The starting point must be considering the changes that could be made upstream from the point of custody. This includes:

• Broad investment and change across public services (principally early years support for children and families, education, welfare, health and social care) to tackle income, social, and racial inequalities and minimise adverse childhood experiences / trauma and its effects.
• A move away from dealing with the results of child trauma through the lens of an adversarial criminal justice system, refocusing through a genuine safeguarding lens which delivers the principles set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This would for example mean treating children suffering from child criminal exploitation (CCE) as victims and not as offenders, recognising their behaviour as the result of grooming rather than lifestyle choice.
• Where accountability, consequences and support are needed by children, the offering of practical alternatives to policing by other (and potentially new) agencies.
• Practical amendments to policing practice in relation to children in communities, whether ‘on the street’ or reviewing the involvement of police in schools.

Where a child is dealt with as a suspect in the criminal justice system, the key alternative to custody is the use of voluntary interview (VI). This presents an opportunity for police to obtain evidence via questioning without the unnecessary traumatic impact of state detention (which is supposed to be used for children only when absolutely necessary). 

There are other benefits to the VI approach. A scheduled interview provides opportunity for public agencies, including but not limited to the police, to gather information about the child before proceeding. This may result in alternative approaches being taken, as a child’s needs and circumstances become apparent. Alternatively, it may result in reasonable adjustments being made to ensure that the child can effectively participate in the interview process, protecting the integrity of the justice system and increasing the quality of any evidence obtained. 

However, there are also risks that are particular to the use of voluntary interviews, for suspects, police and the wider justice system. These include the potential for:

• Disparities in how the decision to offer a voluntary interview is taken and communicated, including a lack of clarity over the ‘voluntariness’ of the interview
• Lack of access to services (e.g. appropriate adults, legal advice, liaison and diversion, healthcare professionals, interpreters), the child’s understanding of the seriousness of the interview and the legal jeopardy they face, and the overall fairness of the interview
• Lack of oversight (as delivered by the custody officer in custody)
• Less effective assessment of risk and need. Although not related to children specifically, NAAN research looking at the year 2018/19 found that the proportion of adult suspects identified as vulnerable (e.g. mental ill health, learning disability, neurodivergence, brain injury) was significantly lower in voluntary interviews (3.5%) compared to custody (6.2%).
• Loss of opportunity to ensure that legal rights are understood, and procedural safeguards applied, if interviews are allowed to be conducted contemporaneously (at the site of the incident) using body worn cameras.
• Ineffective or non-existent administrative record keeping, impacting on oversight by policing leaders, Government, Parliament, HMICFRS, IOPC, and civil society.
• Use of inappropriate locations and contemporaneous PACE interviews at the site of an incident.

These risks apply generally but also disproportionately to children. As recognised by PACE, all children are vulnerable due to their age and are particularly prone in certain circumstances to providing information that may be unreliable, misleading or self- incriminating, including giving false confessions. Younger children are particularly likely to waive their right to free legal advice and representation. As a minimum, steps should be taken to ensure the application of the existing procedural safeguards, both to protect children and the integrity and effectiveness of the justice system.

The police are held accountable for keeping the public safe, and custody is the only secure environment that is available to them for this purpose. For as long as the system is based on bringing children into police custody, the police will be in an impossible situation. They will face continuous demands to make police custody ‘child friendly’. Their best efforts, whether it be staff training or murals on walls, seem doomed to failure because, while it is possible to make police custody less traumatic, it is not possible to make it child friendly. Thus, the police are set up to fail.

Notwithstanding evidence of over-use of custody, it is hard to foresee a time when there will be no circumstances in which a secure environment (one from which a child is prevented from leaving) is required.

Therefore, practical alternatives are required if we are to expect police not to use police custody for children. These could come in many forms. One option is the physical manifestation of the MASH (multi-agency safeguarding hub) approach, where health, social care, youth services, youth justice services are located, and make decisions based on best interests. It is worth noting that the statutory youth justice services are already multi-agency themselves and have a relevant remit.

There are a range of approaches to this depending on the scale of ambition and appetite for change. These sites could be non-secure (no detention function) and simply provide a triage function, with some children ultimately being transferred to police custody. Or a commitment could be made that no child ever be detained in police custody – in which case these alternative sites would need to have the facilities and legal powers to hold a child securely. The principle of non-police detention for the purposes of PACE already exists by way of PACE 1984 s.38(6) wherein the legal power to detain (and the associated duties, responsibilities, and accountability) is transferred from police to local authority. This would necessitate moving responsibility for authorising detention of a child in such a place away from police.

When an officer arrests a person of any age, they must bring them to a police station as soon as possible. The custody officer must then decide whether they will authorise that person’s detention. This decision is entirely separate in law from the decision made by the arresting officer. There are circumstances in which the decision to arrest was entirely justified but in which it is not necessary to detain a person.  

Research by Transform Justice found that 99% of detentions were authorised. This suggests either that police are only arresting those whose detention is necessary, or that consideration of the authorisation of detention is not always sufficiently rigorous.

Our experience suggests that some custody officers understand the nature of this decision and make considered determinations which challenge arresting officers to justify the need for detention. There can be a particular concern amongst custody officers to keep children out of custody – both to reduce risk to the child and reduce risk to the police. We are aware of some forces (e.g. Kent) in which custody officers and arresting officers are empowered to have conversations in advance of transport to custody about the appropriateness of custody, resulting in some children being de-arrested before being transported. It should be noted that, according to Home Office statistics, arrests of child aged 10-17 reduced from 351,644 in 2006/07 to 50,505 in 2020/21. The scale of this change cannot possibly be simply the result of less crime – it must be a result of choices made by adults working in the system, including police. This evidences the potential for strategic change to have a direct impact on the number of children coming into custody. Though it should be noted that this fall coincided with reductions in police workforce numbers.

However, child arrest numbers began to rise again in 2021/22, and rose further again 2022/23. This happened at the same time as police workforce numbers were rising again. Child arrest numbers are nowhere near where they were the last time police workforce levels were at the current level. However, poor record keeping in relation to voluntary interviews makes it difficult to assess how many of these cases switched to being dealt with by this alternative method.

Our experience suggests that authorisations of detention decisions are not always rigorous, sometimes appearing to be a ‘rubber stamp’ with possible reasons including:

• Police custody officers who apply the law correctly coming under pressure from senior police leaders for: being ‘too risk averse’; acting as a barrier to wider policing objectives; and reducing the efficiency police investigations
• Police custody officers being aware that senior police leaders can move them out of custody into different roles if their lawful decisions challenge or interfere with wider objectives.
• Lack of investment in training, leading to lack of awareness of the importance the authorisation decision, and the distinction between it and the decision to arrest.
• Lack of investment in skilled supervisors with the time and mandate to provide oversight, including a trend towards the use of remote technology for oversight by Inspectors (reportedly ‘unavoidable’ due to changes in the police custody estate and workforce levels).
• Low morale leading to custody officers not wishing to further demoralise officers by refusing custody, especially combined with the longer distances being travelled due to the closure of many local custody suites in favour of larger, centralised detention facilities. Asked whether he ever refused detention, one officer told us, “Morale is so low in the force, I couldn’t do that to a colleague”.
• A culture which prioritises ‘efficiency’ over effectiveness.
• Lack of involvement of third parties (e.g. legal representatives, appropriate adults) in the decision-making process. Code C requires that appropriate adults are informed of the grounds for detention, and that police give them an opportunity to make representations at Inspector’s reviews. Given this, and the appropriate adult’s role in safeguarding the rights of the child (which include detaining only when necessary) there is an obvious role for them in making representations regarding the authorisation of detention. Yet this does not appear to be common practice.

A more profound change would be to transfer responsibility custody from policing. While the decision to arrest is clearly a policing decision, the authorisation of detention is effectively a justice decision. The police custody officer is exercising power that is in many ways magisterial. Another example of this is the police application of out of court disposals, some of which do not require the involvement of youth justice services. At the same time, the police custody suite has become a multi-agency space, one used variously by healthcare, liaison and diversion, lawyers, appropriate adults, interpreters, drugs and alcohol teams, diversion programmes, peer support workers, etc. Albeit one which is very much owned and controlled by the police and heavily influenced by police culture. It is not uncommon to hear custody sergeants refer to themselves as ‘basically running a secure A&E’. Though this is said with a touch of dark humour, it carries more than a touch of truth - and potentially points the way to different approach. It is possible to envision a situation in which ‘custody’ is a more neutral (though still secure) justice space which belongs to the community and of which the police are users.

Closely associated to the issue of authorising detention is the issue of assessing needs. The current risk assessments used by police forces are somewhat variable, but broadly similar. Our own research has demonstrated that current tools are ineffective in identifying everything that police are expected to manage in custody. They are focused on physical risks (e.g. of self-harm or suicide) rather than identifying needs that might generate non-physical risks (such as how a lack of cognitive development and/or communication differences might result in unreliable evidence).

Training for the police to help them identify vulnerabilities and needs is extremely limited. The College of Policing has invested heavily in a new “Hydra” package on vulnerability in custody which is welcome and will be impactful for any force adopting it – thought it does not focus specifically on children or the risks of unreliable evidence set out in Code C. 

The police have access to very limited information when they make the decision to authorise detention. There are poor (or non-existent) flows of information from outside sources such as health, social care, children’s services and youth justice services. All of which enable them to make more informed decisions, taking into account particular needs and vulnerabilities. Liaison and diversion services offer a source of important information, but are seen by some forces and officers as being relevant only much later in the process, even after interview, with the limited purpose of informing what happens after custody, rather than what happens in it.   

Improving access to information about a child’s particular circumstances and needs will lead to better decision-making about whether detention is necessary, appropriate, and in the best interests of the child. While it is important that custody officers have direct access to this information, it is also important that other key actors also have access, and share it proactively with police (even where police access already exists). This includes appropriate adults, youth justice service officers, solicitors and legal representatives, liaison and diversion staff, healthcare professionals, and forensic physicians – anyone in a position to inform, contextualise, make representations, or offer alternatives. 

We understand the feelings of children in police custody to include powerlessness, indignity, isolation, frustration, confusion, humiliation and fear. We are aware that these can be effectively concealed from olice with bravado. These feelings create risk not only for the child but for the police.

When individuals feel powerless, they may be more likely to comply with authority figures, such as police officers. This power imbalance can lead to a sense of helplessness, making the person more susceptible to providing false information in an attempt to gain some control or appease those in authority.

Experiencing indignity during questioning can damage a person's self-esteem and sense of worth. This emotional distress may lead them to say what they believe the police want to hear in an effort to regain a sense of dignity or avoid further humiliation. 

Being isolated during questioning can increase feelings of loneliness and vulnerability. The absence of social support makes individuals more dependent on the police for interaction and support, increasing the likelihood that they might provide false information to seek relief from the isolation. 

Frustration can arise when individuals feel that their needs or desires are not being met. This emotional state may push them towards making false confessions to end the frustration and remove the stress and pressure of the detention and questioning. 

Confusion can impair cognitive functioning, making it difficult for individuals to fully comprehend the situation or the consequences of their statements. In a state of confusion, individuals may inadvertently provide inaccurate information or agree to suggestions made by a police interviewer, leading to a false confession. 

Experiencing humiliation during questioning can lead to a desire to escape the negative emotions associated with shame. Some individuals may confess falsely in an attempt to end the interview quickly and alleviate the feelings of humiliation. 

Fear of consequences, whether real or perceived, can be a powerful motivator for providing false information. Individuals may believe that confessing falsely is the only way to avoid harsher treatment, punishment, or further harm. 

In summary, the combination of these psychological factors can create a highly stressful and coercive environment during police questioning. This environment increases the vulnerability of children or vulnerable individuals, making them more susceptible to providing false confessions as a coping mechanism or as a means to mitigate the negative emotions associated with the detention and questioning process. It emphasises the importance of ensuring that detention and interviews are conducted in a fair, ethical, supportive and procedurally just manner to minimise the risk of false confessions and protect the rights of the individuals involved.

• Provide police with clarity that minimising the detention period is more important that ‘dealing with the matter in the first instance’ (they are currently given mixed messages).
• Halve the PACE clock for children to 12 hours (before a Superintendent’s extension must be requested)
• Prohibit the use of remote technology for Inspector’s reviews for children (if necessary including a limited ‘in extremis’ exclusion covering flood, snow etc, but not under-investment in workforce)
• Mandatory legal representation for children (rather than relying on family or other untrained AAs being aware of Code C 6.5A)
• Higher funding levels for legal advisors for children’s cases, combined with mandatory training/certification on the children’s legal framework
• Sufficient funding for appropriate adult services to ensure 24/7 availability, swift response times, and the ability to support children throughout their detention period.
• A requirement that independent information about the appropriate adult role is available to anyone acting in the role.
• A right for parents to remain informed/involved in their child’s detention even where they do not take on the role of appropriate adult.
• A requirement to alert the youth justice service that a child is in custody immediately, with a clear mandate and resources to enable the YJS to work proactively to secure release at the earliest opportunity, including providing information and alternatives to police (e.g. pre-charge bail support)
• A review of the potential grounds to refuse bail (enabling police remand), taking into consideration the recently amended grounds available to courts for remand, with a view to increasing alignment.
• Meaningful provision of local authority accommodation for children refused bail after charge. This system, which in legislation requires the transfer of children, has not worked in practice for many years. The primary (although not only) reason for this is the lack of local authority accommodation for this purpose. While the focus is on the PACE clock, we must also consider detention after charge.

The evidence-based national standards for appropriate adults, set out in detail the training expectations for those employed or volunteering as appropriate adults.

However, in summary, to be equipped to practice the interests of children in custody or voluntary interviews, appropriate adults need to be:

• competent
• confident
• caring.

 They need the knowledge to be able to:

• explain the law, rights and responsibilities and standards that inform their role.
• articulate the history and context in which their role sits within the justice system
• identify the key actors they will work with when fulfilling their role.

 They should have the understanding to:

• be able to explain the theory behind what they do, from cognitive and child development to trauma informed practice
• understand the vulnerabilities and diverse contexts of the people they support, and how that impacts the way they work together.
• appreciate the environment they are working in, including the custody suite and pressures on police and professionals
• identify the limits of their own role and competency, and be able to make representations to police about what additional professional support with be needed to ensure a fair profess and effective participation.

In terms of skills they should continually develop:

• the self awareness and soft skills to build compassionate, empathetic relationships with vulnerable people and children.
• the confidence, communication, negotiation and advocacy skills to build relationships of mutual respect with other professionals and the police, to best protect the interests of vulnerable people and children.

The national standards also stress:

• the importance of actual and perceived independence from policing, from the governance and funding level to the practice level
• the active management of any conflict of interest.
• the importance of considering people’s motivations and attitudes when recruiting and vetting potential appropriate adults.

 Assertiveness is critical. Having all the knowledge in the world is useless if an appropriate adult does not open their mouth – whether to intervene in interview or make representations at a review of detention.

Attitudes are also influential in terms of shaping the effectiveness of appropriate adults. This includes attitudes towards police, children in conflict with the law, people experiencing mental distress, people suspected of offences, and people suspected of particular types of offence. Recent academic research by Chloe Macdonald (unpublished) has demonstrated how pre-existing attitudes shape perceptions of vulnerability, and determine the interventions made by police officers and appropriate adults.

Macdonald (unpublished) conducted assessments using the Juvenile Offending Stereotype Scale (JOSS), Public Attitudes Towards Violent Offenders (PATVO), and Attitudes towards Mentally Disordered Offenders (MEN-D) tools. She found where the stereotypes held were lower, more help was given. 

Jessiman and Cameron (2017) conducted two focus groups with people with experience of police custody and (a) mental ill health and (learning disability). Although this related to adults, the table below provides an important insight into the attributes of the ideal appropriate adult as defined by the people to whom it is applied.

The average human brain takes 25 years to develop. Yet at just ten, a child is criminally responsible and must make key decisions, such as whether to have legal advice. But children in custody are disadvantaged by more than cognitive development. They are much more likely than other children to have poor mental health, a learning disability (up to 32% versus 4%), communication disorder (up to 90% versus 7%), be autistic (15% versus 1%), or have suffered a head injury with loss of consciousness for more than 20 minutes (18% versus 5%). Race, gender, abuse, neglect, trauma, exclusion, and ‘looked after’ status can also compound disadvantage. 

Much of this is invisible. We know from our own research that every month, thousands of adults with additional needs go unidentified when detained or questioned by police in England and Wales. This means many people, including those with learning disabilities, mental illnesses, and neurodiverse people, do not get the support of an appropriate adult as required by law. Clinical research (McKinnon and Grubin, 2013) has shown that of detentions of adults by the Metropolitan Police Service 39% involved a person with a mental disorder. Yet the latest data obtained from police forces by NAAN, indicates that only 8.6% are identified as vulnerable (requiring an appropriate adult). This indicates that there are likely issues with the effectiveness of current risk assessment processes (see Assessment of need above).

With adult suspects, the identification is critical to the decision as to whether an appropriate adult is required. With children, the AA is mandatory due to age, without the need for further consideration. While this is positive in many senses, there is perhaps a risk that there is no ‘trigger’ for police to further consider the individual vulnerabilities of a child, despite the need to deliver the PACE Codes in a manner consistent with the Equality Act 2010.

Children who are detained regularly may be seen to ‘know the ropes’ causing their distress and disadvantage to go unrecognised and unaddressed. Evidence of ‘adultification’ particularly affecting Black children is a part of this.

Liaison and diversion services have provided an opportunity to improve the identification of need. Assuming those services are effective, the critical questions are what police do with the additional information, and what services/interventions are available to them. Our research has shown that less than 1 in 5 adults identified as vulnerable by liaison and diversion services in England were provided with an appropriate adult. It also indicates that police are around half as likely to record an adult suspect as requiring an appropriate adult in police forces areas which have limited (or no) access to organised appropriate adult schemes.

This is a challenging question to answer for several reasons: 

• The first is that the academic evidence on appropriate adult effectiveness is underdeveloped. As an organisation that strives to be evidence based, we feel that there are insufficient studies, with extremely little reflecting current practices. Existing studies often do not take into account the full breadth of the role, tending to focus on interventions in interviews.
• The second reason (to which the first may in some part be related) is that a large part of the effectiveness is the absence of negatives – something that is difficult to evidence.
• The third is that the question can either be answered in relation to the role’s legal definition, how it is conceptualised by the various parties involved, or how it is delivered in practice.
• The fourth is that it is difficult to do the question justice within the confines of a relatively short submission.

In our view, the existence of the appropriate adult safeguard increases the fairness of the justice system in England and Wales for children. At the simplest level, if appropriate adults were removed from the system tomorrow, the system would be less effective at protecting children’s rights and the risks of custody would be greater. Children would be worse off, the quality of policing would degrade, with consequent effects on the integrity and efficiency of the justice system. 

“Appropriate adults provide vital support and help to de-mystify what can be an intimidating and threatening experience”. Theresa May, Home Secretary, Policing and Mental Health Summit, 2014

 NAAN is currently working in partnership with Cardiff University to co-supervise PhD research precisely on the question of appropriate adult effectiveness, conducted by a former practitioner.

While the current research evidence is not as broad and deep as we would like, there is relatively recent evidence about the value that appropriate adults bring. For example:

• HMIC (2015) found that people who have had an AA said that AAs make a positive difference to the custody experience and outcome by making people feel more relaxed, able to understand and communicate better, more able to exercise their rights, and by challenging unprofessional conduct and inaccurate information.
• Medford S, Gudjonsson G, Pearse J (2003) found that the mere presence during the police interview has three important effects. First, it can increase the likelihood that a legal representative will be present. Second, it is associated with less interrogative pressure in interview. Third, in the presence of an AA, the legal representative takes on a more active role. This is a rare example of evidencing the ‘absence of negative’ impact of AAs. We also note that Kemp et al (2023) found that 80% of children now have legal advice (a significant increase) and that this figure includes where a child declined legal advice but their AA either dealt effectively with their objections or requested legal advice on their behalf under PACE Code C 6.5A).
• Macdonald (unpublished) found that appropriate adults were more effective than police at identifying and responding to ‘covert’ vulnerability.
• Jessiman and Cameron (2017) found that trained appropriate adults understand and care about their role in: due process; protecting welfare; providing emotional support. And that ‘service users’ valued having someone who can explain what is happening to them, enable communication with the police, and provide emotional support during what for many was a confusing and humiliating experience (in many cases, attributed to their race or gender).

The most powerful evidence of the difference that appropriate adults make will of course come directly from the practitioners and children themselves. We have shared the opportunity to contribute to this inquiry across our network, and hope that many appropriate adults will have had the time to share their experiences and impact, as well as their challenges. 

But NAAN will not let it be forgotten that when Covid-19 arrived, a global pandemic of then unknown seriousness, organised appropriate adult schemes continued to operate – and to do so in-person. This was the case across the public, private and charity sector schemes. It was the case across paid and volunteer appropriate adults. There were of course individuals at high risk who needed to step away for a time, but scheme leaders, even some provider chief executives, donned PPE to put children in custody ahead of their own interests. This demonstrated a culture, a set of values, a commitment to children, which must be recognised and should be supported.

While the role of the appropriate adult is quite different from that of the solicitor or the intermediary, the absence of these professionals from the custody suite makes the AA role even more important. In the case of the intermediary, by absence we mean the lack of any established scheme by which their involvement might be arranged and funded. In the case of the solicitor, we mean the funding model that has seen their presence narrowed to the shortest possible time with a client, including ‘stacking’ multiple simultaneous cases to make that model function in a financially sustainable way – albeit as a ‘loss leader’ for cases proceeding to court.

As the national membership body, the most common challenge cited by our members, relates to working with the police. The quality of support and facilitation provided by the police is critical to the effectiveness of the safeguard.

The custody suite is owned and controlled by the police. PACE requires police to tell the AA and secure their attendance as soon as is practicable. Children have a right to consult privately with their AA at any time. But in practice the police have significant discretion over who they call to act as appropriate adult and when. The custody officer has complete control over access to the suite. This means they have complete control over the ability of the AA to access the child, the child’ ability to access their AA, and how, whether, and where they communicate and spend time together. Research has found police delaying referrals and limiting access to children. The extent to which an appropriate adult’s representations have impact (at least at the time) is unavoidably impacted by the police officer’s understanding of, and attitude towards, the AA safeguard. 

These issues are of course not unique to appropriate adults. Solicitors often express their frustration with the police, particularly in relation to communication. However, appropriate adults sometimes feel that their lack of professional status means that their views attract less respect. The challenges facing the AA safeguard are not all of the police’s making. By law, AAs must be completely independent of the police force, and the therefore the police are explicitly not responsible for the quality or availability of AA services. 

The attitudes of all professionals towards appropriate adults - not justice police - influences the efficacy of the AA safeguard. This works both ways. The greater the respect and understanding of each other’s roles the more effective the system of safeguards will be. 

A prime example is the variation with solicitors and legal representatives approach the right of the client to choose whether they have their appropriate adult in the legal consultation. This is not to suggest that there are not risks to consider. The UNICEF Guidelines on Child-Friendly Legal Aid (2018) provide the following advice to lawyers:

• Professional confidentiality does not apply to conversations with family members
• Even with younger children, communication should be directed at the child, though supplemented by communication with the adults supporting them as appropriate. Sometimes it may be necessary to ask supporting adults to wait outside so that a child can speak more freely (and vice versa)
• Practitioners need to be aware of the power dynamics in adult and child relationships, and to be alert to the possibility that a child is being manipulated or intimidated. It is important that the interests of others such as parents or siblings, who may be more articulate and vocal, do not conflict with or take priority over the interests of a child client.

But concerns around these issues can actually mean children are not always put in a position to make an informed and empowered decision. Rather the decision is sometimes taken for them (and the AA given rather short shrift). There are risks both ways, and there is not always a full understanding of the fact that AA are bound by legal privilege when involved in the legally privileged consultation. 

How the AA is treated, and how they navigate their relationship with all professionals (including police) is a challenge, balancing good working relationships with independence and focus on their set objectives.

To our knowledge, there is no service in England and Wales that is funded or commissioned in such a way as to be able to fully comply with the national standards.

Since 1998, provision of appropriate adults for children has been a statutory youth justice service. This means that Youth Justice Services (the more modern term for Youth Offending Teams) hold responsibility. Prior to this, responsibility would have fallen to local authority children’s social workers. 

This statutory duty on local authorities is a welcome contrast to the lack of legal any authority to provide the same service for vulnerable adults. However. It does not guarantee sufficient resource or management prioritisation. 

Legislation and standards make it clear that local authority AA provision must be available at any time. Nevertheless, availability is a common frustration. Despite clear national standards, some schemes are still not able to operate 24/7, respond quickly enough, support the entire custody process, or support voluntary interviews. 

There is some evidence to suggest that children in the police station, and the provision of appropriate adults, are not always a high priority for youth justice service managers. The absence of any inspection of appropriate adult provision is notable in this regard. The National Appropriate Adult Network has been working with HMI Probation towards the inclusion of appropriate adult provision inside the Future Inspection Framework for Youth Offending Teams. 

Youth justice services are part of wider local authority services, which have of course seen significant cuts to funding over recent years. While we have seen a welcome reduction in the number of children arrested, the last two years have shown increases. And this of course does not account for the numbers of voluntary interviews taking place without arrest – for which appropriate adults are also required. 

The appropriate adult provider sector is facing a significant workforce challenge - arguably a crisis. This applies whether the service is provided by the public, private or charitable sector. Post-Covid, there is a national shortage of volunteers. Appropriate adults who work on a sessional basis are typically paid around £10-£11 per hour in the day. This compares poorly to the £14 an hour that supermarket Aldi pays its cleaning staff.

While many children receive rapid, extensive and excellent support, some only get an AA immediately before an interview. They spend hours without support, significantly increasing risks to justice.

Under PACE, the AA role stretches from explanation of rights and entitlements, to involvement in reviews, to out of court disposals. And of course, a child has a right to a private consultation with their AA at any time. 

However, the interview has seemingly remained the focus of the custody process, despite arguably decline in relative importance over time. This is certainly true from a police perspective, but can also be true of the way that AA provision is delivered. 

In practice, the involvement of the AA is too often ‘crushed’ into the time around the interview. Based on what we have heard from our members we believe the average time spent by AAs in police custody to be between 2.5 and 3 hours. This must be set against Dr Vicky Kemp’s recent finding that average detention times were around 11.5 hours. 

The low percentage of a detention for which AAs are present seems to be caused by several factors including:

• Delays in the police making a referral (sometimes due to seeking to prioritise parents in the first instance, but otherwise due to not acting expeditiously – perhaps due to their own workforce issues).
• Availability of AA services (while many areas now have 24/7 AA services this is still not universal).
• The booking of AAs to arrive immediately prior to interview (in some cases supported by the AA, while in other cases the AA is told they will not be allowed to enter custody if they come earlier)
• Slow responses to referral requests (NAAN members tend to report arrival times within 45-60 minutes of referral, though this is somewhat complicated by the booking issue above)
• Departure of the AA shortly after interview, particularly where a CPS decision is being sought due to long waits with no further PACE procedures and no suitable accommodation for the AA and child to share.
• Contractual and funding arrangements whereby AA schemes are required to justify in writing whenever they spend more than 2.5 hours in detention with a child (effectively triaging to manage limited resources and avoid overspend).
• Lack of appropriate facilities for appropriate adults to remain present. We note that the arrangements in Wiltshire Police custody allow the AA and child to sit in a dedicated room in custody (which includes a sofa). Other force areas have rooms which allow appropriate adults (and other professionals) to wait in or near custody without needing to ‘float around’.

This ‘crushing’ effect limits the ability of the appropriate adult to safeguard the interests of a child, and of the child to exercise their rights (including the right to a private consultation at any time). Specifically, it:

• Makes it difficult for appropriate adults to engage in discussions about the grounds and necessity of detention
• Leaves a scarce amount of time to establish a detainee’s needs or develop rapport.
• Increases the risk that strip searches that expose intimate parts are carried out without an AA present under the ‘urgency’ provisions in Code C.
• May reduce the likelihood that AAs are enabled to make representations at Inspector reviews (or Superintendent’s authorisations) because they are dependent on the police informing them when a review is likely to take place and contact being established, and that those representations are as effective as they might be in person
• May reduce the ability of the AA to inform consideration at the point that a charge (or other outcomes) is considered, including the application of bail, the appropriateness (and understanding) of conditions etc.

The AA role is sometimes ‘chopped up’ between different people even within one detention episode. The focus on procedure over person, and the concerns about budgets, have led in some cases to a single child experiencing three AAs within one custody experience:

• AA 1: Rights and entitlements and other initial procedures
• AA 2: Interview.
• AA 3: Charge and related actions (sometimes delivered remotely)

There are, of course, times when a change of AA is required, for example to maintain fairness for the child, or the alertness of an AA. However, this should be rare and supported by effective handovers.

But as ‘business as usual’ it is hard to see how this can be justified based on the best interests of a child. It is challenging for a child and AA to establish a basic bond of trust (assuming they do not already have a pre-existing positive relationship). Asking a child to do this several times undermines the effectiveness of the core AA role, as well as the role they share with other professionals in contributing to wider safeguarding.

The reality is that it is happening because (a) detention times are too long and (b) the system has a focus on procedure over people and (c) it is seen as the most cost-efficient way to ensure that there is technical compliance with the PACE Codes. We reject the latter even on its own logic, since the PACE Codes require more than simply AA presence at discrete procedures – the role has an over-arching responsibility.

The Royal Commission that led to PACE envisaged that in the absence of a child’s parent or guardian, the AA would be a social worker.

PACE 1984 prioritises parents as AAs (unless involved in the case), and many children will value someone familiar and trusted who understands them. Yet, in emotional circumstances, parents must interpret PACE, understand their role, and challenge police appropriately, while relying on them for information. A review of the literature highlights that the use of family members as AAs for children is fraught with difficulty. Problems with the use of parents as AAs for children include (NAAN, 2015 citing: Dixon et al, 1990; Brown et al, 1992; Evans, 1993; Littlechild, 1995; Bean, 1997; Bucke and Brown, 1997; Williams, 2000; Nemitz & Bean, 2001; Pierpoint, 2006, Dhami and Garcia-Retamero, 2014):

• a misunderstanding of the AA role
• the threat of physical violence towards their child
• pressure on their child to confess
• aggression towards police and their involvement in ongoing family conflicts.

An adult contributing to research by Jessiman and Cameron (2017) said:

“But because my mum, it was the first time she had ever been in a situation like that, she felt uncomfortable about it… She wasn’t able to help me, because she didn’t have the tools and the experience to do it. I felt bad that I’d put mum through that.”

NAAN (2015) found that “The police, service users and providers alike have raised concerns about the suitability of using family members as AAs – who are unlikely to be trained or have any knowledge relating to the AA role,

and are sometimes over-involved with or, conversely, antagonistic towards the suspect. In contrast, it has also been recognised that an AA’s familiarity with the suspect and capacity to offer personal, emotional support can be of benefit”.

An experiment by Dhami and Sim (2014) found that the AA role is too complex for the short explanation that a busy custody officer can deliver to an untrained person and a small amount of information about the role can render a person less effective than if they had none.

The inclusion of the AA role as part of a social worker’s responsibilities has been replaced with the system of dedicated AAs. As recognised by the Home Office and Audit Commission in the mid-1990s the move to volunteers had many positives, including improved response times and longer periods spent with a child in custody. A system of dedicated AAs also allows people to train more extensively and to practice much more regularly.

Today the complexity of AA provision is greatly increased, with local authorities both delivering and commissioning services. It is rare for social workers to act as an AA.

Well trained AAs (volunteers or paid) have the knowledge and experience to challenge without obstructing an investigation and, in theory, could be subject to inspection or regulation. The literature is supportive of a preference for trained individuals over parents (NAAN, 2015 citing: HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2013; Pierpoint 2000, 2001): 

• If the appropriate adult system is to be fit for purpose, it must be staffed by workers/ volunteers who have received appropriate training
• The effectiveness of volunteer AAs was found to be contingent on good selection and preparation, improved training and monitoring practices, and effective regulation and guidance.

However, one thing that is lost because of this specialisation is continuity pre and post detention. The child does not have support from the same person before, during and after police custody.

Some may see this as beneficial (with the power of the social worker and their professional responsibilities at risk of conflicting with the AA role). However, it undoubtedly presents a challenge in terms of relationships, rapport and information flows.

In current practice trained appropriate adult are almost always unknown to the child and often known nothing about them. No matter skilled in building rapport, this may not meet the child’s needs as effectively as someone who loves them, cares about them, and knows about them (assuming such a person exists and is willing and available).

It is of course also possible for the AA to be a person who is known to the person in a ‘professional’ capacity e.g. a support worker. In theory, this group holds the potential to bring both an existing relationship of trust, and have been trained (though perhaps not the regular practice). Studies suggest that the AA role is too complex for the short explanation that a busy custody officer can deliver to an untrained individual, and that a very limited amount of information about the role can render AAs even less effective than if they had none (NAAN, 2015). Jessiman and Cameron found (in relation to adults) that, “Experiences of having an AA were mixed, with those who had a family member in the role unclear that this had been helpful. Echoing earlier research (Leggett et al., 2007), there was no consensus over whether a family member (or other known individual) or trained professional was best suited to the role”.

Another recurring theme in past research is the variability in quality of AAs (NAAN 2015). In particular, that they have inconsistent knowledge and skills, don’t always fully understand role and are not always sufficiently assertive. Research is often focused passivity at the interview stage (e.g., Farrugia and Gabbert 2019).

In many cases, this reflects the wide range of backgrounds from which AAs come into the role, including family and professionals with no training or experience of the justice system.

Judging the quality of dedicated appropriate adults provided by schemes is fraught with difficulty. It is not something that NAAN has the resources to undertake. However, based on our general experience, we believe that the consistency of quality across those schemes could be significantly increased.

We do not believe that the training requirements defined in the national standards are always being met, despite this being a requirement under the national standards for youth justice, set by the Secretary of State.

Even where training is delivered according to national standards, there is no system of independently assessing whether the necessary learning has taken place. While an OFQUAL accredited level 2 qualification exists, and supported by NAAN, there is no requirement for this to be completed by appropriate adults.

The role of the appropriate adult in facilitating communication warrants specific mention. While often well regarded in the literature in its capacity as ‘supportive’ function, the AA has been considered to be problematic when it comes to facilitating communication.

Many children who come into police custody, perhaps an increasing percentage, will have additional vulnerabilities beyond age; with 60-90% of children who offend having communication disorders (Hughes et al, 2012).

It is important to remember that the appropriate adult role (with or without training) is constructed as that of a lay person. The scheme AA or social worker replaces the family member, not a forensic psychologist or speech and language therapist. The AA is expected to be the Swiss Army Knife of procedural safeguards. By definition, it requires a broad but relatively shallow set of ‘professional knowledge’, deployed via high interpersonal skills.

• Dhami M and Sim MPY (2014), Measuring the Effectiveness of Appropriate Adult Presentation
• Farrugia, L and Gabbert, F. 2019. The ‘appropriate adult’: what they do and what they should do in police interviews with mentally disordered suspects. Criminal Behaviour & Mental Health, 29(3), pp. 134-141. ISSN 0957-9664 [Article]
• Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) (2015), The welfare of vulnerable people in police custody. London: HMIC
• National Appropriate Adult Network (2015) The Home Secretary’s Commission on Appropriate Adults: There to help: Ensuring provision of appropriate adults for mentally vulnerable adults detained or interviewed by police. London: NAAN
• Hughes et al (2012) Nobody made the connection: The prevalence of neurodisability in young people who offend. London: The Childrens’ Commissioner
• Kemp et al (2023 Examining the impact of PACE on the detention and questioning of child suspects. University of Nottingham
• Medford S, Gudjonsson G, Pearse J (2003) The efficacy of the appropriate adult safeguard during police interviewing. Legal and Criminological Psychology 8(2): 253–266.