Deaths of children in need

This report contains new findings on the deaths of children in need. ‘Child in need’ is an umbrella term including looked after children, children on a child protection plan, and children on a child in need plan. This report examines the characteristics of children and young people who die having had social care involvement, and how they compare to all child deaths. The Children’s Commissioner’s office recognises that each of the data points analysed in this report represent the tragic loss of a child, and so the report ends with recommendations, including on how to create a better system of understanding child deaths, and hopefully preventing, future deaths.

This research shines light on the specific risks faced by children known to children’s social care, lack of information sharing between services, and limited contact with children’s services professionals. Fundamentally, children known to social care are five times more likely to die due to deliberately inflicted injury, abuse or neglect, meaning we are doing too little to protect them.

The Children’s Commissioner is calling for:

• A change in the law that gives children equal protection from physical assault to adults. The current defence of reasonable chastisement or punishment to a charge of assault on a child should be removed – sometimes referred to as a ‘smacking ban’. This would bring England in line with the rest of Great Britain. It would not create a new offence but would give children equal protection from violence as adults.
• Schools to be at centre of safeguarding arrangements. Schools should be the fourth statutory safeguarding partner, in recognition of their role in protecting the children who they see every day and the additional insights and data they can contribute about vulnerable young people. They should continue to maintain accountability for children for a year when they are removed from school to be home educated.
• Greater oversight of home-educated children. No child who has ever been known to children’s social care due to concerns around abuse or neglect should be taken out of school for the purposes of being home educated without the prior agreement of the local authority. For children with a social worker or for whom there is a live referral to children’s social care, home education should not be permitted.
• A register of children not in school to be implemented urgently. This must include children who are home educated and be introduced via legislation as a matter of urgency, backed by the resource to effectively implement and monitor it.
• Improved data sharing: A shared unique child identifier should be introduced and, in the first instance, the government’s upcoming Children’s Wellbeing Bill should stipulate what data should be proactively shared with safeguarding partners. That should include ensuring Border Force data is shared with local authorities and schools when children leave and enter the country.
• National thresholds of need for children in need. Through a review of the Children Act 1989, there should be national guidance set out that defines consistent thresholds of need that children and families must meet to be offered support through a child in need plan, under section 17.

The report concludes with further recommendations on how the current system of recording, reporting and learning from the deaths of children in need could be made more effective.

Content warning This report includes information on the deaths of children. This content may be difficult to read and is not intended to be read by children, but by researchers and policy makers interested in making children safer. The Children’s Commissioner’s office would like to acknowledge that the death of any child is a devastating loss, and to recognise that this report is possible because families and professionals faced with the loss of a child shared their data and experiences to allow lessons to be learned.

Read the report here.