Half of children flagged at risk to social services ended up dead

UP TO half the children flagged to social services as being at risk of abuse or neglect have died in the past 21 months, figures have revealed.

Some 289 of the 538 cases of child abuse and neglect notified to a newly established safeguarding panel since July 2018 were known to social services, according to the report.

A similar proportion had already been identified as “vulnerable” but despite this, “the system was not able to prevent” the children’s death or their involvement in a “serious incident”.

Some 244 (45 per cent) were children who later died through being killed by parents or their partners or after becoming involved in gangs.

The panel said it could not confirm the exact number who died after safety concerns were raised because some notifications mentioned more than one child. But the number of referrals and the number of deaths is “broadly the same”, a spokesman said.

Councils are duty-bound to report safeguarding incidents where a child has died or suffered serious harm to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, set up in July 2018 in an attempt to improve the way the system works.

The report, its first, said the number of cases where children had died or suffered serious harm as a result of neglect or abuse was “significant and troubling” and some reflected weak risk assessment and poor decisions by the authorities.

The panel found “several examples” where probation and other protection arrangements had “fallen short.”

It added: “People with a history of child abuse, some of whom had been convicted, were not tracked sufficiently well, nor were new relationships explored properly, to establish whether they were in a relationship and or living with children.”

Almost a third of cases – 27 per cent or 144 notifications – involved babies less than a year old, most often hurt or killed by parents or their partners.

Domestic abuse was a “recognised feature of life” for 35 per cent of the children who were the subject of serious safeguarding concerns.

The panel also said there was a “longstanding concern” about how to respond when homeschooled children are suspected of being abused.

It said in its report: “Of the rapid reviews we received, a small number involved children educated at home. Four of those children died, and seven suffered serious harm through neglect. There is a consensus that attending school is a protective factor.”