D&C Police welcomes report

Devon and Cornwall Police has welcomed a report from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and its acknowledgement of the hard work and commitment to improving services safeguarding children.

The Force has made a clear commitment to prioritising safeguarding and to making it everybody’s responsibility which means that all members of staff will be expected to be able to competently deal with all aspects of child protection. This is reflected in the fact that officers respond quickly and can immediately deal with any threat risk and harm in respect of children and young people.

The report clearly highlights that the Force is working hard with its partners, including Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards, to ensure that the best possible standards are delivered by our frontline services.

Detective Superintendent Paul Northcott, head of Devon and Cornwall’s public protection unit, said: “The Force has specialist staff that are dedicated and trained to undertake complex child abuse investigations and who on a daily basis work to protect the interests of some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

“We have also invested in developing and implementing a fresh approach to the way we assesses risk and work with other agencies to prevent, investigate and deliver tangible outcomes in relation to child safeguarding. This process will be implemented by the end of this year and will involve all of our frontline staff receiving additional training in this area.

“We recognise that we have to continue to improve the services we deliver and we have embraced a considerable amount of change already in response to this report.

Det Supt Northcott added: “We are working hard to deliver improved outcomes for children and work that has been undertaken by the Force has shown that we have to improve recording standards, as often a great deal of work has taken place but has not been captured within the Force’s IT systems.

“In respect of Child Sexual Exploitation, the Force has a dedicated team which deal with these types of offences and we are working with all of our partners to deliver the standards contained within the Peninsula Protocol and Strategy.

“The Force also recognises the importance of not detaining children and young people in custody and at the time of the inspection we were working with children’s services across the peninsula to ensure appropriate arrangements are put into place to avoid this from occurring.

“This is particularly important when working with those that are suffering from mental illness and considerable progress has been made in this area of work.”