Nature and characteristics of notifications
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Last updated
Number of serious incident notifications for each reporting year, by: nature of notification; child looked after; sex / gender; age; ethnicity; disability; placement type; child in need plan; child protection plan; child known to any agency; quarter.
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Data set details
- Theme
- Children's social care
- Publication
- Serious incident notifications
- Release
- Reporting year 2026
- Release type
- Number of rows
- 656
- Geographic levels
- National
- Indicators
- Number of serious incident notifications
- Filters
- Nature of serious incident notification
- Breakdown
- Reporting year quarter
- Time period
- 2019 to 2026
Data set preview
| time_period | time_identifier | quarter | geographic_level | country_code | country_name | breakdown_topic | breakdown | nature_of_notification | number_notifications |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Reporting year | Total | National | E92000001 | England | Total | Total | Total | 357 |
| 2026 | Reporting year | Total | National | E92000001 | England | Total | Total | Child death | 160 |
| 2026 | Reporting year | Total | National | E92000001 | England | Total | Total | Serious harm | 188 |
| 2026 | Reporting year | Total | National | E92000001 | England | Total | Total | Other | 9 |
| 2026 | Reporting year | Total | National | E92000001 | England | CLA | Yes | Total | 113 |
Variables in this data set
| Variable name | Variable description |
|---|---|
| breakdown | Breakdown |
| nature_of_notification | Nature of serious incident notification - Data for 'Sex' is only available for 2026; for earlier years data for 'Gender' is available. Data for 'Serious harm' and data for 'Other' is only available for the Total; for all breakdowns this is combined as 'Serious harm and other'. Data for 'Child death: abuse/neglect' and 'Child death: no abuse/neglect' is only available for the CLA breakdown. |
| number_notifications | Number of serious incident notifications |
| quarter | Reporting year quarter |
Footnotes
- In some instances, a notification can relate to more than one child. Where this happens, the characteristics information is based on one child only.
- Most notifications in the other category relate to incidents with child perpetrators who were themselves known or suspected to have been abused or neglected.
- Data on gender was collected up to 2025. Data on sex has been collected since 2026.
- For 2019, there is likely to be an undercount in the number of notifications recorded with a disability status of not known (with a corresponding overcount in the number of notifications recorded as involving children with no disability).
- For 2019, there is likely to be an overcount in the number of notifications recorded as relating to children on a protection plan.
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Contact us
If you have a specific enquiry about Nature and characteristics of notifications statistics and data:
Children’s Services Statistics Team
Email: sin.stats@education.gov.ukContact name: Andy Brook