Child Sexual Exploitation
Case reference FOI2025/00735
Received 14 April 2025
Published 12 May 2025
Request
Can you please confirm: a) that your council currently operates these mechanisms and has a strategy to cover CSE,
b) the nature of these mechanisms used to monitor CSE and the strategy in place,
c) the current number of cases of CSE being monitored by your council,
d) the number of CSE cases monitored that are thought to be gang/group based (cases involving 2 or more perpetrators),
e) a breakdown of ethnicity and - if possible - age of the assumed victims of CSE being monitored by your council
f) a breakdown of ethnicity of perpetrators for cases being monitored by your council.
g) the number of cases being monitored each year between 2010 and 2024 (please use the most appropriate reporting date for this data and, if this is not available, please provide this information as of the 1st March of that year). If data is not available for a particular year then please specify the reason for this.
Response
Can you please confirm: a) that your council currently operates these mechanisms and has a strategy to cover CSE,
A: Herefordshire have a GETSAFE Team that screen with a multi-agency all contextual safeguarding getsafe risk assessments, this includes CSE. We support children and young people up to the age of 18 years old and up to the age of 25 years old if they are a care leaving adult within Hereford Council and consent to on-going support.
The 2022-2025 strategy can be found at - Get Safe - Contextual Safeguarding - Herefordshire Safeguarding Boards and Partnerships
b) the nature of these mechanisms used to monitor CSE and the strategy in place,
A: In addition to above, Herefordshire hold weekly multi-agency meetings to discuss and review all children at risk of exploitation. An initial Multi Agency Child Exploitation (MACE 1) is held and chaired by the Safe Team Manager and subsequent reviews are held. Monthly MACE 2 meetings are chaired by the police and the focus on these meetings are prevent and disrupt, discussion regarding missing children of note, police operations, hotspots within Herefordshire and if any Child Abduction Warning Notices have been issued. These meetings feed into the overall bi-monthly Child Exploitation and Missing Group chaired by the Head of Service for Herefordshire which oversees and offer scrutiny to operational matters.
c) the current number of cases of CSE being monitored by your council,
A: 23 children and young people are being supported currently under the category of CSE.
d) the number of CSE cases monitored that are thought to be gang/group based (cases involving 2 or more perpetrators),
A: 0
e) a breakdown of ethnicity and - if possible - age of the assumed victims of CSE being monitored by your council
A: 1 Other ethnicity
22 White British
Between the age of 10- 21 years old.
f) a breakdown of ethnicity of perpetrators for cases being monitored by your council.
A: No data collated on perpetrators. Children/older children are seen as victims. Any data on perpetrators are held by police. They can be contacted via the below link:
Freedom of Information (FOI) | Police.uk
g) the number of cases being monitored each year between 2010 and 2024 (please use the most appropriate reporting date for this data and, if this is not available, please provide this information as of the 1st March of that year). If data is not available for a particular year then please specify the reason for this.
A: The Service Area are able to provide data from 2014 onwards. Prior to that, they did not record it.
|
2014 |
17 |
|
2015 |
37 |
|
2016 |
74 |
|
2017 |
32 |
|
2018 |
34 |
|
2019 |
76 |
|
2020 |
12 |
|
2021 |
29 |
|
2022 |
30 |
|
2023 |
32 |
|
2024 |
45 |
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.