To receive a report containing a review of issues relating to child exploitation in the Borough.

The Child Exploitation report was presented by Kelli Scott, Interim Service Manager, Children With Disabilities and Early Help.

Kelli Scott stated that the report provided an overview of what constituted child exploitation and Council’s response to it through contextual safeguarding.

Kelly Scott stated that the strategic response to Child Exploitation involved a series of partnership meetings at strategic level, aiming to understand and mitigate risk factors at an individual and community level through relationship based practice and disruption techniques.

Kelly Scott stated that the operational response to Child Exploitation was delivered through: Early Help provision; Statutory Social Work Services; KICKS  Project; Youth Mentoring; Positive Pathways Project and Youth Offending Service.

During the discussion of the item the following comments were made:

·           Members noted that the report did not contain data and asked if this could be provided;

·           Kelly Scott stated that a decision had been made not to include data in order to avoid potential identification;

·           Carol Cammiss stated that the data was confidential and she would investigate the possibility of being able to share this data;

·           In response to a question Kelli Scott stated that partnership working was being developed in relation to contextual safeguarding;

·           Members were concerned that it was not possible to know the scale of the problem without knowing the numbers.  Carol Cammiss agreed to look into the possibility of presenting the data in a Part 2 session;

·           In response to a question Kelli Scott stated that professionals were increasingly able to recognise/identify and respond to child exploitation, and therefore aware of more cases;

·           In response to a question Kelli Scott stated that there was generally more awareness of child exploitation resulting from national and local campaigns.

Members recognised that this was a difficult area of work and thanked Kelli Scott for the report.

RESOLVED That:

1)     The report be noted; and

2)     Future reports on Child Exploitation would include data whenever possible and the use of Part 2 to enable this would be explored.