Setting

Helen Fergusson, Director of Children’s Services, Gateshead Dale Owens, Chief Executive, Gateshead Sam Allen, Executive lead, Integrated Care Board Susan Dungworth, Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Vanessa Jardine, Chief Constable, Northumbria Police Bronwen Elphick, North East Regional Probation Director Helen Bannister, Independent Scrutineer

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Dear Gateshead Local Safeguarding Partnership

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Joint targeted area inspection of Gateshead

This letter summarises the findings of the joint targeted area inspection (JTAI) of the multi-agency response to child sexual abuse in the family environment in Gateshead.

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Joint targeted area inspection of Gateshead

This inspection took place from 23 to 27 March 2026. It was carried out by inspectors from Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP).

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Joint targeted area inspection of Gateshead

The inspectorates recognise the complexities in providing a multi-agency response to children and families where there is a risk of child sexual abuse in the family environment. This joint inspection of the multi-agency response to children who are at risk or victims of child sexual abuse in the family environment will highlight areas of practice and strategic leadership that need to improve as well as strengths. All references to children in this letter relate to children at risk or victims of child sexual abuse in the family environment. We anticipate that these JTAIs will identify learning for all agencies and will contribute to the debate about what good practice looks like. These JTAIs are being carried out in accordance with the recommendation from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (CSPRP) report into child sexual abuse in the family environment.

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Headline findings

A mature, committed and professional partnership is working together to strengthen understanding and deliver continuous improvement to respond effectively to child sexual abuse in the family environment. The partnership has embedded a reflective and collaborative learning culture led by a trusted and effective chair of Gateshead multi-agency safeguarding arrangements (MASA). They work sensitively with community groups so that safeguarding and child sexual abuse are understood and integrated into the teaching children receive. SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Headline findings

Child sexual abuse is an identified priority for the MASA, and a range of activity has taken place since summer 2025. The focus has been strengthened following the publication of the National Panel Report, ‘I wanted them all to notice’, in 2024. The partnership acted on the findings of the national report by commissioning a system- wide multi-agency audit in collaboration with the NSPCC in 2025. This work informed the development of a sexual abuse strategy, which is now being embedded across services.

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Headline findings

The partnership is rightly aware that key strategic areas of improvement need to be addressed at pace, including pathways for the Child Sexual Assault Referral Centre (CSARC) and a meaningful dataset. Agencies quickly and comprehensively responded to any inconsistencies in threshold decisions for children raised during the inspection. As a result of the inspection, the partnership understands better, for a small number of children, an overemphasis on relational adult-based practice was detracting from a sustained focus on risks and children’s lived experience. Engaging with families and promoting relationship-based practice should not impact on threshold decision- making and adherence to statutory guidance. The partnership understands the need for strategy meetings to be convened promptly when risk and harm become apparent, so that multi-agency decision-making informs next steps, including the need for joint investigations involving police and social care.

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What needs to improve?

◼ The development of a comprehensive partnership dataset to assist agencies’ understanding of the prevalence and profile of child sexual abuse in the family environment.

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What needs to improve?

◼ Information-sharing at the front door that supports initial identification and assessment of risk across and within partner agencies.

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What needs to improve?

◼ The consistent timeliness, attendance and recording of strategy meetings to enable multi-agency agreement of thresholds and shared decision-making of next steps, including joint investigations at the earliest opportunity.

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What needs to improve?

◼ Partners’ understanding about the role of CSARC and the consistent promotion of medical consultations for recent and non-recent child sexual abuse and to address children’s wider health and wellbeing needs.

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What needs to improve?

◼ The routine inclusion of police and probation information in sex offender risk assessments to inform safety planning for children subject to child in need and child protection planning.

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What needs to improve?

◼ The police officers’ awareness of Child Sexual Offender Disclosure Scheme (CSODS) ‘Right to Know’ process to make prompt disclosure to protect children more quickly. SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Strengths

◼ Agencies make timely, high-quality child sexual abuse referrals that inform decision-making in the Integrated Front Door. Probation staff can access children’s basic records and therefore consider presenting risks from registered sex offenders.

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Strengths

◼ Professionals understand children’s wishes and feelings effectively, and records are mostly written sensitively to children. The partnership has a relationship- based approach and has implemented a trauma-informed practice model that engages families so they can understand concerns and can make changes so risks to children are reduced.

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Strengths

◼ Children have effective support from the Children’s Independent Sexual Violence Advocate (ChIVSA), who are strong advocates for them.

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Strengths

◼ Police and probation have positive working relationships. In stronger practice, referrals were made to specialist programmes to work with sexual offenders to reduce risk to children.

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Strengths

◼ Culturally sensitive practice informs work with communities, including consideration of ethnicity and religion.

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Strengths

◼ A mature partnership has an embedded, open learning culture that has created an environment for working together to progress strategic plans that respond to child sexual abuse in the family environment.

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Strengths

◼ Substance misuse services and emergency departments contribute to the partnership response with children and families to provide an effective response to meet children’s needs.

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Main findings

The review into the work of the partnership by the NSPCC, and the CSPRP report into Child Sexual Abuse in the Family Environment in 2024, has informed the partnership’s response to child sexual abuse. Subsequently, a collaborative multi- agency audit was undertaken, which informed the strategic partnership approach and delivery plan. Child sexual abuse, in the forthcoming year, will be a particular area of focus. These insights have allowed the partnership to begin responding with increasing effectiveness to child sexual abuse in the family environment, with partners becoming more confident in recognising signs and indicators of abuse. Therefore, reporting is not solely reliant on verbal disclosures from children.

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Main findings

There is strength in the partnership’s self-assessment about its response to child sexual abuse. This has enabled the mature Gateshead partnership, led by a SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Main findings

competent chair of the MASA, to understand its child sexual abuse response well. The formulation of a shared dataset needs urgently progressing so that the prevalence of child sexual abuse in the family environment is comprehensively understood. Currently, child sexual abuse referrals are not easily identifiable and rely on the manual review of referrals. This restricts the partnership understanding of the prevalence of child sexual abuse and limits how the progress of intervention is monitored across the partnership.

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Main findings

There is a bespoke partnership training offer from the centre of expertise on child sexual abuse to further strengthen skills. There are gaps in the knowledge of some practitioners. Safeguarding partners acknowledge that greater multi-agency attendance at child sexual abuse training is needed to ensure that all partners, including education providers, have the knowledge and insight to respond effectively to child sexual abuse. The partnership is working to report on the impact of the training offer across agencies, and further investment into a training post has been secured. The strong strategic intent is helping Gateshead safeguarding partnership to continue to develop its expertise with practitioners who are committed, child focused and determined to get things right for children.

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Main findings

Practitioners across agencies demonstrate strong commitment, curiosity and a clear focus on children’s experiences. Early help practice is responsive and child centred. Practitioners across agencies consider culture and ethnicity to help understand family dynamics, and work is continuing to strengthen the analysis of families’ diversity needs. Culturally sensitive practice takes account of community needs effectively. Community leaders and professionals work together, providing access to services to enable an informed response to child sexual abuse. Agencies have a comprehensive understanding of the role and remit of the Integrated Front Door. Agencies provide detailed and prompt referral information through the front door arrangements, with concerns escalated to statutory services appropriately. Multi-agency information- sharing in the front door contributes to decision-making about presenting risks but

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Main findings

does not always lead to consistently coordinated responses.

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Main findings

While 0-19 public health representation is available in the front door, the responsibility and pathways for information-sharing across all health partners is unclear and communication is inconsistent. This diminishes the effectiveness of multi-agency decision-making about levels of presenting risk to some children.

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Main findings

Probation staff are provided with access to children’s social care database, and they can access details about children who are linked to adult sex offenders, improving information-sharing between agencies and supporting timely referrals.

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Main findings

Police appropriately complete timely Public Protection Notices (PPN) and complete and share checks from police national and local police systems for children at risk of child sexual abuse, and these are considered at the triage meeting. On occasion, SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Main findings

when information is not clear, these are returned to the police to improve the quality of the PPN, which can lead to a delay in responding to children while information is updated.

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Main findings

A morning triage meeting is held at the front door, with police, health, social care, early help and domestic abuse services regularly attending. This provides opportunities for agencies to risk assess new referrals and consider thresholds so that children receive help at the right level. However, information-sharing did not consistently inform threshold decision-making. Probation is absent from this triage meeting. This is a significant missing component in planning for children at risk or suffering from child sexual abuse. Information can be determined through other offender management forums, for example Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), but this information is not sought consistently to inform triage decision-making. Without the inclusion of probation information, the front door has no means of knowing if probation is involved with a child sexual abuse perpetrator, and this leaves children vulnerable to child sexual abuse.

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Main findings

The emergency duty team (EDT) demonstrates risk-sensitive and child-focused decision-making, with workers consistently assessing immediate safety and providing clear, practical guidance to carers and professionals managing incidents out of hours. Its responses show effective coordination with police, health and social care teams where required. EDT staff reported barriers to accessing police support for joint safeguarding work out of hours and do not have direct access to specialist child protection police officers, which impedes a swift effective multi-agency response for some children.

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Main findings

Strategy meetings, including complex and review strategy meetings, are not always held, which means for some children, threshold decision-making does not always align with presenting risks. For a small number of children, relationship-based practice results in adult-focused interventions rather than a focus on the child’s needs. This negatively impacts on decisions to initiate child protection processes. The forum for coordinated multi-agency decision-making and detailed planning of next steps is not consistently in place, and not all children’s needs are met well at the earliest opportunity. Record-keeping across partner agencies does not consistently ensure that all strategy meeting minutes are available to inform future concerns and contribute to ongoing and cumulative risk assessments.

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Main findings

Inconsistent inclusion of key health partners at child sexual abuse strategy discussions means children are not always seen by the right health professional at the right time. Critically, limited knowledge among some professionals about the role of the CSARC prevents children from accessing this specialist and expert role. More recently, when children report child sexual abuse experiences, their health needs are more positively responded to, but low referral numbers indicate not all children who SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Main findings

might benefit from this service are referred. When identified, children who have recently experienced sexual abuse have their health needs met through a referral process to CSARC. However, there is no commissioned pathway to refer non-recent child sexual abuse, and children’s holistic health needs are not consistently met.

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Main findings

Stronger practice reflects timely, well-attended strategy meetings in which professionals consider agency information that is used effectively to progress safety planning, to mitigate risks from child sexual abuse in the family environment. When police undertake joint child sexual abuse investigations with safeguarding partners, police awareness of, and applications for, civil court orders to manage perpetrators is a strength. Police are proactive in obtaining orders with suitable conditions and monitor perpetrators’ compliance with the order. This helps to reduce risks to children from child sexual abuse. The police have a good process for receiving and processing Sarah’s Law applications from both members of the public and professionals. However, police did not always use ‘Right to Know’ processes to make prompt disclosures, instead relying on safeguarding disclosures being made under statutory safeguarding duties. This may result in delays to information-sharing to

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Main findings

protect children. The police do not consistently use their powers to reduce the risk posed by perpetrators of child sexual abuse in the family. Officers investigating child sexual abuse in the family rely too heavily on voluntary attendance at police stations. This diminishes the opportunity for the police to utilise powers, such as obtaining an early suspect account or using bail conditions, to assist in safety planning.

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Main findings

Skilled direct work from social workers supports children to disclose child sexual abuse harm safely. Children are supported to complete achieving best evidence (ABE) interviews, which are carefully planned to prepare children and help provide them with the best opportunity to tell their account of what has happened. Social workers build trusting relationships with children prior to an ABE interview taking place. ABE interviews are led by police as a single agency, and this is a missed opportunity for social workers to be involved. A small number of children have waited too long for these interviews to take place, which affects them emotionally and impacts on their ability to participate and provide their account of what has happened. A contributory factor in the delays to ABE interviews being completed is the national availability and provision of intermediaries. There are no joint ABE training opportunities for police and social care, which diminishes opportunities for

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Main findings

Most assessments of children’s needs are comprehensive, include multi-agency views and are informed by family history. An established child in need partnership network operates, with positive communication between most of the key professionals participating in regular meetings and informal communications. Most children subject to child in need plans experience timely intervention. However, for a small number of children, time-bound intervention is not always in place, resulting in drift. The multi- SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Main findings

agency engagement in child protection processes and core groups is generally a strength.

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Main findings

Social workers know the children well, understand their identity and heritage and consider their diverse needs. For example, vulnerabilities related to immigration status are considered, and advice is available to support security for parents and children. The pilot test and learn Families First team embraces multi-agency relational intervention at the right threshold and responds to escalating risk.

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Main findings

In most cases, professionals consider the needs of family members, including siblings, and put in place tailored support that promotes safety and stability across the family system. For a small number of children, vulnerability is increased as safety planning is over-reliant on the non-abusing parent. For most children, a holistic family approach actively and effectively addresses the needs of vulnerable and non- abusing parents, which strengthens the effectiveness of safety planning for children.

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Main findings

The partnership commissions a wide range of specialist services for children who have been sexually abused. Skilled direct work by education and social care practitioners supports children’s emotional recovery and ensures that their voices are meaningfully incorporated into assessment and planning. Health partners demonstrate clear strengths in their direct work with children and young people, particularly where services, such as emergency department, sexual health, Children and Young People Services, Change Grow Live, Family Nurse Partnership and Trusting Hands, are involved. These health services identify need more effectively, build trusted relationships and provide impactful, child-centred support. Where health representatives are fully engaged in multi-agency collaboration, including assessments and plans, children benefit from coordinated intervention.

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Main findings

The ChIVSA team provides highly valued, specialist support for adults and children with recent or non-recent experiences of sexual abuse, offering ongoing emotional support, advocacy and a safe space throughout often lengthy criminal justice processes. There is a perception among some professionals that children who have experienced child sexual abuse cannot access therapy while waiting for court proceedings. As a result, some children are not referred for therapeutic support services, and this means some children do not have timely access to the emotional wellbeing support they need.

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Main findings

Education providers are alert to the signs and symptoms of abuse and are mostly well informed and positive about multi-agency collaboration. Education providers often demonstrate tenacity so effective multi-agency work takes place, and professionals are confident when there are circumstances for children that require escalation within the partnership. Escalation routes are not well known across all agencies and therefore not consistently utilised well to address communication concerns and disagreement about thresholds. SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Main findings

Joint work between police and probation in Gateshead reflects exemplary practice in the oversight of sex offenders. Senior leaders in the police have detailed oversight of registered sex offender management processes. Joint visits take place and risk assessments are regularly updated so that risk management plans and visit regimes manage offender risk well. When registered sex offenders are due to be released from prison, proactive information-sharing takes place and includes partner agencies, so risk assessments consider child sexual abuse to mitigate risks to children.

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Main findings

Additional scrutiny of registered sex offenders is enabled with flags on local and national police database systems. This means the Management of Sexual Offenders and Violent Offenders police are notified when an offender is in the Gateshead area or in another part of the country.

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Main findings

The Police Online Investigation Team (POLIT) carries out timely, thorough research, including with safeguarding partners, to establish whether children are connected to households or individuals who may be subject to sexual offending concerns. Members of POLIT consider the use of police powers, including police bail with conditions and civil court orders such as interim Sexual Risk Order, to mitigate risks posed to children by child sexual abuse perpetrators. Therefore, risks are managed throughout the investigation and prior to any formal charges being brought.

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Main findings

Positive, mature partnerships engage and participate to facilitate the management of Gateshead’s MAPPA arrangements. There is consistent attendance from across agencies, with attention and focus on the voice of the child. The council housing department reliably secures safe accommodation for registered sex offenders. Risk assessments are informed by probation and police information, and in stronger practice, this information is integrated into children’s plans, providing information that supports assertive and decisive action and effective safety planning.

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Main findings

While specialist commissioned services are available to help perpetrators of child sexual abuse address patterns of offending, this offer is not well known among partners and delivered in isolation from the child's wider safety plan. SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Practice study: highly effective practice

Gateshead is piloting a ‘test and learn Families First team’ in preparation for the roll out of family help and multi-agency child protection teams. This team is aligned with government reforms and has created a place-based, multi-agency relational safeguarding system. Services delivered locally increase accessibility for children and families, which is promoting meaningful participation for children subject to child in need and child protection processes. Some agencies are co- located, and overall, there are notably stronger links with education and police, with consistent practitioner involvement across an integrated system of family help and multi-agency child protection. There are plans to involve probation, and this will continue to strengthen the multi-agency child sexual abuse response.

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Practice study: highly effective practice

The model strengthens early identification of child sexual abuse, and with the expert child protection role, enhances professional confidence in threshold decision-making. Analytical risk assessment is strengthened through shared professional supervision. Complex cases continue to test the system’s ability to maintain pace and consistency in risk assessment. The team benefits from knowledgeable and confident professionals who can respond to children’s needs at the right threshold and understand what to do when risks escalate. SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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Practice study: area for improvement

The pre-birth team promotes early identification of risk and coordinates an early multi-agency model of intervention based on relational practice. However, thresholds across the team are inconsistent, and decision-making for some children is affected by professionals’ anxiety that initiating child protection processes will reduce parental engagement and shift the focus away from relational practice.

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Practice study: area for improvement

As a result, risks to children from child sexual abuse are not always met at the appropriate threshold. Multi-agency partners do not consistently challenge threshold decision-making when parents’ engagement is prioritised, and child protection processes are not progressed. For example, multi-agency strategy meetings are not always convened when high-risk registered sex offenders are known to be involved with vulnerable pregnant women. In stronger practice, swift action is taken with comprehensive joint working between midwifery, social care, probation and police to ensure the child’s needs are considered well and timely court proceedings are initiated.

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Next steps

We have determined that Gateshead is the principal authority and should prepare a written statement of proposed action responding to the findings outlined in this letter. This should be a multi-agency response involving the individuals and agencies that this report is addressed to. The response should set out the actions for the partnership and, when appropriate, individual agencies. The local safeguarding partners should oversee implementation of the action plan through their local multi- agency safeguarding arrangements.

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Next steps

Helen Fergusson should send the written statement of action to ProtectionOfChildren@ofsted.gov.uk by 25 August 2026. This statement will inform the lines of enquiry at any future joint or single-agency activity by the inspectorates. SENSITIVE-RECIPIENTS ONLY

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