The data is quality assured by DfE at both the categorisation and the aggregation stage. Where information is missing, or in cases where there is clearly an error, DfE contacts the local authority for clarification.
DfE has been responsible for the production and publication of the statistics for over six years and data quality has improved since 29 June 2018 following the statutory duty coming into effect on local authorities to notify the Panel of serious incidents. Prior to this, notifications were made only to Ofsted.
DfE in recent years has been working more closely with local authorities to increase awareness and familiarisation with the reporting system and to address data issues where necessary. For example, contacting local authorities where applicable to ensure categorical data is recorded accurately.
The process of notifying serious incidents has now been running for a number of years and local authorities are familiar with the notification system. DfE continues to make improvements to the system to improve data quality.
Users should read all footnotes and caveats presented in this release to fully understand the practical applications and limitations of the data.
When using the data consider:
- Data is as at time of notification. If the notification stated that the nature of the incident was serious harm but the child subsequently died, they would still be classed as serious harm in these statistics.
- If a notification form has missing or inaccurate data entries, DfE will request clarification from the local authority, but is not always successful in resolving the issue.
- Local authorities should submit one notification per incident. However, there are a small number of instances where local authorities submit multiple notifications per incident, for example, one notification relating to the victim and one notification relating to the perpetrator. DfE will liaise with local authorities to resolve such instances but on occasion is unable to do so.
- Whilst reporting has improved in recent years, DfE is aware that, in some instances, not all incidents that meet the definition for a serious incident are notified.
- There can be delays in notifications being submitted (i.e. after five working days) and in a small number of cases, there is a significant delay in notifications being submitted. Officials continue to work with local authorities to minimise this lag, but it should be noted that the number of incidents reported in a given time period does not necessarily correspond to the number of incidents that occurred in the same time period.
- Some serious incident notifications are submitted retrospectively. If a local authority was not sure if it was a serious incident at the time, it would be reported late.
- All data in this release is based on single notifiable incidents. In some instances, a notification can relate to more than one child (therefore the number of notifications received in a given year does not equate to the number of children affected). When this happens, the characteristic information is based on one child only (either the first child listed on the notification or the child whom the harm relates to). Therefore, in some instances, the characteristics information doesn’t always relate to all children involved in the serious incident and this should be considered when interpreting the figures. The characteristic information is identified as at the point of notification.
- Comparisons between characteristics data over time and between different characteristics in any given year should be made with caution due to the small sizes of some breakdowns.
- Whilst such instances are rare, a child can have more than one notification within a given reporting year.