Offences against Children
(asked on 15th March 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many serious case reviews commissioned in 2014 have not been published in full.
Where a serious case has occurred (in which abuse or neglect is known or suspected, and either a child has died, or a child has been seriously harmed and there is cause for concern as to the way local agencies have worked together to safeguard the child), it is the responsibility of the Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCB) in a local authority area to decide whether or not to initiate a serious case review (SCR).
Ofsted collects and publishes data on notifiable incidents, and of these, data on the initiation of serious case reviews (SCRs).
Information on the publication and non-publication of SCRs is not available in the format requested. However, the following latest statistics are provided in the third report of the national panel of independent experts on Serious Case Reviews, which advises Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) on the initiation and publication of SCRs:
Period | Completed SCRs received by panel | SCRs where panel considered case for non-publication | SCRs where panel agreed with case for non-publication | SCRs where panel disagreed with non-publication | SCRs where panel agreed to anonymous publication on NSPCC website | SCRs where panel agreed to a summary publication |
01/07/13 to 30/06/14 | 74 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
01/07/14 to 30/06/15 | 80 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
01/07/15 to 30/06/16 | 110 | 17 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 1 |
Under the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children (2015), LSCBs should complete an SCR within six months. The current statutory guidance does not specify a timescale for publication of the SCR report.