“If only someone had listened”: Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups

Despite increased awareness and a heightened state of alert regarding child sexual exploitation children are still slipping through the net and falling prey to sexual predators. 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. This is the principal finding of “If only someone had listened” − the Final Report of the Inquiry of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups (CSEGG). In many areas the required agencies have only recently started to come together to tackle the issue despite the statutory guidance issued by the Government in 2009. A comparison of Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCB) current practice against this guidance indicates that only 6% of LSCBs were meeting the requirements in full, with around one third not even meeting half of them. Substantial gaps remain in the availability of specialist provision for victims of child sexual exploitation (CSE).
This report outlines the urgent steps needed so that children can be effectively made and kept safe – from decision-making at senior levels to the practitioner working with individual child victims – whether a social worker, police officer, health clinician, teacher or anyone else who has contact with children.
Phase 1 of the Inquiry reported that a total of 2,409 children were known to be victims of CSE by gangs and groups. In addition the Inquiry identified 16,500 children and young people as being at risk of CSE.
Many of the known victims had been badly let down by those agencies and services that should have been protecting them. The reality is that children and young people are continuing to fall victim to exploitation. Although there are heightened efforts to address this issue, too many agencies and services are still failing to safeguard children and young people effectively.
We have seen examples, however, of local services who are putting children at the centre of everything they do. In these places there is a coherent and collaborative response to CSE with utmost commitment from the most senior to frontline staff, thereby offering greater protection for children threatened by, or experiencing, sexual exploitation. These examples have informed our view of what needs to be done in those places where children are not being protected and is encapsulated in the Inquiry’s new operational and strategic Framework – See Me, Hear Me.