Force response to HMICFRS Inspectorate report on child exploitation

Lincolnshire Police has been informed that two accelerated causes of concern have been identified as a result of a recent child protection inspection.

Following an audit carried out in November HMICFRS inspectors concluded that Lincolnshire Police does not:

• Effectively investigate when children are at risk of, or have been harmed by, criminal or sexual exploitation.
• Have enough trained officers to investigate abuse and exploitation effectively.
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Chief Constable Paul Gibson said:

“We fully accept the findings of this inspection and have taken immediate action to address the issues identified. If we are not providing the level of service that keeps vulnerable children safe, we will do everything in our power to make sure we take appropriate steps to make changes, as swiftly as possible, and that’s what we have done. We know it will take time to implement these changes and make improvements, but we are fully committed to doing so.

“Specialist training courses are being scheduled into early 2026 to ensure colleagues can attend them whilst we balance the demands within the department. This ensures we bolster our numbers of appropriately trained staff who can deal with child abuse and exploitation, and we will make sure that only those officers deal with these types of crimes. 68 officers have been on the specialist child abused investigation training with 28 still in a protecting vulnerable people (PVP) role, but are not yet fully accredited because they are completing the qualification as part of their work-based assessment- so we fully recognise the value of the training.

“On our investigations, we have quickly put measures in place by clearly tasking out supervisors to make sure there is adequate supervision and oversight to improve the way we investigate these cases. We still need extra resource in these areas, which is why we communicated the decision earlier this week to move some of our existing officers into areas like these that have critical safety functions, and we will keep asking for more resource both externally from the Government and seeking it internally by making sure our people are in the right places.

“The Force recognises that to make the improvements that the HMICFRS and the public rightly expect to policing services, additional investment will be needed. This has been a consistent message across all of our policing services. These causes of concern are not entirely down to a lack of resources due to inadequate funding but that does play a fundamental part, and a sustainable financial solution for the Force is still under active discussion with officials and I am confident that they understand the issues.

“The inspection also found some positive areas of practice; how we deal with preventative legislation how we work in partnership with other agencies, and how we engage with schools in order to protect children.

“Saying that, I don’t underestimate the impact that news of this nature may have on people who might be parents or have caring responsibilities for youngsters because these types of crimes can be so harmful to victims, which is why we are 100% committed to making sure we address these issues.”