Rochdale Council praised in Child Sexual Exploitation report

Rochdale Council is praised in a report by Ofsted for some of the ways it deals with children at risk of child sexual exploitation but significant concerns remain.

The report - called The sexual exploitation of children: it couldn't happen here, could it? - says: 'The local authority has radically changed the way in which information is shared across departments and between agencies in order to facilitate successful prosecutions and support the credibility of victims of child sexual exploitation. A formal data sharing protocol has made that possible and a designated Disclosure Officer based in legal services and acting as a single point of access oversees the process. The Disclosure Officer has contributed to achievement of a number of successful prosecutions and has made it possible to disrupt the activities of other perpetrators.'

'By harnessing the full range of the local authority’s enforcement capabilities, a multi-agency enforcement team is taking disruption to another level. Housing powers are used to enter properties of multiple occupation. Health and safety standards, licensing regimes and anti-social behaviour legislation are all being brought to bear on the perpetrators of child sexual exploitation. This work has resulted in 12 arrests and the closure of three licensed premises.'

Gail Hopper, Director of Children’s Services at Rochdale Borough Council, said: “This has been a two year journey of transformation where we adopted a whole council approach.

“Instead of working in isolation, every department, no matter how seemingly remote from child exploitation, now shares information and we have clear systems in place that are delivering real results to help keep young people safe.

“From housing enforcement to taxi licensing to education, we are determined to tackle this issue effectively.

“We recognise there is still more to do but we are pleased that Ofsted has recognised the improvements we have made and the strength of the initiatives such as the Partnership Enforcement Team and team working like Operation Maverick.”

Eight local authorities, including Rochdale, were studied and a key finding was that local authorities and their partners are still not meeting their full responsibilities to prevent child sexual exploitation in their area, to protect its victims and to pursue and prosecute the perpetrators and concluded that 'leadership to tackle child sexual exploitation is not sufficiently well developed'.

Simon Danczuk MP said: “I am confident Rochdale is making good progress in child protection after a difficult few years. But it must be said that Ofsted has been a big part of the problem in that the regulator has failed to identify child protection failings until it’s too late.

“The fact that today’s report is based on a thematic review inspection on how a handful of councils deal with child abuse is not good enough. Why are they only inspecting councils where child abuse convictions have been made? If they want to stop child abuse scandals they should be testing all councils in this way not just following newspaper headlines and trying to find out where failures occurred after problems emerge. This is not how a regulator should look at protecting children. It’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”

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