Missing children: new police system to assess risk

There are an estimated 220,000 reports to police a year of missing children. But they say around one-third are low-risk, and many involve people who regularly go missing from care.

A recent children’s commissioner report stated that going missing was a key indicator of child sexual exploitation.

From April, police call takers will risk assess reports into two categories –

• absent: not at a place where they are expected or required to be
• missing: when circumstances are out of character or context, suggesting they maybe at risk

The move follows a three-month pilot study with the three forces – Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and West Midlands – under the Home Office programme to reduce bureaucracy.

Some 1,700 police hours – 25 per cent of shifts – were saved, and police chiefs say there’s no evidence that safeguarding children was undermined.

Identifying good care homes

The evaluation report of the pilot found police critical of care homes, which they say simply pass the buck and use the them as a taxi service when children go missing for a couple of hours.

Acpo lead for missing children Chief Constable Pat Geenty said this system will help identify the good and the not-so-good care homes.

Some charities have raised concerns over how the risks are assessed by those in police call centres. They point to one case in the pilot study where a care home reported a 14-year-old girl missing whom they regarded as high-risk because it was said she was becoming involved with sex workers and possibly heroin.

But the police classified the incident as an absence, and it took 72 hours before it was upgraded to missing following the intervention of a senior safeguarding partner.

Efficiency, not safeguarding

Ellen Broome, director of policy at The Children’s Society, said –

“While the evaluation touches upon the issue, its purpose was to assess efficiency savings and not safeguarding implications. We would like to see a specific evaluation on this.

“The police say that they found no evidence during the three month pilots that children came to harm as a result of new definitions. But children that go missing are at risk from sexual exploitation and grooming that can happen over months or years.

“Safeguarding vulnerable children is a long term issue, and these pilots alone are too limited to draw any definite conclusion. It is absolutely essential that when these new definitions are rolled out across the country, police monitor how safeguarding is affected in each area over time and that appropriate measures are in place to protect children.

“There are also questions about who is making the vitally important decision to classify a child as ‘absent’ or ‘missing’, and whether they have an adequate understanding of the risks to children.

“If it is contact centre staff as the report suggests, then are they getting adequate guidance and training about risks for these vulnerable children? Will they be trained, for example, in how to spot the warning signs for child sexual exploitation and grooming?

“Lastly, we’d like to see a commitment that the potential savings made from these changes is invested back into proactively safeguarding vulnerable children. That would give us confidence that this isn’t just a cost-savings exercise.”