Education

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Ministerial Corrections

Murders in Northamptonshire: Serious Case Reviews

The following is an extract from the response to an Urgent Question on Monday 10 June 2019.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

There has been and continues to be a great deal of debate about the transparency of the child protection system in England, but there is a presumption that all serious case review reports are published. That is why local safeguarding children boards and the new safeguarding partnerships are required to send copies of all serious case reviews to the panel, the DFE and Ofsted within at least seven days, as I have mentioned. At that point, they would need to provide justification for any decision not to publish the report. The panel has not yet received the draft serious case review in relation to child JL. Once the draft serious case review is received, the panel will consider carefully if there is any justification for not publishing the report. I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman.

[Official Report, 10 June 2019, Vol. 661, c. 410.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi).

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne).

The correct response should have been:

[Nadhim Zahawi]

There has been and continues to be a great deal of debate about the transparency of the child protection system in England, but there is a presumption that all serious case review reports are published. That is why local safeguarding children boards and the new safeguarding partnerships are required to send copies of all serious case reviews to the panel, the DFE and Ofsted within at least seven days, as I have mentioned. At that point, they would need to provide justification for any decision not to publish the report. The panel has not yet considered Northamptonshire’s draft serious case review in relation to child JL which it received on Friday 7 June. Once the draft serious case review is reviewed, the panel will consider carefully if there is any justification for not publishing the report. I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman.