Information
Inspection of the effectiveness of police and law enforcement bodies’ response to group-based child sexual exploitation: A progress report
Between 2015 and 2022, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) exposed harrowing failures across public institutions to protect children from organised and group-based child sexual exploitation. Its findings revealed not only the devastating scale of these crimes but also how agencies repeatedly failed to recognise, prevent and respond to them.
In 2023, HMICFRS inspected how the police, law enforcement agencies and other public bodies were tackling this challenge. While they identified some progress, we found that deep-rooted problems remained. They made nine recommendations and identified one area for improvement.
In this report, they review progress against our recommendations, and issue six new recommendations to make sure group-based child sexual exploitation is consistently identified, properly understood and addressed with urgency. A copy of the report can be downloaded here
PFCC Response
The Police Fire and Crime Commissioner for Northamptonshire fully recognises the importance of this as a subject. She places children, young people and their safeguarding at the heart of her Police, Fire and Crime Plan and all that she seeks to deliver. The Commissioner was pleased to see from this national thematic report that there was a recognition that progress had been made since the HMICFRS 2023 inspection and report, for example, in the areas of reducing victim blaming language and some investigations but also noted that there were still improvements to be made in a number of areas, including activity from the College of Policing and the Home Office.
The Commissioner noted that there were still a number of recommendations from the 2023 report that have not been fully implemented and also that this report from 2025 contains additional recommendations. She intends to use the report and recommendations to seek assurances through her accountability and assurances process with the Chief Constable that in Northamptonshire the 2023 recommendations have been put into place or if this is the case why and when they will be and likewise seek assurances in relation to the implementation of the 2025 report recommendation in so far as they relate to specific Forces or Chief Constables.
