James Brokenshire has highlighted Government action to respond to runaways and missing children and adults during a Parliamentary debate. The Minister for Crime Prevention emphasized the importance he placed on improving current measures highlighting a number of steps which have already been implemented by the Coalition Government.
A new online toolkit has been launched by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to assist police officers in responding to missing persons reports. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has also been given responsibility to develop work around missing children. It is bringing its expertise to bear through a cold case review and work to incorporate missing children elements into existing public and child safety training programmes.
James Brokenshire also confirmed that he had instructed Home Office officials to review the 22 recommendations of the report of the Missing Persons Taskforce published earlier in the year. Commenting James said:
"One of my earliest tasks as Home Office Minister with responsibility for missing persons was to examine the task force report with a view to understanding where we are on the missing persons problem and to consider what could be done to improve the response. I was pleased to agree early action to ensure dissemination of existing good practice to police forces, to improve information sharing and to ensure police compliance on the code of practice.
"I have asked my officials to conduct a review of the full set of taskforce recommendations by the end of the year to consider what, if any, further action we can take on this important issue, considering the changing landscape, and the way in which certain issues have moved on since the publication of the report."
You can read a full copy of James Brokenshire's speech by following this link.