Serious incident notifications
Reporting year 2026

Description

This guidance describes the data files included in the 2026 official statistics release on Serious incident notifications (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/serious-incident-notifications).

This data is released under the terms of the  Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for  Open Data (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2010-to-2015-government-policy-government-transparency-and-accountability/2010-to-2015-government-policy-government-transparency-and-accountability#appendix-3-releasing-data-in-open-and-anonymised-formats).

The  methodology (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/serious-incident-notifications-methodology) page should be referenced alongside this data.

Coverage

This annual release contains statistics on serious incidents involving children that local authorities have notified to the  Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/child-safeguarding-practice-review-panel).

Notifiable serious incidents are those that involve death or serious harm to a child where abuse or neglect is known or suspected, and any death of a looked after child.

The underlying data files include national, regional and local authority level information for the years 2019 to 2026.

File formats and conventions

Symbology

The following symbols are used in the underlying data files as follows:

     c     to protect confidentiality - secondary suppression may also be applied to figures to protect confidentiality

     x      data not available

Where any number is shown as zero, the original figure submitted was zero.

Rounding

In the file ‘Sub-national notifications with contextual data’:

- numbers of notifications at a regional level have been rounded to the nearest 10. Therefore, regional numbers may not sum to national totals.
- national and regional children in need figures have been rounded to the nearest 10. Therefore, local authority numbers may not sum to regional totals and regional numbers may not sum to national totals.

All other figures are unrounded.

Data files

Nature and characteristics of notifications

Filename: sin_characteristics_2019_2026.csv
Geographic levels: National
Time period: 2019 to 2026
Content summary: Number of serious incident notifications for each reporting year, by: nature of notification; child looked after; sex / gender; age; ethnicity; disability; placement type; child in need plan; child protection plan; child known to any agency; quarter.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name           |  Variable description
----------------------  |  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
breakdown               |  Breakdown
nature_of_notification  |  Nature of serious incident notification - Data for 'Sex' is only available for 2026; for earlier years data for 'Gender' is available. Data for 'Serious harm' and data for 'Other' is only available for the Total; for all breakdowns this is combined as 'Serious harm and other'. Data for 'Child death: abuse/neglect' and 'Child death: no abuse/neglect' is only available for the CLA breakdown.
number_notifications    |  Number of serious incident notifications
quarter                 |  Reporting year quarter

Footnotes:

1. In some instances, a notification can relate to more than one child. Where this happens, the characteristics information is based on one child only.
2. Most notifications in the other category relate to incidents with child perpetrators who were themselves known or suspected to have been abused or neglected.
3. Data on gender was collected up to 2025. Data on sex has been collected since 2026.
4. For 2019, there is likely to be an undercount in the number of notifications recorded with a disability status of not known (with a corresponding overcount in the number of notifications recorded as involving children with no disability).
5. For 2019, there is likely to be an overcount in the number of notifications recorded as relating to children on a protection plan.


Sub-national notifications with contextual data

Filename: sin_region_local_authority_2019_2026.csv
Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
Time period: 2019 to 2026
Content summary: Number of serious incident notifications for each reporting year, by local authority and region.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name           |  Variable description
----------------------  |  ----------------------------------------
cin_31march             |  Number of children in need at 31 March
idaci_avgscore          |  IDACI average score
number_notifications    |  Number of serious incident notifications
ons_midyear_population  |  ONS mid-year population estimates

Footnotes:

1. The source of the data on serious incident notifications is the Child Safeguarding Incident Notification System (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-a-serious-child-safeguarding-incident). The statistics show the number of incidents notified in the period, rather than the number of incidents that occurred in the period, and are based on one notification per incident, which can relate to more than one child in some instances. The local authority should notify the Child Safeguarding Practice review panel of serious incidents where abuse or neglect is known or suspected within five working days of becoming aware that the incident has occurred. However, in some cases, there can be delays in notifications being submitted. When interpreting data on serious incident notifications, local authority contextual information is an important consideration. Local authorities with larger populations tend to be more likely to report more serious incident notifications than those with smaller populations. Those with higher levels of deprivation also tend to be more likely to report higher rates of serious incident notifications than those with lower levels of deprivation. In addition, whilst data quality has improved in recent years, DfE is aware that, in some instances, not all incidents that meet the definition for a serious incident are notified. For these reasons, neither high nor low numbers of serious incident notifications alone should be interpreted as a performance measure of the local authority or its workforce.
2. The children in need at 31 March figures, based on the Children in Need statistics release (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-in-need/2025), provide further contextual information to the data on serious incident notifications. Children in need are those assessed as needing help and protection from children's social services as a result of risks to their development or health. As 2026 data were not available at the time of publication, the serious incident notification figures for 2026 show the latest (at the time) 2025 figures alongside.
3. The Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) average score figures (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6917414ab49cc44345161802/File_11_-_IoD2025_Local_Authority_District_Summaries__upper-tier__v2.xlsx), based on the English indices of deprivation (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2025), provide further contextual information to the data on serious incident notifications. A higher score indicates that the local authority has a greater proportion of children aged 0 to 15 living in income deprived families. 2019 IDACI averages were used for years up to 2025, and 2025 IDACI averages were used for 2026.
4. Mid-year ONS population estimates (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland), based on children aged 0 to 17 years in England, provide further contextual information to the data on serious incident notifications. As 2025 estimates were not available at the time of publication, the serious incident notification figures for 2026 show the latest (at the time) 2024 estimates alongside.
5. On 1 April 2021, the unitary authorities North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire were formed, replacing Northamptonshire County Council. However, data is provided under the former Northamptonshire basis in 2022 and 2023, in addition to being provided for earlier years, but is provided under the new North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire basis from 2024.


Total Notifications

Filename: commentary_sin_2015_2026.csv
Geographic levels: National
Time period: 2015 to 2026
Content summary: Number of serious incident notifications for each reporting year. Figures between 2015 and 2018 are based on Ofsted published data and figures for 2019 onwards are based on Department for Education data.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name         |  Variable description
--------------------  |  ----------------------------------------
number_notifications  |  Number of serious incident notifications

Footnotes:

1. Figures between 2015 and 2018 are based on Ofsted published data (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/serious-incident-notifications-from-local-authority-childrens-services-2017-to-2018/serious-incident-notifications-from-local-authority-childrens-services-2017-to-2018-main-findings).


Care leaver death notifications

Filename: sin_care_leavers_2026.csv
Geographic levels: National
Time period: 2025 to 2026
Content summary: Number of serious incident notifications for care leaver deaths for each reporting year, by age. These notifications are provided on a voluntary basis and so should be treated with a degree of caution with regard to their representativeness.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name         |  Variable description
--------------------  |  ----------------------------------------
breakdown             |  Breakdown
number_notifications  |  Number of serious incident notifications

Footnotes:

1. Care leaver death notifications are provided on a voluntary basis and so should be treated with a degree of caution with regard to their representativeness of care leaver deaths.
