North Yorkshire Police respond to HMICFRS's report

As reported earlier by The Press, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) published a report today (May 3) of its reinspection of how North Yorkshire Police keeps children safe.

The reinspection took place in December 2022 following an initial inspection in November 2021.

It came after a PEEL report in March, where the force was told it had to make urgent improvements to help keep people safe and reduce crime.

Today’s report found that 11 of the child protection cases were good, eight required improvement, and 14 were inadequate.

Following the news, Zoe Metcalfe, North Yorkshire Police Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC), held an online public meeting, where she aimed to publicly hold the chief constable to account for the "slow progress" the force has made.

Zoe Metcalfe, PFCC (Image: Supplied)

In a presentation during the meeting, North Yorkshire Police’s assistant chief constable (ACC), Scott Bisset, outlined the nine recommendations given to the force by the HMICFRS to keep children safe.

When addressing these issues, ACC Bisset said they should be seen within the “wider context of organisational redesign” and said changes would be implemented by October 2023.

ACC Scott Bisset (Image: Newsquest)

He explained how the right people were needed in the right posts to ensure arrangements for the safeguarding were effective.

ACC Bisset revealed that new posts had been approved in two phases to tackle concerns raised by the HMICFS.

• Phase two saw 28 new posts approved April 2023 at the cost of £1.29 million.
• Phase one saw 21 posts approved in February 2023 at the cost of £1.2 million.

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ACC Bisset said a number of phase one posts had already been filled, but the recruitment process was still ongoing to fill all the roles.

Ms Metcalfe raised concern about a delay in the phases being implemented.

In response, North Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Lisa Winward, said safeguarding children was an “absolute priority” for the force, but ensuring that the right people were in the correct posts required a “strong evidence base” which meant delays had occurred.

Chief constable Lisa Winward (Image: Newsquest)

In the meeting concerns raised in the report over critical incident inspectors dealing with how they assess and manage risks of young people were discussed.

ACC Bisset said a “cultural reset” was needed in this area and that training would be given this month to address the concerns.

He also said that new IT arrangements are to be implemented to oversee missing people arrangements at the force, which was another concern raised in the report.

This new system is to be digital instead of paper based - as it is currently - and is to be implemented by September.

The PFCC raised concern that until September some officers will still be recording missing people cases on paper, which could mean documents are lost.

Heather Whoriskey, from North Yorkshire Police, said the paper booklets are scanned on to a system accessed by a centralised team, where they review every missing case of a child daily.

The report can be read in full here.