Julia Mulligan, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire, responds to HMIC’s inspection; ‘Missing Children: Who Cares?
“The care of vulnerable children and the issue of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) is something I, and North Yorkshire Police, take extremely seriously. There is a dedicated team working to tackle this problem and training is given to officers to ensure the signs of CSE are understood. Further to this, a CSE booklet has been produced for the public to provide information about how to report the issue and the support services available for children and adults.
“I am pleased the report found the police’s response to missing children is timely, proportionate and appropriate. However, it is important that we continue our work with partner agencies and learn from other police forces to ensure the best support and safeguarding measures are in place. Further to this, I have recently outlined a £3 million strategy to improve protection for vulnerable people. Which will boost the force’s ability to protect vulnerable people such as victims of violent and sexual crimes, domestic abuse and child sexual exploitation.
“Improvements will always need to be made and I fully support the reports request that Chief Constables ensure information management processes are in place which focus on outcomes for children who go missing, and that they provide better analysis to understand the effectiveness of the police and multi-agency responses. I will welcome any changes that need to be made and want to ensure the protection of children is paramount.”
23 March 2016 – Missing children: who cares? – The police response to missing and absent children
Each year thousands of children go missing from their homes and responding to missing incidents places a high demand on police time, but the consequences of not investigating cases can be extremely serious, leaving some children at risk of exploitation and/or significant harm.
As part of HMIC’s annual assessment of police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy in 2015, HMIC assessed forces’ preparedness to tackle child sexual exploitation, because children who go missing are at greater risk of becoming a victim of this kind of offending.
This report sets out the results of this inspection, with additional evidence from other child protection inspections HMIC carried out from 2014 to 2016.