City child-safeguarding scheme to be statutory

OPERATION ENCOMPASS TO BE ROLLED OUT ACROSS POLICE FORCES

- CARL EVE

THE Government is set to make a Plymouth-born child-safeguarding scheme a statutory requirement of all police forces across England and Wales.

As part of a series of amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill which are being tabled by the Government, the Operation Encompass scheme – currently being performed by 43 police forces across the country – will effectively move from being carried out as a voluntary act to a legislated and statutory act.

Operation Encompass was the brainchild of former Devonport police sergeant David CarneyHaworth OBE and his wife, former Torpoint Nursery and Infants School headteacher Elisabeth CarneyHaworth OBE.

The scheme, initially launched in 2011, ensured that information gathered by police at the scene of a domestic incident where children were present, was passed on to that child’s school before 9am the following morning.

Since then, the scheme has won praise from education experts, ministers, domestic violence practitioners, child psychologists as well as police and crime commissioners.

By 2017 the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary recommended that each police force take up the Plymouth-born scheme, saying it was: “an excellent example of sharing information between agencies to protect vulnerable children, because it involves forces working in collaboration with local authorities and nominated ‘key adults’ or contacts in schools.”

In 2019, Operation Encompass won the overall prize at the very first World Class Policing award at a prestigious ceremony in London. The scheme beat off competition from 54 finalists, drawn from more than 100 outstanding entries from across the globe.

Operation Encompass was rolled out in Northern Ireland in 2020 and then in Gibraltar in 2022.