Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to review current guidance and training to ensure that equality considerations do not inhibit proportionate and effective statutory action in safeguarding and youth justice contexts.

Where there are safeguarding concerns, or where youth justice services are involved with an individual, decisions on these cases must be based on the individual circumstances of the case alone. Protected characteristics, such as ethnicity, should not influence the judgement of risk relating to that individual, or the assessment of whether statutory provision should be made.

As the Home Secretary said in the House of Commons debate on the Southport Inquiry, the only factors that should be taken into account are the potential risks posed by an individual and how best to manage those risks.

The Department for Education is developing a set of practice standards and training for Lead Child Protection Practitioners (LCPPs). The standards will describe the knowledge and skills expected of LCPPs to work effectively in Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams, to take evidence-informed child protection decisions. The standards will reflect the importance of not letting social bias or professional anxiety influence actions or outcomes when working with children and adults from different cultural and racial backgrounds.

Youth justice services are supported to identify and assess safeguarding risk through case management guidance.