THE criminal exploitation of children will likely become as big a talking point as grooming in the coming years - a safeguarding report has claimed.

Later today Bradford Council will receive an annual report of the Bradford Safeguarding Children Board, which details what has been done to tackle issues like sexual and criminal exploitation of children in the district.

The report says the board faces a number of challenges in the coming year, including the shadow of austerity putting a strain on Children’s Services.

It will be discussed by members of the Council’s Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee this evening.

Among the issues discussed in the report is the increased focus on “county lines” gangs - where adults exploit children by grooming them to commit crimes on their behalf.

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It suggests that the issue will likely gain more prominence in the coming years, as more people recognise that many young people committing crimes are in fact being exploited themselves.

The report says; “Safeguarding partnerships are now considering the emergence of organised crime, modern day slavery and criminal exploitation as new threats in a similar way to the same conversations in the last decade around child sexual exploitation.”

The board is made up of representatives from Bradford Council, West Yorkshire Police and the local health service, and looks at the work being done to safeguard the 141,000 children in the District.

The report points to recent cuts to Bradford Council’s Early Help and Prevention services, which saw the loss of over 200 children’s service posts, as an example of how austerity is affecting the work of the board.

It says: “Continuing austerity and budget reductions across the partnership and the impact upon the delivery of services on families and children remains a challenge for Bradford, along with many other cities. The unrelenting challenge for all agencies is reducing budgets and increasing demands which bring organisational review and reshaping to deliver more with less.”

David Niven, independent chair of the board, says in the report: “All safeguarding work can be complicated and difficult to manage but over the last ten years or so we’ve learned of several emerging areas of concern that have added to the agenda of the Board. The realisation of the scale of child sexual exploitation, the impact of organised crime and the criminalisation of children, the risks of radicalisation of young people, modern day slavery, female genital mutilation and, of course, the increasing online threats of abuse in the digital world.”

The committee meets in City Hall at 4.30pm.