FSB News Release

Tuesday 28 April 2015

 

FSB joins battle against child sexual exploitation

 

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has launched a project in association with partners in South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board, the Sexual Exploitation Service and the National Working Group Network. The aim of the project is to help raise awareness of child sexual exploitation and encourage businesses to play a role in reporting concerns.

 

As part of the project, an awareness package and a code of conduct has been put together for distribution to businesses which will encourage them to train staff to understand how to raise concerns about child sexual exploitation, protecting vulnerable employees and putting safeguards in place at work. It will be aimed at businesses in the hospitality, retail, transport, and leisure trades to help staff identify vulnerable people and to report concerns to the police and other relevant agencies.

 

The participation scheme is being piloted in South Yorkshire and, if successful, will be rolled out nationally.

 

Sergeant Katherine Wallis from South Yorkshire Police said:

“We are pleased to be working with the FSB to help raise awareness of the signs of child sexual exploitation. By putting together this package and code of conduct, which is being shared with key members of staff working in a number of different industries, we are aiming to increase awareness and encourage reporting to police.

“The scheme will hopefully empower staff to raise concerns at an early stage which allows police and other agencies to prevent harm and take action against potential offenders.

“By working in partnership with businesses across South Yorkshire we are encouraging front-line staff to help us to protect young people from becoming victims of this despicable crime.”

 

FSB Regional Chairman, Gordon Millward, commented:

“Child sexual exploitation is a terrible crime with destructive and far reaching consequences for victims, their families, and society. It is not limited to any particular geography or background, and businesses should assume that it is happening in their area and take proactive action to prevent it.

“Recent events in South Yorkshire have shown that all areas need to be prepared to respond to this challenge robustly, and we regard it as being of paramount importance to work with the police and other agencies to do our utmost to stamp it out. We hope that businesses will take on board the code of conduct and act accordingly.”

ENDS

Notes to editors: The FSB is the UK’s leading business organisation with around 200,000 members. It exists to protect and promote the interests of the UK’s Real-Life Entrepreneurs who run their own business. More information is available at www.fsb.org.uk

The FSB child sexual exploitation guide and code of conduct for businesses can be downloaded at: http://www.fsb.org.uk/uploads/child%20sexual%20exploitation.pdf.

 

Picture shows (L to R) Bina Parmar of the NWG Network, Julie Hague of Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board, Phil Ashford of the Sheffield Sexual Exploitation Service, Gordon Millward of the FSB, Sergeant Katherine Wallis of South Yorkshire Police, Steve Bradwell of the FSB and Mike Bisby of the FSB.

 

Speech by Bina Parmar (NWG Specialist Team Member)

 

Good evening, my name is Bina Parmar and I work for a national charity known as the NWG Network assisting practitioners at all levels to raise awareness of and tackle the issue of CSE

 

Safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation is an escalating priority at international, national and local levels. The Government’s supplementary guidance to Working Together, states that “Sexual exploitation is not limited to particular geographical areas and all LSCBs should assume that it is an issue in their area.”

 

Furthermore, the National DfE CSE Action Plan states that LSCBs should “Increase understanding of child sexual exploitation in the professional and wider community for example by contributing to public campaigns in the local area…”

 

So national guidance indicates that there is a real need for this work to be undertaken within our local communities. We all have a duty to respond to CSE and when communities work together, we can detect and disrupt this activity. We can prosecute offenders. And by raising awareness and removing taboo, we can protect children and young people from this crime.

 

In the ‘Sexual Violence against children and vulnerable people’ National Group Action Plan there is also a call for “Enhanced measures to disrupt and prevent CSE” and the action we are required to undertake is to Raise awareness of CSE within areas or environments (e.g. night time economy, private security industry, Hotels and Bed and Breakfast’s) associated with CSE.

 

On this basis, the NWG has produced the Say Something if you See Something (SSSS) campaign, which now incorporates the participation scheme , which is being launched locally, here today. The campaign aims to engage and empower partners working in local businesses to recognise and report CSE and was launched nationally at Westminster with guests including MPs, the Children’s Commissioner and our previous Children’s Minister. Large hotel chains were also in attendance and consequently pledged to adopt the campaign at a national level.

 

Our focus began with hotels in response to cases emerging nationally, which highlighted that hotels and B&B’s are unwittingly being used for the purpose of sexual exploitation. In Oxford, a guest in a B&B reported concerns of raised voices and suspected some form of attack or assault. At that time the hotel did not respond appropriately, demonstrating the need to provide people working in hotels with training so that they recognise the signs of CSE activity and are confident in reporting their concerns to protect children and prevent abuse taking place on their premises. We also need to ensure that hotel staff are trained to be aware of the legal and reputational consequences of being involved in any criminal activity, in this particular case Three men were arrested …following a police raid…on suspicion of being a landlord letting a premise for use as a brothel.

 

As the NWG SSSS campaign rolls out regionally, we are already seeing a different response from the hotel trade. To date in South Yorkshire alone, 71 hotels and 34 b&b’s have been trained on a ‘train the trainer’ basis so they can then cascade the training to their housekeeping, reception, night porter, bar, restaurant and other staff.

 

This awareness work has so far resulted in 43 incidents being reported to South Yorkshire Police under Operation Makesafe, where hotel staff have been concerned about possible CSE and/or trafficking activity at their premises.  Of these 43 incidents,9 have lead to further enquiries regarding safeguarding.

 

These statistics demonstrate that the SSSS community awareness programme is having a positive impact in South Yorkshire amongst many other areas and it is important that we continue this momentum to further cascade this message and ultimately create a zero tolerance attitude within our society, a society where young people are safe to enjoy the liberties that they are entitled to.

 

In addition to hotels and b&bs, we are aware of other locations which are known to be used by perpetrators to either target and groom young people or to take them for the purpose of sexual exploitation. These locations include…shopping centres, parks, leisure centres bars and pubs and other small businesses.

 

We therefore identified the need to adapt the national SSSS campaign pack to incorporate other places within the leisure and entertainment industries and extend the range of businesses we work in partnership with. So the material in the national resource has been further developed, to assist those working in the hospitality, leisure, retail and transport industries. The NWG provide all types of businesses with posters, leaflets, risk assessments, refusal logs, information sharing reports and training materials, to support business communities to safeguard children.

 

We are continuing to work closely with South Yorkshire to pilot these materials and a project currently running with the taxi/private hire trade has resulted in 150 new taxi/private hire vehicle drivers being trained over the last year in Sheffield, resulting in 2 incidents being reported to the police by the trade in recent months. Again, a positive outcome gained through great collaborative work with our business community partners.

 

I would like to thank Sheffield Safeguarding Children’s Board, the Federation of small businesses for their outstanding contribution and support of the national campaign. It is important to acknowledge the proactive measures that have been taken by colleagues within South Yorkshire including South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield Safeguarding Children’s Board, to raise awareness of the issue and to ensure that young people are appropriately safeguarded. The FSB have helped us to develop and include specific material targeted at small businesses, including guidance for staff and manages of small businesses, training material, code of good safeguarding conduct and user guides.

 

The campaign has been supported and endorsed by local and national government and we are pleased with the achievements to date but we are committed to driving this forward to ensure young people are safe and we hope that you can assist us with this.