CYP Now - Criticism as ICO backs government refusal to publish safeguarding review

Campaigners have hit out at a decision by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to support the government's refusal to publish a report containing information about the deaths of children in care despite complaints from the sector.

Campaigners have called for the safeguarding report to be published. Picture: Smolaw11/Adobe Stock

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s scoping report, which the government has refused to publish regardless of outcry from campaigners, holds information about 48 incidents where children in care died or suffered serious harm.

Thirty organisations wrote to the panel’s chair Annie Hudson in April last year calling for the report to be made public, however, she refused on the grounds that “the work was not carried out with publication in mind”.

Following Hudson’s response, children’s rights charity Article 39 submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in December asking for the report to be published, but this was refused.

The ICO has now upheld the government’s decision not to publish the report, according to Article 39, after the charity lodged a complaint about the information being withheld.

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