I believe this may be about the University of Bedfordshire study by Sue Jago and others which was published about a year ago. The report as well as their data monitoring tool and a pro forma for assessing how well given authorities respond to child sexual exploitation can be found here. Some of the same team are carrying out similar research for Scotland (which reminds me, I must find out when this is going to be published.)
I've heard the researchers speak and it's pretty sobering stuff. Basically, the upshot is that services to detect where children and young people are at risk of abuse and the systems designed to protect them simply aren't geared towards addressing child sexual exploitation at all. The report found a very few examples of "good practice," (and said that since the report was published, some of the agencies and services that were delivering that good practice have since been wound up or cut back severely due to funding cuts.) :(
Child protection is geared towards younger kids who experience sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect primarily in a home setting, mainly from a parent or other adult in a parent-like role.
With child sexual exploitation, it generally involves slightly older children (10 or 11 plus), often where there have been no previous concerns about the child or family. The perpetrator is rarely within the family, may not be known to them at all, and may not even be in the country (e.g. grooming online and getting children to perform sex acts on web cam, for example.) Often the perpetrator isn't even the stereotypical "dirty old man in a mac," but can be of a similar or only slightly older age than the young person. Children are often "groomed" into sexual exploitation by young people who are already involved in this - both boys and girls, and both boys and girls can be targeted. They are often induced by "rewards" like phone credit, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs and also the "kudos" of being popular because they are doing something seen to be "grown up" amongst their peers. Sometimes it can morph, for example, from a "teen relationship" where a boy then offers his partner's sexual services to friends or to other men.
Another crucial factor is that often the victims don't see themselves as being victims of abuse. They like the rewards they get and the status they feel it brings. Although more research is needed to find out into factors that may make some children more vulnerable than others, there is some evidence that children who are exploited suffer from low self-esteem, have been bullied or have experienced something that has "unsettled" their life - e.g. a bereavement, parents relationship breaking down, moving schools, an illness, etc., something that means they are "open" to the inducements of those who groom them. There is also evidence that young people with learning disabilities are more highly represented amongst those who are sexually exploited than they are as a proportion of the population.
I think one of the big problems here is that too often, society at large, as well as the practitioners in the police, social services, health and voluntary sector who are in a position to do something about this problem, believe that young people who are being sexually exploited are just "streetwise" rather than victims of abuse. To be fair, it can't be easy working with young people who may not see that they need or necessarily want help. But, there needs to be a MASSIVE head shift amongst all those professionals to understand that if they are under 16, it's sexual abuse, whether or not the young person sees anything wrong with it.
We saw the consequences of this sort of attitude with the safeguarding board in Rochdale. We see it in all those people who insist that Jeremy Forrester was only a silly teacher who fell for the charms of his old-enough-to-make-grown-up-decisions student. We see how the BBC managed to ignore children being sexually exploited and abused by their own senior personnel, no doubt convincing themselves that the children were probably willing participants.
That head shift is only one part of dealing with the problem, but it's a bloody important one.