Significant increases in the number of allegations of rape and sexual assault against children are stretching the resources of the Metropolitan Police unit responsible for investigating them, a new London Assembly report has found.
The Police and Crime Committee report Keeping London’s children safe: The Met’s role in safeguarding children[1] found that from 2009/10 to 2013/14 the number of alleged child rapes and sexual assaults against children rose by 34 per cent to 583 allegations of child rape and 1803 allegations of sexual assault. In the last year alone allegations of these serious offenses rose by well over 10%.
Over the same five year period the number of police officers dedicated to investigating sexual offences, including those against adults, exploitation and child abuse has risen by 22% to 966 officers but despite the extra financial resource committed, the Met has not yet filled all of these posts.
While the report recognises significant improvements in the way the Met approaches child protection, including improved cooperative working with many other agencies, it calls for increases in the number of officers dedicated to tackling the one third increase in reported cases of the sexual abuse of children in London.
Deputy Chair of the Police and Crime Committee Caroline Pidgeon AM said:
“While the number of allegations of child rape and sexual assault make horrendous reading it is encouraging that more people now feel confident enough to report these horrific crimes to the police.”
“When they do so the Met must have sufficient resources in place to ensure robust enquiries regardless of whether the case involved a celebrity many years ago or a neighbour or relative just yesterday.”
“Our investigation found many encouraging improvements in the way the Met approach their child safeguarding responsibilities and how they and many other agencies are working together to protect London’s children.”
“Those improvements must not be put at risk by significantly increasing the workloads of officers who have to deal with difficult investigations into harrowing cases.”
The report also recommends the appointment of more senior officers to work in the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASH), which bring all partners involved in safeguarding together to share information and actions. Officers working in the MASH should be of sufficient seniority to be able to commit the Met and its resources to appropriate actions identified at MASH meetings.
The report makes the following recommendations to the Met and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC).
- The Met should increase numbers of officers assigned to SOECA to ensure it is comprehensively staffed to meet immediate challenges and long-term demand. The Met should publish its strategic review of demand and staffing levels and MOPAC should monitor staffing levels, levels of supervision and management structures in SOECA.
- MOPAC should monitor the Met’s involvement in Serious Case Reviews, measuring impact and improvement.
- The Met’s formal review and impact assessment of changes to intelligence services should include an assessment of how they have affected child protection and safeguarding services and provide a report on that impact to the Committee by January 2015.
- The Met should work with partners to look at increasing multi-agency training.
- The Met should appoint sufficiently senior officers with the authority to direct resources to Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASH) and explore closer working between the MASH and Child Abuse Investigation Teams.
- Within the next year the Met should review the evidence and impact of the Child Sexual Exploitation Protocol (CSE) on reporting and identification of CSE in London and the level of resource dedicated to tackling CSE.
- MOPAC and the Met should conduct a mapping exercise to understand the nature of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) within different communities in London, to identify which children are at risk, and to establish the extent to which FGM is practised in the capital in order to target resources.
- MOPAC should set out a clear performance monitoring framework for holding the Met to account on their safeguarding children duties.
Notes to editors:
- Copy of report attached.
- Investigation page.
- Caroline Pidgeon AM, Deputy Chair of the Police and Crime Committee, is available for interview. See contact details below.
- The Police and Crime Committee is responsible for examining the activities of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and investigating matters it considers to be of importance to policing and crime reduction in London.
- The Police and Crime Committee is established under s32 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011.
- As well as investigating issues that matter to Londoners, the London Assembly acts as a check and a balance on the Mayor.
For more details, please contact Alison Bell in the Assembly Media Office on 020 7983 4228. For out-of-hours media enquiries please call 020 7983 4000 and ask for the Assembly duty press officer. Non-media enquiries should be directed to the Public Liaison Unit, Greater London Authority, on 020 7983 4100.