The latest national statistics on Children In Need in England 2010-11 produced by the Department for Education were released on 30 November 2011 according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.
This publication contains final figures on the numbers of children referred to and assessed by children's social services. It includes information on the characteristics of children in need and information on children who were the subject of a child protection plan for year ending March 2011.
This updates provisional information published in OSR18/2011, as well as providing breakdowns of figures by new characteristics data for age, gender, ethnicity, disability, primary need, category of abuse, and reason for closure.
The key points from this release are:
Children in Need
- There were 382,400 children in need at 31 March 2011, which was a rate of 346.2 per 10,000 children.
- There were a total of 735,500 episodes of need throughout the year.
- There were 393,000 episodes of need starting between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2011 and 359,000 episodes of need that came to an end.
Referrals and assessments
- There were 615,000 referrals to children's social care services in the year ending 31 March 2011.
- There were 439,800 initial assessments completed in the year ending 31 March 2011, 281,400 (64.0%) of which were completed within 7 working days and 339,700 (77.2%) of which were completed within 10 working days.
- The number of initial assessments completed in the year as a percentage of all referrals in the year was 71.5%.
- There were 185,400 core assessments completed in the year ending 31 March 2011, 139,100 (75.0%) of which were completed within 35 working days.
- The number of children subject to a section 47 enquiry which started in the 2010-11 year was 111,700. Of these, 53,000 (47.5%) were subject to an initial stage child protection conference. 36,700 (69.2%) initial child protection conferences were held within 15 working days of the start of the section 47 enquiry.Children who were the subject of a child protection plan
- At 31 March 2011, there were 42,700 children who were the subject of a child protection plan.
- In the year ending 31 March 2011, 49,000 children became the subject of a child protection plan. Of these 6,500 (13.3%) became the subject of a plan for the second or subsequent time.
- 45,500 child protection plans came to an end in the year. 2,700 (6.0%) of these children had been the subject of a plan for 2 years or more.
As part of a Government drive for data transparency in official publications we will be including supporting data for this publication as an additional table below. The underlying data for this publication will be made available by Friday 2 December 2011.
All 26 tables from the publication are contained in the associated resource below.
Contact details
Graham Knox
Telephone: 01325 735413
Email: graham.knox@education.gsi.gov.uk
