Shake-up of Middlesbrough Council procedures to tackle child sex exploitation

A “short, sharp” check of Middlesbrough Council procedures has been ordered in the fight against child sex exploitation in the town.

Better training for care home staff, foster carers and frontline council workers to spot the signs as well as asking the Government to make necessary a Public Service Vehicle (PSV) licence to operate a public hire vehicle of nine seats or more are among the recommendations.

The local authority’s community safety and leisure scrutiny panel investigated the issue and published their findings in a report.

It follows national publicity regarding the problem of child sex exploitation and the panel’s aim was to assess the extent of the problem in Middlesbrough, examine what services are in place to tackle this problem and what additional measures should be taken to combat it.

The recommendations also include: a “short, sharp” check of current council procedures against national guidelines and communications between licensing and safeguarding teams; Tees Strategic VEMT (Vulnerable, Exploited, Missing and Trafficked children group) to explore the improved sharing of information between the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board and health authorities; and increasing activities of Operation Safe to be considered.

Also, as a number of Middlesbrough’s secondary schools are now independently run academies, the panel asked the Children, Families and Learning Department to consider ensuring all schools are regularly reminded of the warning signs of CSE, pooling budgets between schools for training and finding a small amount of funding to provide trained counsellors for schools.

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