Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department on 9 October (HC Deb, col 81WH), what proportion of child victims of trafficking in England and Wales (1) are currently eligible for an Independent Child Trafficking Advocate by virtue of being resident in one of the three early adopter sites for the scheme, and (2) will be eligible for an Independent Child Trafficking Advocate by April 2019 following planned extension of the scheme.

We want to be able to test the revised ICTA model across a variety of areas with different demographics and characteristics to ensure that the right model can be rolled out nationally. The West Midlands, the East Midlands and the London Borough of Croydon all offer different opportunities and challenges, for example the prevalence of exploitation such as county lines and how the ICTA service interacts with the National Transfer Scheme, which will require engagement with the receiving local authorities and support providers.

The ICTA service that will be implemented in West Midlands, East Midlands and the London Borough of Croydon will trial a revised model of ICTA provision. In line with the existing early adopter sites, the service will continue to work on a one-to-one basis with unaccompanied children who are separated from their family and their home country. The revised model will introduce a new role, an ICTA Regional Coordinator, whose role will be to focus on internally trafficked UK based children.

The ICTA Regional Coordinator will take on a more strategic role for internally trafficked children, working with the range of professionals already supporting the child, rather than working on a one-to one basis with the child themselves. The Regional Coordinator will adapt to regional differences and use their in-depth and specialist knowledge, both in terms of the nature of trafficking and the existing provisions and services, to offer expert advice to those professionals who are working directly with children, on how best to safeguard the children in their care.

The assessment of the Independent Child Trafficking Advocates: Interim Findings which was published in July, detailed that between 30 January 2017 and 31 January 2018 a total of 215 referrals were made to the ICTA service in the three early adopter sites. The interim report can be found on GOV.UK.

Following the expansion of the service, by April 2019, the ICTA service will be available to eligible children in one third of all Local Authorities in England and Wales.