MORE than 240 children were forced to spend the night in custody over the past 12 months, shock new figures for the West Midlands have revealed.

The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has blasted local councils after it emerged that a total of 244 children had to spend the night in a police cell due to a lack of suitable alternative accommodation.

Despite concerns being voiced by the PCC in June of last year about the provision of safe accommodation for young people, the figures show that little if any progress has been made toward finding a solution.

When a young person is remanded in custody after being charged with an offence, a piece of legislation called PACE places a duty on the custody officer to transfer the young person to local authority accommodation rather than keeping them in a custody suite overnight.

This can be in something called a ‘secure bed’, where the child is kept in a secure unit, or a PACE bed, which can see the child placed in foster care. The type of placement allocated to the child depends on the risk to the public or individual.

However there are no safe accommodation units throughout the West Midlands, with the closest available being in either Swansea or Manchester. As a result, a worrying number of young people are spending a night in police custody rather than in the care of the local authority, despite the fact that the local authority is legally obliged to provide alternative accommodation.

In the period from April 2017 to March 2018 a total of 111 requests for PACE beds were made by West Midlands police, but only 19 were provided. Requests were also made for 155 secure beds in the same time period, with only 10 being provided. In the remaining seven cases a request was not properly made by staff.

Speaking at the Strategic Policing and Crime Board meeting, PCC David Jamieson said: “I will be raising this important issue with local authorities to ensure that secure accommodation for children is provided.

“It is a statutory responsibility of local authorities that needs to be rapidly progressed.

“It is not acceptable for there to be no secure accommodation for children in the West Midlands. On some occasions the nearest secure accommodation is south Wales.

“It shows that the local authorities in this region have really got to step up to the plate here and start doing something.

“They’re placing the burden on the police when the burden actually lies with the local authorities’ social services department.”