Here's what we know so far from Professor Drew's review of South Yorkshire Police's handling of child sexual exploitation: 

• Police response was "inadequate" and opportunities were "regularly missed" 
• Senior officers ignored efforts to explain issue and requests for extra resources
• Force was more concerned with burglary, robbery and car crime
• The South Yorkshire Police force is yet to respond to the report's findings

Michael Buchanan
Social Affairs Correspondent, BBC News

South Yorkshire Police's failure to protect children from sexual abuse has been well-documented.

Today's report by Professor John Drew, conducted for South Yorkshire's Police and Crime Commissioner, looks into why the force failed to act, particularly in Rotherham but also in Sheffield.

The review says that for a decade from 2000, senior officers weren't interested in child sexual exploitation.

Junior officers found it well-nigh impossible, the review adds, to get support.

Professor John Drew's review into South Yorkshire Police's handling of child sex abuse says that though there was less information available on Barnsley and Doncaster, this cannot not be taken as evidence the towns were without their own problems.

In his report, published this morning, he says: "My general conclusion is that in Barnsley both the police and its 26 partners were moving towards an understanding of the problems of child sexual exploitation during this time, while in Doncaster the policing response was slightly better developed, not least because of the trust that had been developed with the charity StreetReach during the 1990s."

Work by South Yorkshire Police officers based in Sheffield on child sexual exploitation was carried out in an "under-resourced vacuum" and efforts to raise the issues with senior officers were ignored, a report by Professor John Drew into South Yorkshire Police's handling of child sexual exploitation has found.

Image source, Getty Images

In the report, Professor Drew says: "Several attempts were made to explain the problem and the need for more resources to senior police officers, and these attempts appear to have fallen on deaf ears. 

"Indeed the most senior officers from this time whom I have interviewed state that they were not aware of either the issue or the need for additional resources. 

"A generous interpretation of this situation would be to say that the senior command lacked professional curiosity and were focused instead on other areas of police performance."

Professor John Drew's review, which has just been published this morning, finds that South Yorkshire Police's handling of child sexual exploitation was particularly poor in Rotherham.

Image source, Getty Images

Written in the wake of Professor Alexis Jay's August 2014 report, which found at least 1,400 girls were abused in Rotherham, Professor Drew says  he found evidence of "serious failings of policing in Rotherham in the early 2000s".

However, he says there was evidence of improvement from 2007 onwards though "significant failures" continued to occur and children were left "without the protection" they deserved.

Professor Drew's report into South Yorkshire's Police's response to child abuse looked back over almost 20 years, from 1997 to 2016.

Image source, Office of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner

A critical review of South Yorkshire Police's handling of child sexual exploitation has said the force's response to the issue was "inadequate" and opportunities to tackle the problem were "regularly missed".

The review, carried out by Professor John Drew on behalf of the region's Police and Crime Commissioner, said the force "seriously under-resourced" its early work and several attempts to alert senior officers to the issue fell on "deaf ears".

It does, however, say the force has since made "considerable progress".

South Yorkshire Police has not yet commented on the findings.

Oliver Wright
BBC Local Live, Yorkshire

Hello and welcome to BBC Local Live in Sheffield and South Yorkshire on Wednesday 23 March 2016.

This morning sees the publication of the Drew Review, an independent report into South Yorkshire Police's handling of child sexual exploitation, 

I'll bring you all the news and reaction to the report as it happens.