Financial year 2020-21

Serious incident notifications

Data guidance

Published 22 July 2021

Description

This guidance describes the data included in the Serious incident experimental  statistics release. The release methodology, available on the release web page should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data source, coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

Notifiable serious incidents are those that involve death or serious harm to a child where abuse or neglect is known or suspected, and the deaths of looked after children, whether or not abuse or neglect is known or suspected. Local authorities in England must notify the Secretary of State of such incidents via the Child Safeguarding Incident Notification System.

File formats and conventions

Rounding 

Percentages are rounded to 1 decimal place. They may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Conventions 

In line with GSS standards, a ‘c’ is used to protect confidentiality. Secondary suppression has been applied where necessary to protect confidentiality.

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

Serious incident notifications - total only, LA and regional breakdown

• Filename: serious_incident_notifications_la_region.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2018-19 to 2020-21
• Content:

  Number of serious incident notifications for the financial year, by local authority and region.

  PLEASE NOTE: Neither high nor low numbers of serious incident notifications alone should be interpreted as a performance measure of the local authority or its workforce. When interpreting data on serious incident notifications, local authority contextual information is an important consideration. Local authorities with larger populations tend to be more likely to report more serious incident notifications than those with smaller populations. Those with higher levels of deprivation also tend to be more likely to report higher rates of serious incident notifications than those with lower levels of deprivation. In addition, whilst reporting has improved in recent years, the Department cannot be certain that all incidents that meet the definition for a serious incident notification are notified. Data relating to population size, the number of Children in Need and deprivation have been included to provide further contextual information to the data on serious incident notifications.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
cin_31march	Number of Children in Need at 31 March
idaci_avgscore_2019	IDACI Average score in 2019
number	Number of Serious Incident Notifications
ons_midyear_population	ONS mid-year population estimates

Footnotes

1. The source of the data on serious incident notifications is the Child Safeguarding Notification System. The data shows the number of incidents reported in the financial year, rather than the number of incidents that occurred in the financial year. The local authority should notify the Child Safeguarding Practice review panel within 5 working days of becoming aware that the incident has occurred; however, in rare cases, there can be a significant delay in local authorities notifying the panel of an incident. When interpreting data on serious incident notifications, local authority contextual information is an important consideration. Local authorities with larger populations tend to be more likely to report more serious incident notifications than those with smaller populations. Those with higher levels of deprivation also tend to be more likely to report higher rates of serious incident notifications than those with lower levels of deprivation. In addition, whilst reporting has improved in recent years, the Department cannot be certain that all incidents that meet the definition for a serious incident notification are notified. For these reasons, neither high nor low numbers of serious incident notifications alone should be interpreted as a performance measure of the local authority or its workforce. 'c' has been used where applicable to protect confidentiality. Regional figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
2. The unitary local authority Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole was formed on 1 April 2019 by the merger of the previous unitary authorities Bournemouth and Poole, and the non-metropolitan district of Christchurch. As a result, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole data is available for 2019/20 and 2020/21, but not for 2018/19. Conversely, data for Bournemouth and data for Poole is available for 2018/19 but not for 2019/20 and 2020/21. The non-metropolitan districts of Weymouth and Portland, West Dorset, North Dorset, Purbeck and East Dorset combined with Dorset County Council to form Dorset Council on 1 April 2019; as a result, there is one data entry for Dorset for 2018/19 and another separate entry for Dorset for 2019/20 and 2020/21.
3. The source of the data for the IDACI Average score figures is the English indices of deprivation 2019. These figures have been added to provide further contextual information to the data on serious incident notifications. The Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) measures the proportion of all children aged 0 to 15 living in income deprived families. The average score for a given LA is calculated by taking the (population weighted) average of the combined scores for the LSOAs (Lower Super Output Areas) under that particular LA. The values range from 0.032 to 0.327, with a higher score indicating that the LA is more deprived according to this measure.
4. The source of the data for the Children in Need at 31 March figures is the Characteristics of Children in Need National Statistics release. These figures have been added to provide further contextual information to the data on serious incident notifications. 2021 data for Hackney is not available for the year ending 31 March 2021 but 2020 data has been included in the 2021 national total and regional totals for Inner London and London. National and regional figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
5. Mid-year ONS population estimates are based on children aged 0 to 17 years in England. These figures have been added to provide further contextual information to the data on serious incident notifications. National and regional figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.

Serious incident notifications - all

• Filename: serious_incident_notifications_all.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2018-19 to 2020-21
• Content:

  Number and percentage of serious incident notifications for the full and each half year of financial year. The data is broken down by the following:

  • age group;
  • gender;
  • ethnicity;
  • disability;
  • notification nature;
  • placement type; and
  • whether the child is known to other agencies or has a Child Protection Plan (CPP).

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
category	Serious incident notifications by characteristic
number	Number of serious incident notifications
percentage	Percentage of serious incident notifications
time_breakdown	Time breakdown

Footnotes

1. "Residential children's home" includes a small number of incidents that occurred in residential schools.
2. Figures on children known to any agency need to be treated with caution. Whether a child was known to any agency is interpreted differently across local authorities. Some local authorities only include children known to Children's Social Care but in other cases can include agencies such as the police, GP services, health visitors, early help, midwifery, etc. Figures can include children involved with agencies previously, and not just at the time of incident. Information is recorded at the time of reporting. Local authorities may not yet know whether the child was known to any agency.
3. Incidents involving child perpetrators are included in "other".

Serious incident notifications - full year

• Filename: serious_incident_notifications_full_year.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2018-19 to 2020-21
• Content:

  Number and percentage of serious incident notifications for the full financial year. The data is broken down by the following:

  • age group;
  • gender;
  • ethnicity;
  • disability;
  • notification nature;
  • placement type; and
  • whether the child is known to other agencies or has a Child Protection Plan (CPP).

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
category	Serious incident notifications by characteristic
number	Number of serious incident notifications
percentage	Percentage of serious incident notifications

Footnotes

1. "Residential children's home" includes a small number of incidents that occurred in residential schools.
2. Figures on children known to any agency need to be treated with caution. Whether a child was known to any agency is interpreted differently across local authorities. Some local authorities only include children known to Children's Social Care but in other cases can include agencies such as the police, GP services, health visitors, early help, midwifery, etc. Figures can include children involved with agencies previously, and not just at the time of incident. Information is recorded at the time of reporting. Local authorities may not yet know whether the child was known to any agency.
3. Incidents involving child perpetrators are included in "other".

Serious incident notifications - half year

• Filename: serious_incident_notifications_half_year.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2018-19 Part 1 (Apr to Sep) to 2020-21 Part 2 (Oct to Mar)
• Content:

  Number and percentage of serious incident notifications for each half year of financial year. The data is broken down by the following:

  • age group;
  • gender;
  • ethnicity;
  • disability;
  • notification nature;
  • placement type; and
  • whether the child is known to other agencies or has a Child Protection Plan (CPP).

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
category	Serious incident notifications by characteristic
number	Number of serious incident notifications
percentage	Percentage of serious incident notifications

Footnotes

1. "Residential children's home" includes a small number of incidents that occurred in residential schools.
2. Figures on children known to any agency need to be treated with caution. Whether a child was known to any agency is interpreted differently across local authorities. Some local authorities only include children known to Children's Social Care but in other cases can include agencies such as the police, GP services, health visitors, early help, midwifery, etc. Figures can include children involved with agencies previously, and not just at the time of incident. Information is recorded at the time of reporting. Local authorities may not yet know whether the child was known to any agency.
3. Incidents involving child perpetrators are included in "other".

Serious incident notifications - total only

• Filename: serious_incident_notifications_201415_to_202021.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2014-15 to 2020-21
• Content:

  Number of serious incident notifications for the financial year.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
number	Number of serious incident notifications

Footnotes

1. Figures from 2018-19 onwards have been produced by the Department for Education, with figures prior to then being produced by Ofsted. The Ofsted and the Department’s figures are broadly comparable when looking at the total number of serious incident notifications although the reporting of incidents and data quality has improved since reporting became becoming mandatory in 2018. However, comparisons between Ofsted’s and the Department’s figures of further breakdowns, e.g. by type of notification, should be interpreted with caution.
2. Figures for 2014-15 to 2018-19 are taken from the Ofsted statistics release.
3. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 placed a duty on local authorities to notify the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel of serious incidents. The duty came into effect when the Panel was established in June 2018. This replaced the previous arrangement whereby local authorities used to send serious incident notifications to Ofsted. The notifications to Ofsted had not been a legal requirement but guidance on them had been included in ‘Working together to safeguard children’ since March 2015.