Onwards and Upwards

Today coming home in the car I overheard on the radio a news report of an interview with Theresa May, the Home Secretary, in which the number of Section 47 enquiries (into child abuse and neglect) in England was discussed. The figure of a 42% rise was mentioned.

http://news.sky.com/story/1182814/child-abuse-42-percent-rise-in-investigations 

I rushed home to check the facts, only to find that the statistics in question (Department for Education, Characteristics of Children in Need in England, 2012-13 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/characteristics-of-children-in-need-in-england-2012-to-2013) were published some time ago – 31^st October to be precise.

But that doesn’t stop them being pretty worrying. I began to dig around a bit and found more stuff that the government never seems to display very clearly in its mass of statistical publications. Here are some quite worrying facts.

The number of children made subject to a Child Protection Plan has risen by 47% since 2000. The figures in the table below are for the number of children ‘registered’ or subject to a plan at 31^st March in each year. 

2000	29300
2001	27000
2002	27800
2003	30200
2004	31200
2005	30700
2006	31500
2007	33300
2008	34000
2009	37900
2010	39100
2011	42700
2012	42900
2013	43100

I dug around some more and found that the number of Initial Child Protection Conferences has gone up 37% since 2010. The figures look like this:

2010	43,000
2011	53,000
2012	56,200
2013	60,100

And I confirmed that the number of Section 47 enquiries has increased by 42% since 2010, just as Sky News said. Here are the detailed figures:

2010	89,300
2011	111,700
2012	124,600
2013	127,100

These are swingeing increases and they have a relentless feel about them. We all know that this is part of the Baby Peter effect, but the consequences for those trying to deliver the services are now only too apparent. It must be hell out there!!

In any kind of sane world the government would publish these statistics in such a way that the trends can be seen, but they usually just publish this year’s and last year’s figures. In any kind of sensible world there would also be input as well as output statistics. What resources in terms of employees and cash are going into services to support these increases? The government – surprise, surprise – doesn’t seem to publish that.

Sitting on the statistical equivalent of Mount Etna is not an option. Ministers need to come out with some ideas about how these increases can be stemmed or else how additional resources can be made available.

These statistics put the kinds of problems they are having in Birmingham into some sort of perspective. I wonder what trends have been like there? They may explain a lot.