Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether DBS checks were undertaken on appointees to the External Reference Group for the Review into group-based child sexual exploitation.

The Home Office consulted with an External Reference Group (ERG) while developing its publicly available paper ‘Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation; Characteristics of offending’ between July and December 2020. The aim of the ERG was to provide comment on the content and findings of the draft paper to ensure it provided as accurate a picture as possible of what is known about group-based child sexual exploitation offending. Members of the ERG did not have access to any sensitive information or direct access with children, and on this basis DBS checks were accordingly not sought.

The ERG was drawn from a range of sectors, including representatives of victims and survivors, law enforcement, academia, the third sector, and parliamentarians. It had an advisory role in the development of the paper, and as such all comments from the ERG were considered carefully, but not all were taken onboard. The final paper is ultimately a Home Office product and does not reflect the position of all ERG members.

Full details of the ERG’s role and input are set out in paragraphs 1 to 10 of the published paper Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offenders (publishing.service.gov.uk)