Child abuse and child protection issues

Protecting children is one of the most important things the police do.

Police officers investigate suspected crimes involving children and arrest perpetrators. They play a significant role in monitoring sex offenders. They can take a child in danger to a place of safety, and they can seek restrictions on offenders’ contact with children. They also play a key role, working with other organisations, in ensuring children’s protection and wellbeing in the longer term.

Our child protection inspections

We inspect the child protection work of every police force in England and Wales. We do this through:

national child protection inspections in England and Wales;
joint targeted area inspections (JTAI) in England;
joint inspections of child protection arrangements (JICPA) in Wales; and
thematic reviews of key issues.

National child protection inspections (NCPI) – England and Wales

Our national child protection inspections assess the child protection work of every police force in England and Wales. The findings aim to show how well forces protect children and meet their needs.

Joint targeted area inspections (JTAI) – England

We carry out joint targeted inspections (JTAI) in England with Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Together we inspect various areas where different agencies work together to provide support for vulnerable children, such as identifying risk or criminal exploitation.

Joint inspections of child protection arrangements (JICPA) – Wales

We undertake joint inspections of child protection arrangements (JICPA) in Wales with the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW), Health Inspectorate Wales, Estyn and HMI Probation. Each inspection focuses on a theme, such as the multi-agency response to child abuse and neglect or child exploitation.

Thematic reviews

Our thematic reviews bring together themes from across our force or local area level inspections into broader reports. They consider progress, areas for improvement and emerging themes at a national level.

We have also conducted focused inspections about specific aspects of police work.

Report on the progress made against recommendations in our 2023 inspection of the police response to child sexual exploitation in England and Wales – commissioned 24 January 2025

On 24 January 2025, the Home Secretary wrote to us requesting a progress report on addressing the nine recommendations in our 2023 report on the effectiveness of the police and law enforcement bodies’ response to group-based child sexual exploitation.

We will examine the progress all forces and other law enforcement bodies have made to:

identify and assess group-based child sexual exploitation;
improve the quality of their investigations; and
improve their response to victims of group-based child sexual exploitation.

We will establish whether there are any barriers to addressing our recommendations, and recommend further action or inspection if needed.

On 6 March 2025, we published our terms of reference for this inspection.

The Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of the sexual and criminal exploitation of children: Causes of concern – revisit – 26 February 2025

In June 2023, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London commissioned us to inspect how well the Metropolitan Police Service handled the sexual and criminal exploitation of children. In our report, we issued three causes of concern and made 11 recommendations to improve outcomes for children at risk of or experiencing exploitation.

We revisited the force between September and October 2024 to review its progress. We found that:

the force has improved its response when children are reported missing, but still doesn’t always do enough to find missing children;
the force’s investigation of child exploitation has improved, but there are still delays and missed opportunities to trace suspects; and
the force has carried out substantial work to try to stop victim‑blaming language.

The senior leadership response to the issues we raised has been positive, and we have closed the causes of concern. However, the force still has more work to do to improve further and to provide a consistently good service.

Greater Manchester Police and its safeguarding partners’ approach to child criminal and sexual exploitation – commissioned 10 July 2024

On 10 July 2024, the Mayor of Greater Manchester commissioned us to inspect how Greater Manchester Police and its safeguarding partners investigate allegations of child criminal and sexual exploitation, and support victims and survivors.

We will examine how the force and its safeguarding partners:

learn lessons from peer reviews of child exploitation investigations;
carry out ongoing investigations into four non-recent child sexual exploitation cases; and
support victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation.

On 1 November 2024, we published our terms of reference for this inspection. We intend to report our findings by June 2025.

On 13 December 2024, we published an update on our inspection.

The Metropolitan Police Service’s handling of the sexual and criminal exploitation of children – 9 February 2024

In June 2023, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London commissioned us to inspect how well the Metropolitan Police Service responds to the sexual and criminal exploitation of children. We inspected how well the Metropolitan Police Service:

understands the nature and scale of child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation;
responds to child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation; and
supports and safeguards victims and survivors.

While we found some examples of good work to protect children, the balance of negative evidence far outweighed the positive. We made 11 recommendations to improve outcomes for children at risk of or experiencing exploitation.

Group-based child sexual exploitation – 8 December 2023

Between September and December 2022, we inspected the police and other law enforcement bodies in England and Wales and considered how effectively they respond to victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation.

During our inspection, we focused on three broad areas:

the nature and scale of offending;
the police’s attitude towards victims; and
the quality of investigations and wider outcomes.

We made 9 recommendations aimed at improving how effectively the police plan investigations, engage with victims, and work with partner agencies to disrupt and prevent group-based child sexual exploitation.

Online sexual abuse and exploitation of children – 5 April 2023

We inspected the police response to online child sexual abuse and exploitation between February and August 2022.

Our terms of reference addressed the following question:

How effective are police forces, the National Crime Agency and regional organised crime units at identifying and safeguarding children affected by online sexual abuse and exploitation?

We made 17 recommendations aimed at improving the consistency of the police’s approach and the timeliness of their investigations, reducing the availability of child sexual abuse material, and getting better outcomes for children.

National Child Protection Inspection programme evaluation – 27 February 2020

In 2014, HMICFRS started a rolling programme of inspections in every police force in England and Wales, looking at their response to child protection.

To better understand the impact of these inspections on policing activity, we commissioned NatCen to carry out independent evaluation of the programme. This evaluation is the first study of its kind commissioned by HMICFRS.

The evidence from this data collection allowed researchers to explore the perceived impact of the NCPI programme on policing practices since 2014, as well as the experiences of people in inspected forces, and the inspectors themselves.

Online and on the edge: real risks in a virtual world – 2 July 2015

In 2012, we carried out fieldwork as part of an inspection into how police forces prevented online child sexual exploitation that is facilitated by the internet.

As a result of our findings, Operation Notarise was established to coordinate law enforcement activity to apprehend perpetrators across England and Wales. Over 500 children were identified and safeguarded as a result of this activity.

We postponed our inspection work to avoid jeopardising current operations. In 2014, we carried out further fieldwork. And, in 2015 we published our report bringing together our findings from our fieldwork and inspections in 2012 and 2014.

We also published an inspection methodology for the report (PDF document) based on our earlier national child protection inspections.

In harm’s way: the role of the police in keeping children safe – 2 July 2015

Between January 2014 and June 2015, we conducted 21 inspections of different aspects of the police approach to child protection issues such as online exploitation and domestic abuse.

In 2015, we published a report summarising the findings from all these inspections. This provides a comprehensive overview of children’s experiences and highlights both good practice and areas for improvement.

Mistakes were made: HMIC’s review into allegations and intelligence material concerning Jimmy Savile – 12 March 2013

In March 2013, we published a review of the allegations made against Jimmy Savile during his lifetime. It found mistakes were made by the police. And it raised serious concerns over why so many victims felt unable to speak out and report what had happened to them.

In 2014, following on from this report, we started a programme of work examining the police response to child abuse and child protection.

Future inspections

As well as our rolling inspections for child protection, we are continually developing how we work in this area. We will publish updates on our child protection work here, as relevant.

If you have a question or would like to comment on any area of our child protection work, email contact@hmicfrs.gov.uk.

If you would like to seek advice on any of the issues raised in these reports, please contact the NSPCC.

Last updated: 6 March 2025