Collect disaggregated CSE data
Police forces and local authorities in England and in Wales must collect data on all cases of known or suspected child sexual exploitation and child sexual exploitation by networks. These data should be separated from other data sets, including data on child sexual abuse, and be disaggregated by the sex, ethnicity and disability of both the victim and perpetrator. This disaggregated data should be used by police forces to inform problem profiling and activities to disrupt and investigate offenders. Local authorities should take account of the disaggregated data when commissioning services for children. The UK government and the Welsh Government should take steps to ensure that these data are being collected and disaggregated in a consistent and accurate way by police forces and local authorities.
- In January 2021, the government published the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy, which included commitments to improve data on the scale of CSE (Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy, Home Office, January 2021).
- No published assessment of whether a standardised core dataset on CSE has been implemented across all police forces and local authorities has been identified to March 2026.
How was this evidence gathered?
Response
Accepted in Part
Response
Accepted in PartOn 30 June 2022, the UK government provided the Inquiry with its provisional response to this recommendation. The UK government stated its final response to this recommendation would be provided within six months of the report's publication date, by 1 August 2022, and it will then be available on the Inquiry's website. On 30 June 2022, the Welsh Government stated that in March 2021 it introduced statutory guidance which requires relevant partners of the Safeguarding Board across Wales to establish arrangements which address the matters contained in this recommendation.
Progress Timeline
April 2025 government progress update: by June 2025 the Government will set out a timetable to act on Baroness Casey's audit of group-based child sexual exploitation, including any improvements to the collection and quality of data. A new police performance framework including new standards on public protection and child sexual abuse and exploitation to be introduced by May 2025.