The methodology page should be referenced alongside this data.
Coverage
This release contains statistics on serious incidents involving children that local authorities have notified the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel about.
Notifiable serious incidents are those that involve death or serious harm to a child where abuse or neglect is known or suspected, and any death of a looked after child.
Rounding and suppression
Rounding and suppression is applied to the data. The Code of Practice for Statistics requires that reasonable steps should be taken to ensure that all published or disseminated statistics protect confidentiality. The publication follows the DfE policy statement on confidentiality.
Regional numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10. National and local authority numbers are unrounded. As a result of rounding, regional numbers may not sum to national totals.
Symbols
The following symbols are used in the underlying data files as follows:
c to protect confidentiality - secondary suppression may also be applied to figures to protect confidentiality
x data not available
Where any number is shown as zero, the original figure submitted was zero.
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.
National, including characteristics
Filename
sin_characteristics_2019_2023.csv
Geographic levels
National
Time period
2018-19 to 2022-23
Content
Number of serious incident notifications for each financial year, broken down by the following:
nature of notification;
gender;
age;
ethnicity;
disability;
placement type;
whether child has a child protection plan;
whether child known to any agency;
financial year quarter.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
characteristic_type
Characteristic type
nature_of_notification
Nature of serious incident notification
number_notifications
Number of serious incident notifications
quarter
Financial year quarter
Footnotes
The majority of notifications in the other category relate to incidents with child perpetrators who were themselves known or suspected to have been abused or neglected.
For 2018-19, 'Residential children's home' includes one notification that occurred in a residential school.
For 2018/19, there may 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).
The figures for 2019-20 and 2020-21 have been revised slightly from previous publications to reflect improved recording of data.
Number of serious incident notifications for each 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 is aware that, in some instances, not all incidents that meet the definition for a serious incident are notified, particularly those relating to serious harm. 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_notifications
Number of serious incident notifications
ons_midyear_population
ONS mid-year population estimates
Footnotes
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 and 2022 data for Hackney are not available for the years ending 31 March 2021 and 31 March 2022, but 2020 data has been included in the 2021 and 2022 national total and regional totals for Inner London and London. As 2023 children in need data were not available at the time of publication, the serious incident notification figures for 2022-23 show the latest (at the time) 2022 children in need data alongside.
National and regional figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
The source of the data on serious incident notifications is the Child Safeguarding Incident 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, we know that in some cases, there is a delay in notifications being submitted. 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 is aware that, in some instances, not all incidents that meet the definition for a serious incident are notified, particularly those relating to serious harm. 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.
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 onwards. Conversely, data for Bournemouth and data for Poole is available for 2018/19 only. 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 onwards. On 1 April 2021, the unitary local authorities North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire were formed, replacing Northamptonshire. However, data was provided under the former Northamptonshire basis in 2021-22 and 2022-23.
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.
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. As 2022 mid-year ONS population estimates were not available at the time of publication, the serious incident notification figures for 2022-23 show the latest (at the time) 2021 mid-year ONS population estimates alongside. National and regional figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
Total number of serious incident notifications for each financial year.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
serious_incident_notifications
Serious incident notifications
Footnotes
Figures between 2014-15 and 2017-18 are based on Ofsted published data: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/serious-incident-notifications-from-local-authority-childrens-services-2017-to-2018.