Councils "breaching guidance on interviews for children who go missing"

Councils are breaching statutory guidance by failing to offer return interviews to all children who go missing from care, a charity has claimed.

In a report, Here to Listen?, The Children’s Society called on the Government to strengthen the guidance [1], which it argued was open to misinterpretation.

According to the charity, freedom of information requests revealed that:

• Fewer than half of councils in England offer return interviews to all children who go missing from care;
• Just one in four offer such interviews to all children who run away from home;
• A fifth of councils did not offer interviews to any children who went missing from home.

“Some councils even wrongly asserted that return interviews were the responsibility of the police,” the Children’s Society claimed.

The Government is currently consulting on revised guidance for children that run away from home or care. 

Matthew Reed, chief executive of The Children’s Society, said: “Despite clear statutory guidance, many councils are failing to carry out their duty to keep these very vulnerable children safe. A very vulnerable child not getting the vital support they need must not be down to what council area they happen to live in. The safety and wellbeing of children must not be subject to a postcode lottery. 

“We are urging the Government to take a lead by making their guidance much more robust. We would also like to see more oversight from Ofsted so there is an independent check on whether councils are doing their job.”

The Children’s Society said return interviews helped address problems that caused a child to go missing, reduced further instances of running and found out if a child had come to harm.

It also said they were a vital tool in disrupting abuse and sexual exploitation and providing evidence for prosecutions of the perpetrators.

[1] DCSF (2009) Statutory guidance on children who run away and go missing from home and care London: HM Government and the Revised statutory guidance on children who run away or go missing from home or care, DfE (2013), London: HM Government – subject to consultation as of June 2013.