Please could you provide the following information regarding child sexual exploitation:
1. How many children have been referred to the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) for children (17 and under) due to concerns about Child Sexual Exploitation in the following years:
2018 – 410
2019 – 309
2020 – 312
2021 – 387
2022 so far – 169
2. How many children (17 and under) are currently the subject of a child protection plan with a Child Sexual Exploitation marker / under a sexual exploitation category?
We do not hold a central record of this information. To extract this information would require a manual check of the records referred to above ( to establish if these have resulted in a child protection plan) and all other child protection plans. To review the records referred to above alone would require a review of a total of 1,200 cases which, allowing for 10 minutes per case, would take a total of 200 hours. This is in excess of the appropriate time limit of 18 hours and therefore, pursuant to section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are therefore not obliged to provide this information.