Cheshire – National child protection inspection post-inspection review

Introduction

Our 2022 inspection

In January 2022, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) inspected how well Cheshire Constabulary keeps children safe.

We made nine recommendations in the Cheshire – National child protection inspection report.

The 2023 post-inspection review

In January 2023, we returned to the constabulary to carry out a post-inspection review.

During this inspection we:

• examined constabulary policies, strategies and other documents;
• interviewed senior leaders and managers, and spoke with frontline personnel; and
• audited 38 child protection cases (10 cases were good, 18 required improvement and 10 were inadequate).

Summary of findings from the post-inspection review

It is clear to us that the constabulary is addressing many of the concerns that led us to make recommendations in 2022. There are effective governance structures to help leaders understand and provide the right level of service. Leaders use a regularly updated action plan to check on progress being made to improve the constabulary’s child protection arrangements.

All the personnel and managers we spoke to are enthusiastic and actively seeking to develop high-quality child protection services.

There are specialist child protection officers and other safeguarding personnel on teams for each of the three constabulary areas. This is appropriate because these personnel need to work closely with other agencies in the areas where children live.

The constabulary has increased the numbers of specialist safeguarding personnel and adjusted the terms of reference for some area-based teams to improve how it responds to missing child incidents. The constabulary makes sure it has enough specialist child protection officers and plans to maintain this capability.

Additionally, there are advanced plans to increase and focus resources to reduce exploitation risk to children. The constabulary is prioritising these arrangements and has assigned senior detectives to provide accountability and leadership.

Leaders need to see more detailed information about how the workforce identifies and responds to vulnerability to be sure children get the help they need to be safe. Information about missing children’s vulnerability and risks to them isn’t consistently recorded on the constabulary’s systems. Disappointingly we saw too many records where the ethnicity of children wasn’t recorded.

Some of the constabulary’s electronic record systems and databases are inefficient. So, personnel must duplicate the same information in various reports and formats. Some personnel can’t readily find the information they need for risk assessments or to decide on priority activity. Some teams create their own standalone databases to help manage information and workloads. We saw this particularly in the constabulary’s records of missing child incidents.

The constabulary’s intranet isn’t effectively providing guidance and advice to help non‑specialist officers. This is particularly the case in relation to online and digital crime where we found responders and non-specialists lacked the information they needed for better approaches to help families and children.

The learning and development team plans training modules to focus on key requirements linked to the constabulary’s action plan, such as the voice of the child (VoC). The team also introduced innovative training based on virtual reality technology to enhance the VoC training. But more is clearly needed because we found the VoC wasn’t consistently recorded.

Leaders make changes when they understand these will improve the constabulary’s approaches to reducing risk and harm. For example, missing children are now always considered to be high risk when they are reported to the force control room (FCR). It means that initial responses to missing children have improved.

The constabulary regularly deploys resources from its serious and organised crime unit, including the deployment of covert tactics, to help locate missing children across the country.

However, despite changes to improve operational practice, some managers don’t take responsibility to make sure the new practice is consistently in place. For example, we saw that some inspectors were still not completing their statutory duty as designated officers when children were taken into police protection.

Specialist intelligence personnel are available 24/7 to provide FCR personnel and response officers with vital information about risk, threat and vulnerability. It means risk assessments and decisions on priority are made with better information.

Constabulary leaders understand they have a statutory responsibility to work with safeguarding partners to make sure there are effective child protection arrangements in Cheshire. This responsibility includes maintaining referral systems to get the right help for children to prevent harm and reduce vulnerability.

The constabulary prioritises child protection and organises proactive work to arrest and disrupt offenders and those who are a risk to children.

The constabulary works with its partners in each of the four local authority areas and where possible it develops pan-Cheshire policies and arrangements. Managers told us they are working with partners to make contextual safeguarding multi-agency arrangements more effective, but progress remains limited. This means that constabulary leaders need to intervene and raise these areas of joint safeguarding work with the joint agency governance structures. These challenges or escalations should be formally recorded by the safeguarding children partnerships so that it is clear what the proposals for improvement are intended for and why they are necessary. (The partnerships involve local authorities, chief police officers and integrated care systems, who work with relevant agencies to safeguard and protect the welfare of children.)

Leaders have escalated some matters to safeguarding partners when they recognised operational problems or poor safeguarding provision. This resulted in a review of the pan-Cheshire overnight detention protocol. The review meant that better guidance was given to custody personnel and children’s social care emergency duty teams. The constabulary introduced additional scrutiny to make sure that referrals for detained children were made promptly and certificates of juvenile detention were routinely completed.

It is clear to us that leaders are heavily invested in improving the constabulary’s approach to vulnerable children and progress has been made. But this inspection has identified some remaining gaps between the constabulary’s ambition and current performance.

Terminology in this report

Our report contains references to ‘national’ bodies, strategies, policies, systems, responsibilities, processes and data. In some instances, ‘national’ means applying to England and Wales. In others, it means applying to England and Wales and Scotland, or the whole of the United Kingdom.

Initial contact

Initial contact: Recommendation from the 2022 inspection report

Within three months, Cheshire Constabulary should review its processes regarding incidents relating to child protection, paying particular attention to how control room staff make decisions on officer response.

Initial contact: Summary of post-inspection review findings

FCR personnel record risk assessments and support responding officers.

Supervisors check incidents to make sure responses are appropriate to risk.

The vulnerability and safeguarding team checks incidents and provides additional support to victims and responding officers.

Officers are sent quickly to help vulnerable children.

The constabulary uses intelligence from its systems to support responding officers in getting the best results for children.

Responding officers don’t consistently see children and record information about their vulnerability on constabulary systems.

Initial contact: Detailed post-inspection review findings

FCR personnel have better training and improved operating procedures

FCR managers have changed some processes to improve the way they identify risk and respond appropriately to calls for help.

FCR personnel are being trained to focus on identifying risk and vulnerability in their initial assessments. At the time of this inspection, we were told 45 percent of FCR personnel had attended vulnerability training. In addition to this formal training, FCR managers actively update and train all their staff in 15-minute briefings twice a week, providing information and learning from cases to help personnel work better.

FCR personnel always use the constabulary’s THRIVE risk assessment framework when taking information from callers. This provides a clear structure for recording information about vulnerability and risk.

FCR personnel add flags about risk and vulnerability to incident records to identify specific concerns such as an exploited child or a person at risk from domestic abuse.

A specialist team reviews vulnerability incidents to improve responses

The FCR flags prompt the vulnerability and safeguarding team (VAST) to review the incident against information from constabulary records to make sure officers are told about known risk, so their responses are timely and appropriate.

VAST personnel receive specialist child protection training including modules on missing and exploited children. They research police systems and often call victims to gain additional information to inform responders. But the responding officers are responsible for recording details about risk and vulnerability on the constabulary’s vulnerable person assessment (VPA) forms so safeguarding referrals can be made to partners. In cases where officers aren’t deployed, such as when incidents are resolved on the phone, VAST personnel complete VPAs. VAST personnel also add intelligence to the constabulary’s systems.

The FCR has a quality assurance process. Supervisors check incidents and sample operators work to make sure they identify and record vulnerability and risk, and use flags to highlight these. They also check the accuracy and consistency of THRIVE assessments to help personnel develop and improve their skills.

Responses to incidents where vulnerable children are present are timely

The constabulary doesn’t routinely respond with scheduled appointments to domestic abuse incidents where children are present. If an appointment for these incidents is considered necessary, it must be authorised by an inspector.

We sampled the FCR outstanding appointments list of 21 cases, of which 6 were for domestic abuse incidents with children involved. We found that all the appointments were being managed appropriately. FCR personnel clearly understand that responses to incidents where children may be vulnerable should be prioritised.

FCR personnel assign officers to attend domestic abuse incidents where children are present in person. But in the incidents we reviewed we found inconsistency. We saw some incidents where responding officers didn’t check on sleeping children or speak to children in the house to hear their concerns and understand their experiences. This means that officers aren’t being professionally curious enough to investigate children’s vulnerability. So, their decisions are likely to be heavily influenced by adult perspectives and not the child’s point of view. We saw that the VPA forms in these cases didn’t contain the detail needed to help these children.

Some officers don’t always record details about children’s ethnicity

In some of the incidents we reviewed, officers inconsistently recorded details about children’s ethnicity, religion and disabilities. Sometimes this important information wasn’t recorded at all. Some children are vulnerable to forms of abuse or exploitation because of their cultural heritage and continuing abusive practices in some communities, for example female genital mutilation, so-called honour-based violence or forced marriage. The constabulary needs good records about all vulnerabilities and this information should be flagged on systems to inform future responding officers about risk.

The constabulary supports officers’ responses with intelligence from its systems

Specialist intelligence personnel are available 24/7 to provide FCR and response officers with vital information from their systems. It means risk assessments and decisions on priority are made with better information. It also gives frontline personnel access to specialist officers to help them resolve high-risk incidents earlier. For example, chief officers are appropriately contacted out of hours to authorise urgent telecoms traces to help protect vulnerable children.

Assessment and help

Assessment and help: Recommendations from the 2022 inspection report

We recommend that Cheshire Constabulary immediately improves its response to missing children so that it is consistent with the risks identified and ensures that the response is effectively supervised.

We recommend that Cheshire Constabulary immediately engages with its safeguarding partners to review the terms of reference and practices of its multi‑agency risk management meetings in relation to missing children and children at risk of exploitation.

We recommend that within three months, Cheshire Constabulary should act to make sure that officers obtain and record children’s concerns and views (including noting their behaviour and demeanour) to help influence decisions made about them.

Assessment and help: Summary of post-inspection review findings

FCR responses to missing children are more effective. Supervisors check gradings using information about risk from constabulary systems to assign appropriate and timely responses. But the information needed to assess risk and find missing children isn’t always available on constabulary systems.

Multi-agency arrangements to manage exploitation risk for children in Cheshire are still inconsistent. The workforce needs more training to approach contextual safeguarding risks effectively.

The constabulary prioritises vulnerability training for its workforce and has introduced information to guide officers to be professionally curious when responding to vulnerable children. But officers are still inconsistent in how they record the VoC.

Assessment and help: Detailed post-inspection review findings

FCR personnel are responding more consistently to missing child incidents

FCR call handlers complete comprehensive missing children question sets and make THRIVE assessments when children are reported missing.

The constabulary policy that all missing children are to be assigned as high-risk incidents until information to the contrary is confirmed is child-centric. This is because it means that positive information is needed to confirm any reduction in the risk assessment or the priority of response.

Warning markers and vulnerability flags for children are visible on constabulary systems and referred to by call handlers. Call handlers add this information to open incidents to help responders make relevant enquiries.

Sergeants who are force incident supervisors are trained to assess missing child incidents and make decisions. It means all these incidents should be assessed consistently with priority actions to direct officers to find the child. But we saw some force incident supervisors set general rather than specific initial actions. This is weak practice because priority tasks should be set against existing warning markers and specific information about risk to the child in the latest incident.

All high-risk missing child incidents are managed on the FCR system, but this information isn’t consistently transferred to the constabulary’s intelligence system. This means important information about a child’s vulnerability or those who are a risk to the child may not be recorded to inform future activity.

Trigger plans aren’t always accessible or used to find children

The constabulary makes trigger plans for children who reach the criteria set in the pan-Cheshire ‘missing protocol’. This means trigger plans should be in place for all children who are reported missing 5 or more times in 90 days.

These plans should contain relevant information and intelligence to assist responders in locating the child. But some plans aren’t always easily accessible to responding officers. Some frontline officers told us they held their own records on local systems for frequently missing children. This practice means the constabulary doesn’t hold all the information it has about a vulnerable child in a single or accessible place. So, other personnel dealing with the child may not benefit from the information.

The FCR missing from home form and the constabulary missing child report completed by frontline responders duplicate information. Officers told us of their frustration and felt time could be better used to find the child.

We saw that officers and supervisors understood the vulnerability of missing children, and the way they recorded assessments and information was supportive and not child-blaming.

Frontline officers record prevention interviews on VPA forms with each child when they are found. But we saw some records on which the child’s ethnicity wasn’t recorded. Information about a child’s ethnicity and cultural heritage should always be recorded and used to comprehensively assess risk.

Some missing children investigations – even those assigned as high risk – aren’t regularly updated, particularly overnight. High-risk missing child incidents need immediate police responses and regular reviews to make sure investigations are focused and the child is found as soon as possible.

The constabulary is inconsistent in the way it records and uses information about missing children

Missing children are discussed in the constabulary’s daily management meeting in which area managers give updates on investigations to find missing children. These meetings allow them to request additional resources to increase activity to find high-risk missing children.

Dedicated personnel on the constabulary’s three local area ‘missing teams’ review every missing child incident and exchange information with local authority counterparts. This regular inter-agency communication helps children’s social care managers decide when to arrange child protection strategy meetings for missing children.

However, minutes and actions from multi-agency meetings for missing children aren’t consistently recorded in police records. We also found that information from local authority return to home interviews with missing children was often unavailable, because either interviews were delayed or records weren’t sent to the constabulary. ‘Missing team’ officers told us they regularly requested this information from their partners, but the problem continued. Managers hadn’t yet resolved it.

Information recorded on the VPA form isn’t always replicated on the constabulary’s intelligence system records. For example, an autistic child had information about their communication vulnerability included on a VPA form and a child sexual exploitation (CSE) referral but not on the constabulary’s intelligence records. This could reduce the effectiveness of future police approaches to that child by FCR personnel or officers.

Comprehensive and regularly updated records for missing children are essential if the constabulary and its partners are to work together effectively to reduce risk. We found the constabulary held information about missing child risk on various systems and over multiple records for these children. There is no master record for each child to hold the information supporting the latest assessment and to use in planning intervention strategies to reduce risk.

The constabulary’s managers told us they understood the benefits of the philomena protocol: working with children’s carers to reduce missing child incidents and risk to children. Some introductory work with local authority partners and staff in children’s homes was in progress but the protocol isn’t fully adopted in Cheshire. It means some opportunities to improve inter-agency communication to reduce missing child incidents and risks to children who go missing have yet to be implemented.

Multi-agency arrangements to manage exploitation risk for children in Cheshire are still inconsistent

Some vulnerable children experience risk of being exploited or trafficked – particularly when they are frequently missing from home and away from the protection of their carers. Most safeguarding children partnerships elsewhere in the country develop multi-agency responses to reduce this contextual risk to children.

In our last inspection we saw inconsistency in how the constabulary and its partners across the four local authority areas of Cheshire work together to help children who are frequently reported missing and those who are at risk of exploitation.

It is positive that the constabulary’s analysts maintain an exploitation profile for Cheshire. This is a collation and analysis of information about criminal and sexual exploitation risk in the county. It incorporates information from national agencies and the four local authorities. It provides a foundation for more locally focused strategies to tackle exploitation in the constabulary’s policing areas.

There is also a pan-Cheshire CSE risk assessment tool, which is used throughout the four areas.

The constabulary attempts to work collaboratively with its partners and where possible it promotes pan-Cheshire safeguarding arrangements, for example the pan-Cheshire missing from home and care policy. A pan-Cheshire all-age exploitation strategy is in draft, awaiting approval by the four safeguarding children partnerships. However, managers told us they weren’t certain if it would be approved, and no implementation date is planned.

Despite these positive approaches, the current multi-agency arrangements to manage exploitation risk are too inconsistent. There are three different approaches:

• Cheshire West and East areas each hold a separate weekly triage meeting, to review new safeguarding referrals for children, and a monthly child exploitation operational meeting for the children assessed as medium or high risk. These meetings review risk and direct actions.
• The Warrington area holds contextual safeguarding operational group meetings twice a week, reviewing new child exploitation referrals and existing medium and high‑risk children.
• In the Halton area, a new contextual safeguarding operational group process, like that in the West and East areas, has started reviewing exploited children assessed as high risk.

We found that children exploited online are unlikely to be included in any of these multi-agency meetings. This is a concern because the impact of online sexual exploitation on some children can be devastating. And they, their friends, their peers and their families need specialist support to help them recover from the trauma and reduce the likelihood of re-victimisation.

The existing arrangements mean inconsistent information sharing, risk assessment and decision-making processes. They can mean delays in children getting services to help them or delays in action to disrupt offenders.

There is an urgent need for these arrangements to be reviewed by the constabulary’s executive and their statutory safeguarding partners. Safeguarding children partnerships have escalation processes, and these should be used if relevant agencies aren’t effectively responding to vulnerable children.

The workforce needs training to approach contextual safeguarding risk effectively

The constabulary has increased the numbers of specialist safeguarding personnel and adjusted the terms of reference for some area-based teams to improve how it approaches missing child incidents. Additionally, there are also advanced plans to increase and focus resources to reduce exploitation risk to children. The constabulary is prioritising these arrangements and has assigned additional senior detectives to provide accountability and leadership.

But the area-based missing from home co-ordinators told us they hadn’t received specialist training for their roles. They review incidents from the previous day using police systems. They also review VPAs and submit referrals to children’s social care services where needed. They don’t hold cases or conduct investigations, but support officers managing investigations.

Furthermore, during our 2022 inspection we found that the constabulary’s CSE co‑ordinators weren’t specifically trained either, particularly in exploitation, and resorted to learning the role from their peers.

The constabulary is prioritising vulnerability training for its workforce

Managers told us that they had invested time and specialist resources to improve the workforce’s understanding of the importance of capturing the VoC. Training on this is included in formal courses and all continuing professional development events.

The constabulary consulted other policing organisations and decided to adopt Kent Police’s AWARE principles. These form a useful prompt and guide to help officers understand the information they should include on VPA forms to make better referrals for help for children. Staff and officers are being trained and the constabulary is working to make AWARE available to frontline officers on its systems.

AWARE principles – a checklist to encourage personnel to develop their professional curiosity and record information about children’s vulnerability in a structured way:

A – appearance

W – words

A – activity

R – relationships and dynamics

E – environment.

We found inconsistencies in officers’ approaches to recording the VoC

We found that when officers took children into police protection, they always completed VPAs with good details about the children’s demeanour and circumstances. These assessments reflected the seriousness of the risk the children faced.

Similarly, when officers responded to domestic abuse incidents, they always completed VPAs. But the VoC wasn’t always recorded in the level of detail needed to inform children’s services about the full extent of the child’s vulnerability and circumstances. In some incidents officers didn’t make any record of the VoC, even though children were present.

We found officers’ recording of the VoC for CSE-vulnerable children was inconsistent. Some officers recorded detailed information, but others missed vital details about the child. In some of these investigations, details about children’s ethnicity were inconsistently recorded and sometimes not at all.

Offender managers didn’t record information on the VoC in any of the case management records we checked. In one situation, in which officers arrested a registered sex offender for a domestic abuse offence where children were present, an officer only recorded on the VPA form that “children not spoken to as they were sent to bed”.

When some frontline officers completed prevention interviews after missing children were returned home, they used VPAs to record the VoC. But instead of recording what the child said to them, the officer gave a summary of their own assessment of the child.

Arresting officers completed VPAs for children they took into police custody. But in many of these records, the focus of the information was on the reasons for arrest or the child’s behaviour in the custody facility – rather than the child’s vulnerability and why they were at risk from criminalisation.

The absence of detailed information on the VoC can mean the constabulary doesn’t add warning markers or flags to identify vulnerability. So, this information isn’t available for officers in future incidents where the child is at risk.

Communication with children at domestic abuse incidents remains inconsistent

When some officers attending domestic abuse incidents were told children were asleep, the officers didn’t always check their welfare. In one case when officers didn’t find the children present, they didn’t verify their safety. This important information wasn’t always recorded on the VPA form to provide context to the child’s lived experience.

Investigation

Investigation: Recommendation from the 2022 inspection report

Cheshire Constabulary should immediately improve its understanding of child sexual exploitation, paying particular attention to:

• improving staff awareness, knowledge and skills in this area of work;
• the importance of timely sharing of information with partner agencies;
• undertaking risk assessments that comprehensively consider a child’s circumstances and risks to other children; and
• improving the oversight and management of cases.

Investigation: Summary of post-inspection review findings

Increased staffing levels in the online child abuse investigation team (OCAIT) have reduced investigative delays.

Most officers lack the knowledge and skills to effectively investigate CSE.

Officers investigating CSE don’t get enough support from specialist resources.

Arrangements for sharing information with partner agencies are still inconsistent.

Investigation: Detailed post-inspection review findings

Case audits

We audited eight sexual abuse investigations:

• three child sexual abuse investigations – one was good and two were inadequate; and
• five online sexual abuse investigations – three required improvement and two were inadequate.

In the cases we assessed as ‘inadequate’, we found serious failures in practice that resulted in children being harmed or left at risk. Cases assessed as ‘requires improvement’ had elements of effective practice missing but no widespread or serious failures that left children at risk of harm.

We brought two investigations to the attention of constabulary leaders because we were concerned that the constabulary needed to do more to be assured that children were safeguarded. It responded immediately and appropriately to these concerns.

Most officers lack the knowledge and skills to effectively investigate CSE

The constabulary hasn’t trained its frontline personnel to investigate offences of CSE. Frontline officers told us they were unaware of any information or guidance on the constabulary intranet to support them with investigating online CSE. They rely on learning on the job and asking for advice from colleagues. They didn’t understand how to use social media to aid investigations and to get help for all those affected by these crimes. However, there is some information about organisations on the intranet that can provide help. This means an inconsistent and ineffective approach that doesn’t help child victims of crime.

The area-based investigation team officers haven’t had the specialist training necessary to effectively investigate CSE, online CSE or group-based CSE. These officers don’t have enough technical knowledge to secure digital evidence. We also found they had limited knowledge about using the Child Abuse Image Database in their investigations. This means they don’t routinely add important safeguarding information to the Child Abuse Image Database to protect victims and assist other investigators in pursuing offenders.

Officers don’t consistently record and circulate online child abuse offenders’ usernames, names and contact details through the National Crime Agency to other law enforcement agencies. Neither do they add these to the constabulary’s intelligence system so they are searchable in the Police National Database. This action also helps other law enforcement agencies to identify offenders who pose a risk to children.

Unskilled investigators don’t routinely make intelligence checks through the constabulary intelligence bureau with the National Crime Agency or other international law enforcement agencies to establish if they know information about people involved in their investigations.

In one investigation by specialist officers, we saw a very good approach, resulting in positive interactions with the victim and effective safeguarding. But in two other investigations, which were allocated to non-specialist officers, we found a lack of supervision and investigation. This meant unnecessary delays and an ineffective safeguarding approach.

Officers investigating CSE don’t get enough support from specialist resources

Specialist digital forensic support and advice for frontline officers were difficult to access. The constabulary doesn’t have a clear and well-known process to help frontline officers or area-based investigation team personnel investigating online CSE to retrieve child sexual abuse material from children’s devices.

Managers don’t ask digital media investigators and victim identification officers to proactively support non-specialist officers with online child abuse investigations.

Increased staffing in the OCAIT has reduced some delays

Additional officers are now assigned to the specialist OCAIT. They have helped to reduce some of the investigation backlogs and allowed the OCAIT to prioritise investigations where children are at risk. We saw that the OCAIT had 57 cases awaiting action and a further 21 cases where the team had started the intelligence assessment. The oldest unactioned case was nine months old and there were also a few cases in assessment from 2021. All the unactioned cases were assessed as low risk for children. The constabulary has a clear ambition to reduce OCAIT investigation delays further.

OCAIT managers understand their team’s caseload and meet regularly with the digital forensic unit to reduce delays. They record performance management information to monitor and improve the timeliness of device examinations and investigations. Urgent examinations for child protection cases aren’t delayed. So, investigators get evidence and intelligence at an earlier stage than when we last inspected the constabulary. This improves the service to child victims.

OCAIT policy is incomplete

OCAIT personnel are hardworking and fully committed to safeguarding children. They told us they understood the focus of the team is to prioritise child protection. But we saw the OCAIT policy terms of reference didn’t clearly include the team’s safeguarding children responsibilities or multi-agency arrangements for when a child is identified at risk of harm.

Arrangements for sharing information with partner agencies are still inconsistent

The OCAIT receives information from national and international internet sources such as the Child Protection System, helping them to identify children at risk from sexual abuse in its areas. These sources are designed primarily to identify children and safeguard them from individuals who have a sexual interest in children. So, any children linked to these individuals will need an appropriate response from the safeguarding children partnerships.

The information shouldn’t be held back by the constabulary until it has the resources to deal with offenders. Information sharing and risk assessment with partners need to take place quickly after the OCAIT receives intelligence about potential child sex abusers. But currently officers don’t refer intelligence about suspected online sex offenders to children’s services unless health service checks indicate children are at an address being researched. This is an incomplete and flawed risk assessment process.

OCAIT personnel have direct access to the children’s services system used by the Cheshire East and Cheshire West local authorities. But the local authorities for Halton and Warrington use different systems. So, officers have to contact those local authorities individually each time they need information about any risk for children. A process covering all four local authorities, decided on collaboratively, would help all partners to reduce safeguarding delays.

OCAIT managers told us they were working with social care managers in Warrington to devise a process for early strategy meetings. But this is preliminary, and no similar approach has yet been taken with the other three local authorities. This delay in the process is inconsistent with best practice for safeguarding children. Nationally, many other areas have introduced arrangements to share multi-agency information at an earlier stage to help identify children at risk and to act without delay to protect them.

If there are obstacles that the partnership managers cannot resolve themselves, they should be escalated to executive leaders at the safeguarding children partnership.

Decision-making

Decision-making: Recommendation from the 2022 inspection report

We recommend that, within three months, Cheshire Constabulary reviews guidance to improve practices for when children are taken into police protection to make sure:

• all relevant information is properly recorded and made readily accessible;

• it consistently records relevant information and decisions; and

• officers regularly review and endorse the use of protective powers.

Decision-making: Summary of post-inspection review findings

Officers protect children and take them to appropriate safe places.

Designated officers aren’t reviewing and recording their decisions about the continuing use of police protection powers.

Record keeping about the use of police protection powers is still inconsistent.

Decision-making: Detailed post-inspection review findings

Case audits

We audited five incidents when children were taken into police protection:

• two were good
• three required improvement.

Frontline officers know when they need to protect children from risk

Since our last inspection the constabulary has trained its personnel to help them understand when and how to use police protection powers when they find children at risk of significant harm.

Frontline officers consistently recognise when children are at risk and act to protect them. They are aware of their powers to take children into police protection, and they carefully consider when it is appropriate to do so.

Officers record why they think it is necessary to use the powers and they quickly inform their inspectors so they can begin their designated officer responsibilities.

Officers quickly contact children’s social care staff, including the out-of-hours emergency duty team, when they protect children. This is vital because social care staff have a responsibility to make sure these children have a safe place to live. We saw that officers didn’t inappropriately bring children to police stations. Their good communication with social care staff meant that safe accommodation for children was usually found without delay.

Officers generally make timely and comprehensive records on VPA forms about why they used their powers. We saw they made good records of the VoC.

We found strategy meetings were arranged with social care staff to plan ongoing safeguarding for the children.

On average, the powers are used by the constabulary once a week.

Managers told us they regularly consult with their social care colleagues about the use of the powers. No concerns about its inappropriate use have been raised.

Constabulary leaders review the use of the powers in scheduled meetings and in data provided to its vulnerability board.

Record keeping about continuing use of police protection powers is inconsistent

Designated officers are inconsistent in making records of the use of police protection powers. In the cases we audited, transfers between designated officers and the stopping of police protection powers aren’t consistently recorded.

Some supervisors recorded their reviews and decisions on the control room incident management system and others on the main incident record itself. This inconsistency means that it isn’t immediately clear why police protection powers have been used, or if circumstances have changed and the reason for stopping the use of the powers. Designated officers should make clear entries of their reviews and the need for continuing to use this power to protect children. This includes when handing over or taking responsibility for the enquiries to make sure it remains proportionate and in the children’s best interests. Stopping the use of the powers should be a clear decision in an active, child-centred, multi-agency plan.

We saw that other records were inconsistent. For example, in one case where officers used police protection powers, there were five separate records on the constabulary’s systems: one for the use of the powers, one for the domestic abuse incident in which the children were found, one VPA referral and two separate strategy meeting records This is bureaucratic and creates duplication for busy staff.

We also saw that the ethnicity of children in these incidents wasn’t consistently recorded. This is important because some children are at greater risk of harm because of their cultural heritage.

Managing those posing a risk to children

Managing those posing a risk to children: Recommendation from the 2022 inspection report

We recommend that Cheshire Constabulary immediately improves the way it manages registered sex offenders, paying particular attention to:

• how it records information on local and national systems;

• ensuring its risk management processes are clearer and bespoke to individual registered sex offenders; and

• risk assessments on home visits, and officer attendance comply with approved professional practice.

Managing those posing a risk to children: Summary of post-inspection review findings

Record keeping of activity to manage registered sex offenders is inconsistent.

Offender managers plan visits and complete better risk assessments.

Breaches of notifications and orders by offenders aren’t consistently recorded on constabulary systems. Compliance isn’t consistently enforced.

Managing those posing a risk to children: Detailed post-inspection review findings

Case audits

We audited five offender management cases:

• two were good
• two required improvement
• one was inadequate.

We saw incomplete records, non-recording of breaches of offenders’ orders and non‑enforcement of orders by officers. We also found offender managers didn’t always make good records about vulnerable children or include the VoC in referrals. But we saw that offender managers worked well with probation officers. And offender managers told frontline colleagues about risks from offenders in the areas where the offenders live.

Offender managers need to be more consistent in recording information about risk on constabulary systems

Offender managers in the constabulary’s sex offender management unit (SOMU) don’t consistently record information on the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) about children that registered sex offenders have contact with. This information is essential to effective risk management. Also, clear records are especially important if new offender managers need to deal with risk from these offenders or if an offender moves to another area.

We saw that risk management plans weren’t always updated and reviewed following significant events in an offender’s life. For example, when a female registered sex offender moved address after being the victim of an online hate campaign, the offender manager didn’t assess the suitability of the new address and record this clearly on ViSOR.

Offender managers aren’t consistently recording offenders’ breaches of notifications and sexual harm prevention orders as crimes. This means that national crime recording standards aren’t complied with and the constabulary’s record of the offenders’ risk is inaccurate.

There are improved sex offender management processes

A daily SOMU meeting deals with emerging offender risks and allows supervisors to prioritise and allocate work to personnel in the three area-based teams. The daily meeting means that missed or delayed visits are less likely and plans to catch up on any outstanding work can be made.

The unit’s detective inspector reports weekly on the unit’s activity to senior leaders, who review the unit’s work in their monthly performance meeting.

SOMU supervisors and managers keep clear records of core SOMU activity, including dates when offenders require visits, assessments and new risk management plans. They also monitor dates when offenders are scheduled to move from probation service to police-only management.

But we saw that not all the unit’s managers routinely completed quality assurance sampling of offenders’ risk management plans. The latest quality assurance review was dated September 2022.

Offender managers plan and risk-assess visits to offenders

The constabulary has reviewed its policy for offender manager visits to registered sex offenders and has adopted national approved professional practice. This means that two offender managers should complete these together unless a single officer visit is considered appropriate.

In practice, demand and resourcing limitations mean that this isn’t always possible. But offender managers and their supervisors know that single visits are less effective, and they plan and risk-assess these visits to make best use of available resources.

Offender managers aren’t always informed when courts convict sex offenders

SOMU personnel don’t always know when courts convict new offenders or convict existing sex offenders for additional notifiable offences. This is because the constabulary doesn’t have a reliable arrangement to receive timely conviction notifications from the courts. It means that there are delays in assessing the risk to children from these offenders. We saw an example where information about an offender’s conviction for a sex offence wasn’t sent to the constabulary. Offender managers were unaware of the conviction.

Police detention

Police detention: Recommendations from the 2022 inspection report

We recommend that Cheshire Constabulary immediately undertake a review of how it manages the detention of children. This should be done jointly with children’s social care services, youth offending services, and other partner agencies. The review should include, as a minimum, how best to:

• make sure that appropriate adults promptly attend the police station;
• make sure officers consider the needs and record the VoC and refer them to children’s social care services when necessary; and
• work with local authorities to ensure that children charged and refused bail are moved to appropriate alternative accommodation and not held in custody overnight.

We recommend that within three months, the constabulary should improve its programme of vulnerability training for staff working in custody to improve:

• the recording of information in custody logs to reflect the individual circumstances of a child and the investigation of the offence they have committed; and
• a rationale for the action they have taken to detain and continue to detain.

Police detention: Summary of post-inspection review findings

The constabulary and its partners have improved custody arrangements for children.

Children receive help from appropriate adults, healthcare professionals, and liaison and diversion staff.

Officers aren’t consistently recording the voices of the children they arrest.

Custody personnel understand they should find alternative accommodation for detained children.

Reviews of children’s detention are inconsistent and don’t always consider the VoC.

Police detention: Detailed post-inspection review findings

Case audits

We audited nine cases of children in police detention:

• five were good
• two required improvement
• two were inadequate.

The constabulary and its partners have improved custody arrangements for children

The constabulary’s custody personnel have worked with their partners to review and improve the way children are looked after when they are in police detention.

The constabulary’s custody managers closely monitor the numbers of children that officers arrest and take into custody. Managers dip-sample custody records to understand what happens to these children while they are in custody, and they give feedback to their staff to improve the way they work.

Children in custody are always seen by healthcare professionals and usually by liaison and diversion personnel. This is positive because it means children’s health, including mental well-being, is professionally assessed and referrals can be made to get additional help. It also means that non-criminal justice outcomes for children can be considered at an early stage.

In most cases where children are in custody, officers quickly contact appropriate adults, who attend without delay to support the children. This is positive because it means that children aren’t isolated for long periods of time without an independent adult to explain processes and advocate for them.

Officers aren’t consistently recording the voices of arrested children

When children are arrested and taken into custody, the arresting officers are expected to complete a VPA about the incident. We also saw that when officers arrested children, they contacted children’s social care, including the emergency duty team personnel.

But we also saw that VPA forms didn’t always include information about the child’s risk and vulnerability. Arresting officers aren’t consistently recording information about the VoC, because they focus on the reasons for the child’s arrest and their behaviour when taken into custody. It means that arresting officers are still dealing with arrested children primarily as offenders and not as vulnerable children – either because of their age or because they are involved in serious crime. This means that some children don’t get the services they need while in custody. Or they may not get the support they need to keep them safe in the community after release from custody.

Custody personnel understand they should find alternative accommodation for detained children

Custody personnel routinely contact the local authority at an early stage for the provision of alternative accommodation for a child likely to be charged and refused bail. They understand when they should request secure or non-secure accommodation and record clear reasons for this. This is helpful as it gives children’s social care staff more time to arrange these scarce resources.

Secure accommodation wasn’t available as an alternative to police detention for any of the children refused bail that we reviewed. When alternative accommodation isn’t available, custody personnel record their requests and reasons why it is necessary to keep the child in police detention.

Custody officers always complete certificates of juvenile detention for children refused bail.

Reviews of children’s detention are inconsistent

We saw inspectors’ reviews of children’s continued detention. But sometimes these reviews were carried out remotely or when the child was asleep. So, the inspector didn’t always speak to the child and consider their perspective. In these situations, the VoC wasn’t considered fully within the decision-making process. Therefore, the impact of the continued detention for the child wasn’t balanced against the need to continue detention. We also saw a review that used inappropriate child-blaming language.

Next steps

Cheshire Constabulary has made some progress in response to our 2022 recommendations. But the constabulary recognises that it still needs to improve in some areas, to provide consistently better outcomes for children. We are, however, confident that the constabulary understands where it needs to improve. We are also satisfied that senior leaders have plans to make these improvements and monitor progress.

As part of our routine monitoring of all police forces, we will continue to evaluate Cheshire Constabulary’s performance in relation to these recommendations and instigate closer scrutiny if needed.

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Cheshire – National Child Protection Inspection Post-Inspection Review