UK Renews Barnardo's £25 Million Contract For Trafficking Victim Guardians
The Independent Child Trafficking Guardians service, running since 2017 in 160 councils, expands to all 179 in England over four years.
- Created in 2014, the service assisted 2,730 potential child victims in the year to March 2025.
- Over half those children were UK nationals; referrals rose 10% year on year.
- The National Referral Mechanism logged 23,411 total 2025 referrals, nearly a third of them children.
Why it matters: An advocate called independent is funded, timed and renewed entirely by the state it must sometimes challenge.
UK Home Office (gov.uk press release) ↗ · Jul 14, 20267/14/26 · ✓ Checked✓ Check