Specialist Child Sexual Exploitation Services
Case reference FOI2026/02419
Received 6 October 2026
Published 28 October 2026
Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please could you provide the following information for each of the financial years 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26:
1. The total amount of money spent by the council on specialist child sexual exploitation (CSE) services or teams in each financial year.
2. The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff employed by the council specifically within specialist CSE services or teams in each financial year.
3. As of 31 March 2026, does the council operate a dedicated specialist CSE service or team? If yes, please provide the name of the service or team.
Please provide the information broken down by financial year where applicable.
For the purposes of this request, please include specialist services or teams whose primary responsibility is supporting, assessing or working with children at risk of or experiencing child sexual exploitation.
Where CSE provision sits within a broader child exploitation service, please include it where a specific CSE function or team exists.
I am seeking aggregate figures only and am not requesting any personal data. If any part of this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit, please provide the information that can be supplied within the limit and advise which part of the request would exceed it.
Response
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please could you provide the following information for each of the financial years
2021/22,
2022/23,
2023/24,
2024/25 and
2025/26:
1. The total amount of money spent by the council on specialist child sexual exploitation (CSE) services or teams in each financial year.
Answer:
2021/22 £204,311.10
2022/23 £373,236.30
2023/24 £368,902.44
2024/25 £359,287.09
2025/26 £386,049.95
2. The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff employed by the council specifically within specialist CSE services or teams in each financial year.
2021/22 5.5 FTE
2022/23 7.5 FTE
2023/24 7 FTE
2024/25 7 FTE
2025/26 7 FTE
3. As of 31 March 2026, does the council operate a dedicated specialist CSE service or team? If yes, please provide the name of the service or team.
Answer: The service area has advised that yes, the council does operate a dedicated specialist service called Safe Team.
Please provide the information broken down by financial year where applicable.
For the purposes of this request, please include specialist services or teams whose primary responsibility is supporting, assessing or working with children at risk of or experiencing child sexual exploitation.
Where CSE provision sits within a broader child exploitation service, please include it where a specific CSE function or team exists.
I am seeking aggregate figures only and am not requesting any personal data.
If any part of this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit, please provide the information that can be supplied within the limit and advise which part of the request would exceed it.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.