It's a shocking story and shows a total neglect of the duty of care that social services and the police had towards these girls. The only thing you can say in defence of GMP is that they knew that the last operation had sucked in huge resources that restricted their ability to investigate other crimes and didn't want the same thing to happen.
But there are so many negatives, which include them not seeing these girls as victims and an excessive desire not to rock the boat with the particular community that the abusers came from. Personally I think that the vast majority of that community would be horrified by the actions of some of their members.
One copper was sacked because a car he was linked to was one of the cars picking children up, now they claim to have a zero policy against the rape of children, I don't believe a word of their reassurances.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-51093159
In the equivalent Halifax case there was a police officer who allegedly participated in the child abuse
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...abuse-amjad-ditta-police-charge-a9251751.html
Probably not, but like the Catholic church, a lot of places have a history of being run by people who would rather avoid a scandal in their organisation than do anything about child abuse. As well as a history of people in power not believing the most vulnerable members of society when accusations come forward. Having said that, I don't know how true it is, but I read rumours that Thatcher would deliberately promote people with a shameful secret as she could use them to manipulate them and guarantee their support. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of political (in culture rather than party political) organisations have operated in similar ways in the past.