Statutory guidance

Concordat on children in custody

Guidance for police forces and local authorities in England on their responsibilities towards children in custody.

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Details

In 2014, the government established a working group on children in custody to address long-standing problems in the transfer of children from police custody to local authority accommodation, which is a requirement under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Children Act 1989.

This group, which included representatives from across government, found that forces and local authorities often misunderstand their statutory obligations and very few have the effective local collaboration in place to ensure that these transfers happen as they should.

In order to improve understanding and help forces and local authorities build effective collaboration at a local level, the working group produced the concordat on children in custody, clearly setting out each party鈥檚 duties and providing a protocol for how transfers should work in practice.

Signatories to the concordat on children in custody

Councils Police Forces
Avon and Somerset Avon & Somerset Constabulary
Barnsley Bedfordshire Police
Bath and North East Somerset Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Bedford City of London Police
Bexley Derbyshire Constabulary
Blackburn Devon & Cornwall Constabulary
Bournemouth Dorset Police
Bracknell Forest Essex Police
Bradford Gloucestershire Constabulary
Bristol Hampshire Constabulary
Bromley Hertfordshire Constabulary
Buckinghamshire Kent Police
Calderdale Leicestershire Constabulary
Cambridgeshire Lincolnshire Police
City of London Metropolitan Police Service
Cleveland Merseyside Police
Coventry Norfolk Constabulary
Cumbria Northamptonshire Police
Derby Nottinghamshire Police
Devon Staffordshire Police
Devon and Cornwall Suffolk Constabulary
Doncaster Surrey Police
Dorset Sussex Police
Dudley Thames Valley Police
Durham Warwickshire Police
East Riding of Yorkshire Wiltshire Constabulary
East Sussex West Yorkshire Police
Gloucestershire
Halton
Hampshire
Hartlepool
Humberside
Isle of Wight
Isles of Scilly
Kensington and Chelsea
Kent
Kirklees
Knowsley
Lancashire
Leeds
Lincolnshire
Luton
Manchester
Merseyside
Middlesbrough
Norfolk
North East Lincolnshire
Northamptonshire
North Lincolnshire
North Tyneside
North Yorkshire
Oxfordshire
Plymouth
Poole
Portsmouth
Reading
Redbridge
Redcar and Cleveland
Rutland
Salford
Sandwell
Sefton
Shropshire
Solihull
South Gloucestershire听
St Helens
Staffordshire
Stockport
Stockton on Tees
Stoke-on-Trent
Suffolk
Sunderland
Surrey
Swindon
Tameside
Telford & Wrekin
Thames Valley
Trafford
Wakefield
Walsall
Warrington
Warwickshire
West Berkshire
West Mercia
Wigan
Wirral
Wolverhampton
York

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Updates to this page

Published 30 October 2017
Last updated 16 January 2020 show all updates
  1. Kent added to the signatories to the concordat on children in custody list.

  2. Merseyside Police added as a police force.

  3. Updated to add West Yorkshire Police to the list of signatories.

  4. Added Warwickshire under councils.

  5. Updated list

  6. First published.

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