Operation Linden recommendations - South Yorkshire Police and College of Policing, November 2021

The IOPC recommends South Yorkshire Police ensures knowledge and skills of those involved in child sexual exploitation work are kept up to date as part of their continuous improvement cycle. This should include: • regular training to take into account staff turnover

• continuing professional development needs

• any emerging issues and new developments in best practice

Our investigations found officers and staff without the right skills were often expected to lead on child sexual exploitation investigations, and individuals were given tasks they were not trained to carry out.

There have been many improvements in child sexual exploitation training nationally. South Yorkshire Police advised us they have implemented their own new measures to help ensure officers and staff receive appropriate training to deal with child sexual exploitation. This was acknowledged by HMICFRS in its 2018/19 PEEL report which said South Yorkshire Police “develops its workforce and leaders well and understands the skills and capabilities that it needs now and for the future. The force has good professional and leadership development programmes in place…”.

However, there is more work to be done to build on and maintain the knowledge and skills of South Yorkshire Police officers and staff. Police officers we spoke to said they would welcome more refresher training that also includes more recent, and challenging exploitation cases, to help them consider new issues that they will need to be prepared for.

The IOPC recommends the College of Policing looks for further opportunities to incorporate the ‘voice of survivors’ in national training about child sexual exploitation and provide guidance on how the ‘voice of survivors’ can be incorporated into local training by forces.

Listening to and understanding survivor experiences can be a powerful way to raise awareness of child sexual exploitation-related issues in training sessions and develop empathy. We are aware that South Yorkshire Police considered an offer from a survivor to participate in its training sessions but did not take this up because it was concerned it would distress the survivor.

While reliving their experience during a number of training sessions could be traumatising, there are other approaches which could incorporate the voices of survivors without causing trauma, allowing survivor experiences to be heard and showing officers the impact of police handling of an investigation. For example, South Yorkshire Police has used contributions from a survivor’s parents and have shown a video describing one victim’s experience.

The IOPC recommends the College of Policing looks for opportunities to use any elements of Operation Linden in future training (for example case studies).

While the issues we examined happened between 1992 and 2013, and there has been a great deal of work in this area by the police service since, we are concerned that some issues still exist today, and there are still lessons to be learnt from this across policing.

Real examples, or case studies based on actual examples, can help bring some of these issues to life and help officers and staff consider what they would have done in that situation.

The IOPC recommends South Yorkshire Police takes steps to ensure that crime recording practice in its public protection departments is compliant with the Home Office Counting Rules for Recorded Crime.

We found many instances where crimes were not recorded when they should have been, including reports of sexual assault or sexual activity with a child. South Yorkshire Police has provided us with detailed information on action to improve crime recording practice. In its 2018 crime data integrity inspection in South Yorkshire Police HMICFRS found that South Yorkshire Police had improved crime-recording processes since the previous report in 2014 and that there was ‘a commitment to crime recording that is victim-focused’. A significant improvement in the recording of sexual offence crimes since 2014 was noted and some good practice in scrutiny and auditing by the force crime bureau and force crime registrar was highlighted. The report also said that vulnerable victims were supported through the force’s safeguarding arrangements, even in those cases that had not been recorded.

However, the 2014 inspection highlighted a cause for concern about crimes involving vulnerable adults and children reported directly to South Yorkshire Police’s public protection department (mostly through professional third-party reports) were not all being recorded. We are concerned that HMICFRS’ re-inspection of crime data integrity in South Yorkshire Police (2020) found there had been no discernible improvement to this. In particular, inspectors found significant under-recording of crimes committed against vulnerable children.

The IOPC recommends that South Yorkshire Police ensure it has a way of effectively monitoring compliance with the Victims’ Code. This should include the quality of interactions between itself and others and not just a ‘tick box exercise’ of the various entitlements being made available.

Our investigations highlighted many issues with how police officers and staff dealt with child sexual exploitation victims and survivors. South Yorkshire Police has told us about the changes made to improve practice in this area.

The Victims’ Code is an important tool to help criminal justice agencies, including the police, ensure they are providing an appropriate level of service. We note that the Victims’ Commissioner’s national review in 2018/19 found that monitoring of compliance with the Victims’ Code had been almost non-existent across all forces.

The IOPC recommends South Yorkshire Police take steps to ensure that victims are regularly updated, and at least once every 28 days, in line with expectations.

South Yorkshire Police told us that IT system changes mean that once a crime is recorded using Connect (the police records management system) the investigating officer is now prompted to keep victims updated regularly, and at least once every 28 days. However, when we spoke to the local independent sexual violence advisor (ISVA) service manager10, they told us that the updates do not always happen in practice. They said ISVAs regularly receive calls from victims complaining that they have not been updated.

The IOPC recommends South Yorkshire Police continues to work with the local ISVA service to improve its working arrangements. This should include: • a named point of contact at South Yorkshire Police for use by the ISVA service • ensuring that South Yorkshire Police representatives who have contact with victims and survivors fully understand the ISVA service’s role and can explain this to others when needed • agreement on how updates are provided to victims and survivors • how the ISVA service could be involved in South Yorkshire Police training to help raise awareness about its role and responsibilities and how they can work together

South Yorkshire Police provided us with information recognising the importance of working with specialists such as ISVAs and child independent sexual violence advisors to support child sexual exploitation survivors, help police maintain contact with survivors, and help officers gather evidence.

They described the process they follow to make a referral to these services, explaining the need to obtain a victim or survivor’s consent or that of a parent/guardian.

However, the local ISVA service manager told us that when an investigating officer does not fully understand or explain the ISVA role, this can directly impact whether or not someone provides consent for their contact details to be passed on. This has the effect of delaying any contact with and support from the ISVA service.

Additionally, ISVAs are not always used as effectively as they could be. Sometimes they are used just to pass on updates instead of there being any direct contact between the officer and the survivor. Sometimes they are not used at all.

The IOPC recommends that during its mapping exercise South Yorkshire Police continues to engage with communities to strengthen and build trust and confidence in the police service to encourage a willingness to provide information/intelligence to help tackle local issues.

When investigating the handling of child sexual exploitation in South Yorkshire, we found there were missed opportunities to approach community leaders for their views on how to develop community cohesion and/or identify any actions South Yorkshire Police could consider to help tackle child sexual exploitation.

South Yorkshire Police told us it has started a mapping exercise across its four districts to ensure it has contacts in all identified communities to respond more promptly in the future to their needs, understand the potential impact of any national or international incidents on them, and to offer reassurance and support when necessary.

The IOPC recommends that South Yorkshire Police continues to improve processes that enable SYP and partner agencies to better collaborate so that information that should be available and considered by everyone is effectively shared, understood and acted upon in a timely fashion. This will help to encourage good practice and enable any issues or misunderstandings about the process to be corrected quickly.

It appeared from our investigations that there was no clearly communicated agreement between South Yorkshire Police and other agencies on what constituted intelligence and how it should be shared. Some South Yorkshire Police officers we spoke to told us that it would have been good to have received feedback on information they had submitted to reassure them they had done it correctly and it was useful. The same type of feedback would also be likely to be helpful to other agencies working with the police. We acknowledge that in many instances it will not be possible, or even appropriate to give feedback.

The IOPC recommends that the Chair and CEO of the Police Digital Service consider whether existing ICT solutions could be used differently or any changes to ICT (and any other supporting systems and protocols) are required to enable frontline officers to have more immediate access to relevant information from other forces to enable them to more effectively protect and safeguard vulnerable people. This should include working with the NPCC to encourage good practice across forces.

Response from the Police Digital Service

We are grateful to the IOPC for the consideration of PDS in this recommendation and will work with our Board and NPCC and other stakeholders to progress this work.

The IOPC recommends South Yorkshire Police considers how it can assess and demonstrate the impact of action taken to address issues in handling child sexual exploitation. This should include how they understand whether actions have achieved the intended effect and considering how they inform the community of progress made to help improve public awareness and confidence.

Response from South Yorkshire Police

The force is constantly looking at ways in which it can improve the trust and confidence the public has in its ability to tackle Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), rape and serious sexual offences. The most recent HMICFRS independent inspection assessed the force as ‘good’ at Protecting Vulnerable People (PVP). The force’s current PVP review will deliver improvements in the way the force investigates all serious sexual offences including rape and CSE and the current work ongoing to improve our response to rape has victim engagement and support as one of its key pillars.

The success of this work will be measured not only through the successful prosecutions secured as a result of these improvements but will also be assessed through our proactive preventative work and surveys with victims. These surveys will request feedback on how well victims have been dealt with by the force and the agencies supporting it. Victim feedback will be key to monitoring the success of our improvements and this feedback will be obtained directly and through the Police and Crime Commissioner’s (PCC’s) commissioned services such as Independent Sexual Violence Advisors.

The Head of Professional Standards is working collaboratively with the Office of the PCC to implement processes to identify and embed learning from all public complaints, including those relating to CSE.  Processes have also been implemented internally to ensure learning from such investigations and complaints is captured, recorded and actioned. This is reported directly into the Organisational Learning Board chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable.

The force is held to account via the PCC’s Public Accountability Board where it is periodically required to report specifically on CSE. This links directly with our delivery plan on Violence Against Women and Girls. The force media team run regular updates on CSE particularly relating to the successful prosecution of CSE perpetrators. Through a campaign called ‘Don’t be Exposed’, the force uses SnapChat to focus on parents of young people, warning them of the signs of exploitation. The force has a public facing web page on CSE: https://www.southyorks.police.uk/find-out/crime-prevention-advice/child-sexual-exploitation/(link is external) . This is regularly updated with news, advice and guidance for the public. The media team are planning a new campaign this year focussing on exploitation. A large part of this will be on CSE, highlighting early signs of CSE and CCE (Child Criminal Exploitation) encouraging the public to take action and make reports to police.

The IOPC recommends that the College of Policing and NPCC work together to explore the creation of a forum to identify the major issues for policing, agree priorities for learning and development at a national level and provide leadership, advice and support to police forces. It is anticipated that such a forum would involve as a minimum the College of Policing, NPCC, IOPC and HMICFRS. Such an approach would also need to take into account the need for individual chief officers to make their own decisions about priorities taking into account local context and issues.

Response from the College of Policing and NPCC

The recommendation was discussed at the NPCC National Police Learning and Development Executive meeting on the 8 March 2022. The NPCC will lead coordination with the CoP, IOPC and HMICFRS to identify the major issues for policing, agree priorities for learning and development at a national level and provide leadership, advice, and support to police forces. The CoP has existing and established processes to address NPCC requests and priorities as they come in.

The NPCC Child Protection and Abuse Investigations (CPAI) working group has refreshed its structure and approach over the last six months. The working group intends to be a policing delivery group, and membership consists of Protecting Vulnerable People (PVP) incorporating the various leads within forces for vulnerability and regional leads from all forces, plus British Transport Police and armed forces policing. HMICFRS are represented and IOPC representation is sought.

DCC Critchley, as NPCC lead, has been working to identify perennial issues and key learning themes through dialogue and workshops. The CPAI working group aims to enable open discussion and debate, identify shared problems and risks, and share and develop promising or good practice in response to the threat of child abuse, including child sexual abuse and exploitation. Wider stakeholder insight is presented to the group on a quarterly basis, facilitated by a monthly stakeholder insight group.

Work is also in progress with HMIC to develop practitioner workshops to identify shared issues and agree priorities for learning and development at regional and local levels. The central point for dissemination of this work will be the CPAI working group.

The NPCC and CoP have regular discussions amongst those responsible for policing standards and evidence-based learning regarding child protection and abuse; and this includes the provision of jointly produced learning materials and, additions and revisions to the CoPs Authorised Professional Practice (APP).

Explanation of these actions serve to demonstrate the commitment of the NPCC and the CoP to effectively respond with consistency to Recommendation 12. The NPCC and the CoP place a high priority on supporting the IOPC to deliver its recommendations and we will continue to provide updates regarding progress.

The IOPC recommends that South Yorkshire Police continues to improve processes that enable SYP and partner agencies to better collaborate so that information that should be available and considered by everyone is effectively shared, understood and acted upon in a timely fashion. This will help to encourage good practice and enable any issues or misunderstandings about the process to be corrected quickly.

Response from South Yorkshire Police

South Yorkshire Police absolutely accept that during the period of the Operation Linden investigation (1997-2013), the processes for sharing information between partners, tracking activity, and feeding back, were ineffective. Today, that is manifestly not the case, and particularly in Rotherham the Evolve Team represents a comprehensive multi agency response to receiving, managing and acting upon intelligence. These processes have recently been the subject of an independent review commissioned through the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board. The Review Team described finding ‘evidence through police systems, process and its meetings structure of a robust and holistic framework that provides a cradle to grave approach, to not just intelligence management but also to how it monitors the standards of investigations.’

South Yorkshire Police has a culture of continuous improvement and encourages both internal and external challenge in order to achieve this. This recommendation is accepted in that context.

Rotherham has a weekly Child Exploitation Tactical Group (CETG) in place. This is an intelligence led meeting where Police and partners attend to review all new and ongoing intelligence submissions, with a view to identifying and understanding the risks and concerns, along with any safeguarding, evidential or disruption opportunities. Information is shared and actions and plans are identified to mitigate/eliminate risks or create further intelligence development avenues. Missing children deemed to be at risk of exploitation are also considered during this process. Partners who attend the CETG include – Police, Children’s Social Care, Health, Youth Offending Services, Barnardo’s, Local Authority CSE Teams, Housing, Licensing, ASB Officers.

All four Districts have a monthly Child Exploitation Subgroup Meeting, which falls out of the Local Safeguarding Children Partnerships. In Rotherham this is known as a Child Exploitation Delivery Group. Here strategic decisions are taken with regards to the delivery of child exploitation across the partnership, which are reported back to the LSCPB for sign off.

SYP and our partners have embedded and tested multi-agency processes for any child identified as being subjected to or at risk of exploitation, as per ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018’. This can take the form of a multi-agency Section 47 (child at risk if significant harm) Strategy meeting, Child Protection Conference or referral to MACE – Multi-Agency Child Exploitation meeting. All four Local Authorities have Child Exploitation Teams which work closely with Police to identify, safeguard and support victims.

The primary mechanism for multi-agency oversight on cases involving Child Exploitation is the MACE process. This is a national framework and is embedded across all four Districts of South Yorkshire. All Districts hold a weekly MACE which is well attended by multi-agency professionals, including Education, Health, Social Care, Police, Probation, Youth Crime Prevention, Youth Offending Services and Psychological services.

Children most at risk of exploitation are referred into the MACE process, which includes children subjected to both CSE and/or CCE. Action relating to safeguarding, diversion, prevention, and additional support are outcomes from MACE, which is a victim focussed process.