Agencies supporting children who are missing or at risk of exploitation in Dorset say they are committed to working better together.

This comes after inspectors highlighted that partnership working needs to improve.

Earlier this year, Government bodies carried out a joint inspection across the county. It spanned social care, police, health, youth offending and probation services and centred on how agencies work together - both as a partnership and as individual organisations.

They looked at how agencies deal with referrals when children may be in need or at risk of significant harm. They also reviewed leadership and management and examined several individual cases.

In their report, inspectors highlighted both strengths and areas for improvement but said that ‘multi-agency working is not always effective and Dorset children face negative experiences due to ineffective partnership working’.

They said that there is a ‘significant gap’ in some agencies’ understanding of the risks posed by gangs and ‘county lines’, which involves drug dealing networks using children to connect urban and rural areas across the UK. Inspectors said the partnership must put in place a mechanism to ensure intelligence is collected, shared, analysed and acted upon to provide an effective response.

Sarah Elliott, independent chairman of the Dorset Safeguarding Children Board (DSCB), said: “Although the inspection recognised areas of good practice by individual agencies, it reinforced how vital it is that all organisations work together to make sure children are safe.

“Vulnerable children who go missing or who are at risk of being exploited should expect to be protected from harm. The DSCB is independently reviewing the practice and service offered to children to make sure improvements are made.”

The inspection was carried out by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), HMI Constabulary Fire and Rescue Service and HMI Probation.

Dorset County Council is now co-ordinating a multi-agency plan of improvements.

Nick Jarman, Director for Children’s Services at Dorset County Council, said: “Ensuring that vulnerable children in Dorset are protected and safe is our top priority and we acknowledge that we need to improve the way we work.

“Not long after I joined Dorset County Council in October 2017, we put in place a rigorous audit programme to look at the quality of our children’s social care practice. As a result, we put in place a robust service improvement plan to address these issues. The inspection confirmed what our audits had shown and a number of improvements have already been implemented.

“We’ve also invited colleagues from health, police, probation, rehabilitation and youth offending to join our service improvement board, which oversees progress on the plan, to help strengthen partnership working and challenge our performance constructively.”