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Modern slavery NRM referrals for criminal exploitation

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Dear Croydon Borough Council,

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information in relation to the victims of forced criminality known as ‘criminal exploitation’.

For the six month period January to June 2023 please provide the following information:
The number of NRM referrals made by your local authority as First Responder relating to reported ‘criminal exploitation’ broken down by age, gender and nationality of the potential victim.
The number of NRM referrals made by your local authority flagged as ‘county lines’
For the NRM referrals for criminal exploitation for children under 18 years old how many were (i) in mainstream school, (ii) in alternative provision at the time of referral
For the NRM referrals for criminal exploitation for children under 18 years old how many had been (i) persistently absent from school or (ii) severely absent from school in the 12 months prior to referral.
For the NRM referrals for criminal exploitation for children under 18 years old how many were (i) a ‘looked after’ child or (ii) a child in need prior to referral.
For the NRM referrals for criminal exploitation for adults aged 18 years and above, how many have (i) had their care and support needs assessed and (ii) been provided with support under a support plan under the Care Act 2014.

If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under the Section 16 obligations of the Act, as to how I can refine my request.

Yours sincerely

Louise Gleich

croydon@infreemation.co.uk, Croydon Borough Council

Information Team Croydon
Digital Services
Assistant Chief Executive Directorate
Bernard Wetherill House
7th Floor, Zone B
Croydon
CR0 1EA

Contact: Information Team
[Croydon Borough Council request email]

 

NOTE: Please do not edit the subject line when replying to this email. If
you have a processing request, please ensure you quote that reference in
your emails to us.

DEAR Louise Gleich

 

Freedom of information request - FOI/7811

 

Subject: Modern slavery NRM referrals for criminal exploitation

Your request is being considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of
any exemptions. Where consideration is being given to exemptions the 20
working day timescale may be extended to a period considered reasonable
depending on the nature and circumstances of your request. In such cases
you will be notified and, where possible, a revised time-scale will be
indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with your request at the
earliest opportunity.

If we are unable to provide you with the information requested we will
notify you of this together with the reason(s) why, and details of how you
may appeal.

Please note that the directorate team may contact you for further
information where we believe that the request is not significantly clear
for us to respond fully. 

Kind Regard

Information Management Team

 

Croydon Digital Services

Assistant Chief Executive Directorate

 

7th Floor, Zone B

Bernard Weatherill House

8 Mint Walk

Croydon CR0 1EA

croydon@infreemation.co.uk, Croydon Borough Council

Information Team Croydon
Digital Services
Assistant Chief Executive Directorate
Bernard Wetherill House
7th Floor, Zone B
Croydon
CR0 1EA

Contact: Information Team
[Croydon Borough Council request email]

 

Dear Louise Gleich

Request FOI/7811

Freedom of Information Request

Your request has been considered under the provisions of the Freedom of
Information Act. Please accept our apologies for the lengthy delay in
responding to you. Specifically, you have requested the following
information:

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request
the following information in relation to the victims of forced criminality
known as ‘criminal exploitation’.

For the six month period January to June 2023 please provide the following
information:

1. The number of NRM referrals made by your local authority as First
Responder relating to reported ‘criminal exploitation’ broken down by age,
gender and nationality of the potential victim.

We only have the data in a reportable format since we began the NRM Pilot
on 27/02/23, please see below.

Prior to this, information was not held in a way that can be reported and
in order to provide this the Council would need to undertake a specific
piece of work to manually search recordings which would exceed the
appropriate limit.  The Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate
Limit) Regulations 2004 specifies an “appropriate limit” for the amount of
time the council needs to spend undertaking that search.  If the council
estimates that the time taken to locate, retrieve and extract the
information requested will exceed the appropriate limit, then under
Section 12 of the Act, it is not obliged to comply with that request.

Furthermore, some of the information that has been provided below is
anonymised in accordance with section 40(2) of the Act – Personal
information of third parties. Where the total number of individuals less
than 5, the Council has replaced the figure with ‘equal to or less than 5’
(≤5). This is in accordance with guidance from the Information
Commissioner’s Office where small numbers could lead to the identification
of individuals. The Council considers that these individuals could be
identified from the very low numbers and that such identification would
constitute a breach of one of the principles set out in the Data
Protection Act 2018.

Croydon Council has made 14 of these referrals to the NRM which could be
associated with child criminal exploitation.

Of the 14 referrals associated with child criminal exploitation:

11 were for Males and 3 were for females between the ages of 13 and 17.

Of these 14 referrals
<5 were 17 years old
<5 were 16 years old
<5 were 15 years old
<5 were 14 years old
<5 was 13 years old

Those with a recorded Nationality -
≤5 Eritrean
≤5Vietnamese
≤5Albanian
≤5Romanian
≤5British
7 x Not Recorded

2. The number of NRM referrals made by your local authority flagged as
‘county lines’

We do not specifically collect data on “County Lines”. Therefore, we do
not hold this information.

3. For the NRM referrals for criminal exploitation for children under 18
years old how many were

(i) in mainstream school - 8
(ii) in alternative provision at the time of referral For the NRM
referrals for criminal exploitation for children under 18 years old how
many had been  - The Council can confirm it does hold this information,
however, the Council considers that individuals could potentially be
identified from the very low numbers (less than 5) and that such
identification would constitute a breach of one of the principles set out
in the Data Protection Act 1998 and is therefore exempt under section
40(2) of the Act.

(i) persistently absent from school or  - this information is not recorded
in a way that we are able to extract this from files and systems,
therefore we are not able to provide this.
(ii) severely absent from school in the 12 months prior to referral –
Please see answer above.

4. For the NRM referrals for criminal exploitation for children under 18
years old how many were (i) a ‘looked after’ child or (ii) a child in need
prior to referral.

<5 were looked after before referral, 17 were children in need (note –
this is per the “wider” definition of child in need, being all those open
to Childrens Social Care, who may not have had a child in need plan. This
includes the <5 who were looked after) “

Due to the low numbers in this response we have anonymised it in
accordance with section 40(2) of the Act, Personal information of third
parties. Where the total number of individuals less than 5, the Council
has replaced the figure with ‘equal to or less than 5’ (≤5). This is in
accordance with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office where
small numbers could lead to the identification of individuals. The Council
considers that these individuals could be identified from the very low
numbers and that such identification would constitute a breach of one of
the principles set out in the Data Protection Act 2018.

5. For the NRM referrals for criminal exploitation for adults aged 18
years and above, how many have (i) had their care and support needs
assessed and (ii) been provided with support under a support plan under
the Care Act 2014.

None.

The Council publishes Access to Information requests and responses on its
online Disclosure Log. (Any request included within this log will be
anonymised appropriately)

To view the Council’s Disclosure Log, please visit our website available
here:

[1]The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act | Croydon Council
(disclosure-log.co.uk)

If you are dissatisfied with the way the Council has handled your request
under the Freedom of Information Act you may ask for an internal review. 
This should be submitted to us within 40 working days of this response. 
You can do this by outlining the details of your complaint by:

Email:        [Croydon Borough Council request email]

Writing:     Information Team

London Borough of Croydon
Bernard Weatherill House
3^rd Floor - Zone E
8 Mint Walk
Croydon CR0 1EA

Any requests received after the 40 working day time limit will be
considered only at the discretion of the council.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire   SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely 

Croydon Council

 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://croydon.disclosure-log.co.uk/

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Louise Gleich please sign in and let everyone know.