I am lodging an inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act regarding your response to Child Sexual Exploitation as a local authority.

1. Does the council have a standalone Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) strategy? If so, please provide a copy of the most recent version.
We have a harm outside of the home strategy 2022-2025, which includes CSE. We do not have a standalone CSE strategy. 

2. Does the council have any other strategies to tackle other forms of child exploitation? For clarity the primary focus of the strategy should be child exploitation, not included as part of wider safeguarding strategies.
No.

3. Has the local authority undertaken any evaluation or impact assessment of any child exploitation strategy or services in the past 3 years? If so, please provide a copy of any relevant reports.
No. The strategy is due a refresh and the serious violence and exploitation board is intended to provide oversight and scrutiny of exploitation work.

4. Are elected members given briefings or oversight of the council’s work on child exploitation? (e.g. briefings, training sessions, regular reports at committee or scrutiny meetings?)
Briefings are provided to the lead member as and when required (for example the lead member was recently briefed on a cross-boundary concern regarding a group of females having been the victim of CSE).

5. Please provide a copy of any current multi-agency protocol or partnership agreement relating to child exploitation (including CSE, criminal exploitation, trafficking, or online harm).
Please see the attached MASH ISA (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) and our EMRAC TOR (Exploited and Missing Risk Assessment Conference, Terms of Reference) Procedures.

6. Please provide membership by organisation and frequency of meetings for the multi-agency partnership for child exploitation.
EMRAC, our strategic meeting for missing, child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation and serious youth violence is held on a monthly basis, co-chaired by a Head of Service within Children’s Services and a DS from the Harm Reduction Unit, Local Command Unit, Thames Valley Police. Representation at this meeting includes neighbourhood policing, Berkshire Health Foundation Trust, Virtual school, Education, SEND, Preparing for Adulthood, Prevention and Youth Justice Service, Serious Violence and Exploitation lead, Children’s social care, other Thames Valley Police colleagues, sexual health from the local hospital, Adult social care, Community Safety Partnership and a commissioned community organisation. The serious violence and exploitation board is currently undergoing a reset whereby the frequency and representation is being reviewed. Other operational meetings such as Strategy meetings and complex strategy meetings are held as and when a threshold of significant harm is established, child in need meetings are held for children on child in needs plans, team around the family meetings are held when a child is open to the targeted early help service and contextual meetings may be held to consider wider contextual factors as appropriate which include partners.

 7. Does the local authority undertake regular audits of child exploitation cases (including CSE)? If so, please provide:
The number of audits carried out in the last 12 months
The key findings from these audits
Any improvement actions identified and their current status?
We have not undertaken audit work specifically in relation to child exploitation.

8. What specific services or interventions does the local authority provide or commission to prevent child exploitation?
The Local Authority provides a statutory response via their social care teams, a targeted early help response via the targeted early help service should this be appropriate and also support via prevention pathways within the Prevention and Youth Justice Service. The LA commission a local football club to deliver a number of programmes and refers to other relevant organisations in line with the presenting needs and issues.

9. How many children were referred to early help or preventative services due to risk of exploitation in the last 12 months? Please provide the number of:
Children identified as at risk of CSE in the last 12 months
Children identified as victims of CSE in the last 12 months
Children identified as at risk of other forms of exploitation (e.g. criminal exploitation, modern slavery, trafficking)
Children identified as victims of other forms of exploitation (e.g. criminal exploitation, modern slavery, trafficking)
We do not currently have a report that tells us how many children at risk of exploitation were referred to Early Help.

The relevant risk factors identified in statutory child and family assessments (whereby the specific risks were ‘assessed’ to be found).
CFA At Risk of CSE: 17
Victims of CSE: 0
CFA At risk of other exploitation: 49
Victims of other exploitation: 0

All figures as of 28/5/2025. Total from May 2024 - April 2025, to have a 12 month figure.

10. What was the total budget allocated to child exploitation work (including prevention and victim support) in the previous three financial years (22/23, 23/24, 24/25)?
There is no specific budget.  Relevant budgets would be the CSC budgets, PYJS budget and also the EH budget, and some that is within the CSP.