Ofsted reveals drop in number of serious case reviews

Figures published by Ofsted show that a total of 134 SCRs were initiated between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016 - the lowest recorded number in three years.

This represents a drop of 19.3 per cent on 2014/15 when 166 SCRs were initiated.

News of the fall comes just months after the government said the current system of serious case reviews will be scrapped and replaced with a new way of investigating child deaths.

The decision came after a review into local safeguarding children boards, published in May, called for fundamental changes to multi-agency arrangements for protecting children.

The review, conducted by Alan Wood, a former president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, called for the current system of SCRs and miscellaneous local reviews to be replaced with "a system of national and local reviews".

Today's figures show that the 134 SCRs initiated in 2015/16 made up 35 per cent of the 379 serious incident notifications made to Ofsted that year - lower than the 43 per cent of notifications in 2014/15 or the 48 per cent of notifications in 2013/14.

Of the 134 serious case reviews initiated in 2015/16, 22 (16 per cent) were initiated where a child was subject to a child protection plan at the time of the incident, and 10 (7 per cent) were initiated where a child was looked after by the local authority at the time of the incident.

A total of 33 SCRs (25 per cent) were initiated following incidents of non-accidental injury by a parent or carer and 17 (13 per cent) followed incidents concerning neglect by a parent or carer.

Serious case reviews were introduced through the Local Safeguarding Boards Regulations 2006. An SCR must be undertaken if abuse or neglect of a child is known or suspected; and, either the child has died, or the child has been seriously harmed and there is cause for concern as to the way agencies have worked together to safeguard the child.