Greater Manchester's major child sexual exploitation review to conclude by end of this year

A major review into child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Greater Manchester is set to come to a conclusion by the end of this year, leaders have confirmed.

The final stage of the independent review, which started six years ago, will now look at how Greater Manchester Police and the 10 councils in the region handle cases of sexual exploitation of children and young people in light of historic failings.

A report focusing on Rochdale is also expected to be published later this year. It follows previous phases of the CSE assurance review, which focused on Manchester and Oldham and led to the launch of new police operations.

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The last strand of the review, requested by Oldham council, reported on allegations of child sexual exploitation and the way they were handled in the borough.

GMP chief constable Stephen Watson told political leaders today (June 30) that 'good progress' has been made in Operation Sherwood, which was set up immediately after the report into Oldham was published last year. However, he said that lengthy timescales are involved in these criminal investigations.

He said: "Sometimes these things take rather longer than perhaps the common sense would indicate might be reasonable. Timescales very much are tethered to the individual needs of victims.

"It is the case that we have vulnerable people who have suffered great trauma and some of these people have locked this trauma away for the last two decades and this is all being reopened for them. You cannot simply blunder in. It is for those reasons we tread carefully, sensitively and professionally."

The chief constable explained that a risk assessment is applied to