Agenda item

Report of the  Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Sub Committee received a joint report of the Director of Community and Children’s Services and the City of London Police in respect of a practice review following the strip-search, by Metropolitan Police Officers, of ‘Child Q’ in a Hackney School in 2020.  The report from the practice review was published in March 2022. The report on the agenda updated Members on the review process, setting out the initial response, plans to address the recommendations, activity to date and plans for future learning.

During the presentation of this report, the following points were noted:

It had taken 14 months and not 2 years to respond to the findings in the review.

The report had concluded that Child Q should never have been strip-searched and found an absence of a safeguarding-first approach to the practice of many of the professionals involved that day.

The report also concluded that racism was ‘likely to have been an influencing factor’ in the strip-search, and a high level of probability that practitioners were influenced by ‘adultification’ bias. The review made eight findings and 14 recommendations for practice.

The City of London Police and City of London Schools have conducted a range of activities to understand and share learning with colleagues from the review. 

In April 2022, the Independent Child Safeguarding Commissioner wrote to all partners of the CHSCP inviting them to map their safeguarding arrangements in respect of the findings and recommendations.

The Chair thanked the officers for their work on this report, which had been co-produced by the City of London Police and the Department of Community and Children’s Services.

RESOLVED, that – the report be noted.