police protection.

Among the specific measures already adopted by Durham Constabulary to protect children are:

• Operation Parallelogram: a pioneering programme of unannounced visits to the homes of Registered Sex Offenders, where their digital devices are forensically examined to identify repeat offending. In the last year alone, more than 100 spot checks were carried out and three offenders were identified and jailed
• Operation Makesafe: making sure people working in businesses such as pubs, restaurants, shopping centres, taxis and hotels can spot the warning signs of child exploitation and report concerns to the police
• Missing From Home Risk Matrix: a failsafe system to ensure any children who are wrongly assessed as being at low-risk of exploitation are identified at an early stage and their case is escalated
• Through the Eyes of a Child: training for all frontline officers attending domestic incidents to ensure that the voices of children in the home are fully heard