Statutory guidance

Concordat on children in custody

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

Documents

Concordat on 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’s 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   
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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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.