Report Summary
This report provides members of the Policing Performance Committee with an overview of an overview of the Progress Towards HMICS Recommendations in respect of Policing Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation.
To provide members with an overview of progress made by Police Scotland in response to the Recommendations made by HMICS in its Strategic Review of Police Scotland’s Response to Online Child Sexual Abuse & Exploitation published in February 2020 and its subsequent progress review, HMICS’ Review of Online Child Sexual Abuse, published in August 2021.
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Meeting
The publication discussed was referenced in the meeting below
Policing Performance Committee - 7 December 2022
Date : 07 December 2022
Location : online
Partnership & Prevention
Police Scotland has enhanced the partnership approach to OCSAE. In late 2020 Police Scotland implemented the Multi-Agency Preventing OCSAE Group (MAOCSAE). This coordinates and develops learning, and seeks to mutually support partners’ campaigns to maximise exposure. This group has helped build new relationships with academia and third sector as well as the South West Grid for Learning, the UK Child Internet Safety - Early Warnings Group and not least with the Ofcom Scotland team with whom Police Scotland is working closely to develop process and procedure in anticipation of its new role within the new Online Safety Bill.
Police Scotland is now part of an approved, EU funded consortium aiming to develop first class risk assessment and preventative tools and to develop preventative materials for professionals and education purposes alike. The Horizon EU ‘2PS’ (Prevention & Protection Through Support) launched in Warsaw in October 20222 and is a 3 year funded programme with participation from law enforcement, health and academia from across Europe.
During 2020 and 2021 Police Scotland delivered the perpetrator-focused #GetHelpOrGetCaught online grooming campaign. During the four phases of the campaign, 133,000 unique individuals from Scotland were directed to the Stop It Now! Scotland website. It is assessed the true figure may be significantly higher but more accurate measurement is not possible due to cookie control opt-outs.
Most importantly, a minimum 1,943 unique individuals from Scotland visited the specialist Stop It Now! ‘Get Help’ pages, content specifically created for those who have identified they have a CSA-related problem. While there is no evidence of a direct increase in helpline calls resulting from campaign activity, Stop It Now! has seen a significant increase in calls from Scotland in recent years.
The effectiveness of the campaign was recognised in three national creative and marketing awards. In the Roses UK Creative Awards it won two Gold awards and the Chairman's Award for best first time entry. In the Marketing Society Scotland Star Awards – it won a Silver in the Marketing in Society category. The campaign was also nominated in the international PR Week Purpose Awards.
In 2023, Police Scotland will deliver a further perpetrator-focused national campaign tackling image-based sexual abuse, where under 18s make up a significant proportion of victims. The primary target audience will be males in Scotland aged 18-25. The campaign is in its planning phase and a specific launch date has yet to be agreed.
Throughout the Covid pandemic Police Scotland pro-actively supported the campaigns of a number of key partners. This included Child Protection Committees (Scotland), the NSPCC, the Scottish Government and Crimestoppers. Many of these campaigns had a keen focus on the assessment that the pandemic restrictions were pushing many children online to a greater extent and were exacerbating the risk to children and young people from online harms.
Police Scotland aims to build on the success of its #GetHelporGetCaught campaign and use the format of the hugely successful That Guy! Campaign to develop an Image Based Sexual Abuse campaign in 2023.
