Every child matters implementation update

Report: 8
Date: 13 December 2007
By: AC Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report provides members with details of the work undertaken by the MPS Every Child Matters Programme Board and the MPS position in delivering the ECM change agenda against the MPA benchmark and the development of work on public protection desks, safe recruiting processes, ICT systems and engagement with Local Safeguarding Children Boards. A bench marking grid is attached at Appendix 1.

A. Recommendation

That members consider the contents of this report against the MPA ECM benchmark and support the work being undertaken by the Every Child Matters Programme Board.

B. Supporting information

1. The Children Act 2004 is the Government’s response to the findings and recommendations of Lord Laming’s Public Enquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of Victoria Climbié. The Act is the legal framework for the Government’s national change programme ‘Every Child Matters – Change for Children’. The Children Act sets out a statutory requirement for all agencies working with children and young people to work in partnership to ensure that all children are able to achieve in life. Sec 10 sets out the duty for all agencies to cooperate to improve well-being and Sec 11 is a duty to promote safeguarding and well-being.

2. The full Every Child Matters (ECM) statutory requirement comes into effect in April 2008 by which time the MPS must have its ECM compliance business processes in place and have relevant staff trained. The statutory guidance sets out in some detail the expectations for all statutory agencies, including the police.

3. The benchmark grid created by the MPA has been used as an oversight tool for the MPS development of the ECM change for children agenda and clearly sets out the current MPS position against each of the requirements to be addressed (Appendix 1).

4. The MPS Every Child Matters (ECM) Programme Board has been working for the past two years to develop the strands of work that need to be completed to ensure that the MPS meet the statutory requirements of the Children Act 2004. ECM has now been firmly included in the appropriate new MPS strategies, being:

• The MPS Youth Strategy and
• The MPS Serious Violence Strategy.

The Youth Strategy is a two-year strategy outlining the MPS commitment to deliver long-term sustainable reductions in youth crime, harm to children and young people and anti-social behaviour. The Serious Violence Strategy is a two-year strategy outlining the MPS aims to reduce serious violence in London.

5. The ECM agenda and the two strategies impact on all aspects of policing, with Territorial Policing (TP), Violent Crime Directorate (VCD) and the Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5) being the primary MPS business groups whose work can most significantly influence the MPS ability to deliver.

Oversight of Police Force policy 1

The Police Force should ensure senior management commitment to safeguarding, promoting welfare and improving the well-being of Children and Young People with a clear line of accountability within the organisation

6. The MPS ECM Programme Board is chaired at Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) level, by Commander Safer Neighbourhoods, and has been in existence since September 2005. The work of the programme board is reported through the Youth Engagement Board and the Vulnerable Children and Young People Board to the MPS Youth Strategy Board chaired by the Deputy Assistant, Commissioner Territorial Policing. The Programme Board has a dedicated programme manager and police staff administration support. Commander Safer Neighbourhoods now also has national ACPO responsibility for ECM as recognition of the work undertaken by the MPS.

7. The ECM programme board meets bi-monthly and the work undertaken is circulated to partner organisations and the MPA. This includes a programme plan, risk register and a Sec 11 benchmarking document, all of which are subject to regular review and updates.

8. The programme board continues to be supported by senior MPS officers and staff representing the business groups whose work is directly impacted by the ECM agenda and who can contribute to ensuring the MPS are able to meet our statutory requirements. To ensure that the MPS consider the strategic issues and impact on the work by partner agencies, membership of the programme board includes; a representative from the London Councils, the Greater London Authority, a Director of Children Services, who also represents the Association of London Directors of Children Services (ALDCS); a Children’s Services Advisor from Government Office for London (GOL); a member of the Safeguarding Independent Advisory Group (SIAG) and the MPA.

9. To support the delivery of the ECM agenda the programme board has two project teams that report progress to the main board. Both these project teams have clear terms of reference with supporting plans and risk registers.

10. The ECM People Project team is chaired by a detective superintendent and is delivering, the MPS ECM safeguarding policy and system operating procedure (SOP), develop training, develop the role of a safeguarding desk and develop MPS safe recruiting standards for staff working with children and young people. This project team consists of staff who represent borough policing, the Child Abuse Command, the Violent Crime Directorate, Professional Standards, the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate and the Department of Public Affairs.

11. The ECM Systems Project team is chaired by a detective chief superintendent and is developing a safeguarding children information sharing process and the MPS ICT solutions that include:

1. Improvements to the MERLIN ICT system which will continue to be used to manage information about children and young people who are at risk or not achieving one or more of the five ECM Key Outcomes.
2. The development of CRIS to provide information to the national index ‘ContactPoint’
   This project team consists of staff who represent borough policing, the Intelligence Standard Unit and the MPS Directorate of Information (DOI).

12. The MPS is represented at the London Safeguarding Children Board and at a local level on each Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB). The MPS is represented on the LSCBs at Senior Management Team (SMT) level from the borough; additionally the detective inspector of the Child Abuse Investigation Team (SCD5) for that local authority area is also part of the LSCB. This enables the LSCB to tackle those issues around keeping children and young people safe with the full support of the MPS.

Oversight of Police Force policy 2

The Police Force should ensure that all officers and staff are familiar with the force commitment and responsibilities under ECM

13. To raise awareness of the ECM change for children agenda, the ECM communication strategy has been written and is included within the work of the ECM People Project. Communication managers representing the business areas most impacted by the ECM agenda support the communication plan. This includes the Department of Public Affairs who are responsible for internal communication and publicity, the Territorial Policing Press Office who handle external issues, the Human Resources Directorate and the DOI communication team. To ensure that communication strategy is coordinated with the roll out of ECM awareness training, from January 2008, a chief inspector has been appointed who can commit to this role on a full time basis from December 2007.

14. The communication work is supported by the creation of the ECM Intranet WEB page, which gives guidance to staff on the ECM agenda, roles and responsibilities and will link to the Safeguarding Children Operating procedures. The intranet site also has a link to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) website and other related sites including the London Safeguarding website, which gives access to the recently published London Child Protection Procedures.

15. As part of the ongoing awareness campaign the ECM Manager has continued to deliver presentations on ECM to staff working in roles where there is already a requirement that they understand the ECM change for children agenda, this includes Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5), Safer Schools Police Officers (SSP), and Safer Neighbourhood Officers attending the safer neighbourhoods initial course. In July 2007 four training days where held for all officers working in Safer Schools Partnerships (SSP) and the Youth Offending Teams (YOT), the emphasis of these days was to improve working practices and look at how ECM sits within their roles and their responsibilities. From December 2007, presentations are planned for all BOCU commanders at the link commander meetings, to update them on all ECM developments and the future changes planned for delivery up to April 2008.

Training being delivered

16. The MPS previously had training focused on child abuse and youth offending issues, which was given to new recruits as part of the probationer development training. Some additional training is given to newly promoted uniformed inspectors as part of the leadership course and staff joining the Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5) are given bespoke training.

17. As part of the ECM delivery work, the MPS have written a 3 hour classroom based ECM awareness training package that will be delivered as mandatory training to all police officers up to and including inspectors, police community support officers (PCSOs) and front line staff who come into contact with children and young people including dedicated detention officers (DDOs), forensic scene examiners (FSEs) and METCALL staff. It has been identified that this training will need to be delivered to up to 38,000 MPS staff. This training will be delivered by the MPS.

18. The training has two stages delivered during the same lesson. Session one has been designed to give staff an understanding of the Children Act, 2004, the objectives of the Every Child Matters agenda and the MPS mechanisms to gather, analyse and share information. Session two will give staff the knowledge necessary to identify concerns about the safety and well being of a child and how to submit (pre and post intervention) intelligence through the Pre-Assessment Checklist (PAC) process.

19. The ECM awareness package is currently being delivered to up to 275 OCU trainers from all MPS business groups. This training will end on the 7 January 2008 and the expectation is that the trainers will begin cascading the training to all MPS staff from January 2008. The ECM programme manager through the METHR system will monitor delivery of training across the MPS and details will be provided to the ECM programme board and the MPA.

20. As part of the ongoing ECM training, the content of the awareness training will be used to develop an ECM training package for new recruits and PCSOs and will also be used by the Crime Academy to update current training packages for investigators.

21. It has been agreed by the PCSO project board that all PCSOs will now be trained to record concerns about a child or young person onto MERLIN. To ensure all police officers and PCSOs have access to appropriate training a new MERLIN Computer Based Training (CBT) programme is being developed that will include all new functionality. This training will be supported by a new classroom based course aimed at supervisors and high-level users. New training will be available from March 2008.

Oversight of Police Force policy 3

The Police Force’s service development takes account of the need to safeguard, promote welfare and improve well-being of Children and Young People and is informed, where appropriate, by the views of children and families

22. The MPS Youth Strategy is written with ECM as the core theme throughout, with ‘Engagement with children and young people’ being one of the four work strands. The creation of the MPS Youth Strategy Board chaired by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Territorial Policing will enable the coordination of all policing issues that impact on children and young people. Through the ECM change for children agenda, the MPS are seeking to ensure that children are considered in all policies. The Equalities Impact Assessment now includes children and young people under the age of 18, as a distinct group that should be considered when creating all future policies and reviewing current policies.

23. As one of the partner agencies working to deliver ECM in the local authority areas the MPS continue to be part of local consultation exercises that take place, this includes the consultation with children and young people over the development of the local Children and Young People Plans.

24. The MPS are currently developing a process to allow greater involvement of children and young people in public consultation by 2008. This work is being coordinated by the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate and MPS strategy Coordination Unit

Oversight of Police Force policy 4

The Police Force engages in effective partnership working to safeguard, promote welfare and improve well-being of Children and Young People

25. The Child Abuse Command continues to deliver extremely effective partnership working, with their partnership team working together with stakeholders including the London and Local Safeguarding Children Boards, Independent Advisory Group, and community partnerships to explore and identify issues that concern minority communities and develop effective awareness and preventative strategies. The involvement of the borough police with LSCBs and the development of Children and Young People Plans have improved local working and future development of the public protection desks and the Safeguarding Children SOPs will help to address some of the areas highlighted in previous reports, such as:

• Improvements in joint working between police and social services departments outside of the Child Abuse Command,
• Improvements to communication and sharing of information, especially tackling issues affecting children who are at risk of sexual exploitation,
• Appropriate attendance by borough police officers at strategy meetings and case conferences where concerns about the children considered most at risk of abuse are discussed in multi agency meetings to decide on a protection plan (formerly the Child Protection Registers).

26. The Children Act 2004 requires greater sharing of information between all agencies working with children and young people. For the police service this means:

• Agreeing information sharing protocols
• Accessing the 32 different London Common Assessment Framework systems
• Inputting data and searching ‘ContactPoint’ the DCSF National Information Sharing Index.

27. The Safeguarding SOPs will contain very clear guidance on information sharing processes in relation to children and young people; this guidance has been adapted from the current DCSF information sharing guidance and offers practical advice to staff being asked or wishing to share information on the welfare or safety of a child. The London Councils are in the process of writing a pan London information sharing protocol and the MPS have been invited to be part of this process. Currently there is an information sharing protocol in place for the sharing of MERLIN reports electronically by Child Abuse Investigation Teams, with local authority children services departments. This protocol will be suitable for use when the public protection desks are in place and will enable the sharing of information electronically with partner agencies when they have access to a secure e-mail service.

28. Implementation of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) has required the MPS to review the way information on children at potential risk of harm is processed. The current policy requires officers to report interactions with children at potential risk of harm by way of a Merlin ‘coming to notice’ report, which is then automatically forwarded to the local Child Abuse Investigation Team. As part of the new MPS Safeguarding Children process, the MERLIN system is being adapted so that it can capture the information needed to generate a Pre Assessment Checklist. To support the ECM five key outcomes and the CAF process the current CTN threshold has been reviewed and now captures a broader range of concerns which will be recorded by staff and where appropriate shared with partner agencies, both statutory and voluntary.

29. The previous analyses of the instances of police recording information about children and young people identified that yearly around 500,000 records are made on various ICT and paper systems across London, of which 120,000 (20%) were recorded onto MERLIN. It is anticipated that with the awareness training, improvements to MERLIN and the introduction of a public protection desk, the number of MERLIN reports will increase substantially. This will have an impact on our partner agencies and this has been highlighted, through consultation with the London Councils and Directors of Children’s Services.

30. The DCSF have announced plans to develop a national Electronic CAF process, this project is being lead by the Director responsible for the ContactPoint project and as such is now being closely linked to the ContactPoint project. The MPS have developed a close working relationship with the DCSF ContactPoint team and through this will be able to develop any possible ICT solutions required to allow links into the E-CAF. It is unlikely that a national E-CAF system will be delivered before 2010 and the MPS will continue to use the MERLIN system to record information about children and young people and use this to produce a PAC that can be shared with other agencies and inform the CAF process.

31. ‘ContactPoint’ which was formerly referred to as the ‘National Information Sharing Index’, is being developed by the DCSF and will contain specific information of all children up to the age of 18 living in England. Access to the system will enable all professionals working with children to identify if there are concerns about that child and will provide contact details for the professional who will have additional information that could help to safeguard that child. The MPS Crime Reporting Information System (CRIS) has been identified as the system that will notify ContactPoint of children that the organisation holds significant information on. The electronic processes for this to happen are still being assessed with continued liaison between the ContactPoint Team and the MPS Department Of Information. The searching of ContactPoint will be possible for trained staff via an Internet link, it is envisaged that up to 1,500 MPS staff may need to be trained on searching ContactPoint.

Oversight of Police Force policy 5

Operational policies and processes in place – considerations for working with individual children/forces

32. The recording of children taken into police protection, under Section 46 Children Act 1989 on CRIS has been implemented. This now allows for improvements to initial supervision and case handover. The process is managed by SCD5 who are addressing issues around compliance. The process is included as part of the ECM training package and is also part of existing training given on the MPS leadership course to Sergeants and Inspectors on promotion.

33. As part of the development of the borough based public protection desks, the MPS will be improve its prioritisation of the investigation of crime and protection of children from harm. The close working with Barnardo’s to support the work being done in North London and in Croydon around child sexual exploitation has already identified good practice that will be incorporated into the safeguarding SOPs.

Public Protection Desks

34. Over the last year the ECM programme has been considering options to improve systems to ensure all information the wider MPS has access to, is accurately recorded, analysed, developed, shared and acted upon to reduce risks posed to and by young people. The creation of a public protection desk will enable each BOCU to proactively identify concerns about a child’s well-being and ability to stay safe, it will provide actionable intelligence to focus activity towards safeguarding children, task action to address those who present a threat to vulnerable people; and task action to address those involved in criminal activity. This will provide more intervention opportunities across the continuum of offending and victimisation, will help to prevent violent crime and increase public confidence in policing. The decision maker, potentially the detective inspector responsible for Community Safety and Public Protection, will ensure that those cases falling within the terms of reference of SCD5 are referred to them, that pre-assessment checks are completed properly and that actionable intelligence is acted upon appropriately.

35. The functions of this focus desk will include a daily review of information in respect of vulnerable people (including children), dangerous people and dangerous places, assessing the opportunities for development of that information into proactive opportunities, then progressing through the established NIM tasking processes. All safeguarding and protection information will be assessed through the daily intelligence meeting and high risk issues reviewed at the daily management meeting, to ensure risks are identified and resources appropriately allocated with oversight by the senior management team (SMT) on each BOCU.

36. SCD 5 will continue to deliver specialist crime investigation within their current remit of intra-familial offences, child murder/manslaughter, predatory paedophilia, hi tech crime and safeguarding children at London’s ports. Information sharing in respect of receiving referrals from partner agencies about children and referring onward information about children coming to the notice of police will also remain the responsibility of SCD5, via the current well established referral and risk assessment processes. SCD5 will continue to support child protection conferences where they are the lead investigating unit, whilst those cases where other MPS units are lead investigators, most usually in domestic violence cases, will become the responsibility of the respective BOCU.

37. Co-ordination of information and activity between BOCU focus desks, SCD5 and partner agencies will be closer, with daily exchange of information and requests for action regarding vulnerable people, places and dangerous people.

38. Whilst system improvements to Merlin, the Integrated Intelligence Platform, Impact Nominal Index and use of electronic mail between partner agencies, will help to increase information sharing capacity, the increase in demand will be substantial over 2008-10. This will be driven by the training of all MPS staff, change in culture associated with ECM and public protection priorities; and as partner agencies build capacity to manage the increased flow of referred information.

39. TP are creating a new team within the VCD to support BOCUs which will provide the professional lead for public protection to support implementation, monitor standards of performance and service delivery and ensure recommendations from the recent HMIC report are adopted, including target setting to ensure improved performance, delivery to new objectives, monitoring of implementation and quality of initial risk management.

Safe Recruiting

40. Under ECM, the MPS is required to ensure that robust recruitment and vetting procedures are in place for people working with children. The Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will require all staff who have contact with children to be vetted to new standards and intervals, being every 3 years. In order to assess the requirements for change, Vetting Branch (SCD 26) have been engaged in reviewing current vetting systems.

41. Security Vetting standards applied to current MPS staff have involved involving several different data standards and different intervals of review. Staff applying for specific posts, including SCD5 and Safer Schools are vetted on selection and at 10 yearly intervals regarding the potential threat they may pose to children. All officers who joined since 1994 will be vetted routinely every 10 years. Those who apply for other specialist posts may be vetted to higher standards with 5 yearly reviews.

42. It is possible that Home Office guidance will require the MPS to conduct 10,000 staff security checks a year on a rolling 3 year programme for continued inclusion of all staff in the VBS. The ECM project team is consulting with staff associations to:

• agree a prioritisation list of all MPS posts where the incumbent would potentially pose the highest risk to children and:
• the potential need to manage any staff currently employed by the MPS who are identified as not suitable for inclusion in the VBS, or where checks identify potential disciplinary matters.

43. The lack of clarity around the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme nationally is causing some confusion amongst organisations. The ACPO Vetting Lead is addressing this issue and the MPS await guidance before putting in place a process that will comply with the Safeguarding Vulnerable Persons legislation.

Allegations against staff

44. Working Together refers to ‘people who work with children’. In relation to the police service, this would include someone whose day to day working regularly includes contact with children, young people or families. It would also include any member of staff whose behaviour, regardless of posting, brings into question their suitability to work with children.

45. The fact that an individual may have close contact with children does not affect the threshold for triggering an allegation as the same high standards of behaviour are expected from all police employees. Where a pattern of behaviour emerges- e.g. several unproven complaints about conduct towards children or young people, serious consideration should be given to triggering procedures as a way of ensuring transparency and independent oversight.

46. Existing practice within most Forces including the MPS already addresses these requirements. The processes in place throughout the service are robust and are already subject to independent scrutiny by the IPCC. Nothing in Working Together seeks to change those arrangements or put in place additional lines of bureaucracy.

47. The MPS Department for Professional Standards (DPS) is now working closely with the DCSF Allegation Advisors to develop a policy that will ensure that the MPS engage where necessary with each of the 32 Local Authority Designated Officers (LADOs) who have responsibility for reporting to LSCBs issues around allegations against professionals. Once agreed a presentation will be given to all 32 LADOs so that they can be reassured that the MPS process for investigation and notification is being conducted properly and without bias. The role of DPS and the extent of Police Disciplinary Regulations are not widely understood outside the service, and this presentation will give an opportunity to make LSCBs aware of the rigour with which internal investigations are conducted by the MPS.

ECM Information Communication Technology (ICT)

MERLIN

48. Development of enhancements to the Merlin application continue. These consist of a number of enhancements that address operational requirements and usability issues, including the ability to ‘Copy & Paste’. These are seen as vital with many linked to ECM, as the introduction of ECM will mean that Merlin will have many new users. The first phase of enhancements is currently on schedule, and are due to go live on Wednesday 9 January.

49. In terms of the second phase, which contains the functionality for ECM, SciSys (the Merlin supplier) have completed a full review of the development risks and timescales. They concluded that meeting their previous delivery timescale would be difficult, as resources had not been released from Phase 1 as early as was hoped, and that there was also one particular non-ECM requirement that posed a number of potential risks that would impact on delivery. They therefore proposed developing this particular requirement in isolation, which would remove all of these risks, with delivery of the second phase either waiting until this follow on requirement is also ready, or else delivering in two waves. This matter was discussed at the ECM Project Board held 12 November.

50. The problem with the first of these approaches would be the lack of time for the production of training materials, and any unexpected delays or problems could push its delivery beyond the 1 April deadline. The Board decided to recommend the latter of these two approaches at this time, and SciSys have been instructed accordingly. However, a further review will be undertaken at the next Project Board in mid-December.

ContactPoint

51. The MPS have been given National Implementation Partner (NIP) status for ContactPoint, which gives the organisation the same status as recognised national agencies such as the NSPCC and Barnardo’s. Due to the potential numbers of staff who would require access to the system and the associated training and system administration issues it was agreed by the DCSF that the MPS as an organisation would best be able to handle these issues, rather than potentially have to negotiate with all 32 London Local Authorities. As a NIP, the MPS are now required to report on a monthly basis the progress being made to ensure that we have our ICT system (CRIS), Training and Administration/Security functions in place in time for the roll out of ContactPoint in 2008. The DCSF had required all partner agencies to complete a case management system (CMS) and workforce analyses by September 2007, the MPS completed both on time.

BOCU Engagement with LSCBs

52. The DCSF have recently published its report ‘ Local Safeguarding Children Boards: A review of progress’. Key findings of the report included an examination of agency involvement with LSCBs.

53. Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) have been in place since April 2006, with membership being made up of a number of partner agencies that have a duty to cooperate under Section 11 Children Act 2004. This includes the police service, as well as other partner agencies that can be part of local working arrangements to work together to safeguard children. The MPS is represented on each LSCB by a detective inspector from the Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5) and a representative of the Senior Management Team from the local BOCU.

54. The review found that some LSCBs were finding it difficult to secure the full engagement of partners. The Review found a number of issues arising from the difference between police and local authority boundaries particularly when one police force covered numerous LSCBs.

55. The national police attendance rates at LSCBs is currently 86%, within the MPS area the attendance from April 06 to April 07 was much higher at 97%, which is achieved due to the joint commitment of the SCD5 and Borough representatives.

56. From 1 April to 31 July 2007 there have been 47 LSCB meetings, at which there has been at least one Metropolitan Police representative at 43, this represents a 91% attendance rate which is above the national rate and above the standard expected attendance rate of 85% set by most LSCBs.

C. Race and equality impact

Every Child Matters has clear and distinct equality and diversity implications. It aims to ensure that policies and services are designed around the needs and well being of children and young people. The ethos of the Children Act is quite explicit, 'every child matters' irrespective of race or other social attribute. The key point is that the main area of vulnerability is age and all children should receive the services they need, including the need for protection.

D. Financial implications

Public Protection Focus Desks

1. To introduce the new focus desks and processes, a joint implementation team will need to be formed to support the rollout across all boroughs during three months, January – April 2008. This team will need to be resourced jointly by skilled staff from the VCD, BIUs & SCD5. It is proposed that the current inspector ECM project manager will lead the team with continued SCD5 support at superintendent level to ensure viable cross business group working practices. Additional resources of a DS, a Band D analyst & three D/PCs have been sought for four months. The opportunity costs of the five dedicated staff are £106,000 & backfilling costs of £48,000, plus funding for communications, focus groups & workshops of £8,500, totalling £56,500. This funding and support for staff has been agreed by TP and SCD.

Information Communication Technology (ICT)

2. The MPS are required to develop an ICT system that can electronically link to the ContactPoint to enable a search and to populate the index with the name and contact details within a police force where the police consider they hold important information to share with partner agencies relating to the person. DOI has agreed in their 2007 –2008 bidding process to fund this project up to £600,000.

3. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a process to record and assess the needs of a child or young person who is not achieving one of the five key outcomes. MPS staff will not be involved in completing the assessment, but there is a requirement to ensure that information gathered as a result of police interaction about these children is recorded by MPS staff on a PAC and shared with partner agencies. The ICT solution for this process has been identified as MERLIN and the funding for the ECM changes totalling £55,412 have been agreed by the MERLIN Enhancements Project Board, these changes will be included in the system upgrade currently planned for March 2008.

4. The delay in releasing one of the planned changes to MERLIN, which is necessary to ensure that the MERLIN ECM changes are in place by April 20008 will mean that additional testing and acceptance cycle costs, plus further cost with CapGemini (MPS IT Service provider) for them to implement a further release will be incurred. At the moment, these costs are unbudgeted, and money would need to be allocated for 2008/9, and are seen as being in the region of £30,000.

Training

5. There are no additional design or development costs anticipated for the delivery of the MERLIN Computer Based Training package or the MERLIN classroom based Supervisors course.

6. As a National Implementation Partner, any cost incurred to develop and deliver training for staff to search ContactPoint will be met by the DCSF; details of the funding arrangements have not been released.

Safe recruiting

7. The MPS is reviewing the current vetting procedures to ensure that all staff working with or who come into contact with children and young people are subject to an enhanced vetting process. With the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, there is a distinct possibility that police officers will also need to be part of this scheme.
Until the national picture becomes clearer, the full costs for this provision are not known

Contributions to LSCBs

8. The average police contribution to the LSCBs in England is £14,091. The MPS currently provide £240,000 towards the funding of the 32 London LSCBs; this money is paid through the London Safeguarding Board who give £5,000 to each board with the residue spent on pan London issues. Although the MPS provide less per LSCB than other forces, our overall contribution is significantly higher and is supplemented by contributions to joint training and the work of the SCD5 partnership team.

9. All London LSCBs receive annual contributions from partner agencies, with the bulk of their budgets coming from the local authority and health services. The amount of money contributed does vary considerably across the boards with the lowest budget available being around £90,000 where as at the top end of the scale the budget is nearly £180,000.

10. LSCBs are now asking for all partner agencies including the police to increase their contributions. The additional costs for this provision are not known.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Inspector Alan Hodges, Territorial Policing, Safer Neighbourhoods Unit, MPS

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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