Daily roundup 3 March: Children's homes, charity lobbying, and Rochdale CSE

Local authorities are struggling to house some of the most disturbed children because of a shortage of secure places in children's homes. The BBC reports that the number of secure homes has fallen recently and that some children have had to stay on a barge until a bed became available. The Department for Education says it has commissioned a review into how secure children's homes are being used.


Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has warned charities that they will be stripped of grants if they campaign against the government. In a written statement, Pickles said that research had “exposed the extensive practice of taxpayers’ money being given to pressure groups and supposed charities, in turn being used to lobby the government and parliament for more money and regulation”. All contracts between the communities department and charities will now contain a clause banning organisations from using the cash from standard grant agreements to influence or oppose government laws, Pickles said. He also wants to apply the measure across Whitehall, reports the Times.


A number of men have been charged with a range of offences in connection with child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rochdale. According to the Manchester Evening News, the investigation was launched in May 2012 and charges relate to seven alleged victims that were aged between 13 and 23 at the time. The investigation comes under Operation Doublet, a ongoing investigation into CSE cases that has seen 65 people arrested so far.


A convicted murderer has pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children, the BBC reports. Vincent Tabak, who was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for the 2010 murder of Bristol landscape architect Joanna Yeates, was sentenced at Bristol Crown Court yesterday to 10 months after admitting four counts of possessing indecent images of children between January 2009 and 2011. In January 2011 detectives investigating the murder discovered 145 indecent images of children on Tabak's laptop.


Lord Paul Scriven will call for an independent investigation into the performance of South Yorkshire Police in regards to the Rotherham sex abuse scandal today. The Rotherham Star reports that Scriven will ask the Home Office minister to order an independent investigation, similar to the Casey report, which looked into Rotherham Council.


A multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) has been set up in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. The MASH brings together 40 child protection professionals from health, police, probation and the council. The MASH has taken three years to fully set up and deals with 650 cases each month on average.