Parliamentary Search

Written question asked by Tim Loughton (Conservative) on Thursday, 15 October 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 20 October 2009. It was answered by Baroness Primarolo (Labour) on Tuesday, 20 October 2009 on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Children: Social Services

Question
(2) what the executive summary titles are of the 173 serious case reviews examined in preparation of the Ofsted report entitled Learning lessons from serious case reviews: year 2.
Answer

These are matters for Ofsted. HM Chief Inspector, Christine Gilbert, has written to the hon. Member and copies of her replies can be found as follows.Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 19 October 2009:"Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for response. (UIN 294637)""In the recently published report "Learning lessons, taking action: Year 2", Ofsted reported that between 1 April 2008 and 31 March 2009, Ofsted received 174 notifications of deaths of children where abuse was or was suspected to have been a factor. This figure included 38 deaths arising from homicide. Interrogation of data relating to these 38 deaths of children has identified that, to date, 10 of these notifications have resulted in serious case reviews that have been received and evaluated by Ofsted. The 10 reviews relate to 15 children. Four reviews were judged good, four adequate and two were inadequate.""Of the 15 children concerned, three were on the child protection register at the time of the incident, two were previously referred to social care services prior to the incident but were not receiving services and ten were not known to children's services. Ofsted has not yet received the remaining serious case reviews. The majority of serious case reviews take between 4 and 12 months to complete as, in some cases, the requirements of judicial proceedings can lead to delays in the review process,""A copy of this reply has been sent to Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, and will be placed in the library of both Houses."Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 19 October 2009:"Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for response. (UIN 294638)""To protect families and especially vulnerable siblings, the executive summaries of all serious case reviews are anonymised prior to publication by Local Safeguarding Children Boards.""To enable inspectors to link each serious case review accurately with the notification of the specific incident, Ofsted records all serious case reviews under children's actual names or initials and not the pseudonym which may be used for the executive summary when it is published. It is not possible therefore for Ofsted to provide details of the executive summary titles later used by the Local Safeguarding Children Boards.""Ofsted does provide details of the date of its evaluations by local authority and has included a full list of the 173 serious case reviews as an annex to the report.""Using this information, it is possible to access each of the executive summaries through a helpful web link hosted by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children:""http://www.nspcc.org.uk/inform/factsandfigures/readinglists/serious_case_reviews_2009_wda62916,.html""A copy of this reply has been sent to Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, and will be placed in the library of both Houses."

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
497 c1404-5W; 294638
Session
2008-09
Related items
Children: Social Services
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects
Children Protection
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk