Partnership operation in Manchester is seeing more children safeguarded, as recognised in the latest HMICFRS inspection

Our proactive city centre initiative, Operation Luka, has been praised in the latest publication of the HMICFRS National Child Protection Inspection for its effective work with partner organisations to minimise risks to children.

Operation Luka is the city centre’s overarching response to tackling child exploitation. It brings together specialist officers and partners to help identify and disrupt exploitation and support young people who may be at risk of harm.

Operation Luka is a concerted multi-agency effort which sees police, the local authority, children and adult social services, early help practitioners, NHS staff, and other key partners, co-locate to bring their experience and expertise together to safeguard young people to disrupt and investigate criminality.

By bringing a range of partners together it means we can increase our sharing of information and ultimately, make sure more people are safe from harm.

As part of the proactive operation, police and social workers deploy to the city centre to engage with young people in an informal setting to foster trusted relationships. It also presents the opportunity to gather and further develop intelligence pictures relating to young people and who they’re associating with. By increasing our interactions with young people, we have been able to locate those who have been reported missing and return them home safely, preventing any possible further harm by implementing safeguarding measures to minimise the risk of them going missing again.

All of these proactive operations are supported by specialist police in our Complex Safeguarding Hubs and Child Protection Investigation Units who conduct hours of painstaking investigations to bring perpetrators to justice, while our partners offer specialist support to victims and survivors to ensure investigations are progressing at a pace which is comfortable for them.

Since January, we’ve been able to safeguard 173 children in Manchester city centre through safeguarding referrals, we’ve arrested 29 alleged perpetrators, and nine suspects have been charged, and are now awaiting trial.

We’ve also been using innovative civil orders such as sexual risk orders, slavery and trafficking risk orders, and child abduction warning notices which impose strict conditions on offenders to allow us to effectively manage their movements to minimise future offending.

Under this operation, our neighbourhood officers also deliver bespoke training packages to hoteliers, codenamed Operation Makesafe, which aims to support business owners and employees to identify potential victims of child exploitation and, where necessary, how to alert police officers so they can intervene before any young person comes to harm.

Officers will also regularly conduct test purchases at hotels to check if staff can spot the signs of child sexual exploitation and take action to safeguard young people; if they fail, further training sessions are offered. In recent months, we’ve seen a real success with this operation, with increased support from hoteliers who are challenging inappropriate behaviour and reporting concerns to police.

Greater Manchester Police has recently been recognised nationally as one of the forces leading the way with Operation Makesafe, and in the city centre, officers have extended this training and it is now available for taxi drivers, bus drivers, and ticket inspectors, all people who will often come into contact with young people who are at risk, and who are best placed to identify predatory behaviour and report it to police.

Chief Superintendent David Meeney, district commander for the City of Manchester said: “In recent years, we’ve taken strides in our journey to improve our response to child sexual exploitation, and we welcome this acknowledgement in the recent HMICFRS report.

“Our journey so far has seen us put a real focus on effective partnership work, and Operation Luka is the embodiment of this coming together. By co-locating key individuals within our Complex Safeguarding Hub, we are able to maximise our joint capabilities and bring together a variety of subject matter experts to yield positive results. This partnership work also means we’re able to increase our chances of identifying children who may be at risk of exploitation – either sexually or criminally, at the earliest possible opportunity.

“We endeavour to reach as many people in our communities as possible. By delivering bespoke inputs, we aim to help them identify the different ways exploitation can present itself in children by increasing their awareness and empowering them to report concerns to us so that we can act.”

Cllr Garry Bridges, Deputy Leader of Manchester of Manchester City Council, said: "Safeguarding children is an absolute priority for the council and its partners and Operation Luka is a powerful example of this in action.

"We are alive to the threat of those who would seek to exploit young people for sexual or other criminal ends and this collective commitment is making a positive impact in tackling the issue in our city centre."