Inspectors slam South Yorkshire Police over safeguarding failures

An investigation into South Yorkshire Police by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) undertaken nine months after the CSE scandal emerged, found there were still “significant concerns” about the force’s failure to recognise the risks posed to children in residential care from abuse and exploitation.

Although the force had reviewed its engagement with children’s homes and implemented changes to improve safeguarding measures, inspectors found these had not resulted in improvements in practice around information sharing and joint working with other safeguarding agencies.

Of the six case files of children in residential care assessed by inspectors, three were deemed inadequate and three requiring improvement.

The report states: “Inspectors were particularly concerned because the cases judged as inadequate related to children who were at risk of sexual exploitation. There was a failure to assess and recognise escalating risk to children; lack of interagency working and planning, (for example, strategy discussions); and a failure to investigate effectively allegations of crime leaving children at risk of harm.”

Despite the concerns, the report praises the force for providing training on how officers can raise concerns about children placed in residential care, and inspectors were “encouraged” to find that in one case officers had challenged the suitability of a placement made by the children’s social care department.

Inspectors also found that police officers’ recording practices remained poor, which could hamper good decision making for children, and that the force was still not pursuing perpetrators of CSE sufficiently robustly.

HMIC recommends South Yorkshire Police immediately undertake a review of any concerns raised about children in care homes across the force area are brought to the police’s attention, review its plans for identifying and prosecuting perpetrators of CSE against children in care homes and ensure officers know how to escalate concerns about children at risk.

HM Inspector of Constabulary Mike Cunningham said: “It is common knowledge that South Yorkshire Police’s approach to protecting children has been severely lacking. In September last year, HMIC raised serious concerns about the way the force was approaching this kind of work, which was undermining the service it provides to children.

“We carried out this post-inspection review in order to understand what progress South Yorkshire Police had made since our initial inspection, and we found there were still areas that need major improvements.

“I am keen to stress however, that the situation in South Yorkshire is not irretrievable. There are tangible signs that the force is improving in some elements of its service to children, so I am encouraged that the senior leadership of South Yorkshire Police demonstrated the determination to make improvements.”

Of the 28 case files reviewed by HMIC, two were found to be good, 19 required improvement and seven inadequate.

Last September, a damning report by professor Alexis Jay estimated that 1,400 children in Rotherham had been sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013, with police and children’s services criticised for their failure to act on previous concerns raised about the problem.