DORSET Police still needs to make improvements to keep children safe despite making positive strides since a scathing inspection.

The force was visited earlier this year for a post-inspection review, around a year on from a critical report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services ordered a raft of immediate improvements to protect the most at risk youngsters.

The findings from the follow up visit have been released by the inspectorate today, with some concerns outstanding.

A summary of the review said: “Dorset Police has made good progress in response to our 2021 recommendations. But the force recognises that it still needs to improve in some areas to provide consistently better outcomes for children.

“We are, however, confident that the force understands where it needs to improve. We are also satisfied that senior leaders have plans to make these improvements and to monitor progress.

“As part of our routine monitoring of all police forces, we will continue to evaluate Dorset Police’s performance in relation to these recommendations and instigate closer scrutiny if necessary.”

The critical report last year said of 83 assessed cases where Dorset Police had identified children at risk, inspectors found the child protection practice was inadequate in 23 of them.

The post-inspection review report said Dorset Police had committed a great deal of “resources, time and energy” to improving outcomes for children.

Having made “clear improvements” in most areas, the force was advised it needs to build on the foundations to achieve “consistently better outcomes”.

While the report acknowledged progress had been made, it identified a number of areas where more needs to be done. This included:

  • Delays in responding to cases where children were identified as being at real or potential risk from registered sex offenders
  • The integrated missing person and child exploitation team (IMPACT) lacking resources to deal with all children being harmed by or at risk of exploitation
  • The quality of investigations relating to child protection and exploitation was inconsistent
  • Further improvements were required in attendance at strategy meetings and the recording of information
  • There was a lack of multi-agency work to consider children at risk from being missing
  • There were still delays in officers being deployed for missing children

Dorset Police chief constable Scott Chilton said: “We welcome this latest report following the post-inspection review. It clearly recognises the investment, commitment and focus to keep people safe to ensure we have the very best investigations, processes and partnerships in place to protect children and young people in all of our communities.

“I am really encouraged by improvements the force has made and confident of the plans we have in place, working with our partners to reduce harm caused to children and young people and continue striving to make Dorset the safest county.”

Police and crime commissioner for Dorset David Sidwick said: “Child protection is an incredibly serious and important area of policing and I welcome this level of scrutiny from HMICFRS.

"Both I and my office will continue to work closely with the Dorset Police leadership team, to ensure that the areas for improvement highlighted in the report are addressed effectively and efficiently.”