Child Sexual Exploitation: Commons Select Committee Reports

Child Sexual Exploitation: Commons Select Committee reports

Date 6 January 2015 Author Martin Rogers LGiU/CSN Associate

Summary Two House of Commons Select Committees have published reports on child sexual exploitation (CSE), based on events in Rotherham and the Jay report into those events. The Home Affairs Committee published a follow-up to its 2013 report on the response to localised grooming, and the Communities and Local Government Committee published the report of its inquiry into CSE in Rotherham, subtitled ‘some issues for local government’. Both reports raise issues of continuing concern to local authorities and their partners as they make up ground in formulating a more effective response to child sexual exploitation. This briefing will be of interest to elected member and senior officers with responsibility for children’s social care and community safety.

Overview Two House of Commons Select Committees have published reports on child sexual exploitation (CSE), based on events in Rotherham and the Jay report into those events. The Home Affairs Committee published a follow-up to its 2013 report on the response to localised grooming (see ‘Related briefings’), which reviewed the way in which prosecutions of child grooming gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxford brought CSE to public and political attention, and described CSE as a ‘large-scale, nationwide problem’ which evidence suggested was increasing. That report recommended that all Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) should nominate a CSE coordinator and publish an annual report on local CSE work, and that LSCBs should work together to develop and collect data in a standard format in order to facilitate comparison and inspection across areas (a call recently echoed by Ofsted – see ‘Related briefings’). It also recommended that LSCBs should be required to set up a multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH), comprising representatives of social care, local police, health professionals, education, youth offending teams and voluntary organisations. Following publication of the Jay report on CSE in Rotherham (see ‘Related briefings’), the Home Affairs Committee conducted a brief follow-up inquiry to consider the transparency and effectiveness of Rotherham Council’s response to CSE. This took evidence from a former manager of the Risky Business project in Rotherham, which worked with many victims of CSE in Rotherham, and from a Home Office-funded researcher employed by the council and located with the project. It also took evidence from the Chief Executive and Director of Children’s Services (DCS) in Rotherham, and from South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner (previously the

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You can find us on Twitter at @LGiU lead member for children’s services in Rotherham) – all of whom have since resigned from their posts. The Communities and Local Government Committee’s inquiry also took evidence from Rotherham’s Chief Executive and DCS (both now resigned), which raised concerns that they felt should be put to the Secretary of State Eric Pickles and to the Local Government Association (LGA); it also took evidence from Prof Jay and from the new Leader of Rotherham Council.

Briefing in full Communities and Local Government Committee report, Child sexual exploitation in Rotherham: some issues for local government The report’s introduction outlines three government interventions, all of which have potentially significant implications for local government: • the Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse • the independent inspection of compliance of Rotherham Council (being conducted by Louise Casey) • the appointment of a Children’s Social Care Commissioner for Rotherham, following an Ofsted inspection of the council’s children’s services conducted under the single inspection framework (SIF). The Committee considered whether to launch a full-scale inquiry, but decided that any further work by the Committee or its successor would be predicated on the findings of the Independent Panel Inquiry. In the remainder of the report, it sets out a number of matters of current concern, summarised below. Commissioning the Jay report The Committee commends Rotherham Council for the fact (largely lost in reporting of the Jay report) that it was Rotherham itself which commissioned the inquiry and report from Prof Jay. It is acknowledged that it took this action largely in response to an article by Andrew Norfolk in The Times. The extent of child sexual exploitation in England In her evidence to the Committee, Prof Jay was clear that Rotherham was not unique, and drew attention to the Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England’s report on CSE in gangs and groups, which found that ‘Serious gaps remain in the knowledge, practice and services required to tackle this problem. There are pockets of good practice, but much still needs to be done to prevent thousands more children falling victim’. In its evidence, the LGA also described the problem as ‘extremely widespread’, observing that ‘it takes different forms’ depending on the demographics and history of the area, and whether it is rural or urban. The Committee took the ‘alarming conclusion’, on the basis of the evidence it took, that ‘Rotherham was not an outlier and that there is a widespread problem of organised child sexual exploitation in England’ and that other LAs need to review their arrangements and the Government needs to ensure that the guidance and benchmarks are in place to ensure that these reviews are effective and that children are identified and protected.

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Local authority systems The Committee comments on two matters raised by Prof Jay: • Scrutiny: Rotherham was found to have had no shortage of policies, procedures or plans, ‘but the weakness was that nobody checked whether they were being implemented, or indeed whether they were any good’. Prof Jay found a failure of effective scrutiny at many levels, and the Committee comments that ‘it is essential that scrutiny arrangements are effective and separate from the executive functions and that the executive needs to be challenged when there is evidence of an acute problem which it has failed to take into account or address’. • Senior officers and councillors: having heard that senior officers in Rotherham had presented reports on CSE to councillors, which members of the Committee felt would not have ‘immediately and unambiguously alerted the recipient that there was a serious problem’, the report comments that ‘the quality of the reports from senior officers and the apparent lack of challenge by councillors raises a serious question about the adequacy of skills and training of executive councillors’. Whistleblowers Having heard that there were arrangements in place for whistleblowers, but that there had been no whistleblowing on CSE, the report says, ‘The effectiveness of Rotherham Council’s policy on whistleblowers needs to be tested.’ The conduct of former council officers The former Leader of Rotherham Council resigned on the day the Jay report was published, and the Chief Executive and the Strategic Director of Children’s and Young People’s Services have left, or were leaving their posts as the Committee reported – which it concludes ‘was the correct course’. But the report says, ‘Prof Jay, however, makes clear that the departing officers had taken steps to improve the services at Rotherham’; it then goes on to suggest that ‘the departing officers’ predecessors… have serious questions to answer for their conduct during the time they were responsible for children’s services at Rotherham Council’, and says that it shares a specific concern with Prof Jay about the fact that minutes taken of a series of meetings around 1999 to 2003, involving the police and health service as well as children’s social care, about work on CSE in Rotherham are missing, and copies cannot be found. The Committee raised its concerns with the LGA about former senior staff in the event of matters arising after their departure (whether through a move to another employer or retirement), in particular over how they could be held to account whilst having a fair hearing, including an opportunity to defend themselves against any allegations, with full access to all relevant papers. The LGA set out its response to the concerns in a letter to the Committee. Ofsted The report indicates that the Committee will be calling on Ofsted to give evidence concerning the findings of inspections between 2003 and 2012, when it rated Rotherham’s child protection services as ‘Adequate’ and commented on improvements made since 2009.

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Resources The Committee notes that there will be costs arising from the damage caused by the organised CSE in Rotherham, and from the findings of the Independent Panel into CSE – both as yet unquantifiable. The costs will include care, support, counselling and therapy for victims and survivors; ‘we would expect that substantial resources may be needed’. Home Affairs Committee report, Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming: follow-up The Committee’s 2013 inquiry took evidence on the response of local authorities to CSE, with a focus on children’s social care in Rotherham. The aim of the short follow-up inquiry was to look into specific issues arising from the Jay report, including the transparency and effectiveness of Rotherham Council’s response to CSE. The inquiry took evidence from a number of key individuals who had worked in Rotherham, which is summarised below. Strengthening Rotherham Council children’s services The Committee took evidence in private from a former researcher who had been employed by Rotherham Council between 2000 and 2002 as a Research and Development Officer working on a Home Office-funded pilot under the Crime Reduction Programme, called ‘Tackling Prostitution: What Works?’ The researcher was located with Risky Business, a CSE specialist project established after a pilot project in 1997 following concerns about CSE in Rotherham. She was employed to research and develop measures to disrupt the activities of men targeting young women, including working with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on how enhanced evidence gathering could be used in court, and was expected to produce a report on the pilot study outlining the development of ten young women’s case studies and the targeting of six ‘pimps’. In 2002, the researcher submitted a report to the Home Office evaluators, at their request, including data and statistical information; it included severe criticisms of the agencies in Rotherham involved with CSE, the most serious of which concerned ‘alleged indifference towards, and ignorance of, child sexual exploitation on the part of senior managers. The report also stated that responsibility was continuously placed on young people’s shoulders, rather than with the suspected abusers, with a “high prevalence of young women being coerced and abused through prostitution”’. The researcher told the Committee that an unknown individual subsequently gained access to her office and removed all of the data relating to the Home Office work. The report outlines the circumstances, and how the Home Office looked into the issue – including the involvement of Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam as part of their broader investigation into how the Department handled material relating to historical allegations of CSE in the 1980s. Who knew? Prof Jay found that the Risky Business project was the first public service in Rotherham to identify and support young people in CSE; her report commended the Council for its financial commitment to the project, but said it was ‘too often seen as something of a nuisance, particularly by children’s social care’. A former project manager at Risky Business, Jayne Senior, told the Committee how the project had passed information, risk-assessments and detailed intelligence to people at ‘the highest level’ in the police and the Council from 2003 onwards. The report outlines briefly how another witness, Dr Angie Heal of Sheffield Hallam University, who completed research projects in Rotherham between 2002 and 2006, identified the scale of ‘on- © Local Government Information Unit/Children’s Services Network www.lgiu.org.uk 251 Pentonville Road, London N1 9NG. Reg Charity 1113495. This briefing available free of charge to LGiU/CSN subscribing members. Members welcome to circulate internally in full or in part; please credit LGiU/CSN as appropriate.

You can find us on Twitter at @LGiU street’ grooming in her first report, on the use and supply of crack cocaine in South Yorkshire, and noted the link between perpetrators and the illegal drugs trade; her reports went to South Yorkshire Police, the Drug Action Team, and others, sometimes including the regional Government Office. The report notes that the Committee called for the resignations of the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Executive Director (sic) and Strategic Director for Children, Young People and Families – and that they have ‘belatedly declared their resignations, but there are still questions to be answered’. It continues: ‘There is compelling evidence that both Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and South Yorkshire Police ignored numerous, credible warnings about the scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. Given that these warnings came from Risky Business and others who had been expressly tasked with investigating and tackling the problem, it is difficult to understand why they were not taken more seriously. It is even suggested that documentary evidence was stolen in order to supress it. It is hard to resist the conclusion that, if the Council and Police had taken these warnings seriously, the abusers could have been brought to justice more quickly and some of the later victims could have been spared their ordeal.’ Accountability of PCCs The report notes that, before his election as Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for South Yorkshire in November 2012, Shaun Wright was Rotherham Council’s cabinet member responsible for services for children and young people – a position from which he stood down in May 2010. It outlines the calls for Mr Wright’s resignation (including from the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel) which followed publication of Prof Jay’s report, and observes that ‘the saga of Mr Wright’s resignation highlights the fact that the Police and Crime Panels have no power to dismiss a Commissioner’. The Committee heard from the Home Secretary that, ‘while she believes the current system of accountability for PCCs is “effective”, she agrees with the Committee that there is a debate to be had regarding recall of PCCs’. The Committee was concerned at the lack of any mechanism at all to suspend or remove a PCC, and recommended that new legislation be brought in to provide for a PCC to be subject to recall. The bulk of the remainder of the report comprises, as an Annex, a draft Bill to allow for recall of PCCs when either of two conditions is met: the Police and Crime Panel passes a motion of no confidence in the PCC or one or more local authorities representing at least half the population of the police area have passed a motion of no confidence in the Commissioner. The Committee will return to the issue (which is not the subject of this briefing). Comment These reports add, in different ways, to the growing body of literature unravelling what went wrong in Rotherham – and elsewhere – and warning against complacency in areas which are unaware of a problem, but may find it is there if they put in place the right measures (or, much worse, if they don’t). Amongst these, training on CSE is essential – not only for relevant staff, as many reports have said, but also for elected members, as the CLG Committee highlights. The Home Affairs Committee’s 2013 report made several recommendations which are not yet implemented by all, including every LSCB having a CSE coordinator, setting up a MASH, and reporting annually on local CSE work – and LSCBs working together to develop a standard data set on CSE (a call echoed in Ofsted’s recent report on CSE – at the launch of which it was made

You can find us on Twitter at @LGiU clear that under the current Single Inspection Framework inspectors now focus much more closely on CSE than under previous frameworks). Much remains to be discovered by other enquiries: Louise Casey’s independent inspection of Rotherham, originally due to report by the end of November, is now not due to report to Secretary of State Eric Pickles until mid-January; and the Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has yet to get off the ground (having so far lost two Chairs, with the vacancy yet to be filled). The conversion of the Panel into a judicial inquiry is apparently still possible. A major issue for one or both of these will be the allegation that documentary evidence about the handling of CSE in Rotherham was ‘stolen in order to supress it’. Finally, there is the issue of the role of select committees themselves in influencing events on the ground. Both Committees report with some apparent satisfaction the resignation of key senior figures in Rotherham Council in the wake of the Jay report, despite Prof Jay herself making clear ‘that the departing officers had taken steps to improve the services’. One consequence was the situation found by Ofsted, when it arrived in Rotherham in September to conduct a SIF inspection – a situation which prompted HMCI Sir Michael Wilshaw to write an advice note Education Secretary Nicky Morgan urging her to take urgent action: the situation he described included a lack of clear leadership and accountability in the absence of a DCS; the action taken by the Secretary of State was a Direction to the Council and the appointment of a Commissioner to oversee the situation (see ‘Related briefings’). The issue raised is whether, and to what extent, the interests of children and young people are helped, or not, by key figures being removed (one way or another) in the wake of critical findings. Most commonly, this is an issue which arises following an Ofsted inspection, in this case it was an independent inquiry report; in both situations it is usually politicians behind the removal. They need to consider carefully whether their actions are a knee-jerk response which might appear to be the right course of action, or if they are genuinely in the best interests of children and young people.

External links Commons Communities and Local Government Committee Jay report into child sexual abuse in Rotherham Commons Home Affairs Committee Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming: follow-up

Related briefings Sexual exploitation of children – Ofsted report (December 2014) Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham – Alexis Jay report (September 2014) Children’s services: DfE Improvement Notice and Directions (October 2014) Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming (August 2013) For further information, please visit www.lgiu.org.uk or email [email protected]

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