Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that improvements are made following Serious Case Reviews carried conducted by (a) his Department, (b) local authorities, (c) schools and (d) other relevant parties in England.

Responsibility for how the system learns lessons from serious child safeguarding incidents lies with the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (the Panel) at a national level, and with the safeguarding partners at a local level. Safeguarding partners consist of local authorities, police, and clinical commissioning groups, with schools identified as relevant agencies.

The Panel and the safeguarding partners have a shared aim in identifying improvements to practice and in protecting children from harm. All serious incidents that are notified to the department are reviewed by the Panel.

Where there are issues of national significance, these are picked up by the Panel. The Panel then considers if a national review is necessary. The government takes the recommendations of the Panel extremely seriously.

In the tragic case of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, the department requested that Ofsted, along with the Care Quality Commission, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire & Rescue services, and HM Inspectorate of Probation assess the practice taking place in the local area, through a Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI). Areas of Priority Action arising from this inspection are helping ensure lessons are learnt and service improvements are made across all relevant agencies.